Calandra's Feat

[CerberusPuppy]

If Calandra is over the top (and I'm not sure she is) then the problem isn't her feat- it's Befuddle. Since the feat is a bit weak now, how about this tweak: allow one reroll of any die that comes up 1 or 2, but make the feat last one round instead of just the turn.

That way it would have some potential effect on tough rolls made on the opponent's turn. That recaptures some of the flavor of the original feat and makes it more useful in a uniquely trollish way. Nor does this way of strengthening the feat add to Calandra's assassination capability. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Then Befuddle can be addressed separately if need be.

I thought I'd run this by the forum before submitting it as feedback.

[Goris]

Add in the roll may only be re-rolled once thingy like it used to say and yada yada and you may have something there.

[CerberusPuppy]

Yeah that's what I meant- you can only reroll each die once. No perpetual rerolls until it comes up a 3 or better.

[Goris]

yeah, I am fine with that honestly... I think I will test that out tomorrow and see how it holds up...

[frazerpenman]

As I suggested in one of the other threads It might be an idea to change her feat to all 1 and 2 rolled automatically count as being 3's.

My 2 Delicious Fruit Tokens

[JustCabal]

I really think frazerpenman (http://www.privateerpressforums.com/member.php?u=17891)'s suggestion is the best fix..
Easy to work with and it makes her feat feel like an actual feat..
I support his 2 Fruit Tokens!

[N0rdicNinja]

I second JustCabal, both suggestions sound legit but for a Feat I think minimum roll of 3 for a turn would still be powerful without being broken. It would certainly make critting insidiously easy though. =P

[Sevwall]

Its worse than signs and portents. And that affects damage rolls too.

I feedbacked that the feat needs to affect damage rolls as well, and that befuddle needs to go down to RNG 8.

[Silopolis]

What if they just gave her (a version of) Signs & Portents as a feat? It obviously wouldn't be broken, since Vlad has it as a spell.

[ozmo]

Compare to Irusks feat, he grants +2 to attack rolls,fearless, +tough on 4+, + no knowdown, this is for warriors only but is massively superior.
I like Sev's suggestion of both hit and dmg rolls


"While in Iruskʼs control area, friendly Faction warrior models/units gain Fearless ICON, Tough ICON, and +2 to melee and
ranged attack rolls and cannot be knocked down. When a friendly Faction warrior model makes a Tough roll of 4, 5, or 6 while in
Iruskʼs control area, that model heals 1 damage point. Undying Loyalty lasts for one round"

[Negative9]

Its worse than signs and portents. And that affects damage rolls too.


Any of our resident math wiz's mind crunching the numbers and showing how that would affect damage output?

[The Anders]

If Calandra is over the top (and I'm not sure she is) then the problem isn't her feat- it's Befuddle. Since the feat is a bit weak now, how about this tweak: allow one reroll of any die that comes up 1 or 2, but make the feat last one round instead of just the turn.

That way it would have some potential effect on tough rolls made on the opponent's turn. That recaptures some of the flavor of the original feat and makes it more useful in a uniquely trollish way. Nor does this way of strengthening the feat add to Calandra's assassination capability. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Then Befuddle can be addressed separately if need be.

I thought I'd run this by the forum before submitting it as feedback.
I think you should feedback it.

[Ravir]

It should definitely at least affect damage rolls. Do we need another feat that has a 33% chance of doing absolutely nothing?

[Negative9]

Perhaps her feat should be entirely redone, I was thinking maybe a combination of signs and portents and Star Crossed.

Good Omens
"While in this modelʼs control area Friendly Faction models roll an additional die on attack and damage rolls. Discard the lowest die of each roll. While in this modelʼs control area enemy models gain an additional die on attack and damage rolls. Discard the highest die of each roll. Good Omens last for one round."

Too much?

[Cannibalbob]

Any of our resident math wiz's mind crunching the numbers and showing how that would affect damage output?


Finals are keeping me from breaking down the math on it, but if Calandra's feat effected damage in addition to attack it would be slightly inferior to Signs & Portents mathematically.

You would have a slightly smaller chance to roll low than with Signs & Portents (emphasis on slightly), but you would also not roll as high as you do with S&P most of the time. The midpoint of both curves would be roughly the same. Although, Calandra's feat gets better the more dice are involved - so it is better in regards to boosts.

[petegrrrr]

It would make her feat about as good as signs and portents basically.

[Mael]

Its worse than signs and portents. And that affects damage rolls too.

Do you have the math to quantify this? I'm interested to see how the two stack up.

AND SHOW YOUR WORK. ;)

[Cannibalbob]

Do you have the math to quantify this? I'm interested to see how the two stack up.

AND SHOW YOUR WORK. ;)


I can do this, but I won't have the time until around the weekend.

Signs & Portents ends up better since it skews the whole distribution to a larger degree than Calandra's feat.

[petegrrrr]

Do you have the math to quantify this? I'm interested to see how the two stack up.

AND SHOW YOUR WORK. ;)

Well, I don't have the math, but I do know that working on just attack rolls is worse than working on attack and damage rolls :)

[Mael]

I can do this, but I won't have the time until around the weekend. Signs & Portents ends up better since it skews the whole distribution to a larger degree than Calandra's feat.

I said show your work. ;)

Gah all these threads are bleeding together.


If we assume the reroll rolls the average of 3.5 for the re-roll 1's and 2's go up to 3.5. That's a boost of 2.5 for the 1 and 1.5 for the two. Add them up and divide by two to find the average boost. 1.5 + 2.5 / 2 = 2. Everyone following? Good. For every re-roll you add (on average) 2 to your roll. Is my math good here?

There are 36 outcomes on 2d6, nine of which have one 1 or 2 and three of which have two 1's and 2's.

THEREFORE under Calandra's Feat on average:
25% of the time you will add 2 to your roll
11% of the time you will add 4 to your roll

This does not include the bonuses for criticals. This means 36% of the time you will be getting at least a +2 bonus on your rolls.

[eodluigi]

Yeah I am not a fan at all of Calandra's feat right now at all. It basically doesnt have enough rear on it to make too much of a difference. I like the idea of this affecting tough rolls for a round and think that is a good suggestion that should maybe be submitted to the feedback site. I am interested to see though how the math on all this discussion works out when someone gets enough time to figure out all the calculations.

[Cannibalbob]

I said show your work. ;)


I have an abstract-math (Theory of Computation) final in 2 hours. No time for crunching a big probability set. I will get around to it later in the week.

[Mael]

I have an abstract-math (Theory of Computation) final in 2 hours. No time for crunching a big probability set. I will get around to it later in the week.

What?!? THEN GET OFF THE FORUMS! :)

[Goldstep]

Here's the numbers to creat your own graph for her feat...

result number altered difference
2 0.03 0.01 -0.02
3 0.06 0.02 -0.04
4 0.08 0.05 -0.03
5 0.11 0.08 -0.03
6 0.14 0.12 -0.02
7 0.17 0.16 -0.01
8 0.14 0.16 0.02
9 0.11 0.16 0.05
10 0.08 0.12 0.04
11 0.06 0.08 0.02
12 0.03 0.04 0.01

If a 3 will hit (i.e. Rat v KD or something) and just need to know if you will crit, 17% chance of doing so. If you need a 7, you have a 12% chance to crit.

[Oilslick]

A little math on Calandra's feat. . . .

On a roll of 2 d6 you will use Calandra's feat for at least one die 55.555...% of the time. This is 1/3+1/3-1/9 the amount you roll 1 or 2 on each die minus the amount you roll it on both.
So for ~44% of your regular attacks the feat does nothing, this was always the case.
However now after the re roll one third of the time you still roll a one or a two, sure sometimes you need a 2 and rolled a one, and if you needed a two you would just keep it so the does muck with the math a little, but entering in what you need to hit is a bit cumbersome and highly dependent on the game situation. So easy math saying you need more than a two means that now 55.55...% you get a reroll but now 37% of the time you get a benefit from the feat on any given attack roll.

This is a quick math so there are a few assumptions on the 37% it doesn't account for things like needing a 3 or 4 to hit, or the 11% of the time that you get to reroll both dice.

[Thunder_God]

You're forgetting the crits issue, which Trolls have a bunch of.

The old feat made with 2 dice the number of crits 1/16 instead of 1/25 (assuming you "only" need to hit), I think with 3 dice, it becomes 40/64, not sure how much it's without the feat, but that's crazy. (I worked it out before, working from my memory here).

While changing it to 3 directly also affects the average, it makes boosted attack rolls even more likely to end up as crits, because you are very likely to end with a couple of 3s, and another die, so you're likely to both hit and crit, and it needs to be looked at, exactly how common this is, and how much of an issue it is.

[Oilslick]

Here's the numbers to creat your own graph for her feat...

result number altered difference
2 0.03 0.01 -0.02
3 0.06 0.02 -0.04
4 0.08 0.05 -0.03
5 0.11 0.08 -0.03
6 0.14 0.12 -0.02
7 0.17 0.16 -0.01
8 0.14 0.16 0.02
9 0.11 0.16 0.05
10 0.08 0.12 0.04
11 0.06 0.08 0.02
12 0.03 0.04 0.01

Thanks for the math bird.
this is a chart number needed / % pass without feat / % pass with feat
3 97% 99%
4 91% 97%
5 83% 92%
6 72% 84%
7 58% 72%
8 41% 56%
9 27% 40%
10 16% 24%
11 9% 12%
12 3% 4%
What this means is on feat turn you basically add a pip on the distribution curve until you are trying to roll a 10, which is a tad off a adding a pip. Target roll 11 is half way between rolling an 11 or 10 on a regular roll, and rolling a 12 is nearly the same either way.

[Sevwall]

What does this math mean.

+1 to attack rolls?

[Thunder_God]

Really need to post what it does on boosted rolls.

That's dependant, Sevwall, on rolls where you need 7s to hit, it basically adds more like 1.68 to the attack roll, some places, like the 8 needed, it adds 1.8 to the attack roll. What Oilslick posted is the other way around, and it's not equivalent (in numbers), which basically means it's not -1 to attack rolls, but -1 or so to difficulty. It's not equivalent because one makes you more likely to hit the higher numbers, moving the bell of the curve, and a flat +1 to attack roll simply moves the bell curve to the right, changing it from 3 to 13, which is not what happens.

I don't see why not just look at percentages.

Also, you need to keep thinking of what it does for crit percentages, especially the crazy "Just boost to 3s" suggestion, which is totally whack when you consider crits.

[Tweak]

I don't know anything about the math but as it stands now it really does not seem feat worthy at all. I mean mortenebra makes her look like the chump, with only doing half of recalibration's feat. Something needs to be done but I honestly don't know where to begin, perhaps don't go the S&P route but give her what she has now and also re roll tough checks in the round?

[hooksy67]

or maybe just change her feat to every enemy in her control radius gets the current effect of befuddle and make s&p one of her spells and that i think would be perfect

[StarmanTTLB]

I like two of the ideas mentioned above:

1) Make her feat act like S&P + Star Crossed: All Friendly Faction models roll three and remove the lowest one, all enemy models roll three and remove the highest one. It'd be more powerful than S&P alone, of course, but it's a FEAT. Might just be too much, though.

2) Make her feat work on all Friendly Faction model's attack, damage, & tough rolls. One round. One roll per die only, no infini-rolling. Makes her army hard to kill (like her MkI feat), but is still an offensive feat. Good for making that crazy alpha strike and then fearing reprisal less.


or maybe just change her feat to every enemy in her control radius gets the current effect of befuddle and make s&p one of her spells and that i think would be perfect
:eek: A turn where I get to reposition every non-character warrior model in the enemy's army up to their SPD? That's scary OP!

[hooksy67]

or maybe you could just blind the whole group..... or maybe pull everybody up to 8 inches and drop three of their stats by 3..... or knockdown everyone..... do i need to go on

[Thunder_God]

Also, Ashlynn's Roulette is probably way better than the way Calandra's feat is now.

[Silopolis]

:eek: A turn where I get to reposition every non-character warrior model in the enemy's army up to their SPD? That's scary OP!

Well, that's sorta what Gorten's feat does, though it's less flexible, and Gorten's CTRL is much smaller.

[hooksy67]

yeah gorten's radius is smaller but he is a ton more survivable than calandra

[Cypher037]

Her feat is underpowered, but it doesn?t need changing. I actually like the idea of having a gimp feat combined with a bonkers spell list. Every part of a caster needn't be balanced, only the whole. This gives her a unique edge of not relying on one super-move to win the game. You can blow your feat early to pull theirs or hold it off for a little extra later. She gets to spread her load throughout the whole game instead of blowing it in one turn.

-Leo

[petegrrrr]

Also, Ashlynn's Roulette is probably way better than the way Calandra's feat is now.


Roulette was way better then her old feat.

It worked on Her attack rolls and on the opponents attack rolls.

Her old feat really wasn't that bad, it was just blown wildly out of proportion, just like starcrossed was in mark 1.

[Cannibalbob]

You're forgetting the crits issue, which Trolls have a bunch of.



Not really. We have crit-freeze, impaler crit slam, and possible crit slam from Mulg. The only other real crits I can think of are on casters - and the majority of games only involve one caster. And there is crit-fire from the flaming-fists animus.

Of the above, the Impaler slams are the only ones that are really that important. The slag is lucky to hit anything with his horrible rat (or even get into more than a few lists), let alone pull off the crit. Mulg does not really need his crit since it will often knock stuff out of his melee range and deprive him of overtake, unless he is whacking infantry. His crit is nice, but really situational.

And her feat does not astronomically boost crits anymore.

[Cannibalbob]

Her old feat really wasn't that bad, it was just blown wildly out of proportion, just like starcrossed was in mark 1.


I think it was changed not due to balance but due to speeding things up through less rerolls.

[petegrrrr]

I agree. I just think this forum went ape-poop over it, as we are want to do with all things calandra.

With extended playtesting time, I do not forsee the current incarnation sticking.

[Sevwall]

I'm beginning to come around to all 1's and 2's count as 3's. So what if you get more crits... who cares, that affects the impaler and the winter. Its a feat.

It guarantees certain rolls, but doesn't skew the results so high.

Plus, with the Burrower nerf, its less important.

And then we can forget about it affecting damage.

[theummhmmguy]

Remember that she is a DEF 14 ARM 14. Meaning she gets hit, she is toaster strudel.

That might balance her out just a tad.

[Ravir]

I'm beginning to come around to all 1's and 2's count as 3's. So what if you get more crits... who cares, that affects the impaler and the winter. Its a feat.

I could deal with that. Of course it'd make me even more prone to taking Impalers with her. The current feat is just so weak it's painful.

[Goldstep]

Also, Ashlynn's Roulette is probably way better than the way Calandra's feat is now.

Ashlynn's feat is essentially the same except it will drop 4's for 5's never turn a 2 into a 1, and then does the opposite for the opponent next round... and is 4" smaller in diameter.
I have trouble comparing that many variables but, I feel comfortable saying that I *enjoy* playing Ashlynn more. Even on the bad rolls (and I've had to give doubles sixes to people under her feat and take double ones) she's seat of your pants fun for that turn.
Calandra's feat doesn't get crazy action, doesn't steal victory for the jaws of defeat, and doesn't have the power or flash to make it a defining turn.


I'm beginning to come around to all 1's and 2's count as 3's. So what if you get more crits... who cares, that affects the impaler and the winter. Its a feat.
Or even, for those die hards who don't like more crits or at least want to silence those who feel crits would be too powerful:

Roll
Check for crit
Add as needed to bring individual dice up to 3
Check to see if you hit.

Example:
I need a 6 to hit. I roll a 2 and a 3. I didn't get doubles so no crit, but 2 is less than 3, so we call it a 3. 3+3=6. I hit.
We're not calling a 2 and a 3 a crit... just a 6.
We ARE calling a 2 and a 2 a crit.

Trouble might be complexity.

[Oilslick]

I am of the opinion that her feat is a bit on the crappy side, but since her spell list is awesome that's ok.

[artificer]

or maybe you could just blind the whole group..... or maybe pull everybody up to 8 inches and drop three of their stats by 3..... or knockdown everyone..... do i need to go on
I'm sorry, are you saying that we're asking for too much, or that her feat is CRAP, and should actually be something good like one of the above feats?


I agree. I just think this forum went ape-poop over it, as we are want to do with all things calandra.

With extended playtesting time, I do not forsee the current incarnation sticking.

Let's hope not. This feat eats it. I'd rather they just went back to the Mk1 feat, or completely rebuilt it from the ground up.

Counting every 1-2 as a 3 still means that scattergunners/unbuffed KWs will miss (on average) anything above a def 13 (roughly). AND it does nothing for damage rolls. Why are we not up in arms to get a decent feat?

Can you think of 1 WM feat that is this crappy? How many Hordes feats are this bad (or worse)? Not bloody many (if any)!

I don't want her broken-good, I'd just like her to be good enough to field in a tournament and not have the guy across the table sigh in relief at the though of an easy game when he sees my list. Hell, just give her Absylonia's feat, I'll take that;)

[Rizzen1]

I think calandras first feat was good. Because what we have now, a khador caster can make this with a spell(!).

What's too much with the 3+ tough?????

[Silopolis]

I've had games in which my feat didn't matter (pMadrak in Tooth & Claw, Hexeris vs. Cryx, Mk.I pMorghoul vs. Warmachine), and it was lame. Given the emphasis on feats and the tactical importance of using your feat at the right time, casters without good feats lose out on a major source of tactical power in the game. Saying, "The feat is lame, but I like that because the spell list is good" doesn't address the problem. It's like all those people who were saying, before Metamorphosis, "I prefer Skorne underpowered because I feel more of a sense of accomplishment when I finally manage to win."

Not every feat is created equal, but they should all be A) fun and B) impressive. Using a lame feat to balance out a good spell list just seems like bad design, and that's why I don't think that's what PP intended to do here.

[Negative9]

So what are the best ideas that we have come up with for solutions to her weak feat issue? I ask so I can have a good point of reference for testing for feedback.

[Cannibalbob]

So what are the best ideas that we have come up with for solutions to her weak feat issue? I ask so I can have a good point of reference for testing for feedback.


Making it also effect damage rolls is not a bad idea. Or, allowing one reroll of any 1s or 2s rolled by a friendly model within her control range for a full round - that way it provides a bonus to tough rolls.

[Negative9]

Making it also effect damage rolls is not a bad idea. Or, allowing one reroll of any 1s or 2s rolled by a friendly model within her control range for a full round - that way it provides a bonus to tough rolls.

My only issue with that is that it still relies on a random effect that doesn't really push the odds into our favor. Personally, I think feats need to offer a direct tangible benefit to the army or skew the odds in a fairly large way.

[Invader Larb]

With some of the interaction problems (i.e. Burrowers) the feat needs to go back to a defensive model. Perhaps we should look at something like Black Feona, eSkarre, Saeryn, etc.

[Goldstep]

I'd say, Play her as if she has no feat and see if she is lacking. Then play her with Signs and portents as a feat and see if she is overpowered.

Other than that, keep count how many times her feat has turned a 2 into a 1. (I would at least change the can into a may. :P )

[Cannibalbob]

With some of the interaction problems (i.e. Burrowers) the feat needs to go back to a defensive model. Perhaps we should look at something like Black Feona, eSkarre, Saeryn, etc.


The feat did not have an adverse effect upon Burrowers. I am still amazed to see people say this. The feat did not even make burrowers likely to hit high defense targets.

The issue with her feat and burrowers that was presented before had everything to do with Calandra and almost nothing to do with the Burrowers. The problem was that her feat allowed her to almost guarantee to hit with Befuddle (to free the burrowers from combat), and damn near guaranteed that she was able to hit the enemy caster with a knock down spell.

You could replace the Burrowers with any number of other models to get the same result. Knocked down casters that have thier screen moved from in front of them are easy pickings. Whether it was Burrowers or charging champs, or mass scattergunner sprays, or pygmie CRAs, or a hungry diretroll is irrelevant - those should all finish off a downed caster that you can open a hole to reach.


I don't mind changing her feat, nor do I really care what it ultimately becomes, but lets seriously stop blaming her feat for breaking the burrowers. The one constant in the equation that made her too strong with burrowers was Befuddle. If you remove that one ability then that entire assassination chain falls apart and can be defended.

In fact, Grim's feat has an even stronger interaction with Burrowers than Calandra's previous feat did. However, Grim lacks the ability to disengage the burrowers from defensive screening models.