D&D General 2014 vs 2024: Monster HP and Resistances

[Remathilis]

So one of the major changes in 2024 is the removal of bypassable Resistances to weapon damage. (Aka resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing weapons that aren't magical (or silver, adamantine, etc)). Instead, those monsters tended to get more HP to compensate.

Has anyone done the math to see HOW MUCH more Hp they got? Like, has anyone reverse engineered a formula to determine how much HP they should get instead?

I'm not looking to argue the design choice, just to see what the conversion rate is.

 

[zottel]

I think Teos Abadia did some work with the monsters. If I remember correctly, he talked about it in this video, but I don't have time to check right now:
You may also find aomething on his blog:

How to Create a Monster for Revised D&D 5E 2024

The 2024 DMG doesn't tell us how to build a monster... but I've done that work for you!

alphastream.org

 

[Minigiant]

So one of the major changes in 2024 is the removal of bypassable Resistances to weapon damage. (Aka resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing weapons that aren't magical (or silver, adamantine, etc)). Instead, those monsters tended to get more HP to compensate.

Has anyone done the math to see HOW MUCH more Hp they got? Like, has anyone reverse engineered a formula to determine how much HP they should get instead?

I'm not looking to argue the design choice, just to see what the conversion rate

They didn't get additional hit points because of the loss of resistances. They got additional hit points if they were off on the CR Tables.

2014 assumed magic weapon as an item or spell.

The 2014 chain devil has the same hp.

 

[Remathilis]

They didn't get additional hit points because of the loss of resistances. They got additional hit points if they were off on the CR Tables.

2014 assumed magic weapon as an item or spell.

The 2014 chain devil has the same hp.

Was that confirmed? My own research (limited as it was) was removing conditional psb netted a HP/HD update between 9 and 30% (depending on other factors). I was just curious if there was a formula for that since I'm updating a module with older monsters and I want to remove the DR without weakening the monster.

 

[Zardnaar]

Was that confirmed? My own research (limited as it was) was removing conditional psb netted a HP/HD update between 9 and 30% (depending on other factors). I was just curious if there was a formula for that since I'm updating a module with older monsters and I want to remove the DR without weakening the monster.

Depends on the creature it can be close to 100%. Wight went from 45 to 81 iirc.

I convert at +50% generally.

 

[Charlaquin]

I haven’t checked, but I would bet it’s the reverse of how the 2014 DMG monster building guidelines suggest adjusting effective HP based on number of resistances and immunities.

 

[Zardnaar]

I haven’t checked, but I would bet it’s the reverse of how the 2014 DMG monster building guidelines suggest adjusting effective HP based on number of resistances and immunities.

Its all over the place. Ive noticed modest buffs around 10% to close to 100% on others.

New 5.5 monsters are interesting. Updated 5.0 ones bit wonky

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Unfortunately until someone fully cracks the code to reverse engineer the actual formula the official 5.0e challenge rating calculator spreadsheet uses, we can't really see how the 5.5e version differs, and therefore can't see what the real numbers are.

What we do know is that the input fields on the 5.0 sheet have a place for putting the CR if there is resistance to non-magical weapons, and it appears to calculate and output the multiplier to an adjacent field. So it's doing something like the DMG guidelines tell us, but there is no way to know if it uses the same multipliers, or for instance, something more granular. Just for information, it doesn't have an input for any other damage resistances, and doesn't seem to care about resistance negated by special materials (which lines up with some of my personal observations where demon resistances overcome by magic seemed to have an effect, but devil resistances overcome by silver didn't--though that observation could be incorrect, and they may still be counting silver, etc).

Btw, I and @tomedunn are both (very slowly in my case) working on trying to figure this sort of stuff out. I'm trying to reverse engineer the exact math, but it's a real pain. As the designers have admitted, it's not the same as the DMG method. It does, however, look like the DMG method is intended to approximate as best as they could with a table. It's more accurate near the middle CRs and loses accuracy on the low and high ends. (For instance, notice how on that table a monster having 7hp is treated identically to it having 35hp? Yeah, that's not how it works at all. Varying the numbers within that range will almost always adjust CR.) I just wish they had given us the actual formula in a sidebar so we could plug it into our own spreadsheet and get accurate results.

 

[Charlaquin]

Btw, I and @tomedunn are both (very slowly in my case) working on trying to figure this sort of stuff out. I'm trying to reverse engineer the exact math, but it's a real pain. As the designers have admitted, it's not the same as the DMG method. It does, however, look like the DMG method is intended to approximate as best as they could with a table. It's more accurate near the middle CRs and loses accuracy on the low and high ends. (For instance, notice how on that table a monster having 7hp is treated identically to it having 35hp? Yeah, that's not how it works at all. Varying the numbers within that range will almost always adjust CR.) I just wish they had given us the actual formula in a sidebar so we could plug it into our own spreadsheet and get accurate results.

Most likely the reason they didn’t give us the actual formula is that it’s more complex than the average reader would be able to understand. I think @tomedunn is pretty damn close to the mark, though.

 

[Zardnaar]

Most likely the reason they didn’t give us the actual formula is that it’s more complex than the average reader would be able to understand. I think @tomedunn is pretty damn close to the mark, though.

I think its an art form vs science. A formula might get you in the ballpark.