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This calculator assumes monster will get first strike, which is part of the maximum difficulty :) that chainsaw goblin isn't gonna be tough to take out, but it's gonna suck regardless!
So after two years of iterations and proba ly hundreds of logically extreme examples like the above, it's all accounted for already (even movement really - the user can pin movement into the S columns should they desire, to add an edge, or a fudge number).
No worries either though, liking the formulas isn't required and I highly encourage folks to come up with their own -- make it better, or make something entirely different!
Best of luck!
No worries and thank you very much! :)
(Just to answer the formula Q and for anyone else wondering about this!)
It assumes the monster first strike in order to ensure the AD attribute is relevant if the monster has no other significant attributes - in practice if a monster has 10 attack, but 1 BP and 0 DD, and we assume the heroes kill it on sight, the tool can't give a fair measurement of that monster. It works against the purpose of the tool to discount it entirely when it's not a guarantee that it'll die upon being encountered.
That's a logical extreme, but the actual formula used would provide the same bell curves if we took away the first strike -- it is left in to make sure the cases like the above can be correctly mathematically accounted for, especially when said monster is encountered in a group.
The numbers mean nothing on their own though -- it is with comparison and frame of reference that any of it will start to make sense for the quest designer.
Also, apologies for not catching this sooner, but I looked again at your 8 goblin / 1 abomination scenario and I assumed that was meant to be compared singularly...but the numbers you have aren't what the calculator should be returning at all.
8 goblins singularly would give a quest difficulty of 32 while the abomination has 24. 8 goblins together in a room have a difficulty of 144. Sounds like there is a calculation bug I may have missed, and if you could reproduce it and show where it's coming up with that, I'd appreciate it!