Reserved for the Same Game Tests themselves and further analysis.
The Level 5 Same Game Test[spoiler]
A locked door behind an arbitrarily high number of assorted CR 4 traps.
A huge Animated iron statue in a throne room.
A Basilisk in its desert burrow.
A Large Fire Elemental in a mystic forge.
A Manticore on the wing above a plain.
A Phase Spider anywhere. They're tricky creatures like that.
A couple of Centaur Archers in a light to medium wood.
A Howler/Allip tag team in an abandoned temple to a dark god.
A Grimlock assault team (4 members) hidden in a cavern.
A Cleric of Hextor (with his dozen zombies) in a crypt.
[/spoiler]
SGT 5 Full Analysis (Wall of text)[spoiler]
1. Locked door + traps
This is bread and butter. It's hardly worth our time, really, the traps get disabled, we probably take a trivial amount of damage, and the door at the end, finally, gets lockpicked. Easy enough. Definite win.
2. Huge Animated Iron Statue
The second encounter seems daunting. Oh, and actually, it's impossible for you to win, I'm almost positive. I forgot that animated objects have hardness. That makes this fight actually a lot harder than your run of the mill CR 5 animated object, stupid, stupid game designers. You lose this pretty hard. Definite loss.
3. Basilisk
I don't think the Factotum can win this, but... who knows. Let's give the Factotum a small, steel mirror and see what happens.
[spoiler]
I'm going to give the Factotum a surprise round because his perception and stealth outmatch the Basilisk's. Let's say he's hidden behind a cactus at 60ft away.
Hidden behind that cactus, even taking a -6 penalty to attack, throwing a Tanglefoot Bag is a better option than his bow. So, we'll charge out, starting the surprise round, move to 40ft, toss the bag and blow an inspiration point, giving us +10 to attack -6 for the three range increments, total of +4 vs Touch AC of 9, that's an 80% chance to hit. I'll take it. So, the Basilisk is probably entangled (-2 to attack rolls, -4 Dexterity, half speed) for an average of 5 rounds. End surprise round, start initiative, move back 30ft, fire the Longbow. That's basically how the next 5 rounds are gonna go. Stay out of Gaze range, and plink. Hitting only on a 10 or higher gives us a 55% chance, melting our adjusted average damage per round down to 2.5. Well, that's 11.5 damage down, 33.5 to go. On that last round, get the mirror out, because Basilisk is about to shake off that Tanglefoot Bag and come running. Sure enough, here he comes, and he gives us the active Gaze!
Now, one minute here. The rules for Gaze say that even on an active Gaze averting your eyes gives you 50% immunity, but then later it says that looking at the creature's reflection does not subject you to a Gaze. I don't know what the legitimate ruling for this is, but I'm going to say that the Factotum looking at the Basilisk with his mirror still has a 50% chance of getting turned to stone. It's inspiration point time, taking our total down to 2, and here comes the rolls (let's do this 5 times for completeness): 1st roll (30%, Fort 17), 2nd roll (1%, Fort 17), 3rd roll (15%, Fort 14), 4th roll (77%, we're good), 5th roll (95%, clear). Alright, the Factotum made it! On his turn, mirror, so he doesn't need to make a save vs death, run away, casts Alter Self and turns into a Troglodyte (1 inspiration point left). Basilisk follows, active Gaze again (Ugh!), so we blow that last inspiration point: 1st roll (59%, clear), 2nd roll (92%, clear), 3rd roll (49%, Fort 14), 4th roll (Petrified, Loss), 5th roll (85%, clear). Well, as you can see, we are at a breaking point. We're no closer to winning this fight than when we started and we've accrued a 10% loss. Let's just proceed as if everything was going really well.
Round 8! We run over to that son of a bitch and, looking into the mirror, we give him what for! Longsword comes in with a 45% chance to hit and deals an adjusted DPR of around 2.5, bring the beast to 31hp! Let's assume that given his two presumed failures at petrifying us, the Basilisk now thirsts for our blood, and just comes and bites us, which has only a 15% chance to hit, dealing adjusted DPR of 1. Whoo-hoo! So, if we assume a slug-fest from here out, we actually win (Longsword, Claw, Bite at 45%, 30%, and 30% respectively puts our DPR at 4, outpacing the Basilisk); however, it will take us 8 rounds. In that time the Basilisk could be slamming us with more active Gaze attacks, and without any more inspiration points, this fight is a lost cause. Unless a mirror fully protects us from active gaze attacks, in which case...
[/spoiler]
If a mirror fully protects against active Gaze attacks, then this is a definite win for the Factotum. If it doesn't, then this is a definite loss.
4. Large Fire Elemental
The fourth encounter is really easy to judge. It has DR 5/--. You can't hurt it without Acid. You don't have enough Acid. Definite loss.
5. Manticore
[spoiler]
Now, at first I thought the Manticore was going to be a definite loss, but I changed my mind, because I realized it has a clumsy fly speed. Which makes it trivially easy to chase after and hit with a Tanglefoot Bag. Begin the battle changing to a Troglodyte with Alter Self so you don't get auto-deaded by the spikes, and then fire at will with your bow. You aren't going to do much, but you have a better chance of hurting it than it does of hurting you. After he's wasted all of his spikes on you, he'll go to ground after you, because he's got a pretty impressive melee routine. That means it's Tanglefoot Bag time. With a charge we've got an 80% to hit, so four times out of five the poor guy's entangled and has a 35% chance of being rooted to the ground. If you root him, pelt him with Alchemist's Fires, you should deal him roughly 8d6 damage this way, which is a sizeable chunk of his hp. If not, just run and plink with arrows for a few rounds and then hit him with your other Tanglefoot Bag. Now, ordinarily you'd lose the ground-based slugfest, but you have the advantage of being able to withdraw and heal yourself via Opportunistic Piety (up to 39hp if necessary, turns out it very much is). From there you've got the healing, and will just go toe-to-toe with you. It's too bad we're in an open plain, because hiding to heal would be nice. The battle seems tough, but doable, but it could swing in the Manticore's favor if your rolls get bad.[/spoiler]I'll call this one a draw.
6. Phase Spider
This one is very tricky, but manageable. The Phase Spider gets a surprise round, and then goes first, so it gets two free attacks, both of which you're flat-footed for, making you very vulnerable, especially to that vile, nasty poison. You take some damage and, even if you pop an inspiration point for each save vs poison, which you should, you're almost certain to fail one of them (you have only a 55% chance to succeed even with IP). So, there goes another chunk of hp. You're probably in bad shape right now, but that's okay, because the Spider goes ethereal after it's second bite and then you run and hide. You heal yourself up, and in the meantime the Phase Spider has no idea where you are. If it starts looking for you, you will always find it before it finds you, and if it comes to a throw down, alchemist's fire + troglodyte will finish the Spider off eventually. This is a probable win.
7. A Pair of Centaurs
This one is made easier by being in a Forest where you can play up guerrilla warfare. You have lots more hp, you have far better AC, and you have the better attack bonus. You likely don't need anything here, but your bow and opportunistic piety, but, hey your other options definitely don't hurt. Definite win.
8. Howler + Allip
You'd have a hard time dealing with either of them alone, with little offensive potential against the Allip and the Howler is just a melee machine for its CR. How they thought a 6 HD Large Outsider with jacked ability scores, crazy DPR, and a nasty debuff is CR 3 is beyond me. Definite loss.
9. Grimlocks
This is really no-contest. You beat the tar out of some Grimlocks because they are newbs. Definite win.
10. Cleric + zombies
Well, this one is actually an EL 7, if we assume a Cleric 5 with 12 human zombies, but okay. The 12 zombies alone make up an EL 6 encounter... It's a toss-up, but I'll call it a probable loss. You can destroy all of the undead easily enough, but if you're up against a Cleric 5, once you're through all those you've got, y'know spells to contend with. Let's go ahead and call this a Definite loss, though... it's pretty lame to put an EL 7 encounter in the Level 5 Same Game Test. *shrug*
In closing, we've got win, loss, ? ? ? ?, loss, draw, probable win, win, loss, win, loss. So... we're close to, but not quite at 50%. That is unless we win the Basilisk encounter, which will put us a bit above 50%. I'm not going to hold my breath.[/spoiler]
The Level 10 Same Game Test[spoiler]
Okay, so since the Level 5 test has nice environment descriptions let's assign them to this test too (added environment descriptions in purple; also added a 10th encounter, in purple, for more smooth measurement).
A hallway filled with magical runes.
A Fire Giant
on a treacherous mountain pass.
A Young Blue Dragon
terrorizing a small village.
A Bebilith
on the hunt in a mage's guild hall.
A Vrock
picking through the dead at a scorched battleground in the Abyss.
A tag team of Mind Flayers
in an unlit passage of underground catacombs.
An Evil Necromancer
in an overgrown graveyard.
6 Trolls
in a cold, damp, cave den.
12 Shadows
in a bleak, misshapen forest.
A group of NPC mercenaries (Cleric 6, Fighter 6, Rogue 6, Wizard 6) holed up in a cluttered dungeon.[/spoiler]
SGT 10 Full Analysis (Wall of text)[spoiler]
1. Hallway filled with runes.
Again, we handle the trap encounter with almost contemptuous ease. Definite win.
2. Fire Giant
[spoiler]
This one is going to be hard. Luckily you win the initiative/perception/stealth game so you've got the drop on him. In the surprise round you cast Haste (IP down to 4). On the first round of combat you get to go first. This is where, from what I can tell, you just want to Polymorph from hiding into a Gray Render and stay hidden. On the Fire Giant's turn he has no idea what's going on and does nothing. 2nd round you charge giving you a 75% to hit with your bite. I'll take it. Given that he's flatfooted, now might be a good time to Hamstring if you think you can afford it (costs 2 IP), but let's assume you don't and just hit him. That's some damage and a 50% chance to grab him and deal some more damage. If he's grabbed, that's awesome, he can't sword you at all. If he's not you get a new chance every round, so no big deal. Let's run some numbers. You've got a 65% chance to bite him and thanks to haste you've got 2 bites and a 40% with each claw. With the NA boost you got from the Render your AC rockets up to 30 giving the Giant only a 55% chance to hit with his first attack, 30% with the second, and 5% with the third (though it will crit). And that's ignoring the fact that he'll be grabbed some of the time. Your adjusted average damage per round is about 22 (not counting the bonus Rend damage). The Giant's adjusted average damage per round is about 25. Without those grabs you'll lose the damage race. However, you get two chances to grab per round, and at a 65% chance to hit with a 50% of grab, that's close to a 40% chance to grab each round. So, adding 40% of the rend damage to your adjusted DPR gives you 28 compared with 25. With your lower hp you'd normally lose this race, except that at a
minimum of 4 out of every 10 turns the Giant can't even hurt you.[/spoiler] That sounds like a win to me, especially because I didn't even bother with using subtlety. Definite win.
3. Young Blue Dragon
This one is slightly off. If it's actually a
Young Blue Dragon (CR 6), this shouldn't be much of a problem. If it's meant to be a Young
Adult Blue Dragon (CR 11), then it will be significantly more difficult. I'm going to assume it's the latter.
[spoiler]
Wowie. This guy is a monster alright. Wish I had a shivering touch right about now. An absurd amount of hp, lots of powerful natural attacks, a very high attack bonus, and a breath weapon that will cut me down to size very quickly. Oh, and it casts arcane spells as a sorcerer (luckily only 1st level spells, but still). I can deal him 27d6 fire damage in short order, but that's only an average of 94.5 (interestingly that's exactly half his life total). Even the maximum damage wouldn't kill him (162). But alright, let's assume no surprise round, and the Factotum goes first, and on his first turn he Hastes and gets behind partial cover (+2 reflex). Dragon breathes lightning at him for 10d8 with a 65% of half damage and adjusted avg damage of around 30. After breathing lightning, the Dragon lands, preparing to tear us to bits with its natural attacks. So, next we Polymorph into a Will O'Wisp and take to the skies. Our AC sky rockets to to 36! And though the dragon's fly speed is three times our own, our maneuverability cuts that advantage to shreds. Now, even with our great AC, the dragon's got +24 to hit and thus has a 45% chance to hit. Thankfully,
we're naturally invisible (extraordinary ability!) (stupid Polymorph) the dragon is large and we are small we can use him as soft cover (+4 AC) and to block line of effect from the breath weapon. We hit 95% of the time dealing around 9 damage per round (electricity thus bypassing DR), meanwhile the dragon only hits 25% of the time once per round, dealing only 4 damage per round. We can't keep this up indefinitely, so we'll need to hit it with our empowered blasting spells to knock out half its hp. The dragon will kill us in 12 rounds, but if we blast and keep up the hit and run tactics we'll kill the dragon in 10~11. Hard. Fucking. Fight.
[/spoiler]Whew, even with Polymorph, let's call this a draw.
4. Bebilith
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable loss.
5. Vrock
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable win.
6. Pair of Mind Flayers
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable win.
7. Evil Necromancer
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable loss.
8. 6 Trolls
Definite win.
9. 12 Shadows
Definite win.
10. NPC Party
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable win.
Pending analysis this bumps the Factotum up to an 80% success rate. I'm pretty sure that's good enough to call it Tier 3.
[/spoiler]