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<blockquote data-quote="MostlyDm" data-source="post: 7012593" data-attributes="member: 6788973"><p>I would argue that damage and HP can affect BA, just not as directly and obviously as attack/defense. My argument for this is long, so bear with me (if you care.)</p><p></p><p>In general, damage does not actually keep up with HP. I think this is intentional. </p><p></p><p>The basic way people see HP is: At low levels, you are a squishy nobody who can be killed by an unlucky axe swing from an orc. At high levels, you have the grit/luck/toughness/etc. to withstand that...orcs are nothing! You're a superhero. And now you don't fight orcs, you fight Dragons (or, perhaps, Infernal Orcs of the Adamantine Fist, though that's not my preference). And, people presume, Dragons can now kill you with an unlucky breath weapon or chomp or whatever.</p><p></p><p>Because, I think due to the last 2 D&D editions and a healthy dose of video game advancement design, people assume the game is supposed to fundamentally play the same at all levels. At high level you have Bigger Numbers and more widgets and doodads, but it's all the same thing really.</p><p></p><p>But I think this is a faulty assumption for 5e. If you look at the MM, damage really doesn't keep up with HP. As soon as PCs get a few levels under their belt, they become fundamentally more resilient, even against high level threats... if those threats are individual, anyway. This is part of why you can see players shredding high CR monsters, e.g. a party of 11s defeating an ancient dragon or a Pit Fiend or whatever.</p><p></p><p>And this is why multiple low CR threats are often much worse. A CR 10 monster <em>does not</em> deal 10 times the damage a CR 1 monster deals, most of the time. So ten CR1 monsters will actually rip a party apart faster in many cases. CR 1 is high enough for a decent HP pool, one large enough that even high level PCs will not typically be able to kill in one hit unless they are dropping resources on the hit. Because, as I keep saying, damage and HP don't scale equally.</p><p></p><p>So... given that he can't just one-shot them, for a high CR monster to be a true threat to high level PCs, it has to be clever and use battlefield control, attack denial, hit-and-run, and things like that. </p><p></p><p>That's all just... facts about the game, basically. The assumptions that, to some extent, I think you don't like and want to change with this project. You want powerful "solo" monsters that hit so hard they can level a PC in a blow or too, and can take a pounding of nova powers and keep trucking. I get it. But...</p><p></p><p>The reason I say that this is a Bounded Accuracy issue is... the same way that a pack of low CR monsters can actually still threaten higher level PCs when handled carefully, so too can a party of low level characters threaten a high CR monster when handled carefully. If the party is the one using maximal battlefield control, denial, hit and run, etc. they can potentially punch high above their weight class.</p><p></p><p>And I think that is actually the most fun and exciting thing that ever happens in any D&D combat, ever, throughout every edition of the game. That's the stuff legendary table stories are made of. The time the level 7 party stopped a Pit Fiend. The time the level 3 half-orc took a fire breath and kept standing (thanks [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION]). </p><p></p><p>What you guys seem to want is a way to have those fights, but have them bound within the "proper" CRs. So you have an epic fight with a Balor when you are the appropriate level 16 or so, just a few levels shy of the CR so it still feels kinda like you're in over your heads. This is the "solo" monster mindset, basically. </p><p></p><p>But monsters feel like "solos" when they're tough enough to nearly drop you in a hit, and sustain several hits from your whole party. To get that, you need a monster of higher CR than the party... and as the party level increases, you actually need the CR disparity to be bigger and bigger. So a CR 3 Veteran can achieve this for a party of level 1 characters, but a single CR 7 Illithid isn't going to scare a party of 5th level PCs the same way. Well, maybe a bad example, because brain extraction, but he'd have to be fairly lucky to pull it off. Certainly a CR 19 Balor is not scary in this way to a party of level 17s.</p><p></p><p>To do it, you'd need to dramatically buff high level monsters. Or, what you should really do: recognize that as the party gets higher level, challenging "solos" will become harder to find, so make more of them. A solo for a level 15 party isn't a CR 19 monster. It's a CR 25 monster. By 15th level, if the party wants to be challenged and killed by a solo monster, they need to be going after demon princes and stuff like that. Level 20 isn't really the gateway to "Epic play" like in 3e and 4e. It's the <em>end.</em> </p><p></p><p>The party that wants a more grounded, less epic game, can do one of two things: accept that high level PCs need multiple threats, or accept that they don't want to play at high level.</p><p></p><p>Your goal is basically to buff monsters so that you can always have that "solo a couple CRs above the party" feel. Since damage and HP don't scale in a way that allows this, you have to supercharge damage and HP. But when you supercharge monster HP and especially damage, you can create a "Level X Need Not Apply" barrier the same way monsters with AC 47 did in 3rd and 4th edition. So now we're back to no ability to punch super high above your weight class, regardless of tactics. </p><p></p><p>As a DM who favors open worlds without sculpted encounter zones and scaling CR story quests, a lack of "Level X Need Not Apply" signs is especially important to me. I get that my style isn't for everyone, and more tightly scripted games that employ Level Appropriate Encounters could find this useful. But that's what I meant when I said I felt the design was a betrayal of the spirit of Bounded Accuracy.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MostlyDm, post: 7012593, member: 6788973"] I would argue that damage and HP can affect BA, just not as directly and obviously as attack/defense. My argument for this is long, so bear with me (if you care.) In general, damage does not actually keep up with HP. I think this is intentional. The basic way people see HP is: At low levels, you are a squishy nobody who can be killed by an unlucky axe swing from an orc. At high levels, you have the grit/luck/toughness/etc. to withstand that...orcs are nothing! You're a superhero. And now you don't fight orcs, you fight Dragons (or, perhaps, Infernal Orcs of the Adamantine Fist, though that's not my preference). And, people presume, Dragons can now kill you with an unlucky breath weapon or chomp or whatever. Because, I think due to the last 2 D&D editions and a healthy dose of video game advancement design, people assume the game is supposed to fundamentally play the same at all levels. At high level you have Bigger Numbers and more widgets and doodads, but it's all the same thing really. But I think this is a faulty assumption for 5e. If you look at the MM, damage really doesn't keep up with HP. As soon as PCs get a few levels under their belt, they become fundamentally more resilient, even against high level threats... if those threats are individual, anyway. This is part of why you can see players shredding high CR monsters, e.g. a party of 11s defeating an ancient dragon or a Pit Fiend or whatever. And this is why multiple low CR threats are often much worse. A CR 10 monster [I]does not[/I] deal 10 times the damage a CR 1 monster deals, most of the time. So ten CR1 monsters will actually rip a party apart faster in many cases. CR 1 is high enough for a decent HP pool, one large enough that even high level PCs will not typically be able to kill in one hit unless they are dropping resources on the hit. Because, as I keep saying, damage and HP don't scale equally. So... given that he can't just one-shot them, for a high CR monster to be a true threat to high level PCs, it has to be clever and use battlefield control, attack denial, hit-and-run, and things like that. That's all just... facts about the game, basically. The assumptions that, to some extent, I think you don't like and want to change with this project. You want powerful "solo" monsters that hit so hard they can level a PC in a blow or too, and can take a pounding of nova powers and keep trucking. I get it. But... The reason I say that this is a Bounded Accuracy issue is... the same way that a pack of low CR monsters can actually still threaten higher level PCs when handled carefully, so too can a party of low level characters threaten a high CR monster when handled carefully. If the party is the one using maximal battlefield control, denial, hit and run, etc. they can potentially punch high above their weight class. And I think that is actually the most fun and exciting thing that ever happens in any D&D combat, ever, throughout every edition of the game. That's the stuff legendary table stories are made of. The time the level 7 party stopped a Pit Fiend. The time the level 3 half-orc took a fire breath and kept standing (thanks [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION]). What you guys seem to want is a way to have those fights, but have them bound within the "proper" CRs. So you have an epic fight with a Balor when you are the appropriate level 16 or so, just a few levels shy of the CR so it still feels kinda like you're in over your heads. This is the "solo" monster mindset, basically. But monsters feel like "solos" when they're tough enough to nearly drop you in a hit, and sustain several hits from your whole party. To get that, you need a monster of higher CR than the party... and as the party level increases, you actually need the CR disparity to be bigger and bigger. So a CR 3 Veteran can achieve this for a party of level 1 characters, but a single CR 7 Illithid isn't going to scare a party of 5th level PCs the same way. Well, maybe a bad example, because brain extraction, but he'd have to be fairly lucky to pull it off. Certainly a CR 19 Balor is not scary in this way to a party of level 17s. To do it, you'd need to dramatically buff high level monsters. Or, what you should really do: recognize that as the party gets higher level, challenging "solos" will become harder to find, so make more of them. A solo for a level 15 party isn't a CR 19 monster. It's a CR 25 monster. By 15th level, if the party wants to be challenged and killed by a solo monster, they need to be going after demon princes and stuff like that. Level 20 isn't really the gateway to "Epic play" like in 3e and 4e. It's the [I]end.[/I] The party that wants a more grounded, less epic game, can do one of two things: accept that high level PCs need multiple threats, or accept that they don't want to play at high level. Your goal is basically to buff monsters so that you can always have that "solo a couple CRs above the party" feel. Since damage and HP don't scale in a way that allows this, you have to supercharge damage and HP. But when you supercharge monster HP and especially damage, you can create a "Level X Need Not Apply" barrier the same way monsters with AC 47 did in 3rd and 4th edition. So now we're back to no ability to punch super high above your weight class, regardless of tactics. As a DM who favors open worlds without sculpted encounter zones and scaling CR story quests, a lack of "Level X Need Not Apply" signs is especially important to me. I get that my style isn't for everyone, and more tightly scripted games that employ Level Appropriate Encounters could find this useful. But that's what I meant when I said I felt the design was a betrayal of the spirit of Bounded Accuracy. [/QUOTE]
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