Can Lone Wolf survive?

[prdwong]

I thought it would be interesting to go through the books and calculate just what Lone Wolf's chances for survival are, if he makes the right decisions. Don't know how far I'll get, but it should be an interesting exercise, nevertheless.

I'll probably go through worst-case and best-case initial stat scenarios, so at least we'll be able to see a good lower and upper bound.

Hope everyone enjoys!

[Thomas Wolmer]

Prepare for some tough calculations of what the "right decisions" are. Is it worth it to take some extra risks in book X to get a potion you can use in to improve your chances in book Y? (Or should you save it to book Z instead?) Etc.

Well, that problem is my excuse for never venturing to try to do this, anyway. :-)

[prdwong]

Book 1: Flight from the Dark

First pass: Best path appears to be some variation of the following:

1
->85
->252 (which avoids the Kraan at 229 and the Burrowcrawler at 170)
->200 (which avoids the Gourgaz at 255 and also avoiding the Giaks at 208)
->303 (via 132 & 171)
->265 (see below)
->288/350 (any of the three paths (58/284/135) can be passed with 0 combat/0 damage).

The only problematic area is from 303->72 (Giak + Doomwolf, 15/24), which cannot be totally avoided. Camouflage can take you to 237, which gives you a 50% chance of avoiding the combat. The only alternative to this is to go 97 instead of 200, and that means the dreaded Gourgaz (20/30, no Mindblast).

Best-case initial-stats:

CS: 19, EP:29
It is impossible to die against the Giak + Doomwolf if LW comes in with 19/29.

A ratio of 5 (effective CS 20 or more) means 0% of death for any EP>16
A ratio of 3 (effective CS 18 or more) means 0% of death for any EP>20
A ratio of 1 (effective CS 16 or more) means 0% of death for any EP>30

Obviously, you can help yourself out if you rolled slightly lower stats by picking up Mindblast and Weaponskill.

Worst-case initial stats:

CS: 10, EP: 20
Entering the fight in this condition gives LW a 50.89% chance of death.

You can mitigate this by picking up Mindblast, which drops it down to 24.61% chance of death.
You can further mitigate this by picking up Weaponskill, which could potentially drop it down to 7.63% chance of death. You can essentially pick up the Spear, Axe, Sword, Warhammer, and Quarterstaff for "free" (no combat).

But since we're talking about worst-case initial conditions, we'll assume you land Mace or Broadsword for your Weaponskill; in either case your only chance of picking one up is from the monastery -- worse case initial conditions dictate that you would not find one, nor would you find the Helmet or Chainmail Waistcoat.

This gives you a total of 87.69% chance of surviving Book 1, worst case initial conditions.

It may be of interest that it is actually to your benefit to pick up the appropriate weapon in this book -- it increases your total chance of survival. That would be 347 for the short sword (eventually fighting the Burrowcrawler at 170), and 291 for the dagger (fighting the 2 Giaks at 138 to get there, and then also fighting the Burrowcrawler at 170). Obviously, you'll also want to pick up Healing to try to recoup lost EP before the next (potential) battle.

Skills:
The combination to increase your survival seems to be:
Camouflage: To potentially bypass 72.
Mindblast: To help if you end up at 72.
Weaponskill: To help if you end up at 72.
Healing: To restore EP if your Weaponskill is in Short Sword or Dagger.
Animal Kinship: To avoid the Vordak if your Weaponskill is in Dagger.

Summary:

Book 1: 87.69% - 100% chance of survival.

[Zipp]

At one point i was going through the books seeing how many combats and intstant deaths were in each book. I believe I finished book one, then realized how massive a project this was, threw up in a corner, and stopped this silliness.

By the way, I'm not knocking your project. I love this statistical stuff.

[Peregrine]

prdwong said:

Hope everyone enjoys!

Definitely. I agree with Zipp: it's something I've looked at before and recoiled from, daunted. But I love that someone else is taking the time to do it.

[Sol]

PRDWONG!!!!

YOU ARE AWESOME!

Good luck with your project - I will read it with interest! It will be VERY interesting to see what Lone Wolf's chances turn out to be book-by-book and also taken as a whole! I think it makes sense to select the "strongest" Kai and the "weakest" in order to judge chances.

The big decision could be: Yes, Animal Kinship gives you a free walk through Book 2, but is useless everywhere else I think. I think you get to qualify what the BEST disciplines are. These would be the ones that let you live vs. die... for example, I think Hunting might be needed in Book 3 to up your odds of winning because of the speed advantage. But how to translate these into ideas?

In Book 1, there would be ten-choose-five possible Kai (if you went on disciplines alone). You might also be able to further distinguish (for those who chose Weaponskill) by proficiency. Starting with Book 3, you would have the Sommerswerd, so then Weaponskill could be differentiated into those who have swordskill vs. those who don't. (Assume that the player would DEFINITELY use the Sommerswerd every time... I don't think that is EVER a disadvantage in the Kai series, is it?

prdwong, keep up the awesome work! I think Project Aon should list the odds at the beginning of each online book based on your work. That would be SO COOL!

Sol

[prdwong]

Yeah, at first, I was gonna do all possible initial Lone Wolfs, but that proved to be really, really difficult (by the way, the answer is 0.3637% chance of death for book 1), so I've decided to go ahead with just best/worst. Even that's proving to be fairly difficult too....

I think Animal Kinship DOES let you live in Book 2. Your alternative is to die since you don't have the Magic Spear, or you have to kill the Helghast (which is pretty tough).

I'm not aware of how speed could ever become a factor. If anything, you always want to take the long way around so that your Healing skill has more time to act...

[prdwong]

Book 2: Fire on the Water

First pass: Best path appears to be some variation of the following:

1
->300 (after evading the Harbour Thugs at 348/268)
->240 (potentially having to fight the Drakkar at 326/243, and/or the Giaks at 34/146)
->197 (the dreaded falling mast)
->337 (saving money and Special Items, see below)
->136 (buying the ticket)
->60 (beating up on Halvorc)
->202 (with the Red Pass)
->311 (avoiding 183 and the insta-death trip and fall)
->144 (via Animal Kinship, see below)
->100 (picking up the Sommerswerd)
->66 (fighting the Zombie Captain)
->350

The problematic areas are 136, where you will die unless you have 21 Gold Crowns (although you can attempt to pick some up at 238), and the entire Magic Spear fiasco at 299.

Unfortunately, there's very few opportunities to pick up Gold Crowns if you go through 337 (you probably lose some!). Of course, if you go through 194, you lose all your Gold Crowns, so it may be even harder to work your way up to the requisite 21 Gold Crowns by 136.

For the Magic Spear, I've gone with the version as interpreted in the erratum. You could also go with the version as it was originally printed. The important thing is the ability to have all your gold stolen if you aren't carrying the Magic Spear. The consequences of requiring Lone Wolf to pick up the Magic Spear are too horrible to contemplate, on the order of 2% survival worst case to slightly better than 90% survival absolute best case.

Best-case initial stats:

CS: 19, EP:29, GC: 50
It's possible to be maxed out on Gold Crowns at the beginning of book 2, carrying over from book 1

By the time you hit 240, you could potentially have been involved in 3 battles. Even if you opt to fight the Harbour Thieves to the death, the max EP you could lose is 23. This is assuming you've taken Mindblast, have the appropriate weapon for your Weaponskill, and picked up the Shield.

197 takes us to the dreaded falling mast. Instant 10% chance of death.

At this point, you will want to head to 337 to save any Special Items you like (sans Chainmail Waistcoat, of course). With 50 Gold Crowns, you shouldn't have any problems through the rest of the book. You could even take on the priest if you'd like, and the Zombie Captain will pose no threat at all against the Sommerswerd.

So that's 90% chance of survival for the best case.

The worst-case scenario is giving me a few problems....maybe I can figure it out over the weekend....stupid Gold Crowns...

[Zipp]

By the way, are you doing these assuming that you've beaten prior books?

[prdwong]

For the best-case scenario, if it helps your chances, then yes, I assume you've beaten previous books.

For the worst-case scenario, if it hurts your chances, then yes, I assume you've beaten previous books.

[prdwong]

Book 2: Fire on the Water, cont.

Worst-case initial stats:

CS:10, EP:20, GC:10

It's impossible to die against the Harbour Thugs. You'll want to evade combat as soon as possible, of course, otherwise it is possible to bite the big one.

Unfortunately, you might be hurting after that encounter, so it is possible to die to one of the subsequent battles against the Drakkar and/or Giaks.

Lone Wolf has a 25.15% chance of dying against the Drakkar at 326.
Lone Wolf has a 59.36% chance of dying against the Giaks/Drakkar at 146/34/345. In our worst-case scenario, it happens that it is slightly in Lone Wolf's favor to opt for 34 instead of 146. They both result in the same combat table results (-1 vs. -2), but the Giaks at 34 have 1 less EP.

So, Lone Wolf's total chances of dying before getting to 240 is 14.39%.

Now I need to work my way backwards -- there's one big "battle" for Gold Crowns from 175-186, and I need to get some other questions out of the way first.

It's impossible to die against the Zombie Captain. The power of the Sommerswerd prevails!
It's impossible to die against Halvorc. Even if you go into the fight empty-handed and without your Shield, he can do max 10 damage to you.

So that means that you need 22GC going into 136. You could potentially get away with just 21GC, but that means you would put yourself into instant death territory at 10. 60% chance of instant death = not good.
This also means that you don't need to spend any money buying the appropriate weapon for your weaponskill -- it makes no difference through the rest of the book. And you don't have to worry about keeping your Shield or walking around empty-handed for the rest of the book.

The path through 337 will cause you to lose 1GC (to get to 148), and you can pick up 3GC by fighting the street thieves at 298/131. What you want to do is fight the thugs in the off chance that you kill them and pick up the 3GC. But if you're ever in danger of getting killed by the thugs, then run away! In our worst-case scenario, you want to stop attacking if you drop below 13EP.

The path through 194 will cause you to lose all your Gold Crowns, and then you can pick up 3GC at 86 and 6GC at 231. The best path now is to not have Tracking and go through 276 to pick up 5 more Gold Crowns. This nets you total 14 Gold Crowns going into the gambling "combat" at 238.

So by the time you hit 197, you will want to take route 194 if you have 14 or less Gold Crowns. You will want to go through 337 if you have 15 or more Gold Crowns.

There's a 50% chance that you won't be able to pick up any Gold Crowns from the ship. That translates to 14 Gold Crowns entering 238 and a 1.56% chance of losing all your money and subsequently dying.
The other 50% chance is that you get to gamble your Gold Crowns against either the captain or the crew. It turns out it's in your benefit to gamble against the captain (0.93% chance of losing all your money at 238 vs. 1.00% chance of losing all your money at 238 if you gamble with the crew).

So by my reckoning, there's a 1.24% chance you won't be able to accumulate enough Gold Crowns at 238 and you'll end up dying.

Total odds of dying: 23.91%

Skills:
The combination to increase your survival seems to be:
Animal Kinship: To get your gold stolen.
Mindblast: To fight the first few battles.
Weaponskill: To fight the first few battles.
Healing: To restore EP between the first few battles.
Sixth Sense: To help against gambling vs. the captain.

Summary:
Book 1: 87.69% - 100% chance of survival.
Book 2: 76.09% - 90% chance of survival.

God, I hope the other books are simpler....

[Zipp]

Book 3 shouldn't be too bad, andf I can see Book 4 being less than difficult. Book 5... painful man, painful.

[Zipp]

By the way, for some fun reading with MAJOR SPOILERS that many of us probably remember:

LONE WOLF'S BAD KARMA: FLIGHT FROM THE DARK

A searing pain tears through your right leg as it is twisted and crushed by the weight of your body. Down and down you tumble, until you finally land in a ditch at the base of the hill with such force that the wind is knocked out of you and you lose conciousness. You are awoken by the sharp pain of something stabbing your chest. It proves to be the tip of a Giak spear. You are greeted by the malicious sneer of its owner as he pins your left arm to the ground. Instinctively you reach for your weapon but it is no longer there. Defenceless against the cruel Giaks, the last thing that you see before all light fades is the jagged point of a Giak lance hurtling down towards your throat.
Your mission ends here.

It would seem that the heavens have not heard your prayers. A spear whistles past your head and embeds itself in the neck of your galloping horse. With a shriek of pain, the horse topples forward and you both roll in a tangled heap on the highway. Dazed and pinned down by the weight of the dead body of your horse, the last thing you remember are the sharp penetrating spearheads of the Giak lances.
You have failed in your mission.

The last thing you remember before darkness engulfs you is the flash of a long curved steel knife. You have become yet another victim of the sage and his robber son- the very one who has just slit your throat!
Your quest ends here.

You fly in an arc through the air towards the opposite roof. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion. You see the teeming crowds below in the streets, and a nest of callysparrows in the eaves of a roof to your right. You hear their startled cries as you land with a crash on the other side. But it is the last sound that you will ever hear. The tiles splinter and collapse and you fall through the four floors of the “Green Slipper Inn” breaking your back in several places.
Your mission and your life end here.

After an hour of marching, the Drakkarim suddenly halt as a large, grey scaly creature approaches along the track. As the beast draws closer, you can smell its fetid breath on your face. It lets out a roar and grabs your head in its powerful webbed hands. The last thing you hear is the sharp crack of your spine snapping.
Your quest ends here.

You are dizzy from your wound and you stumble through the trees like a blind man. Suddenly you fall forward s if the ground has been snatched from beneath your feet. You have fallen head first into a hunting pit. As you look up, you can see four Drakkarim levelling thier bows at you, evil sneers spreading simultaneously across their ugly faces. As the world darkens, the last thing yuo feel are the black shafts of their arrows deep in your chest.
You have failed in your mission.

You narrow your eyes and scan the trees for some sign of the hidden archer. Your wait is not a long one, for a moment later a sharp pain tears through your chest and you are thrown back by the force of three arrows. Two of the black shafts have sunk deep into your rib cage, and the third has pierced your thigh. The last thing that you see is the canopy of fern trees above and a large green dragonfly as it settles as on your belt buckle.
You life and your mission end here.

All that remains of you now is embedded five feet into the stairs on which you were standing, beneath a vast granite block.
Your mission and your life end here.

You jump clear of the speeding caravan but land very badly and break your ankle. The pain is terrible and you soon lose conciousness. Unfortunately you never wake up, but it may be of interest to you that your head is now adorning the saddle of a Kraan.
You life and your mission end here.

The room is getting colder. You gradually notice the smell of sulpher in the air. You can hear chanting in the distance. It sounds as if it is somewhere in another part of this cave. A slit in the stone wall opens, and the end of a black staff begins to appear. Suddenly a bolt of blue lightning leaps from the staff and hits you in the chest. As your life slowly drains away, the last thing you see is an old man dressed in black robes raising a dagger above your throat.
Your life and your mission end here.

You feel very weak. The poisen of the snake has entered your bloodstream and you can fell the muscles of your body involuntarily tightening and relaxing. You legs suddenly collapse beneath you and you feel the slimy water of the marsh close over your head.
Your life ends here.

Messengers of death - and ones eager to deliver their news- the Doomwolves surround and then attack you. Valiantly you fight, but it is to no avail for there are too many of them. As your life’s blood seeps away and eternal dark approaches, the last sight you remember is the glint of sunlight on the spires of Holmgard.
You have failed in your mission.

The last thing you experience of this life is the feeling of being sucked in the void of darkness..No trace of you remains in this world, for you have passed into a realm of timeless existence. You have become a slave of an ancient evil.
Your adventure ends here.

The sound of battle gradually fades behind you. Suddenly, you are pulled to the ground. Three Drakkarim have dropped from a tree above. You struggle but it is useless for there are too many of them for you and they are very strong. The last thing that you hear is the vicious snarls of Drakkarim as they raise their spears.
Your life and your mission end here.

[prdwong]

I made a mistake: I forgot that you don't get a free weapon at the beginning of Book 2. So my worst-case Lone Wolf cheated by picking up some unknown weapon, the Chainmail Waistcoat, and the Shield.

Without the Chainmail Waistcoat, Lone Wolf's chances of survival decrease slightly (~0.18%). I've fixed the numbers in the appropriate section above.

[prdwong]

LONE WOLF'S BAD KARMA: FLIGHT FROM THE DARK

You seem to have forgotten sections 327 and 309...