Starting a comparison thing.
Someone with a +3 Weapon attacking someone with +3 armor; both have a 12 in strength and defense.
Average chances to hit? Well, that depends. Since all that matters is whether you get higher than them, and I'm not sure how ties are resolved so I'll ignore them for the moment. With equal speed and skill, it'll average out as 1-1 chance to hit or miss. Really, it'll average out as that as long as the average rolls are equal. In cases where they aren't equal? I'm...not sure. Presumably it would be a straight ratio of likelihood based on the numbers for each die, if it's a straight roll. d12 versus d20, let's look at, for example.
1/12 chance of rolling a 1, which loses to all but 1/20 of subsequent results. Which means... 1/240 chance of tying, 19/240 chance of losing.
1/12 chance of rolling a 2, which loses to all but 2/20 of subsequent results, and ties in half of those. 1/240 chance of tying, 1/240 chance of winning, 18/240 chance of losing.
1/12 chance of rolling a 3, which loses to all but 3/20 of subsequent results, 2/3 of which are victories. 1/240 chance of tying, 2/240 chance of winning, 17 chance of losing.
I think a pattern becomes apparent, yes? A total of 12/240(1/20, or 5%) chance of tying(which, in turn, tells me that the chance of a tie will always be 1/[higher stat] disregarding bonuses to rolls directly). 66/240 chance of winning, or 11/40, aka 27.5% chance of winning. Which means the opponent has a...[100-[27.5+5]]% chance of winning. Which is 67.5%. 67.5/27.5=~2.45, while the plain stat comparison shows a ratio of 1.67. While the win/loss ratio can't be implicitly trusted, as the higher the stats get, the less and less likely there's a tie(which seems an unfortunate side effect of this system. :/ One would want
more ties in combatants with extremely high stats, for dramatic effect, I think), the general idea gets across; as the difference in stats grows, the straight win/loss ratio shifts more than proportionally. One would think it will start to level out at a certain point, but this is untrue; while the percentages will certainly stop shifting as greatly, the lower win chance compared to loss chance is such that it more than counterbalances. People tend to forget that 66% means a 2-1 ratio.
But this isn't even getting into average damage. This becomes more difficult, for what should be obvious reasons; the exact difference between the results matters immensely, now. It is not so simple as a flat numbers comparison. Let's test based on what the defender rolls for defense, shall we? After all, we can then find the average damage dealt with such a roll and see if we can find a pattern, to reduce workload.
1/12 chance of rolling a 1 for defense. This means an average damage for the attacker of 5.5. The average roll for a d12 is 6.5. I'm glad these match up, so far. It won't last.
1/12 chance of rolling a 2. Average damage would then be ~4.58
3*. The asterisk indicates the underlined sections repeat into infinity. And as you can see, the average damage isn't 4.5; not exactly. Which makes sense. Otherwise, rolling a 6 would mean he couldn't damage you. Let's continue.
1/12 chance of rolling a 3. Average damage would thus be 3.75. Interesting. A change form the initial value of 2.75. What relation does this have to 3, or 6.5, I have to wonder. Perhaps there isn't one. That would be unfortunate.
1/12 chance of rolling a 4. Average damage of 3. The change is decresing more significantly with each iteration, now. Excellent.
1/12 chance of rolling a 5. Average damage? 2.
3*. Again, the asterisk means it repeats into infinity. I may be seeing a pattern now, but I'm not sure. It can't last, I'm fairly sure.
1/12 chance of rolling a 6. We're halfway done! Average damage of 1.75. Hmmmm. The pattern certainly didn't continue in any way I can see. Guess we have to keep going.
1/12 chance of rolling a 7. Avg. Dmg. 1.25. So the pattern did continue, but more slowly. Interesting.
1/12 chance of rolling an 8. Avgdmg 0.8
3*.
A nine -> 0.5
A ten -> 0.25
An eleven -> 0.08
3*.
And of course, twelve -> zero.
But what's the real average damage, with all these averages, then? It certainly can't be all that high, given what we've seen. So, time for more math. 23.8
3*/12 is 1.986
1*.
So, average damage of about
2, with equal stats. When it hits. Wondrous.
Isn't physical damage supposed to be more reliable than this? It certainly doesn't seem like it.
So, why not take a look at magic damage?
Again, let's go with a magic of 12 and a resistance of 12, and, oh, armor of +3 to be true to the game, even if it does make this that much more difficult. Mages are often thought of as glass cannons, so we'll just assume the attacker put some points in mana from defense and resistance. Let's test, oh, Negligible, Small, and Medium. 1*, 1.5*, and 2*. To give a sense of scale, you see. But, I think I'll just present the finished results, instead of making us go through it all step by step again.
Negligible; Ooh, that hurts. All told, an average damage of 0.8
3*. That's just pathetic, really.
Small; Don't feel like doing the math for every single one, here, as it's fairly complicated and I can't do an average of averages here so easily, but as far as I can tell, it's gonna be an average of a little over 2.
Medium; This one probably ends up being an average of around 5 or 6, based on the way the pattern seems to be going; mostly in the form of huge burst damage.
The only difference, though, is that Magic has a limit on how many times it can be used; due to the immense power, however, and the way everyone's built as glass cannons, that never becomes an issue, when you people fight in a group.
On a similar note, getting defense or resistance is far less effective for tanking than simply pumping your health stat into the stratosphere. If I had left Spensir's Defense and Resistance stats at 5 or 6? With armor and Vital Surge(which he would be able to use for longer with more health) applying flat bonuses to rolls, he would be incredibly tank, with a health stat of, oh, you know, just 180 or so.
I think I have found some flaws within the system. How to fix them? I have no idea!