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From: srm@nsc.UUCP (Richard Mateosian)
Newsgroups: net.games.rogue
Subject: Re: wraith and phantom help!!
Message-ID: <2087@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Dec-84 05:19:47 EST
Article-I.D.: nsc.2087
Posted: Sun Dec 16 05:19:47 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Dec-84 03:21:17 EST
References: <927@sunybcs.UUCP> <34500042@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: srm@nsc.UUCP (Richard Mateosian)
Organization: National Semiconductor, Sunnyvale
Lines: 29
Summary: 

In article <34500042@uiucdcs.UUCP> kaufman@uiucdcs.UUCP writes:
>
>You've got to be kidding!  The only reason you gain a level is because that
>weakness you felt was a level being sucked away from you!  There is no way
>you gain in the exchange.

This is a correct assessment of expectation.

There seems to be some confusion on this subject. In an exchange with a
Wraith in which you only go down one level and then come up one level,
your HP lose 1D10 then gain 1D10.  This is a net change of between -9 and
+9.  This is independent of how much you went up the last time you increased
level.  Thus, for example, if you only went up by 1 HP when you reached
1300 experience, fighting a Wraith and only being weakened once can still
cost you 9 HP, so it's not true, as someone else suggested, that this is
a good tactic to use after a disappointing HP increase at a level change.

If k is the number of times you are weakened by a Wraith before you kill it
(k=>1), then the expected change in HP from the exchange is

                           (1-k)*5.5

This expectation reaches a maximum of 0 when k=1. Thus, fighting Wraiths
is fun if you like to gamble, but remember that you shouldn't expect an 
increase in HP.

-- 
Richard Mateosian
{allegra,cbosgd,decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!srm    nsc!srm@decwrl.ARPA