Ring of Shooting Stars weirdness

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Ok, a PC in my game found a ring of shooting stars. Cool item. Haven't really seen one in play in decades though, so reading back up on it I noticed something odd. It says that, using the spark shower power (love that rhyme!), the effect does 4d4 damage to anyone wearing or wielding metal, and "only" 2d8 if the victim has no metal armor or weapon.

That's sort of odd to me. 4d4 gives a range of 4-16 pts. of damage, with an average of 10 pts. while 2d8 does 2-16 pts. of damage with an average of 9 pts.

We're talking about identical max damage (16 pts in either case), and just 1 pt. difference on average (9 vs 10 pts).

Is there really a need for such a minor distinction? I mean, rarely is the minimum or maximum rolled, so I usually judge it by the average damage. A 1 pt difference (to me) isn't worth differentiating over two different dice rolls due to the absence or presence of armor. Does this make sense to anyone else?

[Mira]

I don't know why, but I'd see similar stuff all the time, where they somehow think that rolling 2d4 vs 1d8 was a big deal. I always preferred the 1d8 because you had better odds of getting that max damage. But the authors seemed to think 2d4 was better.

I think that's what's going on here. They don't stop to think that with 4d4, you pretty much will always do average, whereas with 2d8 you have more variation. (plus d4s are a pain anyways) I'd think making it just one or the other just to simplify it and not have to worry about the user of it asking all the time about metal armor.

Mira (The sooner you fall behind the more time you'll have to catch up)

[garhkal]

Maybe it was supposed to be 2d4 vs no armor, 4d4 vs armor..