## Numenera – Higher than expected Health on NPCs

I’m looking to understand the Health inflation commonly printed in Cypher System material (Often in module adventures, or in the little sidebars when describing setting NPCs)

In Numenera Health (HP) is generally determined by the standard Target Number

Numenera – Discovery, p 222 (Also the same in 1st Edition)

Health: A creature’s target number is usually also its health, which is the amount of damage it can sustain before it is dead or incapacitated. For easy reference, the entries always list a creature’s health, even when it’s the normal amount for a creature of its level.

Which is 3 x the Difficultly level, just for reference.

The designers elude to a caveat that sometimes monsters will just break the usual defined health often for a much higher number. I recall somewhere in 1st Ed Numenera making reference to doing this to provide more challenging combats to higher tier characters.

A brief glossing of Discovery / Destiny I’ve grabbed some examples:

• Discovery p 367 – Teratoma – Level: 3 HP: 12
• Discovery p 381 – Octopus- Level: 3 HP: 15
• Discovery p 369 – Teratoma (M) – Level: 4 HP: 15
• Destiny p 371 – Assassin – Level: 4 HP: 20
• Discovery p 375 – Weymel – Level: 5 HP: 20
• Discovery p 385 – Latos – Level: 5 HP: 25
• Destiny p 389 – Halcus – Level: 5 HP: 20
• Destiny p 389 – Drayva – Level: 5 HP: 20
• Destiny p 362 – Khagun Semper – Level: 5 HP: 26
• Destiny p 373 – Soludi – Level: 6 HP: 24
• Destiny p 398 – Heri – Level: 6 HP: 27
• Destiny p 398 – Scrose – Level: 7 HP: 30

There are many, many more examples spread through out Cypher Systems, OG-Numenera, Discovery, Destiny, The Strange, and Predation. And they are not one offs or used liberally, HP inflation is extremely common. As you can seen from just this small list here creatures range from Boss encounter to lowly random animals with no rhyme or reason I can perceive. Across all level ranges.

My question is Why? Is there any systematic process for doing this? Is the standard HP suggested in the Creature section just too low? I’m looking for any notes from the designer, or even personal GM experience to help gauge what is the appropriate amount of HP one should be assigning to combatants.

## Programming Test for a job in Game Dev – expected levels of documentation etc

If this is the wrong place to be asking this – please let me know and I’ll happily ask it somewhere else!

I am completing a C++ Proficiency test for a “Junior Engine Programmer” role at a game studio in the UK. The test involves creating a pathfinding demo and rendering it to the screen. I won’t go too into the details of the test, but the brief doesn’t mention any documentation or unit testing etc.

I’ve been told by a lecturer I should definitely include both of those, despite not being asked, and by another that I should use my time more wisely to make a great implementation. What is the done thing here? The only thing close that the brief mentions is making clear where I’ve used other libraries.

Is there anything else I should consider submitting with the implementation as well? Thinking of technical specification such as class diagrams etc, or anything really.

Thanks!

## Expected value of gcd

There are N individual participants in a coding contest, with ids from 1 to N. No two participants know each other. A change.was made at the last minute, which made it mandatory to form teams of exactly 2 persons. To allow team formation, a matching phase was created which runs for 24 hours. All possible combinations of teams are recorded in a database along with their expected score in the contest, which is the GCD of their IDs. The organisers are interested in finding out the sum of expected scores of all teams.

Can anyone give me an idea how to solve it.

## How to calculate the expected damage increase from Empowered Spell?

In D&D 5th Edition the Sorcerer Metamagic ability Empowered Spell states the following:

“When you roll damage for a spell, you can spend 1 sorcery point to reroll a number of the damage dice up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one). You must use the new rolls.”

How do you calculate the increase in the average damage when you use this ability? It seems to me you would use this to only reroll dice that came up 3 or less however you have less of a chance of increasing your damage when you reroll a 3 than when you reroll a 1.

I know something of probability from playing tabletops for so long but figuring this out is beyond me.

## Expected length of a random walk on a line

I am given the following randomized algorithm for SAT,

• Input: A satisfiable CNF-formula $$\varphi$$.
• Output: An assignment $$\rho$$, such that $$\rho \models \varphi$$.

The algorithm works as follow:

1. Choose an arbitrary assignment $$\rho$$.
2. As long as $$\rho \not \models \varphi$$
1. Choose a clause in $$\varphi$$ not satisfied by $$\rho$$ uniformly at random.
2. Choose a variable $$x\in_{u.a.r}\operatorname{VAR}(C)$$.
3. Flip the value of $$\rho(x)$$ (set $$\rho(x) = \overline{\rho(x)}$$).

We have to prove that for a 2-CNF Formula, the algorithm has polynomial expected running time.

I have proven that for a fixed assignment $$\alpha$$, such taht $$\alpha \models \varphi$$, with probability $$p \geq 1/2$$, after each iteration the number of variables that are assigned different values in $$\alpha$$ and $$\rho$$ decrease by one. With probability $$1-p$$, the assignments $$\rho$$ and $$\alpha$$ differ at one extra variable.

Now I have to prove, that the algorithm finished in expected polynomial number of steps. I was able to add one more step of abstraction. Let $$X_i$$ be the random variable that indicates the number of steps needed to make $$\rho = \alpha$$, when $$\rho$$ and $$\alpha$$ differ by exactly $$i$$ variables. Then it holds that $$E[X_i] = 1 + p E[X_{i-1}] + (1-p) E[X_{i+1}],$$ and $$X_i \leq X_{i+1}$$ for all $$i$$ and $$E[X_0]$$ is equal to 0. We need to find a polynomial bound for $$E[X_i]$$.

Since $$p\geq 1/2$$ and $$X_i \leq X_{i+1}$$, the following must hold $$E[X_i] \leq 1 + \frac{E[X_{i-1}] + E[X_{i-1}]}{2}$$

Now this can bee seen as walking on the integer line, in each step we move either one step to the left or one step to the right and the probability of moving to the left is at least one half. We have to prove that in expected polynomial many steps (polynomial in the starting position), we reach the number $$0$$ on the line.

Any help on this problem is very appreciated 🙂

## Expected number of retransmissions for a packet

In a communication link out of p packets one packet will be lost. If stop and wait protocol is used then expected number of retransmissions for a packet?

(A) P/(1-P)

(B) P

(C) 1/(1-P)

(D) 1/P

This has already been answered here Stop and Wait retransmission of packets? but I dont have enough reputation to comment there, hence posting this as a separate question.

the expected number of packets you need to send is $$\frac{1}{(1−1/p)}=\frac{p}{(p−1)}$$

But this seems a bit absurd because this is a negative number. Is the solution incorrect?

## Doubt in expected number of probes in successful seach in open address hashing

My attempt:

I need to find exected number of probes in case of successful search. I am assuming, n elements and m slots in hash table

E(# of probes) = average of {1st probe success , 2nd probe success, …. nth probe success} over n

$$i^{th}$$ probe success = $$(i-1)$$ probes unsuccessful and ith probe successful = probability that (i-1) probes unsuccesful and last probe successful = $$(\alpha^{(i-1)})* \alpha$$ –> Is this correct???

I am taking, probability that i-1 slots are filled up and those elements inside them are not equal to key k(unsuccesful) = $$(\alpha^{(i-1)})$$

taking forward,

E(# of probes) = $$\frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n i*\alpha^i \neq \frac{1}{\alpha} \ln \frac{1}{1-\alpha}$$

## LINQ to SharePoint 2016 : Value does not fall within the expected range

I have a Dev and a Production SharePoint 2016 environment. For CRUD with lists I am using LINQ to SharePoint (SPMetal) generated classes. I have a list where 27 columns are Person Type. In my dev(http://sp2016/) environment the list is in root/main site but in Prod it is in subsite (https://sp2016/leaveauto). In both environment I have increased the Resource throttling value from 8 to 50 for Lookup View field. From the list I am taking a Person’s Id value (column name: HOD) from a specific Person type column with below code

using (MyDataContext objDataContext = new MyDataContext(_webUrl))                     {                         try                         {                             int approverId = objDataContext.ApproverInfo.FirstOrDefault(x => (string.Compare(x.DeptID,deptId)==0) && (string.Compare(x.Location, location)==0)).HODId;                         }                         catch (Exception ex)                         {                             throw;                         }                     } 

here, HODId is LINQ to SharePoint generated column for HOD and deptId & location values I am passing with parameter.

In Dev environment it is working fine, but in Prod it is giving below error

{System.ArgumentException: Value does not fall within the expected range.    at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFieldMap.GetColumnNumber(String strFieldName, Boolean bThrow)    at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItemCollection.GetColumnNumber(String groupName, Boolean bThrowException)    at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.GetValue(SPField fld, Int32 columnNumber, Boolean bRaw, Boolean bThrowException)    at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.get_Item(String fieldName)    at Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.PropertyMap.GetSPFieldValue(PropertyMap pm, SPListItem item, JoinPath joinPath)    at Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.SPItemMappingInfo.MaterializeEntity[TEntity](DataContext dc, SPDataList list, SPListItem item, SPItemMappingInfo itemMappingInfo, JoinPath joinPath)    at lambda_method(Closure , SPListItem )    at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereSelectEnumerableIterator2.MoveNext()    at System.Linq.Enumerable.FirstOrDefault[TSource](IEnumerable1 source, Func2 predicate)    at Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.SPLinqProvider.Execute[T](Expression expression)    at ShopSignboard.lib.Utility.FindNonFinancialApprover(String approvalStatus, String deptId, String location)} `

How can I solve this problem?

## Expected value of next CPU burst using exponential averaging

The burst time is needed for Shortest Job First (SJF) and Shortest Run Time First (SRTF) scheduling. To get the approximate burst time, we use the equation $$\tau_{n + 1} = t_n + (1 – \alpha)\tau_n$$

I want to ask whether $$\tau_{n + 1}$$ is the predicted burst time of the $$n + 1$$ th process or it is the predicted burst time of some process say p which is demanding the CPU for the $$n + 1$$ th time.