Building a New Damage Table

[SabreCat]

I'd like to make a new damage expressions table that meets the following goals:

1) Gives monsters a bit of a damage boost overall to make them more threatening. 4e characters have a lot of damage mitigation potential, which monsters as written can't really overcome; I'd like straight damage to be a worry just as much as conditions are now.

2) Changes every level instead of every 3ish. It seems a little lame to me when I bump a monster's level and the damage doesn't change. (Yeah, the attack bonuses go up, but it still doesn't feel right.)

3) Has clearer guidelines for when to use each expression. If I have an Artillery monster with an area burst 2, recharge 5 attack, what do I use? Limited low? Limited medium? Normal high? It needn't be comprehensive, but a couple of tight examples for every expression will help.

I need to gather some advice before I put this together, though. I'm not quite sure how to start!

- What do you think the DPR of a typical monster should be? How fast should it go up by level? How should it vary by monster role?
- When you're building or tweaking a monster, how do you use the damage expressions? When do you pick one vs. another?

Thanks for any input you can give! My game's about to hit the paragon tier, and I think having something like this together will help keep it exciting for the players as their characters get more potent.

 

[malcolm_n]

I've let solo monster (and elite brute) crits deal extra d6 equal to an item of the same level. It makes my players sweat, but isn't game breaking to include.

Mostly though, I've been okay with damage charts when pitting my players against monsters. If a monster's relative damage is low, I rely more on its type/tactics than just raw power.

 

[Talysian]

I've averaged out monster damage giving them +1/3 levels, added +1d6 per tier to crits, and reduced hitpoints it works for me well. I've been able to keep players on their toes for quite a while.

 

[Mentat55]

It might make sense to start with some sort of basic assumption about how many hits a typical PC should be able to take from a standard monster of equal level.

If I were to make an utterly uninformed WAG, paragon monsters should be doing 50% more damage than they are doing right, and epic monsters should be doing 100-200% more damage.

Elites and solos should be doing more damage per hit than standard monsters.

And we should extend the damage chart to level 36.

 

[Mentat55]

So I just did a very quick, very rough analysis using the following data / assumptions:

1. Approximate average PC damage per attack as a function of level, using at-will powers
2. HP for a leader-type PC (12 + Con, 5 HP/level)
3. Average normal monster damage based on table from DMG, p. 185
4. Typical monster HP (skirmisher / controller / soldier expressions)

I asked the following question: how many hits does it take a monster / PC to reduce a PC / monster from full to 0 HP?

What I found interesting was two emergent trends:

1. The number of hits, both on the monster and PC side, increases from around 3-4 hits at level 1 until about mid-paragon, where the range (a) broadens and (b) stabilizes at a range of 6-9 hits.

2. The # of hits it takes a monster dealing Medium damage to reduce a PC to 0 HP tracks pretty well with the # of hits it takes a PC to reduce a skirmisher/controller/soldier monster to 0 HP.

Big caveats:
1. I didn't take into account encounter and rechargeable powers (for monsters) or encounter powers, daily powers, or class features (PCs), in particular things like striker damage abilities. I'd say this strongly favors the PCs.

2. Hit %. Ultimately, it is not the # of hits that really matters, but the # of actions it takes to generate that many hits. Even if monsters need the same # of hits to kill their PC counterparts as the PCs need to kill the monsters, if the monsters have a much lower hit rate, they are always going to lose. My experience is that the PCs have a higher hit rate. I guess I could estimate this and incorporate it into the calculations.

My thinking -- if we could get a rough estimate of the # of rounds it takes an "average" PC to kill a standard monster of equal level, we could then work backwards and figure out, using the approximate hit rate of a standard monster against said "average" PC, how many hits it should take for a standard monster to take down his PC adversary, then generate average monster damage values as a function of level.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't remember this for certain, but I though someone had shown that monsters in general actually do lower damage than the standard damage expression tables....so that's somethign to consider.

 

[Mentat55]

I don't remember this for certain, but I though someone had shown that monsters in general actually do lower damage than the standard damage expression tables....so that's somethign to consider.

My gut feeling is that this is true for MM1. I think MM2 is generally better. And if the previews for MM3 are any indication, WotC has increased the damage significantly.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Especially at Paragon and Epic tiers. The Level 5 monster wasn't all that much different (only a +1 to damage over what I would have expected).

 

[SabreCat]

Mm, that's cool, thanks for the input! I wonder if MM3 will include further updates on how to build monsters, the way MM2 did--I won't need to construct a new table, if that's solid.

 

[Mentat55]

Here's a rundown of at-will basic attacks from the recent spate of excerpts from the MM3, Dark Sun, Demonomicon, and other sources:

Abyssal Scavenger (level 2 skirmisher): melee 1d8+5
Anakore Hunter (level 5 lurker): melee 2d8+4
Quasit (level 7 controller): melee 2d6+5
Anakore Render (level 7 brute): melee 3d8+6
Catoblepas Harbinger (level 10 elite controller): melee 2d8+9
Blood Worm (level 12 skirmisher): melee 2d8+11
Son of Kyuss (level 13 brute): melee 2d10+10
Piscodemon (level 14 controller): melee 2d8+6, ranged 3d6+6
Impersonator Mimic (level 16 controller): melee 3d8+11
Slime Devil (level 16 lurker): melee 3d8+11
Ghost Beholder (level 18 elite controller): melee 3d8+13, ranged 4d8+8
Mindressa (level 18 solo controller): melee 2d10+11, ranged 2d10+11
Ancient Volcanic Dragon (level 25 elite brute): melee 3d10+8 plus ongoing 10
Nibenay (level 29 elite controller): melee 6d10+4, ranged 4d12+11

Hard to say how many of these are outliers, how many are following the "new damage chart" (if such a thing exists), but overall the damage output seems increased. Is it enough? That remains a big question.