Since I couldn't resist the urge to sate my curiosity, and I've apparently got too much time on my hands, I decided to create an Excel table with all damage expressions in Monster Manual 3
I was particularly interested how accurate the Quick Fix suggested by Greg Bilsland was and if I would notice any changes to damage per monster role. The bolded rows represent the average damage as per the DMG damage expression table with the following adjustment:
- double static damage bonus in paragon tier (level 10-18),
- triple static damage bonus in epic tier (level 19-30).
As a reminder, here's how we're supposed to use the damage expression table in the DMG:
low: artillery melee, area effects & nasty conditions
high: brutes & lurkers
limited: attacks that can be used once or twice per encounter
When calculating average damages, I simply added ongoing damage and vulnerable x to the normal damage. I know that's not particularly accurate but judging from how the numbers add up, that's exactly how the Monster Manual designers have done it. Since I was unsure what conditions were sufficiently nasty to warrant a move into a lower damage column, I didn't move any.
Here's some of the other adjustments I made:
- When I felt an aura would apply in most cases,
I added the aura's effect to the applicable damage expressions.
- I didn't differentiate between the various kinds of dominate that appear in MM3.
- I also didn't enter any attacks that I couldn't map to any of the standard conditions.
- I also ignored some of the minor actions and penalties or bonuses to anything but damage.
- If attacks could be used one or more times, I always used the highest number.
You'll notice quite a few outliers. Most of them can be explained by the following:
- Lurkers: For some reason lurkers only rarely do the high damage they're supposed to do.
- Soldiers: Almost all soldiers use low damage expressions for their ranged attacks.
- Base attacks: Often, base attacks are only inteded to be used for opportunity attacks
or they are only present because they're building blocks of the 'real' attacks.
In many cases they can be used two or more times with a single standard action.
- High Epic: In the high epic levels most assumptions break completely down.
It doesn't really make much sense to analyze single attacks in isolation.
But there still remain lots of cases where there's no real explanation for the deviation from the expected average damage. This could be the basis of a detailed analysis of the monsters in question, I guess
I intend to use this table to verify some of my own ideas about how the damage progression table should _really_ look like (which I posted in the 4e Houserules board a while ago). Maybe someone else will find it useful, too.
Enjoy!
I was particularly interested how accurate the Quick Fix suggested by Greg Bilsland was and if I would notice any changes to damage per monster role. The bolded rows represent the average damage as per the DMG damage expression table with the following adjustment:
- double static damage bonus in paragon tier (level 10-18),
- triple static damage bonus in epic tier (level 19-30).
As a reminder, here's how we're supposed to use the damage expression table in the DMG:
low: artillery melee, area effects & nasty conditions
high: brutes & lurkers
limited: attacks that can be used once or twice per encounter
When calculating average damages, I simply added ongoing damage and vulnerable x to the normal damage. I know that's not particularly accurate but judging from how the numbers add up, that's exactly how the Monster Manual designers have done it. Since I was unsure what conditions were sufficiently nasty to warrant a move into a lower damage column, I didn't move any.
Here's some of the other adjustments I made:
- When I felt an aura would apply in most cases,
I added the aura's effect to the applicable damage expressions.
- I didn't differentiate between the various kinds of dominate that appear in MM3.
- I also didn't enter any attacks that I couldn't map to any of the standard conditions.
- I also ignored some of the minor actions and penalties or bonuses to anything but damage.
- If attacks could be used one or more times, I always used the highest number.
You'll notice quite a few outliers. Most of them can be explained by the following:
- Lurkers: For some reason lurkers only rarely do the high damage they're supposed to do.
- Soldiers: Almost all soldiers use low damage expressions for their ranged attacks.
- Base attacks: Often, base attacks are only inteded to be used for opportunity attacks
or they are only present because they're building blocks of the 'real' attacks.
In many cases they can be used two or more times with a single standard action.
- High Epic: In the high epic levels most assumptions break completely down.
It doesn't really make much sense to analyze single attacks in isolation.
But there still remain lots of cases where there's no real explanation for the deviation from the expected average damage. This could be the basis of a detailed analysis of the monsters in question, I guess
I intend to use this table to verify some of my own ideas about how the damage progression table should _really_ look like (which I posted in the 4e Houserules board a while ago). Maybe someone else will find it useful, too.
Enjoy!