(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Posted by Grog in PirateCat's story hour:
Anyone agree? Disagree? Do we need a poll?
IME this is especially true at the higher levels.IME, most 3E monsters are very strong on offense and average to weak on defense. Look at a very basic example - the orc. It has 4 hit points and does 1d12+3 damage. It can do up to 15 points of damage without a crit - almost four times its HP. Its average damage is 9-10 points, which is still more than twice its HP. An ogre has 26 HP and does 14 damage on average. An ogre could drop another ogre in two hits with just average rolls. There wasn't this kind of damage to hit points ratio in 1E and 2E - or if there was, it was very rare.
This trend continues throughout the Monster Manual. Monsters deal out a lot of damage and while some of them may have a lot of hit points, very few have any significant defensive capabilities. You regularly see ACs in the low 20s and below on monsters CR 10 and up. Many monsters also have rather weak Reflex and Will saves.
Given the vast amounts of offense and low amounts of defense that most monsters bring to a fight, combats just can't last very long - and they don't, again IME.
Anyone agree? Disagree? Do we need a poll?
Last edited: