If I spent enough time on it, I bet I could come up with the answer to this one, but I figure somebody already has it, so I might as well as try.

Can anybody give me an equation/formula for computing at what range my monsters/heroes should attack from? After having my skeletons slaughtered all the time for being too near, I suppose I should figure it out.

I know it's probably some complex thing that requires knowledge of how much fatigue or movement the enemy has. Something like, for each yellow dice you throw, add +2 average range or something.

2nd part.

Does anybody know how I can add guest heroes to the RtL campaign? I don't mean like a 5th hero for sessions or something. It's just that my friends want their own characters and they don't want to play other people's characters when they come over if somebody in the original playgroup can't make it. Any ideas?

for guest stars I would just find a hero with the same trait dice as one you need to sub and then play that hero with the same gear and upgrades as the regular hero.

For the first part, somebody has already done it, and he did it really well. Check out veector's Descent Dice Roller: http://www.streakingegyptian.com/descentdice/roller.htm. Simply select the skellie according to the level you're currently using and look at the average values for rolling this dice set if the attack doesn't miss. At copper level, the average range is 2.93, so you're probably safe if your skeleton is 2 squares away. Move them in to range and then back out to force heroes either to burn fatigue in order to battle or to advance for one attack.

Average range is trivially easy to calculate, because it's just the sum of the averages of the dice you're rolling.

Blue: 2.6 (ignoring misses)
White: 2 (ignoring misses)
Green: 1/3
Yellow: 2 + 1/6
Black: 1/2 (if you spend power enhancements on range)

So Blue + Green is 2.93, as noted above, though that neglects that skeletons (at least in the base game) have an inherent +1 range bonus on top of that.

But that really doesn't help you much, because you probably want a higher than 50% chance of hitting, and you probably care about how much damage you're giving up rather than just your chances of missing outright due to range. So you may find this tool more useful than a simple die-roller.

Not sure what the stats are in RtL, but using base game skeletons, here's the average number of attacks it takes to kill a 12 wounds/0 armor hero, depending on the skeletons' range:

1-2 range: 4.75 attacks
3 range: 5.75 attacks
4 range: 8.1 attacks
5 range: 19.9 attacks
6 range: 148 attacks
7+ range: cannot hit

So the sweet spot is probably around 3-4 range, though I find that skeletons are fast enough, and the maps cramped enough, that often you might as well attack from close enough that range isn't a factor. Especially if you've got enough for a good chance of a kill.

Skeletons (with WoD or the errata) also have pierce 1, so the first point of the target's armor doesn't matter. With 2 armor (and 12 health):

1-2 range: 6.5 attacks to kill
3 range: 8.1 attacks (only 70% of attacks do anything at all)
4 range: 12.0 attacks (only 53% of attacks do anything at all)
5 range: 34.1 attacks (only 25% of attacks do anything at all)
6 range: 432 attacks (less than 3% of attacks do anything)

There's now a little more incentive to get close, but the "sweet spot" is still probably around 3 range, depending on tactical conditions.

These and more examples are easy to calculate with the spreadsheet linked above. Those numbers all include miss chances, by the way (both due to range and X).

Yes, I overlooked the +1 damage for skeletons, probably because I'm now playing the Sorcerer King for the second campaign in a row, and, since I started with Snipers upgrade, I see a skeleton and automatically think +3 (+4, starting next week as I'm upgrading eldritch to silver level).

I would still use the Descent Dice Roller as a quick reference for range. No offense, Anistone. It gives you the average you want in an easy-to-read (and easy-to use) format. Plus, you get to hit that Roll button!

As far as Anistone's Monster Endurance Calculator, this is the first time I ran across it and it looks it was a pretty good idea. But it needs a lot of work. It does not consider RtL: weapons' attacks add only three black power dice, and monsters' attacks do not include silver or gold levels. As such, if the OL has upgraded a monster category or two, this calculator would have no use for which you offer it. That is, it would not accurately predict "safe" range for your monster.

Also, it contains what appear to me to be mistakes: daggers, swords and axes do not get +1 range!

Maybe I'm reading this spreadsheet wrong, and that's entirely possible because, no offense, it's not an easy, user-friendly reference.

There is some explanation in the linked thread and in the "instructions" sheet of the actual file that might help you out.

The pre-entered stats are just from the base game, but the spreadsheet isn't just a precalculated table, it contains macros for calculating new stuff. Thus, you can enter any stats you want and recalculate--different numbers of power dice, entirely new weapons or monsters, whatever you want. Silver and gold dice are supported, too, the columns are just hidden to reduce clutter when you don't need them--drag-select columns G-J, right-click, and select "unhide."

Melee weapons are all given +1 range because they can hit on 0 range, unlike ranged and magic attacks, which require 1. I could have added another column where you specify whether you want the attack treated as melee, ranged, or magic, but that would have taken up a lot more space, and not really given any more flexibility.

You can also use the range bonus column to simulate attacking from a distance. The spreadsheet assumes you're attacking from 1 space away, but if you want to see what it looks like if you attack from 4 spaces away, just enter -3 as the "bonus range" for a weapon.

It does have a few limitations, like not accurately representing the Curse of Rot. I've got an updated version I need to finish off and upload at some point that will let you enter arbitrary surge abilities, like "2 surges for Sorcery 3 and Blast 1" or other weird stuff.

I agree that if you just want a simple average, or a sample die roll, then a dice-roller is the correct tool (if you haven't memorized the dice yet). But if you actually want to consider different tactics, you probably want more information than that.

Truth be told, I found the above math quite useful.

It came pretty close to my estimations on the odds and such for messing folks up, and I found it heartening to know I was close already

Anistone, thanks for the additional explanation. It is quite an endeavor, and I did find it to be an interesting tool. I am going to play with the calculator some more. Kudos!

TylerT said:

Another option that you can do is to let them pick out any hero, then give them an equivalent of "draws" equal to the replacing hero. Let them draw an equal amount of Copper, Silver and/or Gold treasures, Skills, and buy trait upgrades that the other player alreadys has. That makes it so that they can have a new player, but not be totally pimped out with stuff... unless they manage to randomly find the right stuff.

Hi all,

some long time ago, I created this list kunthar.ku.funpic.de/descent/descmath.htm to answer all my questions concerning probalities. Maybe its also useful for you guys.