D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

[Pedantic]

So a DM is expected to run 10 to 20 extra cr 1/2 mooks that will miss constantly and deal no damage and be no threat just to give the fighter one of their core fantasies?

Zikes.

...yes? The whole minion problem is that it undermines that fantasy. The model has to be consistent for the fantasy to be fulfilled. It's the same thing where it's insufficient to describe an ability with a "mundane" tag to fulfill the mundane aesthetic.

Lots of things you could do to simplify that. Removing NPC crits and or auto-successes on 20s would be a bigger help than anything, or some sensible scaling rules for handling groups of monsters in the first place.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So a DM is expected to run 10 to 20 extra cr 1/2 mooks that will miss constantly and deal no damage and be no threat just to give the fighter one of their core fantasies?

Zikes.

They will not miss constantly and they will do damage, thanks to bounded accuracy. How high ACs your characters have?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So a DM is expected to run 10 to 20 extra cr 1/2 mooks that will miss constantly and deal no damage and be no threat just to give the fighter one of their core fantasies?

Zikes.

You would rather compromise the universe to do so? You and I are very different gamers.

 

[Oofta]

So a DM is expected to run 10 to 20 extra cr 1/2 mooks that will miss constantly and deal no damage and be no threat just to give the fighter one of their core fantasies?

Zikes.

Again, there are rules for this in the DMG. For example if the monsters need a 16 or better to hit, on average 1 in 5 will hit. I'd also use the optional cleave rules for scenarios like this or I go even further and make them swarms, which is something I've done for zombies. Then there's just modifying monsters, adding to their attack and damage while leaving HP low. You can also have some of the low level monsters knock the PC prone so the rest have advantage to hit.

There are plenty of options without resorting to minions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the point behind your point is really essential to the overall conversation about what a mundane high-level fighter looks like. Because what you're really talking about are rules for large numbers of monsters. And if we're going to have that fantasy of wading through large numbers of monsters...well...we need rules that make that tenable and not exhausting for the GM and a drag on game play.

Implementing some of the ideas we're sharing means taking a look under the hood at the rules they interact with and saying "Hey, maybe there's a mismatch here that we need to address if we want to do proposed change X and Y..."

EDIT: Also, fun story time. I terrorized worn down 10th level PCs with a group of well-played (and lucky) goblins, getting the PCs to signal retreat. I also killed a 12th level PC with Skeletons gang-Shoving them into lava. There are niche ways to make mooks dangerous at high level, though I only use them sparingly.

Reduce hp across the board. That'll help quite a bit.

 

[Quickleaf]

Reduce hp across the board. That'll help quite a bit.

I forget who asked, but in another thread there was a question about monster HP over the editions. Now I didn't factor in damage increases over the editions (because it has increased), but I think it was something like most Humanoids have 2x HP they did in OD&D/Basic/AD&D (based on goblin and gnoll), while bigger/tougher monsters have 3x-4x what they did in OD&D/Basic/AD&D (based on ogre and chimera).

Not too far off from the "halve all monster HP" rule-of-thumb that was popular.

Another thing that I was listening to – I didn't kickstart Forge of Foes cause I'm playing much less 5e – Mike Shea talking about what he, Teos Abadía, and Shawn Fitzgerald Grey determined was that many 5e WotC monsters and the DMG monster guidelines overvalue defense at the expense of offense. Something about a rough estimate that 5 damage per CR is a fair starting point and if a monster is lower than that consider increasing it. I forget exactly, but it was really interesting.

 

[Gammadoodler]

So a DM is expected to run 10 to 20 extra cr 1/2 mooks that will miss constantly and deal no damage and be no threat just to give the fighter one of their core fantasies?

Zikes.

Not really. Because running theses mooks wouldn't even really reinforce the fighter core fantasy.

The one thing fighters do really well in 5e is single target damage. Adding more targets, even weak ones is a direct dilution of the fighter's impact on the battle. Adding 10 or 20 of them means adding the type of threat a 5e fighter has the most difficult time addressing (outside of flying creatures).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I forget who asked, but in another thread there was a question about monster HP over the editions. Now I didn't factor in damage increases over the editions (because it has increased), but I think it was something like most Humanoids have 2x HP they did in OD&D/Basic/AD&D (based on goblin and gnoll), while bigger/tougher monsters have 3x-4x what they did in OD&D/Basic/AD&D (based on ogre and chimera).

Not too far off from the "halve all monster HP" rule-of-thumb that was popular.

I felt that in 4e the monster HP was bloated and fights took too long. I haven’t had that impression in 5e, things die pretty fast.

 

[Quickleaf]

I felt that in 4e the monster HP was bloated and fights took too long. I haven’t had that impression in 5e, things die pretty fast.

Oh man, in 4e our fights took ages. The times I've noticed increased handling time in 5e combat have involved lots of humanoid or lower CR enemies where they don't go down on one hit, so I'm tracking lots of HP values. The whole minion thing was something 4e did handle better – well, at least faster – than RAW 5e does when the PCs face hordes. I'm pretty sure LevelUp 5e and other games/bloggers have shared solutions and hacks to running hordes, but the RAW did make my horde combats drag.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i know i already mentioned this somewhere but i forget which 'martial' thread, if the fighter had the passive ability to instantly kill any target they hit with a weapon attack that's of a low enough CR akin to cleric's destroy undead, would that do any good in fufilling the fighter fantasy without needing to rework the entire rest of monster balance?