TheUltramark
First Post
we're third
here is a thought, do you give monsters their strength bonus (or whatever ability per attack)???????? (maybe you should)
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Were MM1 monsters truly underpowered?
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here is a thought, do you give monsters their strength bonus (or whatever ability per attack)???????? (maybe you should)
Obryn
Hero
At 3rd level, you mostly wouldn't notice it; it'd make a difference of 1 point of damage per attack, usually. The discrepancy widens as you get higher level. By late Heroc, you might start to notice. By mid-Paragon, you definitely would.
In 4e, monsters' damage is based on a formula. It's not related to their actual attributes. (Neither are their defenses, for what it's worth.) I don't think this would help, really; much better just to use the right formula.
-O
TheUltramark
First Post
really?
isn't the players damage based on a formula too?
TornadoCreator
First Post
I played a campaign on release, using just the first three books, PHB, DMG and MM1. The campaign was pretty well balanced mainly because the PC's where crap. I made a Fey Pact Warlock with a hatred of Gnolls, we has a Wizard specialising in Frost Magic, A Glaive weilding Fighter (who rolled statistically abysmally and died three times during the campaign), A Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut with a Bastardsword, and a Dwarven Cleric of Erathis. Not one of us set our stats out optimally, building our characters according to what we wanted to play rather than stats.
This lead to us having a Cleric that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, A fighter who could trip people up a lot but couldn't be relied on to do more than 3 damage a round, the dragonborn was our greatest damage dealer but his lay on hands was actually useless, the warlock teleported a lot... and did sod all else, and the Wizard had a rediculous plus stupid skill in Arcana, a sky high intelligence, and very little else as he refused to do anything that wasn't ice based in case it broke character.
With this group, our first ever group, which we played quite a bit, we did surprisingly well and felt challenged right up to level 12 where the group got wiped out fighting a Dragon on a sinking boat in the final battle...
The next group we tried however. We we had two Elven Rangers (playing a brother and sister pair), A Dwarven Warlord, An Infernal Pact Warlock, Another Dwarven Cleric (this time of Moradin), A Human Tempest Fighter (this was the week after Martial Power came out, but we still didn't have Monster Manual 2, Players Handbook 2 or pretty much any splat-books, I think Martial Power was the first).
The sheer amount of damage we could kick out from this team was such that at one point the DM actually cried (but in a manly way) when we one-round-killed a recurring villan using nothing but PHB and Martial Power stuff at level 11. We could on a regular basis carve a nice valley though all the monsters with ease and without panic so much so that he started adding additional hazards, like making us fight in a swamp so that if we stayed still we'd start sinking and take poison damage, then putting in enemies that use stun or knock prone abilities... and even then we won with ease.
Monster Manual 1 is underpowered almost entirely... as a rule of thumb, I instinctively double the damage of anything. If it says it doesn 1d10+4 in my games it does 2d10+8. This seems to work well (be warned, there are some rare powerful monsters in MM1 that, if you double there damage WILL give you a TPK, so use common sense. You have been warned).
This lead to us having a Cleric that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, A fighter who could trip people up a lot but couldn't be relied on to do more than 3 damage a round, the dragonborn was our greatest damage dealer but his lay on hands was actually useless, the warlock teleported a lot... and did sod all else, and the Wizard had a rediculous plus stupid skill in Arcana, a sky high intelligence, and very little else as he refused to do anything that wasn't ice based in case it broke character.
With this group, our first ever group, which we played quite a bit, we did surprisingly well and felt challenged right up to level 12 where the group got wiped out fighting a Dragon on a sinking boat in the final battle...
The next group we tried however. We we had two Elven Rangers (playing a brother and sister pair), A Dwarven Warlord, An Infernal Pact Warlock, Another Dwarven Cleric (this time of Moradin), A Human Tempest Fighter (this was the week after Martial Power came out, but we still didn't have Monster Manual 2, Players Handbook 2 or pretty much any splat-books, I think Martial Power was the first).
The sheer amount of damage we could kick out from this team was such that at one point the DM actually cried (but in a manly way) when we one-round-killed a recurring villan using nothing but PHB and Martial Power stuff at level 11. We could on a regular basis carve a nice valley though all the monsters with ease and without panic so much so that he started adding additional hazards, like making us fight in a swamp so that if we stayed still we'd start sinking and take poison damage, then putting in enemies that use stun or knock prone abilities... and even then we won with ease.
Monster Manual 1 is underpowered almost entirely... as a rule of thumb, I instinctively double the damage of anything. If it says it doesn 1d10+4 in my games it does 2d10+8. This seems to work well (be warned, there are some rare powerful monsters in MM1 that, if you double there damage WILL give you a TPK, so use common sense. You have been warned).
WalterKovacs
First Post
It is to a certain extent, just a more complicated one.
For a monster, it is based on level and role. A lot of the monster's attack modifiers and defenses are just level+X ... PCs should go up at a similar rate, but it's spread between stat bumps at 4's, 8's and 11's, 1/2 level mod, magic items, feat choices, etc. A PC can choose to take feats which improve their defenses instead of damage, and thus is able to fiddle around with the formula to various degrees. Monster creation is meant to be simpler ... since they tend to not live through a combat, it's easier to just bake in all the fiddly bits.
That would explain why you haven't noticed it, because this problem really only begins towards the end of the heroic tier and definitely in paragon. Once in epic you might as well be throwing house cats at your party, they are about that effective.
WalterKovacs
First Post
Totally agree ... and I haven't even seen epic tier play.
Based solely on my experience of running player's through the 'original' adventure path, it was definitely like that. They had a hard time, but overcame Irontooth. They did have a player death in the second module. The Pyramid wasn't particularly bad (and they did wreck a solo or two when it came to it). The Trollhaunt was a cakewalk ... there was a running joke that any monster with a "name" died before it had a chance to act. At the time, I thought it was simply that Trolls had bad defenses and HP because there were brutes, although their damage wasn't good as well. The problem spots for the party was occaisionally monsters that were tough to hit ... other than that, monster's weren't very threatening ... no one ever got into very bad shape healthwise.
There's a lot of other problems with those adventures, and I think the trolls were especially bad, but the pre-MM3 monsters definitely didn't help.
In recent games I've been playing where someone is running us through modified versions of that path, I thought it was our party being less optimized than the one I ran for (considering 4/5ths of the PC were built by and/or ran by either me or my friend, since two of the players weren't always around, and I had a leader NPC in there to round out the party, etc) ... but using the MM3 updates to either replace monsters, boost the encounter size to make up for our party size, or just the damage fix, it's been much tougher for our group.
Basically, non-Solo, Heroic tier monsters from MM1 should be fine without modifications, and, as mentionned, there's a few overpowered ones. Just go easy on the Brutes and Soldiers.
To expand on this, however, how is MM2? The math for Solos was changed here, but are MM2 monsters also underpowered?
To expand on this, however, how is MM2? The math for Solos was changed here, but are MM2 monsters also underpowered?
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
My experience has heroic elites often being lame as well. They're a mixed bag, but elite orcs and gnolls were missing their second at-will attacks (and didn't have a minor action at-will to "sub in" for one).
I've converted many such monsters to MM3 standards, and found it easier to nerf them to normals rather than let them retain their elite status.
I've converted many such monsters to MM3 standards, and found it easier to nerf them to normals rather than let them retain their elite status.
Obryn
Hero
The formula for monsters is: Look at this table, and find the level. Increase it by 25% if it's a brute, decrease it by 25% if it's multi-target and the monster isn't elite or solo, increase it by 75% if it's limited-use. Poof! Done.
FYI, the old math is basically 8+1/2 level for average damage. The new math is 8+level for average damage.
-O
