{"id":912,"date":"2007-01-30T12:07:16","date_gmt":"2007-01-30T17:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=912"},"modified":"2007-01-30T14:27:19","modified_gmt":"2007-01-30T19:27:19","slug":"wizard-vs-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=912","title":{"rendered":"Wizard vs. Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the comments of Monday’s DM of the Rings<\/a>, there was an interesting discussion about some of the funny things in the D&D combat system. For example, I once heard that the odds are that a Level 1 Wizard will lose a bare-handed fight against a common housecat.<\/p>\n

Telas said in response:<\/p>\n

Dunno about the actual odds, but A cat has 2 hit points, and 3 attacks per round for a full attack action, at +4\/+4\/-1 for 1 damage each. If our 1st level Wizard loses initiative (very possible against a 15 Dex cat), and misses with his first attack (possible with 0 BAB against an AC14 cat), he will be attacked six times, four of which will hit 70% of the time. <\/p>\n

On average, he'll be hit by three of the claws and one bite for 4 damage, which takes him to 0 HP. If the wizard is unarmed, and taking a -4 nonproficiency penalty to punch the cat, then he will almost certainly die. <\/p>\n

This is probably why casters are famous for being cat-friendly.\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Now I wonder if it’s true. I don’t have the rulebooks handy, but now that Telas has provided some numbers to work with I can try it out.<\/p>\n

Let’s assume we’re dealing with a common level 1 Wizard, an adult human. He has a STR bonus of +0. I’ll let him point-buy two points of DEX and CON bonuses. (So, he either has a CON +2 or a DEX +2 or +1 to both.) He’s fighting bare-handed (1d4 damage) and at a -4 attack penalty because he’s a wizard and is useless at hand-fighting. His base HP is 4 + his CON bonus.<\/p>\n

Using the above, plus the numbers Telas gave for the cat, I wrote a wee little program to run 1,000 Wizard vs. Cat battles.<\/p>\n

Result? The Wizard prevailed 29.8% of the time. <\/p>\n

While I don’t deny that an angry cat can really make you wish you hadn’t made it angry, I’m having a hard time picturing a cat dealing lethal damage to an adult male of average strength, slightly better than average dexterity or constitution, and high intelligence. <\/p>\n

If I let him buy another point of DEX or CON bonus, his odds go up to a still-pathetic 39.9%. This is preposterous. Now we have a guy of average strength, high intelligence, and who may be really gifted when it comes to dexterity or constitution, and he still can’t win half the battles. <\/p>\n

Even if he does use magic, I wonder how well he’d do? A magic missle will easily overkill the cat, but casting it provokes ye olde attack of opportunity. He has to make a concentration check to get the spell off. I’m not going to run the numbers, but I assume his odds of victory should be pretty good in this case.<\/p>\n

Ok, I’m doing wasting everyone’s time with this. <\/p>\n

LATER: No I’m not. Kris<\/a> pointed out in the comments below that the Wizard shouldn’t take a -4 penalty to hit, but punching a cat should<\/em> provoke an attack of opportunity. I changed the program to reflect this and the odds of Wizard victory went up to 42.3%. <\/p>\n

Also, Jeremiah<\/a> points out that the Wizard could grapple (grab hold of the cat) easily. This is certainly how you would do things if faced with this situation. You wouldn’t slap-box the cat, you’d pick it up and wring its neck.<\/p>\n

Finally, I know D&D isn’t a simulation of real combat. Some appoximations are made to ease the rules and add to playability. GURPS solves many problems like the one I just outlined, at the cost of greater complexity. Any system which is fun is going to have some holes in it someplace. Still, I love building these little simulations. See also: 100 million characters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the comments of Monday’s DM of the Rings, there was an interesting discussion about some of the funny things in the D&D combat system. For example, I once heard that the odds are that a Level 1 Wizard will lose a bare-handed fight against a common housecat. Telas said in response: Dunno about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}