A different take on EA Pangaea – CBM 1.6

[Squirrelloid]

of course, if you can make void eyes and runesmashers as Pan in any kind of quantity, you got really lucky with indie mages...

But even without boosters, easily resists is a +4 bonus to their MR. Checking our handy manual DRN probability table (the most useful part of the manual), we note that easily resist vs. MR10 (10 vs. 14) is an 18% chance of success. Against any reasonable army size, the Law of Large Numbers comes into play, so think of that as 18% of the enemy army affected. That's not so bad.

Now, you've got an E3 Pan sitting around who wants to cast this, slap some earth boots on and cast Summon Earth Power, and now we're at E5, which gives us +1 to penetration. Now we're up to 24% of the enemy army affected. Even against a respectable MR of 13, you're affecting 11% of the army with an E5 caster.

If you can swing runesmashers, void eyes, and spell foci, that's another 5 penetration. That's 62% of the enemy army affected against MR10. Against MR12-13 you're at 46-38% of the army affected.

Now, lets say you cast 3 of those.

E5 caster, vs. MR 10: (1-.24)^3 = ~44% unaffected, or 56% affected.
E5 caster, vs. MR 13: (1-.11)^3 = ~70% unaffected, or 30% affected.
E5 caster, +5 pen boosters, vs. MR 10: (1-.62)^3 = ~5% unaffected! (95% affected)
E5 caster, +5 pen boosters, vs. MR 13: (1-.38)^3 = ~24% unaffected, or 76% affected.

So, its going to be sensitive to enemy MR, but against MR 10-11 targets its probably worthwhile even without penetration boosters. If you can snag some penetration boosters, it's good even against decent MR. What it won't do is impede high-MR sacreds or thugs/SCs.

[Kadelake]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

But even without boosters, easily resists is a +4 bonus to their MR. Checking our handy manual DRN probability table (the most useful part of the manual), we note that easily resist vs. MR10 (10 vs. 14) is an 18% chance of success.

Actually, the basic MR penetration strength is 12, not 10 as the manual claims. So against MR 10 troops it will be a 12 against 14 check, giving you a 30% of success; much more useful then with an 18% success-rate and making boosters even more effective.

By the way, does anyone know if the probabilities table in the manual is correct? I seem to remember someone doing some tests and claiming otherwise but can't find the thread.