Post by vastin on Aug 6, 2008 16:42:34 GMT -5
Take a look at this:
Same guy, (10/10/40 AP split) only he only put 400 of his tweak points into wis, 100 in spellcraft, 100 in elemental, 200 in speed and whatever else you want...
total wis is 1500 now, but now he is doing a 803 power mono bolt for 803 x 1495 x 15 x 37 = 666.3M damage at 75% success
or 88 power multibolts for 88 x 5 x 1495 x 15 x 37 = 365.1M total damage from multibolts at 100% success rate
For any given series of multipliers of X * Y * Z (etc) = N the value of any particular multiplier increases as the value of its respective neighbors increases.
So if I have (X=1000) * (Y=100) * (Z=5) = N, then I'm going to get the most bang for my buck by trying to find some way to raise Z, unless the cost ratio for doing so is absolutely terrible compared to the other two. For the above values, one point of Z is worth 200 points of X, or 20 points of Y. Another way of looking at it is that each point of Z is worth 100,000, each point of Y is worth 5,000, and each point of X is worth a measly 500.
As Z increases though, those ratios will gradually shift, to the point where I should be looking back at Y or eventually even X, depending on how much they cost respectively.
This isn't the case for additive formulae! In X+Y+Z=N, you would just focus on raising whichever value can be purchased most cheaply and keep pouring points into it to the exclusion of the others, unless some other non-statistical factor is involved (ie, there is a cool feat you really want, or Bonus Y applies to ethereal creatures while the statistically superior Bonus X does not).