Making the math easier

[ghost-angel]

Re: Making the math easier

 

My dyslexic brother had no problems understaning the concept of what to do, and how. He just did it three times to make sure it was right.

 

It just can't be that hard.

[Robyn]

Re: Making the math easier

 

As usual' date=' Robyn posts something left field, and I read the posts... digest the concept, and step away asking myself: "Where does he get such wonderful drugs?"[/quote']

 

Natural neurochemistry. The brain is such a marvellous thing

 

I grasp the concept of what you're doing. I just don't see any sort of pratical application.

 

Unless you're dealing with a CPU that has limited registers and a speed measured in Hertz, at which point you pretty much have to code in assembly to get anything done; it probably won't.

 

At the end of the day' date=' a +1/4 advantage is still a 1.25 multiplier; it's just a question of how big the number you're applying it to is.[/quote']

 

Dealing with fractions qua fractions requires juggling a few numbers in one's head. First, there is the 1; then, there is the 4. Their positions must also be kept in mind. Adding another fraction, assuming it is just a 1/4, first doubles the mental "registers", then needs an extra to compare the values below (making sure they are compatible), if not one or both must be multiplied by an appropriate value (with, possibly, some further cognitive resources going in to compute the smallest/best values to add), then one of these extra registers can be used to store the sum of the two top values. Simplification, ideally, should be taking place at each step along the way. If the fractions incorporate whole numbers (say, 1&1/4), this must somehow be translated to 5/4ths. Only after all this can one essay multiplication . . . and how is this part attempted? (There are different answers, depending on the method one's mind uses, and even this may be consciously determined at each moment.) But already we are far past the depth of detail that most people would even be aware of, never mind that their brains (however much they may refuse the conscious awareness of such processes) cannot simply "arrive" at the answers while mystically bypassing the "how" of their accomplishment.

 

"But wait!" cries n00b' date=' "WTF aren't we just using the values in the damn book? That's what they're there for! I read the book for that reason!"[/quote']

 

I've been reading that book! It's over 300 pages just for character creation! I don't expect n00b's to read all that. (Heck, I'm sort of surprised I'm reading it.) Since the book lacks an index for the Powers chapter*, I'll probably have a special cheat-sheet printed up for the players in advance, where they can see the cost/values of each power/modifier and there'll be a note saying "ignore values listed in book".

 

*There's an alphabetical index in the back, but it lists everything, so while I'm sure there are Powers in there somewhere, it doesn't provide an easy-to-use and convenient list of just the powers and where in the book you can find their description right away.

 

If there is an index of the type I just described, I'm sorry! I looked for one, but it's not in the Table of Contents (which happily leaps from Power Descriptions on page 131 to Power Modifiers on page 243, with no mention of the entries in between), and it's not in either of the tables on pages 129 and 130.

[Robyn]

Re: Making the math easier

 

My dyslexic brother had no problems understaning the concept of what to do, and how. He just did it three times to make sure it was right.

 

It just can't be that hard.

 

"I just had my blind friend listen to the song. She could hear the bad notes, so I don't believe in this 'deafness' stuff."

 

Mock away, I'll understand. I may point and laugh, but I won't look at the apparent confabulation you make of all the different ways a human brain can work, and conclude that you can't possibly mean what you say because noone could seriously say that.

[Robyn]

Re: Making the math easier

 

I thought I read this

 

4) Multiform/Duplication also use Active Points for a comparison

 

Actualy' date=' Active Points affect the game a lot more than that.[/quote']

1) END is optional; 2) I forgot about that one; 3) I haven't gotten to Frameworks yet; 4) what?

 

Time to go back and read them again

 

I just read them again, and I can't find anything on how the Active Points would be important here. I did find something on the Base points, but this has nothing to do with the cost of powers; it's the amount of starting XP (before Disadvantages) the player has to spend on their character.

 

Can you point me to a page number in 5ER?

[schir1964]

Re: Making the math easier

 

Robyn,

 

I'll go over this again. I have no problem with what you are doing for your own games, but you are proposing a change for others to use also, so all of the following must be addressed for your changes to be used by others.

 

Therefore:

 

1) Endurance Cost is based on Active Points (regardless of whether it is optional)

2) Adjustment Powers affect Active Points of powers (with characteristics as the exception)

3) Frameworks are governed by Active Points

4) Multipower/Duplication uses Active Points for comparison (Base Points are simply a special category of Active Points so this must be addressed) Note: Multiform/Duplication both have advantages/limitations that can be applied to them

 

I'm taking your suggestion seriously so these things must be addressed. If you want to refuse to acknowledge them or simply not address these issues, it won't bother me a bit, but it doesn't help your proposal.

 

Just Some Advice

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Robyn]

Re: Making the math easier

 

1) Endurance Cost is based on Active Points (regardless of whether it is optional)

 

If the END cost is calculated as 1 per 10 AP, rounded, then the new END cost would be calculated as 1 per 40 AP, rounded.

 

Whether this actually works (at all times) or not, I haven't tested yet, though. Theoretically, the underlying principles are sound; short of actually substituting several values for that AP variable in the equation, though, I'm hoping others will be able to point out inherent flaws that I missed.

 

2) Adjustment Powers affect Active Points of powers (with characteristics as the exception)

 

This is the biggest problem I see so far. Calculating non-x4 AP's only as the question comes up in play is potentially a way of delaying the calculations (so they don't have to be done all at once, before games begin), but that doesn't justify the change; if anything, it says "There are problems, but let's make them go away by changing more of the system around.", which is a bad way of handling things.

 

3) Frameworks are governed by Active Points

 

I'll tackle this part in depth when I get to Power Frameworks.

 

I remember a bit of how they work, though, from 4th Edition; so, the possibilities seem just as limited as for Adjustment powers, we can either multiply the AP limit by 4 or calculate the true AP, the former being overly complex yet lacking in precise accuracy, and the latter being subject to the same criticism that I described for point #2.

 

4) Multipower/Duplication uses Active Points for comparison (Base Points are simply a special category of Active Points so this must be addressed) Note: Multiform/Duplication both have advantages/limitations that can be applied to them

 

It's this last part which I simply do not see. I don't mean to "not address" these issues, I just can't see how there are any; likewise, it's not that I am refusing to acknowledge them, it's that I am asking you to please clarify exactly what the issues are. When does Multipower/Duplication care about the Active Points you have in those, or any other power?

 

I don't even have any idea what you mean by "comparison", but since you've used it twice now I suspect it's a term used in HERO. Perhaps the Metamorph book? I can't find "comparison", "compare", or "comparing" under appropriate entries in the rulebook (5ER). I don't see how any sort of comparison would be relevant for those powers, either, and I've been giving it a great deal of thought, trying to figure out what I missed after reading the power entries twice.

[schir1964]

Re: Making the math easier

 

When does Multipower/Duplication care about the Active Points you have in those' date=' or any other power?[/quote']

Okay, I thought it was obvious and perhaps I am misremembering some things. Don't have time to research it out in the book again.

 

Basically, if I am not mistaken, the Total Active Points of the "Primary Form" is used as a benchmark for knowing when to apply additional cost or Advantage/Limitation when compared to the Total Active Points of each form. So if you change how Active Points are handled, this benchmark is also affected.

 

Anyway, I'm not saying that your base solution won't work the same way, only that a note needs to made where the solution must be applied consistently in case it were to affect certain builds.

 

So I'm not opposed to what you are doing, but for objective evaluation, I'm bringing up things you may need to take a look at and make a note of for others to use you method.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Robyn]

Re: Making the math easier

 

Basically' date=' if I am not mistaken, the Total Active Points of the "Primary Form" is used as a benchmark for knowing when to apply additional cost or Advantage/Limitation when compared to the Total Active Points of each form. So if you change how Active Points are handled, this benchmark is also affected.[/quote']

 

You may be thinking of when you build a secondary character on more points than the original character. This becomes more expensive (1:1 instead of 1:5). I don't know of any limit on Active Points (of powers) that relates to the XP cost of an entire character, though.

 

The only other thing I can think of that seems similar to what you're saying, is how, when applying a Modifier to powers that you already have some of naturally (such as Strength, or Running), you only calculate the points for what you paid for (otherwise it might be possible to save more points than you had originally paid ).

[JmOz]

Re: Making the math easier

 

Personaly I would perfer to deal with small decimals (I easily convert the hero1/4 based advantages to them) than fractions or big numbers

 

But that's just me

[Simon]

Re: Making the math easier

 

The only other thing I can think of that seems similar to what you're saying, is how, when applying a Modifier to powers that you already have some of naturally (such as Strength, or Running), you only calculate the points for what you paid for (otherwise it might be possible to save more points than you had originally paid ).

That is incorrect. If the Modifier is applied to the base Characteristic, the points are calculated accordingly. This applies to both Advantages and Limitations (so yes, it is possible to save points if you limit your base Characteristic).

[Robyn]

Re: Making the math easier

 

Personaly I would perfer to deal with small decimals (I easily convert the hero1/4 based advantages to them) than fractions or big numbers

 

I may end up doing this, it does look easier. I hadn't thought of treating the fractions as decimals before, though this is a good idea. The only thing that worries me is the "floating-point" trick of using three registers to hold one integer value, a 10's decimal place, and a percentile decimal place; then again, I'm fairly sure "floating-point" is not the word for this, and it is quite late in the morning (or would that be early?), so it may all look quite different in the morning.

 

That is incorrect. If the Modifier is applied to the base Characteristic' date=' the points are calculated accordingly. This applies to both Advantages and Limitations (so yes, it is possible to save points if you limit your base Characteristic).[/quote']

 

I don't understand this part as well as I thought I did, then:

 

If a character buys a power that he gets some of for free - like running (gets 6" for free) or Mental Defense (gets EGO/5 for free upon purchase) - and he wants to take a Limitation for that power, he applies the Limitation only to the points spent on the Power. For example, if he wants his Running to be Increased Endurance Cost (x3 END), the -1 Limitation applies to the 6 points spent, not to the "18 points" that an overall Running 9" would "cost" him.

 

Admittedly, even my current understanding wasn't immediate; I paused when I first encountered this paragraph and spent several minutes trying to work out what it was saying. I finally resorted to replacing various numbers in the sentence with higher or lower equivalents until things started to make sense. It was when I looked at a Running of 1" that I saw the possibility of "spending" 2 points but "saving" 7 (for a net gain of 6).

 

Looking back on that, it doesn't make sense anymore. But then, as previously mentioned, it is late at night, so perhaps it will make sense again in the morning

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Making the math easier

 

Mock away' date=' I'll understand. I may point and laugh, but I won't look at the apparent confabulation you make of all the different ways a human brain can work, and conclude that you can't possibly mean what you say because no one could seriously say that.[/quote']

 

To clarify, I'm not saying there are not people for whom the math is a problem. I AM saying that multiplying everything by four doesn't make the math materially easier, so it won't solve the problem where it does exist. To the extent it is useful, it will only be useful to someone who, for some reason, finds this approach more intuitive than the current structure, so much more intuitive that it's worth the hassle of shifting all the book numbers around to use this "new math".

 

Why use 4? Why not multiply everything by 100? After all, shifting the decimal place 2 to the right is much easier than multiplying by four, right?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Making the math easier

 

NOTE: I have run no numbers to back this theory up.

 

Using decimal values (only the first decimal point: .1, .2, .3, .4, .5, etc.) to a base of 1 could actually make the costing more granular while avoiding those furtive looking fractions along the way.

 

So:

 

Base 1 + Some Advantage .3 + Some Advantage .4 = Cost X1.7

 

It might change the equation a bit with limitations; but it shouldn't be manageable.

 

Base 1 - Some Limitation .4 = Cost X.6

 

You just need to be careful about precedence. Insofar as you do one calculation for advantages, and a second one for lims, it should work with reasonable variances.

 

And for lims that take you beneath 0:

 

Base 1 - Some Limitation 1.1 = -.1

 

Base 1 - (Base X .1) = Cost

 

 

I do like the improved granularity of a decimal system for advantages and limtiations but:

 

1. We know they will never implement it

 

2. Think of the arguments over whether personal immuniy should be +.2 or +.3

[Wolfgar]

Re: Making the math easier

 

I find the fractions way easier to work with than decimals or percentages. I really loathe winding up with .4085723087502147524175872 of a character point, and I would prefer any system that minimized this.

 

And if the book had me using .7 on a regular basis, I'd just burn it and be done with the damn thing.

 

Of course I'm always getting something and 3/4s for my advantages and limitations anyway. *sigh*

[schir1964]

Re: Making the math easier

 

You may be thinking of when you build a secondary character on more points than the original character. This becomes more expensive (1:1 instead of 1:5). I don't know of any limit on Active Points (of powers) that relates to the XP cost of an entire character' date=' though.[/quote']

Yes, I was misremembering a bit. Base Points, Total Points, and Experience Points are special categories of Active Points, but aren't used the same way, so it may not be an issue. I know in 4th Edition, it would have been a issue.

 

The only other thing I can think of that seems similar to what you're saying' date=' is how, when applying a Modifier to powers that you already have some of naturally (such as Strength, or Running), you only calculate the points for what you paid for (otherwise it might be possible to [i']save[/i] more points than you had originally paid ).

You've already pointed to the specific issue concerning this.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Robyn]

Re: Making the math easier

 

Why use 4? Why not multiply everything by 100? After all' date=' shifting the decimal place 2 to the right is much easier than multiplying by four, right?[/quote']

 

Well, before getting there, we have to convert the fractions to decimals (I misunderstood this, by the way, I thought the idea was to use two decimal places to perfectly reflect the 1/4 increments, I didn't think of rounding to just one and losing some granularity), and I think we're either converting to decimals because we find those easiest to work with, or bypassing that step and going straight to whole numbers with that "simplification" trick again

[Kenn]

Re: Making the math easier

 

Okay. I'm trying to go through this, and my head is hurting. So I'm going to go with a specific example. My character has a 10d6 Energy Blast, @1/2 END, OIF wrist bracer. The cost, according to the hero system is (10 * 5) * 1 1/4 / 1 1/2 which is 41.66667.

 

Converting this to what I'd type into the calculator (5*10)*1.25/1.5

 

It could also be (5*10) * (5/4) / (3/2).

 

Now, if I understand Robyn's suggestion, the idea is to just multiply the cost of all the Advantages and Limitations by 4.

 

This gives us (5*10) * 5 / 6, which will still result in 250 / 6 or 41.666667.

 

Which is what we'd get in the first place.

 

The main problem I see is the chance to forget a step. Right now, if there are no advantages, it means the step where we multiply the base cose by 1 and zero-fourths can be skipped. And if there are no limitations, we can skip the divide by 1 and zero/fourths. With this new method, the multiply by at least 4 for the advantages, and the divide by at least 4 for the limitations is always needed.

 

And then there's the base cost. Is that suppossed to be multiplied by four as well? That just seems to me to be an extra complication.

 

If just the advantages and limitations are multiplied by four, then the two will cancel each other out. (4/4 = 1, after all.)

 

I guess I can understand that fractions and decimals can trigger people's math anxieties and I'm painfully aware that there are a lot of people who are worse at math than I am. So I can understand the desire to remove them from the calculation.

 

But be careful, because there's a chance to over complicate.

[Simon]

Re: Making the math easier

 

Remember rounding rules: you round at each step.

 

To take your example:

 

((5*10) * (1+1/4)) / (1+1/2)

 

(50 * 1.25)/(1.5)

 

(62.5)/(1.5)

 

(62)/(1.5)

 

41.333

 

41 real cost

 

If you try to remove the fractions, you lose the rounding rules:

 

((5*10) * (4*(1+1/4)))/(4*(1+1/2))

 

(50 * 5)/6

 

250/6

 

41.66667

 

42 real cost

[Robyn]

Re: Making the math easier

 

The main problem I see is the chance to forget a step. Right now' date=' if there are no advantages, it means the step where we multiply the base cose by 1 and zero-fourths can be skipped. And if there are no limitations, we can skip the divide by 1 and zero/fourths. With this new method, the multiply by at least 4 for the advantages, and the divide by at least 4 for the limitations is always needed.[/quote']

 

The x4 multiplication would be necessary to let the division work if there were any Limitations (so, even if there weren't any Advantages, we would still need to multiply by 4). And, of course, vice versa.

 

I didn't see a way to eliminate the "1 and" from that multiplier, unfortunately, and I still don't.

 

And then there's the base cost. Is that suppossed to be multiplied by four as well? That just seems to me to be an extra complication.

 

No, the base cost is left alone. If you have no Advantages you effectively are multiplying by 4, but that's part of the formula already, not in addition to it.

 

If just the advantages and limitations are multiplied by four' date=' then the two will cancel each other out. (4/4 = 1, after all.)[/quote']

 

I don't think this works - or rather, I don't think it's supposed to work this way. Isn't this why we apply Advantages and Limitations to the cost in two separate steps rather than subtracting Limitations from Advantages for a final Modifier?

 

If you try to remove the fractions' date=' you lose the rounding rules:[/quote']

 

Thanks, Simon. This is exactly the sort of thing I was worried about, but too bad at math to work out the numbers and confirm it or see how bad it could be.

[Gadodel]

Re: Making the math easier

 

My dyslexic brother had no problems understaning the concept of what to do, and how. He just did it three times to make sure it was right.

 

It just can't be that hard.

My math skills are horrible. Yet, I am not afraid of hardwork. So, like your brother, I just check my own work repeatedily and work on through it...

[JmOz]

Re: Making the math easier

 

Remember rounding rules: you round at each step.

 

...snip

 

If you try to remove the fractions, you lose the rounding rules:

 

...snip...

 

This is not really aimed at Simon, but rather at moving the conversation a little bit

 

Would lossing the rounding that Simon refers to be a bad thing? For many years I only rounded after all of the calculations and it really did not change much (Maybe a point here or there...)