N monsters of level X vs N characters of level X

Li Shenron · Aug 28, 2007

According to some designers, it will be typical in 4e that your average party of N PCs of level X will fight against the same amount of monsters of the same level.

I'm not fully getting this...

Doesn't this mean that each side has 50% chance of winning the battle? Isn't that way too much for the players, who are not supposed to exactly get a TPK every other encounter?

...or do they mean that really a monster of level X will be weaker than a PC of level X? That would result in more reasonable average combat outcome, however it also means that an NPC of class level X is not a "monster" of level X, but something more.

Or am I missing something?

Shieldhaven · Aug 28, 2007

This is a question that has been bothering me a lot since they started discussing monster design. They keep talking about monsters, but "hostile class-based PC races" haven't seemed to be on the horizon here. My campaigns involve a whole lot of opposition from humans and other PC-race individuals. It's not that I think I'm S.O.L.; I'd just like some hints as to how they're handling this. The fact that I can judge the strength NPCs-with-PC-class-levels in this way is one of the great strengths of 3.x combat.

Haven

Malhost Zormaeril · Aug 28, 2007

Li Shenron said:
(snip) Doesn't this mean that each side has 50% chance of winning the battle? Isn't that way too much for the players, who are not supposed to exactly get a TPK every other encounter? (snip)

I expect the PCs will have an edge in that their players are more familiar with them than the DM is with the NPCs du jour, and the fact that five heads think better than one. It's a slight advantage only, I'll allow, but then again failure =/= TPK; I expect PCs will see the better part of valor a lot in this new edition

Regardless, from what I understand, their market research yielded that rarely do DMs set up same-CR encounters for the characters, since the fights take so long; usually, they set up a higher-CR encounter where the party pretty much has that 50/50 chance of winning, and at least drives them much closer to the edge in term of resource exhaustion. So in that case, they're just acknowledging the way the game is usually played anyhow.

Jer · Aug 28, 2007

Li Shenron said:
According to some designers, it will be typical in 4e that your average party of N PCs of level X will fight against the same amount of monsters of the same level.

I'm not fully getting this...

Doesn't this mean that each side has 50% chance of winning the battle? Isn't that way too much for the players, who are not supposed to exactly get a TPK every other encounter?

...or do they mean that really a monster of level X will be weaker than a PC of level X? That would result in more reasonable average combat outcome, however it also means that an NPC of class level X is not a "monster" of level X, but something more.

Actually, I'm hoping it's somewhere in the realm of the former - if I'm throwing 4 5th level monsters at my 4 5th level characters, I actually would like it to be somewhere in the 50-50 range that the players are going to win. Especially if the resource management of "per day" abilities is going to have a smaller impact on the meta-gaming of each encounter -- if I don't have to worry about throwing encounters that "use up 25% of the party's resouces" and instead I can worry about making every encounter into one where they're sweating I'd be a very, very happy guy. (I do this right now in 3e, but all it does is make my players go into "fight-camp-fight" mode as they use up their resources in the first battle and barricade themselves in a room to refresh resources. I can't blame them for doing it, but combat is soooo boring if I balance encounters by the book and we only get to play once a month now - who has time for boring?)

Shieldhaven said:
This is a question that has been bothering me a lot since they started discussing monster design. They keep talking about monsters, but "hostile class-based PC races" haven't seemed to be on the horizon here. My campaigns involve a whole lot of opposition from humans and other PC-race individuals. It's not that I think I'm S.O.L.; I'd just like some hints as to how they're handling this. The fact that I can judge the strength NPCs-with-PC-class-levels in this way is one of the great strengths of 3.x combat.

There is a note over on the on Matthew Sernett's blog in the gleemax forums that might be relevant:

Matthew Sernett's Blog said:
Changing a monster will be easier and more fair that ever. Rather than jumping through hoops and doing a lot of math with uncertain results, you can just look at the numbers for where you want to be and put the monster there. You might get there by adding a class, by "advancing" a monster, by adding a template, or some combination. The key is that you'll know where you need to get to in order to make the monster work right.

No specifics on how this is going to work yet, but there's at least an indication that adding class levels is going to remain an option to making tougher monsters.

I hope that if they're going to be defining monsters by their "roles" in combat that they come up with a good mechanism for determining the "monster level" when you add "class levels" to it. Right now, the CR mechanism has a hack in it that lets you adjust CR differently for character classes that synergize well with a monster's role (like adding fighter levels to an ogre) compared to classes that synergize poorly (like adding sorcerer levels to an ogre). I hope they carry something like that over into the new game - adding fighter levels to a monster with a "brute" role should bump up the "monster level" more than if you throw some wizard levels on the same brute.

grimslade · Aug 28, 2007

Monster level will be slightly weaker than character level for most roles. The Mastermind role will be on par with characters I assume.
It won't be 5 4th level PCs vs 5 CR4 monsters. It will 5 4th level PCs vs 1 mastermind, 1 brute, 1 sneak and 2 mooks. A greater challenge to the party than 1 CR 4 monster but not a coin flip.
Having per encounter abilities will change the whole 3 encounters and then rest mentality. PCs can go longer and do more. Therefore the individual encounters can be more risky and fun.

Li Shenron · Aug 28, 2007

Malhost Zormaeril said:
Regardless, from what I understand, their market research yielded that rarely do DMs set up same-CR encounters for the characters, since the fights take so long; usually, they set up a higher-CR encounter where the party pretty much has that 50/50 chance of winning, and at least drives them much closer to the edge in term of resource exhaustion. So in that case, they're just acknowledging the way the game is usually played anyhow.

Such a market research would be quite flawed unless coupled with information about how is character creation handled. Because from what I've heard on EnWorld most gaming groups setup PC creation in "high-powered mode", almost always giving the players something MORE than the default of the PHB.

Then the DM has to use stronger monsters to keep the challenge, but also gives XP according to the new CR, and then wonder why levelling up is so fast

Li Shenron · Aug 28, 2007

Jer said:
Actually, I'm hoping it's somewhere in the realm of the former - if I'm throwing 4 5th level monsters at my 4 5th level characters, I actually would like it to be somewhere in the 50-50 range that the players are going to win.

Mmm... are you really sure what I am thinking about?

50% chance that the party "wins" means that all the monsters are killed, but doesn't mean that all PCs will live.

In a fight with 50-50 chance of winning, the probability that the 1 or more characters die is much higher than 50%, perhaps even 80% or more... Such a balanced encounter is most probably going to end with 1 character only standing for the winning side.

I don't think this is what players really enjoy in a campaign, it would work only in one-shot games.

Li Shenron · Aug 28, 2007

Malhost Zormaeril said:
I expect the PCs will have an edge in that their players are more familiar with them than the DM is with the NPCs du jour, and the fact that five heads think better than one.

It could be true but IMHO it's a dangerous assumption.

Malhost Zormaeril said:
It's a slight advantage only, I'll allow, but then again failure =/= TPK; I expect PCs will see the better part of valor a lot in this new edition

Well I would say that failure = 1 or more character deaths, but maybe 4e is going to make resurrection very easy...

frankthedm · Aug 28, 2007

Li Shenron said:
Doesn't this mean that each side has 50% chance of winning the battle?

What is wrong with a fair fight?

ruleslawyer · Aug 28, 2007

The problem with a "fair fight" between PCs and monsters, to paraphrase an old salt, is this:

The monsters can lose as many times as needed. The PCs can only lose once.

I have no problem with 50/50 odds in a boss fight, but ONLY in a boss fight. Standard encounter odds should run much, much lower, or the PCs' odds of surviving, say, four encounters drops to 6.25%. That may be fine, if you fudge, but most DMs here seem to be very strongly against fudging.