[New & Improved.] This is a calculation of median damage, deviation, etc. for all damage types in Dungeon World.

[New & Improved.] This is a calculation of median damage, deviation, etc. for all damage types in Dungeon World.

Originally shared by Ray Otus

[New & Improved.] This is a calculation of median damage, deviation, etc. for all damage types in Dungeon World. 

Why? I wanted a quick way to decide on a damage die configuration when making up monsters on the fly and the progression of damage dice in DW is not necessarily intuitive. For instance, the worst of 2d12 is typically worse than a d10 or the best of 2d8. 

Explanations:

1. There are two sets of tables, each is primarily sorted by the column highlighted in orange.

2. The “Med. w/Mod.=” section displays the median damage with all the modifiers used in the DW bestiary, ranging from minus 2 to plus 9! Note the jump to odd numbers at 5 (…3,4,5,7,9).

3. Draw your attention to the green-topped tables labeled “Default Damage” (DD). I have added DD because I wanted the option to only roll damage dice when it was dramatic to do so (e.g. when a player’s hit points are low enough to hit 0 if I roll high). This number is the rounded Median. Next to it is a plus/minus column which is the rounded Deviation. So if a monster does b[2d6] damage I could assign the DD of 4 or figure the most common range is 3-5 (4 plus or minus 1) and go light, 3, or heavy 5. If I wanted to be extreme, I could go up or down two deviations.

10 thoughts on “[New & Improved.] This is a calculation of median damage, deviation, etc. for all damage types in Dungeon World.”

  1. Thank you for doing this. I’m not a numbers guy (hence one reason for enjoying dungeon world versus the bookkeeping of traditional d20) but I was interested in the medians of some of these dice rolls when I was trying to make up stuff for my campaign. Really appreciate this and your fortuitous timing in my gaming life! Awesome!

  3. I think I may have found an error, correct me if I’m wrong, also could be due to rounding. B[2d6]=4.5 and the DD=4 in your chart. Is this due to rounding?

    Edit:

    My suggestion would be to sort by the median and not the DD. Even though the rounded DD are the same, there is still a fraction of a die that a different roll with occur.

    P.S.

    Would you be willing to share the spread sheet? I would love to be able to add on to your lovely tool

  4. Yes, rounding. The actual Median is 4.47.

    I sorted by the DD because I wanted low variance damage numbers to appear before high ones at the same DD. But I could see others having a different preference. 

    When I am done playing I’ll just put up the Excel sheet and let others configure to taste. Yeah? Everybody want that?

  5. Russell Borogove Yes it would. I am making a bookmark for myself right now with the DD and up to two derivations on either side, rounding only after all the math is done. It’s pretty interesting. And dead useful.

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