Recent content by Steady Vane

  1. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Tidbit for monster design

    That said, these assumptions have some problems: Firstly, many classes do not scale attacks per turn past 2, which trashcans their DPR at higher levels. 5e was not designed for high level play for many classes. Ranger and Monk should have attacks scale as Fighter. Barbarian should get a third...
  2. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Tidbit for monster design

    Yes. If accuracy is 65%, then with a +1 sword accuracy rises to 70%. Magic weapons are assumed in 5e, just not hard level-locked as they were in 4e. I have those numbers, at least on the PC side. That said, there are some hard assumptions in the numbers that 5e only somewhat supports RAW. After...
  3. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Tidbit for monster design

    The Grimlock is not a bag of hp - it's an ambush predator from the underdark, with stealth trait and capabilities. Assuming it gets Surprise, just multiply it's damage by 4/3 and see if it works then imo. Same for the Twig Blight, ambush trait means surprise round of damage. Needle Blight seems...
  4. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Tidbit for monster design

    I couldn't tell you the relation between xp values and anything else, but I can tell you those assumptions are wrong. PC accuracy is assumed to rise, it only starts at 65% at level 0 with a +0 weapon. Accuracy rises with every +X weapon, to 85% assumed PC accuracy, at least in the math. It is...
  5. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Tidbit for monster design

    3 to 4 combats is at "deadly", which in the playtest versions of the game was instead named "hard". If the combats are easier, you can go through more of them. 6-8 would be during a dungeon crawl, which is what the assumed playstyle was when 5e launched. Presumably the difficulty would be...
  6. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Tidbit for monster design

    Combat is assumed to last 3 rounds, I can answer that. As for adventuring day, it depends on the strength of combats, but I believe the number sits at around 3 to 4 with appropriate encounter strength. Casters at least are assumed to use one of their highest-level spell slots per encounter, and...
  7. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Tidbit for monster design

    One of the funny things about 5e is that it has come out how certain "iconic" spells do too much damage on purpose. They had a spell formula, and purposely ignored it for certain spells to make them more "fun" - fun meaning overpowered for their level. If I recall correctly, this also applies...
  8. S

    D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

    It is a failure of the game design when it no longer caters to the community that used to play it. This is the 4e arguments all over again. No matter how much it is belittled, not "feeling" like what you want out of D&D is a valid complaint, and always has been. Perhaps I am a grognard, but I...
  9. S

    D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

    His reticence on the 2024 rules reminds me a lot of A Knight At The Opera, another 5e blog that found themselves not liking the new edition's moves despite wanting to. It takes guts to say you aren't jiving with the direction the ruleset you've made your name on is now going. I think people are...
  10. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Wizards values the power of conditions and noncombat effects as virtual damage.

    As for not valuing the conditions properly using this system, short answer yes. You are totally right, the quirks lead to undervalued status effects in general it sure looks like
  11. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Wizards values the power of conditions and noncombat effects as virtual damage.

    Hey so I was using the average real values by CR from Blog of Holding and Forge of Foes. That was the data points lol, the DMG guidelines are kind of skewed from what monsters turned out to be. You can technically get to the printed monster stats by following the DMG guidelines but it takes a...
  12. S

    D&D 5E (2014) Wizards values the power of conditions and noncombat effects as virtual damage.

    Spell design does follow the 2014 DMG table rather closely. The notable exceptions are that 1st level spells tend to do slightly more than the table suggests, so as are not outclassed by cantrips; and that at every spell level around two spells do more than the table because WOTC felt like it...
Top