Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level = Challenge Rating
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 9336465" data-attributes="member: 72555"><p>No, that is a bad idea.</p><p></p><p>A level X PC is designed for a single human being to spend a large percentage of their attention managing and controlling.</p><p></p><p>A level X monster should not be designed for this.</p><p></p><p>Attempts to make PCs simple enough that a DM would want to control 5 of them make PCs too simple; players want more levers and bells and whistles.</p><p></p><p>Similarly, DMs shouldn't be pulling the levers and bells and whistles of 5 complex tokens; it is a waste of the DM's mental effort, and it doesn't make encounters more fun. DMs have better things to do.</p><p></p><p>PCs in 5e are not designed to fight against other PCs - the defence vs offence balance isn't tuned. Pacing is just whackey. I mean, you can try to do it, but it makes things worse. And quite possibly making it happen would make other desirable properties of the game not work, like how PCs interact with higher and lower level foes and the like.</p><p></p><p>If you succeeded at the described task - made a monster template that could be swapped for a PC template - the result <strong>demonstratively</strong> sucks, as <strong>within lived and tested experience</strong> we can see that fights against 5e PC-build monsters aren't really that fun.</p><p></p><p>So you are <strong>first</strong> talking about having to rework the entire 5e PC side of things, <strong>then</strong> you have to solve for pacing issues, work out the power curves that give the experiences you desire with relative foe levels, etc.</p><p></p><p>...</p><p></p><p>I'll give a concrete example.</p><p></p><p>If PC damage starts out at 10 DPR and goes up by 3 per level, while PC HP starts out at 10 and goes up 6 per level.</p><p></p><p>PC accuracy goes up by 1 every 2 levels, while PC AC goes up 1 every 4 levels.</p><p></p><p>If we want fights to last ~3 rounds, drain PCs of 50% of their HP on average, and PC accuracy against a level 1 foe is 50%, and level 1 monster accuracy against level 1 PCs is 30%, then level 1 foes should have ~15 HP and do 5 damage on a hit.</p><p></p><p>At level 10, we might expect 60% accuracy and monsters hit 50% of the time; PC have gained +4 to hit and +2 AC, while monsters have gained +6 to hit and +2 AC. PCs have 37 DPR before accuracy, and have 64 HP. The same 3 round pacing puts even level monsters at 21 DPR and 67 HP.</p><p></p><p>At level 20 we might expect 70% accuracy and monsters hit 60% of the time. PCs have gained another +5 to hit and +3 AC, while monsters have gained +5 more to hit and +3 more AC. Players have 67 DPR before accuracy and 124 HP. The same 3 round pacing puts level 20 monsters at 141 HP and 35 DPR.</p><p></p><p>L1 PC: 16 AC, +5 to hit, 10 HP, 10 DPR</p><p>L10 PC: 18 AC, +9 to hit, 64 HP, 37 DPR</p><p>L20 PC: 21 AC, +14 to hit, 124 HP, 67 DPR</p><p></p><p>L1 monster: 16 AC, +1 to hit, 15 HP, 5 DPR</p><p>L10 monster: 18 AC, +7 to hit, 67 HP, 21 DPR</p><p>L20 monster: 21 AC, +12 to hit, 141 HP, 35 DPR</p><p></p><p>This model makes monsters that are <strong>designed to fight level X PCs</strong>, not <strong>monsters designed to emulate level X PCs</strong>. We can compare threat volumes of monsters of various levels and check if we get good experiences when (say) a level 20 PC fights a bunch of level 1-3 monsters.</p><p></p><p>If we are taking PC development as a given (say, we are making our own monsters for 5e, but leaving PCs alone), then we calibrate the PC model and derive a monster model from it. We have a number of degrees of freedom in the monster model - we can tweak how much of its offensive power comes from +ATK and how much from damage, and similar for AC/Saves vs HP - as those have a large impact on different level PCs interact with a given monster.</p><p></p><p>If we have the freedom to change the PC model, we get more degrees of freedom.</p><p></p><p>For example, we might want monsters to gain HP faster than they do damage output, and PCs go gain damage output faster than they do HP, in order to (a) make low level monsters feel threatening but weak, easy to clear out but dangerous if ignored and (b) make high level monsters feel oppressive but not instant-death for lower level PCs. We can do this while maintaining the same combat pace against even level monsters.</p><p></p><p>That might create tension you might like: if 50 low level soldiers are aiming at you in a PC-defence-scales slowly model, you are threatened even at higher level. Meanwhile, if you face up against a dragon too early, you won't be able to take it out because monster-defence-scales-fast. If you are anywhere approaching the right level you won't instant-die from the first attack, however. (It will hurt a pile!)</p><p></p><p>In any case, my point is that making monsters <strong>designed to fight against PCs</strong> in fun ways is a different problem and opposed to <strong>making monsters that scale just like PCs</strong>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="NotAYakk, post: 9336465, member: 72555"] No, that is a bad idea. A level X PC is designed for a single human being to spend a large percentage of their attention managing and controlling. A level X monster should not be designed for this. Attempts to make PCs simple enough that a DM would want to control 5 of them make PCs too simple; players want more levers and bells and whistles. Similarly, DMs shouldn't be pulling the levers and bells and whistles of 5 complex tokens; it is a waste of the DM's mental effort, and it doesn't make encounters more fun. DMs have better things to do. PCs in 5e are not designed to fight against other PCs - the defence vs offence balance isn't tuned. Pacing is just whackey. I mean, you can try to do it, but it makes things worse. And quite possibly making it happen would make other desirable properties of the game not work, like how PCs interact with higher and lower level foes and the like. If you succeeded at the described task - made a monster template that could be swapped for a PC template - the result [b]demonstratively[/b] sucks, as [b]within lived and tested experience[/b] we can see that fights against 5e PC-build monsters aren't really that fun. So you are [b]first[/b] talking about having to rework the entire 5e PC side of things, [b]then[/b] you have to solve for pacing issues, work out the power curves that give the experiences you desire with relative foe levels, etc. ... I'll give a concrete example. If PC damage starts out at 10 DPR and goes up by 3 per level, while PC HP starts out at 10 and goes up 6 per level. PC accuracy goes up by 1 every 2 levels, while PC AC goes up 1 every 4 levels. If we want fights to last ~3 rounds, drain PCs of 50% of their HP on average, and PC accuracy against a level 1 foe is 50%, and level 1 monster accuracy against level 1 PCs is 30%, then level 1 foes should have ~15 HP and do 5 damage on a hit. At level 10, we might expect 60% accuracy and monsters hit 50% of the time; PC have gained +4 to hit and +2 AC, while monsters have gained +6 to hit and +2 AC. PCs have 37 DPR before accuracy, and have 64 HP. The same 3 round pacing puts even level monsters at 21 DPR and 67 HP. At level 20 we might expect 70% accuracy and monsters hit 60% of the time. PCs have gained another +5 to hit and +3 AC, while monsters have gained +5 more to hit and +3 more AC. Players have 67 DPR before accuracy and 124 HP. The same 3 round pacing puts level 20 monsters at 141 HP and 35 DPR. L1 PC: 16 AC, +5 to hit, 10 HP, 10 DPR L10 PC: 18 AC, +9 to hit, 64 HP, 37 DPR L20 PC: 21 AC, +14 to hit, 124 HP, 67 DPR L1 monster: 16 AC, +1 to hit, 15 HP, 5 DPR L10 monster: 18 AC, +7 to hit, 67 HP, 21 DPR L20 monster: 21 AC, +12 to hit, 141 HP, 35 DPR This model makes monsters that are [b]designed to fight level X PCs[/b], not [b]monsters designed to emulate level X PCs[/b]. We can compare threat volumes of monsters of various levels and check if we get good experiences when (say) a level 20 PC fights a bunch of level 1-3 monsters. If we are taking PC development as a given (say, we are making our own monsters for 5e, but leaving PCs alone), then we calibrate the PC model and derive a monster model from it. We have a number of degrees of freedom in the monster model - we can tweak how much of its offensive power comes from +ATK and how much from damage, and similar for AC/Saves vs HP - as those have a large impact on different level PCs interact with a given monster. If we have the freedom to change the PC model, we get more degrees of freedom. For example, we might want monsters to gain HP faster than they do damage output, and PCs go gain damage output faster than they do HP, in order to (a) make low level monsters feel threatening but weak, easy to clear out but dangerous if ignored and (b) make high level monsters feel oppressive but not instant-death for lower level PCs. We can do this while maintaining the same combat pace against even level monsters. That might create tension you might like: if 50 low level soldiers are aiming at you in a PC-defence-scales slowly model, you are threatened even at higher level. Meanwhile, if you face up against a dragon too early, you won't be able to take it out because monster-defence-scales-fast. If you are anywhere approaching the right level you won't instant-die from the first attack, however. (It will hurt a pile!) In any case, my point is that making monsters [b]designed to fight against PCs[/b] in fun ways is a different problem and opposed to [b]making monsters that scale just like PCs[/b]. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level = Challenge Rating
Top