Troll Lord
First Post
I'm very late to this party, but I've come to realize the value of damage reduction.
Our ongoing game has reached about 9th level and these guys can deal out some pain, particularly when the mage is forced into a corner and casts just damage dealing spells like magic missile (always hits, etc etc). And even more so if we have a full table of six players. On average I think they are hitting 30 odd points of damage a round.
I've done the traditional have more enemies, and last week I really ramped things up with a 25 hit dice monster, that regenerated. It could take the pain they delivered but in C&C that 25 hit dice means I have a +25 to hit, which basically means I hit every round. And I was dealing out the pain, more so than the characters could withstand. They did manage the fight, but everyone thought the game was up, until a few nat 20s turned the tide. The battle was a little frustrating for the players because they knew when it was aiming at them, it would hit, unless a 1 was rolled.
But this week I tried something different. I kept a low hit dice, 12, but gave it massive damage reduction, basically all damage the characters did was cut in half. This had the same affect of making it challenging, but didn't come with a guarantee hit each round.
I'm not sure why I am so late to this party, but I liked it!
On a side note, on that regeneration, it hit me when I was doing experience points that I should add those regenerated hit points to the creatures hit point total, so that increased the monster's value.
Steve
Our ongoing game has reached about 9th level and these guys can deal out some pain, particularly when the mage is forced into a corner and casts just damage dealing spells like magic missile (always hits, etc etc). And even more so if we have a full table of six players. On average I think they are hitting 30 odd points of damage a round.
I've done the traditional have more enemies, and last week I really ramped things up with a 25 hit dice monster, that regenerated. It could take the pain they delivered but in C&C that 25 hit dice means I have a +25 to hit, which basically means I hit every round. And I was dealing out the pain, more so than the characters could withstand. They did manage the fight, but everyone thought the game was up, until a few nat 20s turned the tide. The battle was a little frustrating for the players because they knew when it was aiming at them, it would hit, unless a 1 was rolled.
But this week I tried something different. I kept a low hit dice, 12, but gave it massive damage reduction, basically all damage the characters did was cut in half. This had the same affect of making it challenging, but didn't come with a guarantee hit each round.
I'm not sure why I am so late to this party, but I liked it!
On a side note, on that regeneration, it hit me when I was doing experience points that I should add those regenerated hit points to the creatures hit point total, so that increased the monster's value.
Steve
