Unclear Description: Randomized Damage Attack

I think the difference is the intent of the randomization.

Small randomization in the damage formula is meant for slight variation, not a gamble. It doesn't matter if you hit for 512 damage or 498, a monster that dies in two hits will usually still die in two hits. The effectiveness barely suffer even with bad RNG.

Not the case with spells whose damage range from 100 to 10000. How effective it is vary wildly depending on your luck. It's meant to be a gamble, a risk and reward thing.

Is it crowner time?

Exactly, the current trope description goes heavily into that. Even to the point of mentioning this is the 'The Gambler class's hat' basically.

I dont think the trope description goes quite far enough though. Random Multi-hit attacks such as something that attacks 2 to 5 times or 1 to 16 times would also qualify. Some games actually use literal Slot Machine Reels such as FFVII, FFX FFX-2.

Attacks with a high critical percentage but also a high miss rate is a related trope but its not exactly the same, nor does it fit the title sadly. Hatchet Man in Dragon Quest for example has a 50% miss rate but if it connects it has a 50% crit chance and 'Executioner' has a 50% chance to hit but it will always crit if it hits.

Edited by Memers on Jun 24th 2019 at 7:34:46 AM

Edited by crazysamaritan on Jun 25th 2019 at 9:54:20 AM

I'm not familiar with tabletop game notation so I'm not sure what your argument is.

Missing the point. The normal example of a randomized damage fomula have a random of between like 100% and 105% or something minor like that in with the modifiers. It is done specifically so you do not always see the exact same number every single time, just minor variations.

The FFXII formula for the sword I brought up earlier is

DMG=[Attack Power∗Random(1 ~ 1.125)−Defense]∗[1+Strength∗(Lv+Strength)/25

The randomization is minimal but just enough that you its just enough that you don't get the same number every time. It is consistent enough where you can approximate how much damage it will do just by watching a few attacks.

It is not a gamble when you roll a 19 or 20 on every D20 roll!

This trope is the truly random Gambler attacks with an extremely wide range of results. Such as the Axe in FFXII, which has a damage swing from literally zero to the damage cap of 9999. Or as you equate to DND Rolling literal dice, such as the Lady Luck job in FFX-2 which attacks by rolling 4 D6 dice or attacks vis slot machine mechanics.

Video Games that use this will usually flat out state this in the tool tips of the attacks or they will show the damage ranges. Also see my previous post.

EDIT: this is literally from the in game tips in FFXII, in the game itself it calls the attacks erratic. 'Good weapons for those who feel lucky'.

Edited by Memers on Jun 26th 2019 at 4:53:00 AM

There would seem to be two distinct tropes here:

• Every attack being randomized to some extent, be it ±99% or ±1%. This is what ~crazysamaritan is interpreting it as.
• A specific attack whose gimmick is that it has a far wider range of damage than most other attacks. This is what ~Memers is interpreting it as.

There might be an argument to be made that the first is People Sit on Chairs, but I think both are real tropes. We should split one of them off to another name.

Edited by RamenChef on Jun 28th 2019 at 10:00:11 AM

Agreed.

I also think the first is chairs. The second is definitely tropable.

I don't think the first one is chairs. But as has been already said, it's an Omnipresent Trope in RP Gs. I support keeping it but making it aversions only or something like that.

Its omnipresent but I don't think we would actually get a list of aversions that wasn't just the Paper Mario games, which do damage in the single digits and any range would put it in the gambling category. An example-less stub at best, which is unnecessary.

Games that actually arn't RP Gs but they just borrow some mechanics from them like having a damage number floater, WAY do not count.

Common Isn't Chairs.

Its not notable enough to be its own thing is my point. Its a footnote on Role-Playing Game at best or half a line on a Damage Floater trope.

The third paragraph describes a category of games where every attack has some random damage component, but ends by saying only attacks with "a particularly wide range of damage values" count. This excludes a category I describe at the bottom of this post.

I suggested removing that one sentence, so that any attack that uses a Random Number Generator as part of the damage formula would count. Even within the RPG genre, games typically use different ways to determine damage. The D 20 System tends to use different dice for different weapons, The World of Darkness series uses # of successes versus the "armour" of the target, and Cerberus Engine Games uses cards to determine damage. None of them have a range comparable to "0-9999".

The description goes on to describe any effect, not limited to damage, that depends on the influence of random chance, including buffs and healing. The remaining paragraphs are a "See Also" category.

If any game that uses even slightly randomized damage qualifies, we're looking at pretty much every RPG/SRPG ever except Paper Mario and Fire Emblem. That borders on People Sit on Chairs.

If we're to keep it as a trope, there has to be one attack (or one set of attacks, etc.) that deal randomized damage outside the "normal" bounds of the game's damage formula.

I don't really see why "a single attack with random damage" and "every attack has random damage" should be the same trope.

Agreed. At most it belongs as just a line in Role-Playing Game or a trope about 'Damage/HP Floaters' (you know the numbers that appear when you hit or heal something) as its not typically used in works that don't show the actual numbers.

It by itself is not a trope by itself just a element of others.

- What games don't show the numbers, and how would you know the values aren't randomized??

Mostly skill based and competitive stuff with just HP bars. Fighters, Shooters, and Dark Souls come to mind.

Although even HP bars are optional on shooters. Shooters usually have more of a location based damage system instead.

Edited by Memers on Jun 27th 2019 at 5:33:36 AM

You're totally misunderstanding it. You're focusing too much on the exact number values instead of the relative randomness. These randomizations are basically irrelevant. These randomizations occur at, for example, -10% to 10% range. It doesn't affect the game much, and even if it were removed from the damage formula, almost nothing would be different (except the boredom of seeing the same numbers pop up over and over again).

Also, why do you keep writing in small fonts? It's annoying to read.

Have you even read the page?!

Third Paragraph

Edited by Memers on Jul 3rd 2019 at 5:48:43 AM

Yeah, because 0-8 is not a "particularly wide range of damage values" and 9777-9999 is a "particularly wide range of damage values". Assuming you think 222 is a large range. I happen to think it's much larger than 8. However, I seem to be in the minority in believing that 0-8 should be considered random enough, since it is a narrow range.

Proportional Range is what is important here, the actual numbers DO NOT MATTER, its all in the math and how things are randomized.

If something has say a 10% swing that isnt much at all, if something has like a 50% swing that is real gambling with the attack.

FFXII has a range of 100% to 112.5% random modifier on its basic attacks, not much in the long run... and that is about standard for RP Gs, might eventually be the difference of 1 attack on a decently long fight, it is in a predictable range.

Its axes are randomized from 0% to 111%, you can hit for literally 0 or 111% of base damage on every swing. NOT CONSISTENT AT ALL.

Edited by Memers on Aug 9th 2019 at 12:32:35 PM