Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
One issue that has come up at tables is how summoned creatures take time to run. I've seen good advice to just let other players run them (NOT the caster), but I was also thinking about how much time they add.
Then I was thinking about the same thing from the DM side, where if you want a horde of stooges it's still a lot of individual rolls to hit. Even D&D 4e Mooks or 13th Age Minions still require rolls to hit.
It occured to me, what if all summons, and any foes way below the PC's level did flat damage - no roll needed. Take the average damage listed in the MM and halve it. Round down, because your AC has probably gone up since the levels they were relevant.
So if your 12th level cleric was surrounded by eight goblins, that's just "16 damage" (5 / 2 round down = 2). No need for eight to-hit rolls.
YES, those with very high ACs would suffer, but the amount would probably only be a few HPs in any given fight - within variation easily.
The idea is that hordes are only interesting in numbers, and the DM can run enough numbers to be interesting without slowing things down too far. And that PC summons are run quicker as well, not needing dice rolls most of the time.
Then I was thinking about the same thing from the DM side, where if you want a horde of stooges it's still a lot of individual rolls to hit. Even D&D 4e Mooks or 13th Age Minions still require rolls to hit.
It occured to me, what if all summons, and any foes way below the PC's level did flat damage - no roll needed. Take the average damage listed in the MM and halve it. Round down, because your AC has probably gone up since the levels they were relevant.
So if your 12th level cleric was surrounded by eight goblins, that's just "16 damage" (5 / 2 round down = 2). No need for eight to-hit rolls.
YES, those with very high ACs would suffer, but the amount would probably only be a few HPs in any given fight - within variation easily.
The idea is that hordes are only interesting in numbers, and the DM can run enough numbers to be interesting without slowing things down too far. And that PC summons are run quicker as well, not needing dice rolls most of the time.