Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (book recommendations txt) 📖

All of which didn’t really help him understand.  What do you mean by these Stars?  It sounds a little familiar for some reason, but I can’t place it.

“As a former Hero, this should be common—oh, never mind,” Dwight started to say, before cutting herself off again.  At least it felt like she was catching on to the change in her explanations a little faster than before.  After a very dramatic – and unnecessary – sigh, she went on to explain:

“Star ratings are a way for Heroes to understand the general difficulty of a monster or trap that they may encounter.  They tend to coincide with the Tiers of Heroes, so that a common cluster of 1-Star monsters can easily be defeated by a standard group of 5 Heroes that are Tier 1 Classes.”

That made a little more sense to Clay.  While he wasn’t very knowledgeable about Heroes, he was aware that they were ranked by different Tiers, with Tier 0 being a brand-new Hero without a Class quite yet, and Tier 10 being exceedingly powerful.  Other than knowing that they somehow increased these Tiers by fighting through dungeons, he was totally ignorant of the process.

“10-Star monsters are some of the most powerful, fiercest, and deadliest creatures ever created, and are usually a difficult fight even for a full group of Tier 10 Heroes.”

The mention of a 10-Star monster brought that inkling of a memory back to the forefront of his mind; after a half-second of contemplation, he figured out why it was familiar.

That Giant Ogress that killed me was a…11-Star?  I think?  Everything was happening so fast at that point that I may not have remembered correctly.

“You are absolutely correct.  All World Threats are classified as 11-Star monsters, but once you progress past 10-Star – which is the maximum that exists within a dungeon – many of the rules that govern dungeon-based monsters are null and void.  It is difficult to assess how powerful these World Threats are, because of their different natures.  Instead, they are evaluated on how much of a potential threat they might be for the current area.  If I remember correctly, a Giant Ogress is considered a ‘Low’ threat, which could account for the fact that no Heroes died while fighting it.”

If that was a Low threat, I absolutely do not want to see what a High threat is.

“No, you do not.”  Dwight got back to her explanation after his interruption.  “As for traps, which are designed to test the strength, speed, and smarts of Heroes, their difficulty is also ranked by Stars.  For example, a 1-Star Pit Trap will be extremely obvious to just about any Hero looking at it, whereas a 10-Star Pit Trap might be absolutely invisible to all but the highest-Tier Scout-type Class using their abilities to search it out.  In addition, while the 1-Star Pit Trap might just be a simple thin layer of stone that collapses when enough weight is placed upon it, the 10-Star Pit Trap might have an effect on it that draws its victims near and then sends out stone hands to drag them down inside a deeper, deadlier pit.”

Sounds…great.  He still wasn’t quite down for attempting to kill people, but if it made them stronger and capable of defeating a World Threat, he supposed it was necessary…if distasteful.  And how does all of this work?  When I “purchase” one of these spawn eggs, is everything random chance?

“Not precisely.  There are different likelihoods of something appearing when you open a Spawn Egg—"

Wait; do you mean probabilities?

Dwight paused for a moment, apparently confused at his interruption.  “Well, of course.  Everything is determined by probabilities—”

I love probabilities!  I never really got a chance to use them too much in the store, but I’ve always had a fascination with them.  For instance, I had a theory that the chance of someone receiving a Tier 0 Class Orb was based wholly on probabilities instead of some random occurrence—

“It is,” Dwight said, cutting him off with a bit of an exasperated tone.  “It’s based on a massive amount of variables that I’m not going to go into because it’s not important right now, but the appearance of Tier 0 Class Orbs is wholly based on probabilities, rather than on entirely random chance.”

Now, that was awesome to hear.  He had always suspected that was the case, though he didn’t have nearly enough information to hazard a guess at how the probabilities worked.  That, and he’d never had any formal training in probabilities or statistical analysis, but that didn’t lessen his fascination with the subject.

“Right, now, as I was saying—”

Do you know the probabilities for each Spawn Egg?  Clay thought it would be nice to see something like that, so that he could make a better-informed decision in the future.

“What?  Well, yes, but it’s not something that is typically shared…”

Well, as you well know, this situation we’re in isn’t exactly typical.

The baby dragonling actually froze in the middle of the air again and Clay thought that time had frozen again; a quick check outside showed that not to be the case, however, and only a second or two went by before Dwight was back to normal.

“Fine, if it will make you happy enough that I can proceed with my explanation…here.”

Suddenly, an image appeared in his vision of its own volition, and he stared at it, highly fascinated.[1]  To think that such seemingly simple acts can be broken down by complex calculations is amazing.

The chart he was looking at had a breakdown of each Spawn Egg and the probability of a certain Star Rating being summoned for each one opened.  For instance, with a Common Spawn Egg, there was nearly an 85% chance that a 1-Star monster would appear; there was also a