Combat Frequency

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[edit] Premise

When adventuring in a location, the game first decides whether you receive a combat or non-combat encounter. Each location has a fixed chance of yielding a combat encounter, independent of the ratio of combat to non-combat encounters available in that area (according to Jick). This ratio is, however, modified by the Adventure Queue.

[edit] Superlikely

There is an important class of encounters, labeled "superlikely," whose frequency is exactly 1/4, unaffected by Combat Frequency modifiers. These are hypothesized to be superlikely:

• mosquito larva
• pool cue
• rusty screwdriver
• Artist's items: the pail of pretentious paint, pretentious paintbrush, and pretentious palette
• The five maps: the Slug Lord's map, the Dolphin King's map, the Spooky Temple map, the Dr. Hobo's map, and the Hey Deze map.
• S.O.C.K.

This item is also thought to be superlikely, but as it only occurs in a situation that is all non-combat, the frequency modifier is certainly irrelevant:

• plus sign

Some important regular non-combat adventures are one-time only; go ahead and use combat modifiers to hasten their occurrence:

• Deep Fat Friars' Gate Quest items
• Airship Immateria

If an adventure is superlikely, we can use the geometric distribution to find how many adventures to expect before the adventure appears:

One out of four runs, you will get the adventure on the first try; on 90% of runs you will get the adventure on or before the eighth try. Taking 17 or more adventures should happen on fewer than one out of 100 ascensions. So now you know exactly how much you are entitled to gripe.

[edit] Practical Uses

Some items in the game alter the frequency of combat encounters relative to non-combat encounters. Here's a comprehensive list of everything in the game known to affect these frequencies. According to a radio show by Jick, each of these items directly alters the chance by 5% in the appropriate direction -- for example, using monster bait in an area normally having a 50% chance of combat will result in 55% combat adventures. The only frequency modifier that does not follow this rule is the Jumpsuited Hound Dog, which boosts combats relative to its weight. Presumably, they have no effect in areas which are entirely combat or entirely non-combat.

Important note: As of NS13, increasing monster level via most equipment or enchantments removes a fraction of any net non-combat frequency modifier (i.e., the base combat rate is not modified, but the non-combat frequency modifier can be partially or totally removed). The full details are at the Monster Level page.

[edit] Notes

• The effects stack, so it's possible to have five combat increasers and receive a 25% bonus; it's possible to have +29% non-combat bonus with all six modifiers (including a +5 ML effect); effects appear to stack as per simple arithmetic even when mixing combat and non-combat modifiers.
• There is no cap: the full -29% or +25% modifiers can be applied at once.
• The effects are not mutually exclusive, so having four combat increasers and four non-combat increases will result in a net 0% change. Any ML effect is ignored in this case, as the mechanic works on net non-combat modifiers.
• Combat modifiers do not affect superlikely encounters.
• It is possible in some areas to completely eliminate one type of encounter. For example, the Penultimate Fantasy Airship has 80% combat; using four combat increasers will give you a 100% combat rate, eliminating the Random Lack of an Encounter adventure and any Immateria that you don't have yet.

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