How 4th edition PCs scale - the actual numbers

[Thanlis]

* I did not include special bonuses like attack bonus from class or PP, non-neck-slot NAD bonuses, leader bonuses etc.

But those are part of the system, particularly leader bonuses. You also didn't include controller bonuses. Or rather, controller penalties -- a good controller ought to be knocking monsters prone, moving monsters into flank, or just generally providing defense penalties.

It's also the case that the higher your level, the more mobile you are, and the more you should be able to place yourself in an advantageous position.

Meanwhile, your NADs become more and more vulnerable just as monster attacks are doing less damage relative to your hit point total. It still kind of baffles me that half the world complains about monster damage being too low while the other half complains about PC NADs being too low. Really, there's a link between those two things.

Ah well.

 

[TerraDave]

Do you have a source for the "desired" 50-60%?
I find with my group they tend to lean closer to the 80% most of the time with my common monsters(their level) and that's without CA or Magic Weapon(best at-will in the game?)

Also, I don't think PCs being underpowered is much of a concern. Most popular blogs speaking to paragon / Epic gameplay agree that it is difficult to challenge PCs. WoTC seems to agree as MM3 hasa step up in damage esspecially at the epic levels.

Ya. I have had a hard time reconciling "we need these extra +s" with "our 21st level party just wiped the floor with Orcus". What gives?

 

[Bungo_Underhill]

Can somebody upload the spread sheet as an attachment here please? I can not get to google docs from work

 

[Black Knight Irios]

And that's exactly the thing I've been criticizing from the very beginning whenever this issue comes up. You cannot expect to look at a single (averaged) pc against a single (averaged) monster on an empty, featureless plain dishing it out using only their basic attacks to serve as a meaningful basis for making accurate statements about a real encounter.

It doesn't make sense to use averaged assumptions about everything and then dismiss leader bonuses becaue there could be cases of parties without any leaders. That's exactly like dismissing weapon bonuses because there could be parties that choose not to use any kind of weapons. An average party is expected to include at least one leader, period.

I also disagree with the notion that the system is supposed to even out across all levels with a 50%-60% chance to hit a monster (especially when looking at the forementioned averaged single pc vs. a single monster).
When I made a similar (but slightly more elaborate) comparison using a sample party across levels 1-30 I came to the conclusion that the Expertise feats are _not_ required to keep the average attack chance constant. It's only when you start to ignore things like dailys, item powers, etc. that this appears to be the case, i.e. a too simple model.

Although, I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed to see that the July update proves that the designers seem to feel that monster damage should increase exactly as linear as attacks and defenses, i.e. +1 per level. This suggests, that at least one side of the equation is indeed intended to be constant across all levels.

The more factors you ignore the easier it gets to assess something.

So you say every party should have a leader - most parties probably have a leader indeed. But which leader do they have? It's not like there is only one leader type that hands out attack bonus buffs and defense bonus buffs.

What kind of leader can you assume that every party has.

Furthermore, if buffing is dependent on a hit by the leader the harder it is to land the hit the smaller are the chances of the buff being applied.

The same goes for all powers. But dailies are special again. To estimate their usefulness you have to establish a framework for encounter/day, the difficulty of the encounters and so on.

WotC CharOp has tried more than once to build a system to rate chars besides at-will dpr. But they've failed so far b/c it is hard to come up with good estimations that everyone agrees to. This is something similar. You want to take into account "elements/powers/etc." that can't be taken as granted for every group.

If you really want to try and build a system that can evaluate the correctness of 4E math with all those additionla factors you will have a hard time. And even if you succeed it doesn't mean people will not ignore your anylsis b/c they don't agree with your assumptions.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Ya. I have had a hard time reconciling "we need these extra +s" with "our 21st level party just wiped the floor with Orcus". What gives?

Looks like your party is optimized. Maybe you don't need an extra +s but what about more casual gamers that want to enjoy the game? They should be able to enjoy their chars as well. And if they need some extra +s, so it be. You can ban expertise if you like or if you don't need it.

 

[MrMyth]

Ya. I have had a hard time reconciling "we need these extra +s" with "our 21st level party just wiped the floor with Orcus". What gives?

I always felt, when people first raised the arguments about the 'broken math' in 4E, that falling behind by a few numbers would be more than made up by having greater resources (more powers and money for consumables), along with many non-numerical benefits from feats, paragon paths, items, etc.

From what I've seen... that remains the case. I've got a six-person party about to hit level 29. No leader among them. But they have a very easy time getting Combat Advantage (via prone, daze, invisibility), they have powers that reduce defenses or grant vulnerability, many powers that reduce attack bonuses (via rattling, fear, etc). They haven't specifically gone hunting for such powers, but they have picked up enough that it easily makes up for everything else. And instead, with the presence of Expertise, the optimized characters occasionally hit enemies on a 2+. The Epic defense feats have been just as bad - we had a Sorcerer who has various powers that boost his defenses and help him avoid getting hit. Previously, his weak stat - Reflex - could still be regularly hit. Add Robust Defenses and Epic Reflexes, and that's no longer the case.

Now, the argument is that non-optimized characters need to be effective too. But all Expertise does is make it more likely for a non-optimized character (who doesn't know that Expertise is a must-have feat) to fall behind. Since in order to present more reasonable challenges, Expertise forces the DM to present higher level monsters.

In the end, you can look at the actual numbers all you want. The problem is, that completely doesn't take into account class features, feats, paragon paths, epic destinies, magic items, or the greater benefits and options presented by high level powers.

There might be some room for the math to be adjusted. Perhaps with non-AC Defenses. Perhaps.

But I'm a firm believer that the math was much more solid to begin with, and adding the overpowered feats in PHB2 weighted things in favor of the players - such that the MM3 had to boost monster damage to bring it back towards a balance.

Don't get me wrong, the game still works, with or without the feats, with or without the new damage guidelines. But I continue to feel that Expertise was one of the biggest mistakes in 4E, and that looking at the numbers alone really doesn't provide the full picture.

 

[Scribble]

too... many.... numbers.... ugh...

 

[mkill]

@DracoSuave: I can't access your spreadsheet because I don't have permissions, please check that.

@everyone else: Thank you for your comments. However, I never intended a full analysis of the complete game. I concentrated on the basic scaling because this is the foundation for everything.

Yes, PCs have many ways to change the odds in their favor, but so have the monsters. They can also stun or immobilize, provide combat advantage etc.

It is therefore much cleaner game design if basic scaling is kept balanced, and additional effects from tactics and powers are balanced against other tactical bonuses. (Whether the game achieved that is a different question).

Also, I'm not trying to make a case pro or contra expertise feats here, I'm just presenting the plain numbers.

Personally, I'm not too happy with the fix either, I'd have preferred a more elegant, fine-grained approach. And I think the masterwork armor idea was even worse.

 

[Jhaelen]

The more factors you ignore the easier it gets to assess something.

Yes, and with a sufficiently high degree of simplification and omission you can prove everything. Behold:

My analysis has shown that rolling 4d6 will always result in a 14. Well, except for some weird, extremely rare corner cases that aren't really relevant. In any case, the vast majority of these 'exotic' results that are caused by effects not covered by my model is so close to 14 that we can safely ignore them. I think this serves to show that rolling dice is utterly pointless. Henceforth we'll use the D0 system to play D&D.

So you say every party should have a leader - most parties probably have a leader indeed. But which leader do they have? It's not like there is only one leader type that hands out attack bonus buffs and defense bonus buffs.

As I said: This doesn't matter since we're talking about averages anyway. Behold:

Taking a sample of 1000 parties, I've found that the average party has 0.63 leaders with attack buffs and 0.48 leaders with defense buffs.

The same goes for all powers. But dailies are special again. To estimate their usefulness you have to establish a framework for encounter/day, the difficulty of the encounters and so on.

That's easy. Pick a number. I've picked four. If you're looking at averages you can assume something like: Every party member uses 0.2 dailies in every encounter.
Difficulty is again, irrelevant, if you're looking at averages: The DMG suggest guidelines. Using these you can calculate the average difficulty. It's probably something like level + 0.3.

If you really want to try and build a system that can evaluate the correctness of 4E math with all those additionla factors you will have a hard time. And even if you succeed it doesn't mean people will not ignore your anylsis b/c they don't agree with your assumptions.

I know. Guess why I didn't post my analysis?

This is the internet: You cannot post _anything_ without at least one person disagreeing! (Unless your post is ignored by everyone )

It's unimportant for me, though, since I proved it for myself and for my game group. That's entirely sufficient. I can live with others disagreeing with me. That doesn't prevent me from pointing out to them that I believe they're wrong, though

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, this level of theorycraft gets you basically nowhere. It confirms what we already know, which is that the numbers scale fairly proportionally for levels 1-30.

The only test that matters is the party which is at your table. Theory means diddly. It might have been a useful guide for the devs, but in terms of helping DMs it just doesn't really do much for us players.