I took out quite a few people will only backstab as well. Not just mages, got a few DK's that way to. Of course, you have to be decked to the teeth to do it.
Rangers ambush
was that with or without them fleeing into a trap? Cause I always quaffed a rec (if I wasnt gagged) when beeing surprised by a thief.
That was strait up dual backstab, they never had the chance to flee.
Backstab damage is based on damroll (I think, not 100% on this one), so it's quite plausible, with the right equip/weapons/cabal, to 1 hit ko somebody, especially if there is a vuln.
With regards to math, well...
Although in 'standard theory', a coin flipped has a 50/50 chance to land on each side, if you actually attempt to prove this theory, you'll find it impossible. However, the more times you flip, the closer the coin gets to landing on heads half the time, on tails half the time. But, you never reach the 50/50 point, although you get closer and closer. Say, with 100 flips, you might have 55/45, with 1000 flips, 520/480, with 10000 flips, 5100/4900, and so on and so forth, until you asymptotically approach 50%, but that's only when you make an infinite number of flips. Or at least, that's what we were taught in Calculus.
So technically speaking, although in theory, a coin flipped has a 50/50 chance to land on each side, in actuality and reality, you'll never reach it.
That, and as was mentioned, there IS the possibility of the coin landing on edge, say, being stuck in a crack. Which throws another wrench into the monkeyworks.
EDIT: Dammit! I had it all typed out, and he beat me to it!
Double edit: About the original post, though, one of the posters was right in saying that it's based on the same reasoning as thieves; ambushing at low hp would be too powerful. One of the weaknesses of rangers is that against flying opponents, then can find it hard to finish people off; ambushing at low hp would remove this weakness.
I'm not trying to get into a math debate with anyone here(though i could hold my own) I've experienced that what the coin will land on often is exactly what it was on before flipped whether it be heads or tails....maybe it's a physics thing. not saying it's a written in stone situation but it always happens to me, whatever i want it to land on i make sure it is on before i flip.
Oh and i've seen dual backstabs kill at fifty, don't actually have a log of it but i saw it! I swear....LOL
there are two sides of the coin. its 50/50, always.
Dual backstabs can kill. Let's put standard non-warrior/berserker HP at around 800'ish.
With enough damroll, and a strong enough weapon, unless they have extreme AC, a backstab can easily hit an unspeakable on an unsanced, sleeping target (there are ways for thieves to remove sanctuary), which does over four hundred damage; the second backstab hits for less, but still an annihilate/eradicate, which is at least 300 damage or so, adding up to at least 700 damage or so; from my own experiences, DK's have around 850 hp, for humans/avians, tops. If they survive that, the autothrow on wimpy can hit for a mangle or so, in my experience, which is close to around 80-100 damage; then add in a trap. Bam. Done.
Add in a certain cabal power (let's not discuss more than that), and it can easily be boosted higher.
I've had an unspeak and disin land on my elf warrior, I crawled away witharound 80hp
there are two sides of the coin. its 50/50' date=' always.[/quote']
No it's not :-P. Listen, even if you ignore the fact that it asymptotically approaches 50/50, but never reaches it, look at the surface area. Although the majority of the surface area is on the sides of the coin, the edge, as well, possess a small surface area, giving it a chance, no matter how infinitely small, of landing on edge.
I took out quite a few people will only backstab as well. Not just mages' date=' got a few DK's that way to. Of course, you have to be decked to the teeth to do it.[/quote']
I bet one of those dk's was me too.
HA! he's right
And all i was trying to get at is it can be fixed so that even with two sides, and the edge, it will land on what ever you started on....OK people start flipping
Going with Raargant's theory, in coin flips, let's say there will be a 49.00009:49.00009:.00002 ratio of frequency of the coin landing on heads, tails and its side, respectively. With each coin flip, assuming you do not change coins, assuming that you toss with an equal force each time, and assuming that the shape of the coin (miniscule denting, etc.) does not change with each flip, you are still flipping with the same original probability of landing on heads, tails, or the side. There is no reason why each flip would become progressively closer to landing on one or the other, because there is no outside force/energy being weakened/used with each flip. There is an equal chance at the beginning, and when the coin is tossed each time, that chance remains the same.
First of all, it would be 49.99999, 49.99999, 0.00002, not 49.00009, 49.0009.
Secondly, it's not about chance. It's about statistics.
The larger a sample is, the more statistically accurate it is. For example, if you only flip the coin once, and it lands on heads, that means that for your experiment, the coin landed on heads 100% of the time.
Therefore, the more flips you do to prove the theory that it's a 50/50 percent chance, the closer you get to actual evidence that it lands by 50/50.
Again, it's statistical, not theoretical, in terms of conducting experiments like this.
Haha, hit the wrong button a bunch of times. They're right next to each other. 
What you two are arguing really has nothing to do with what Zrothum was saying, so this isnt a reply to that. In reference to Zrothum, if you flip the coin 10 times and get heads each time, yes, you have a greater chance of getting tails than 50% the next time. Probability compounds. In other words, the likeliness of getting heads 5 times in a row is not 50%, there is a lower probability of getting heads each time you flip.
That's false. If I flip a coin 4 times, and each time it is heads, that doesn't mean the coin changes shape so that tails are more likely the next time I flip it. The events are unlinked. The reason you're confused is that each flip has a likelihood of 50%, so the TOTAL probability at the beginning of getting 5 heads in a row is lower than 50%, but each individual flip is still 50%. Each coin can be heads or tails an infinite number of times.
Everyone flippin coins yet..?
Tom is right.
The coin has no memory of how many times its been flipped. The probability does not change.
And Raargant is right. Certain skills are actually weaker when you're opponent is weaker for balance reasons. If you think about it, it makes sense since most likely that damage is percentage based damage.
Example: Paladin Wrath. Help file states that it loses power as your opponent weakens. Easiest way to do that is obviously % of opponent's hp damage; i.e. (picking a random figure) If it does 30% of opponent's health damage, 30% of 900hp, or 270 hp, is far stronger than 30% of 200hp, or 60hp. I'd assume other classes have similar limitations.