D&D 5E 5e Hardcore: Monster Manual

[dave2008]

I'm not sure what you're asking here. 91 is the damage for an ancient red dragon; if you're asking whether taking on an ancient red dragon is hopeless for low-level characters, I think the answer is, "Not quite hopeless, but it will feel a lot like fighting Smaug." PCs can be expected to die left and right.

The details will depend upon how "low-level" they are and what their approach is, but at minimum it will be very exciting. Briefly.

If you're asking whether it would be appropriate to boost the adult dragon's damage up to match the ancient's, and then boost ancient's some more--well, I'm not a huge fan of stat inflation. That's not the direction I've gone when boosting my own dragons. An adult red dragon's damage already does as much damage as a 9th level Delayed Blast Fireball that's been charging for four rounds; increasing it further seems excessive to me, and hard to describe in non-numeric terms.

So the direction I've gone instead is to make them cunning and crafty, and give them the tools to be so. They've already got flight and high stealth; even just 5-7 levels of Dragon Sorcerer makes them terrifying (Greater Invisibility, Quickened Dimension Door, Quickened Hold Person IV, etc.) as well as being 100% thematically appropriate.

Imagine if the 17th level party fights their way past the dragon's minions and into his lair, only to find... that the dragon is out? Quick, stuff your pockets full of gold! But uh-oh, he was there all along (invisible and with good Stealth) and if someone doesn't have Perception Expertise or similar . Even if he doesn't get a surprise round, the PCs still have to deal with an invisible, Counterspell-equipped dragon who breathes a huge cone of fire hot enough to vaporize steel (63 damage) and then chucks a Quickened Lightning Bolt for another 8d6 (28) followed by three tail slaps, each strong enough to disable or kill a warhorse, at +14 plus advantage (because invisible) for a total of 51 points of damage. And BTW he's flying, and those tail slaps were made from 15' overhead as he buzzed you.

Alternate scenario: on round one, he drops invisibility to cast Quickened Hold Person IV, and then targets whichever PC failed the save with either (1) Fearsome Presence plus six attacks (claw/claw/bite/tail/tail/tail) for 166 points of damage counting auto-crits; or (2) Fearsome Presence and a grapple/grapple/bite routine on two paralyzed PCs, followed by a withdrawal as far as he can move to isolate the paralyzed PCs from the non-paralyzed ones, and then three more tail attacks for a total average damage of 122 (counting auto-crits) on the paralyzed PCs.

Do the PCs have counterplays available? Yes, they do, and I'd expect them to win the encounter (I hope). They could Counterspell the dragon's Hold Person IV with a higher-level slot and then Counterspell (from a different PC) his attempted Counter-Counterspell. They could cast True Seeing before even entering his lair. They could bring an army of skeletal minions and use them to create a strong point outside the lair and basically dare the dragon to attack them. (Likely to turn into a game of cat-and-mouse, that one; like playing Kriegspiel. Dragon is trying to attrition the skeleton army to death and/or pick off PCs; PCs are trying to use up the dragon's HP/spell points (or slots) and consumable magic items, and they need to do it before it gets too dark.)

But the point is that giving spells to a dragon is more than sufficient to turn it from a relatively straightforward fight into a game of play and counterplay, which in turn helps explain why the PCs are necessary. Sure, an army of eight hundred archers could theoretically kill this dragon if they got the upper hand in broad daylight; but the last three times someone tried something like that, they wound up leading an army of corpses. (Cue story about a dragon Polymorphing into a hummingbird and infiltrating the general's tent; cue another story about a three-day-long living nightmare fighting retreat against a dragon who keeps picking off humans by the score or by the hundred.)

I would generally aim for the monster to have at least one strong counter-play against any obvious strategy for the PCs to employ against him. I wouldn't aim to block counter-counterplay though. D&D is a fun game about monsters and treasure, not a military exercise in contingency planning.

Yikes! Long post - I will have to get back to you later!

 

[MostlyDm]

It's been used that way a lot around here for more than a few years, often in just the kind of phrasing you used, linking it to an edition or era of D&D, actually.

In the 'sweet spot,' sure, advancement and new toys and what they open up are a major part of the fun, so yeah, between enjoyment of them and indirectly, the new options they open up, 'primarily.'


That sounds like excluding quite a bit, though.

I don't recall if that was true for 3e CR (which just plain wasn't terribly dependable), it sounds about right for the 5e take, though...



Heh. E6 isn't an edition, it was a pretty drastic, well, 'fix,' I suppose applied to 3e. Game falls apart at 7th (really? 7th?), so never go there. I don't personally feel like it's the /best/ way to play 3e, hands down, but I'm sure lots of people would agree with you on that, and I doubt I could marshal persuasive arguments to the contrary...
But, yes, I can certainly see how it could have inspired BA.

I've been wondering when someone will come up with an E5 variant...

I think you misunderstand the appeal of E6 to those of us that love it. I mean, I guess Ican only speak for my group, but... to me, the appeal isn't because the game breaks at 7th level. It's because the tone changes. It begins to move away from being able to model more grounded, literary heroes and into a more gonzo/superhero style. Sometimes I want that, but more often my sensibilities run a different direction.

As for E5... If you mean Epic at 5th level, technically my longest running E6 game is actually E5.

If you mean E6 but for 5e, I don't think it's actually necessary. Because of BA, you can do stuff like use the Vitality Dice hack in a home brew thread here on Enworld, and low magic per some of your suggestions, to achieve the same feel and allow 1-20 advancement.

 

[CapnZapp]

Isn't be easier to nerf SS, GWM and some MC combo, than to upgrade all monster in the MM?

I can has both?

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[CapnZapp]

No? Because it was available in 3.x, and there may be 5e fans who miss it.

Sorry, I was unclear.

I meant that in the context of creating full PC-like monsters being hard and complex, as in don't do it.

I guess I'm used to people offering insincere advice more meant to shut down criticism than actual constructive discussion.

If you genuinely want that, please accept my apology.



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[CapnZapp]

I also have some misgiving about the name of this project ("AD&D") because it's misleading--I opened this thread expecting to see either old-school monsters or else monsters inspired by old-school, with non-combat-related considerations like habitat, ecology, and social structure playing a greater role.

I, on the other hand, think it's an excellent title, since it implies the 5th edition we have today *isn't* advanced.

Which is exactly my criticism against it, if you boil it down to a single line.





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[CapnZapp]

I would argue that damage and HP can affect BA, just not as directly and obviously as attack/defense. My argument for this is long, so bear with me (if you care.)

In general, damage does not actually keep up with HP. I think this is intentional.

The basic way people see HP is: At low levels, you are a squishy nobody who can be killed by an unlucky axe swing from an orc. At high levels, you have the grit/luck/toughness/etc. to withstand that...orcs are nothing! You're a superhero. And now you don't fight orcs, you fight Dragons (or, perhaps, Infernal Orcs of the Adamantine Fist, though that's not my preference). And, people presume, Dragons can now kill you with an unlucky breath weapon or chomp or whatever.

Because, I think due to the last 2 D&D editions and a healthy dose of video game advancement design, people assume the game is supposed to fundamentally play the same at all levels. At high level you have Bigger Numbers and more widgets and doodads, but it's all the same thing really.

But I think this is a faulty assumption for 5e. If you look at the MM, damage really doesn't keep up with HP. As soon as PCs get a few levels under their belt, they become fundamentally more resilient, even against high level threats... if those threats are individual, anyway. This is part of why you can see players shredding high CR monsters, e.g. a party of 11s defeating an ancient dragon or a Pit Fiend or whatever.

And this is why multiple low CR threats are often much worse. A CR 10 monster does not deal 10 times the damage a CR 1 monster deals, most of the time. So ten CR1 monsters will actually rip a party apart faster in many cases. CR 1 is high enough for a decent HP pool, one large enough that even high level PCs will not typically be able to kill in one hit unless they are dropping resources on the hit. Because, as I keep saying, damage and HP don't scale equally.

So... given that he can't just one-shot them, for a high CR monster to be a true threat to high level PCs, it has to be clever and use battlefield control, attack denial, hit-and-run, and things like that.

That's all just... facts about the game, basically. The assumptions that, to some extent, I think you don't like and want to change with this project. You want powerful "solo" monsters that hit so hard they can level a PC in a blow or too, and can take a pounding of nova powers and keep trucking. I get it. But...

The reason I say that this is a Bounded Accuracy issue is... the same way that a pack of low CR monsters can actually still threaten higher level PCs when handled carefully, so too can a party of low level characters threaten a high CR monster when handled carefully. If the party is the one using maximal battlefield control, denial, hit and run, etc. they can potentially punch high above their weight class.

And I think that is actually the most fun and exciting thing that ever happens in any D&D combat, ever, throughout every edition of the game. That's the stuff legendary table stories are made of. The time the level 7 party stopped a Pit Fiend. The time the level 3 half-orc took a fire breath and kept standing (thanks [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION]).

What you guys seem to want is a way to have those fights, but have them bound within the "proper" CRs. So you have an epic fight with a Balor when you are the appropriate level 16 or so, just a few levels shy of the CR so it still feels kinda like you're in over your heads. This is the "solo" monster mindset, basically.

But monsters feel like "solos" when they're tough enough to nearly drop you in a hit, and sustain several hits from your whole party. To get that, you need a monster of higher CR than the party... and as the party level increases, you actually need the CR disparity to be bigger and bigger. So a CR 3 Veteran can achieve this for a party of level 1 characters, but a single CR 7 Illithid isn't going to scare a party of 5th level PCs the same way. Well, maybe a bad example, because brain extraction, but he'd have to be fairly lucky to pull it off. Certainly a CR 19 Balor is not scary in this way to a party of level 17s.

To do it, you'd need to dramatically buff high level monsters. Or, what you should really do: recognize that as the party gets higher level, challenging "solos" will become harder to find, so make more of them. A solo for a level 15 party isn't a CR 19 monster. It's a CR 25 monster. By 15th level, if the party wants to be challenged and killed by a solo monster, they need to be going after demon princes and stuff like that. Level 20 isn't really the gateway to "Epic play" like in 3e and 4e. It's the end.

The party that wants a more grounded, less epic game, can do one of two things: accept that high level PCs need multiple threats, or accept that they don't want to play at high level.

Your goal is basically to buff monsters so that you can always have that "solo a couple CRs above the party" feel. Since damage and HP don't scale in a way that allows this, you have to supercharge damage and HP. But when you supercharge monster HP and especially damage, you can create a "Level X Need Not Apply" barrier the same way monsters with AC 47 did in 3rd and 4th edition. So now we're back to no ability to punch super high above your weight class, regardless of tactics.

As a DM who favors open worlds without sculpted encounter zones and scaling CR story quests, a lack of "Level X Need Not Apply" signs is especially important to me. I get that my style isn't for everyone, and more tightly scripted games that employ Level Appropriate Encounters could find this useful. But that's what I meant when I said I felt the design was a betrayal of the spirit of Bounded Accuracy.

Thanks, but ten CR 1 creatures are toast with a single fireball, which is only a minor inconvenience to a CR 10 critter.

Not saying you're wrong, only that your comparison doesn't paint the full picture: letting all ten foes reach you is a mistake, so you don't do that.

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[CapnZapp]

I pointed this out in late 2014 or early 2015.

Just ignore the encounter guidelines or stop using feats to stretch the game out combined with lowering CRs.

Well, I want feats. And high level CRs.

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[dave2008]

If you're asking whether it would be appropriate to boost the adult dragon's damage up to match the ancient's, and then boost ancient's some more--well, I'm not a huge fan of stat inflation.

That is what I was suggesting, but, like I said, I have not worked on the dragon's yet so that number was just a WAG.

That's not the direction I've gone when boosting my own dragons. An adult red dragon's damage already does as much damage as a 9th level Delayed Blast Fireball that's been charging for four rounds; increasing it further seems excessive to me, and hard to describe in non-numeric terms.

And the ancient red does about 35% less damage than a 9th level meteor swarm

So the direction I've gone instead is to make them cunning and crafty, and give them the tools to be so. They've already got flight and high stealth; even just 5-7 levels of Dragon Sorcerer makes them terrifying (Greater Invisibility, Quickened Dimension Door, Quickened Hold Person IV, etc.) as well as being 100% thematically appropriate.

I don't know about 100% thematically appropriate, some people don't believe dragons should have spells at all (I'm not on of them). But I get your point. But not all DMs want or can play that way. I know from reading some of your posts that you think of many creative tactical ways to play your monsters that often don't occur to me. In addition, the ability to add spells requires a more system mastery than some DMs want to take on. I like to design my legendary monsters for easy brutal play and more nuanced tactical play.

...But the point is that giving spells to a dragon is more than sufficient to turn it from a relatively straightforward fight into a game of play and counterplay, which in turn helps explain why the PCs are necessary.

It is if you know how to play them well and you want your dragons to have spells. It doesn't work so well if either of those two don't apply

I would generally aim for the monster to have at least one strong counter-play against any obvious strategy for the PCs to employ against him. I wouldn't aim to block counter-counterplay though. D&D is a fun game about monsters and treasure, not a military exercise in contingency planning.

That sounds like a good design goal - thank you for sharing!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Responding to a couple of points:

And the ancient red does about 35% less damage than a 9th level meteor swarm

The Ancient Red's breath weapon does about 30% more fire damage than the Meteor Swarm--seems clear that it is actually hotter than a Meteor Swarm. Unless you're planning on the ancient red actually vomiting out stones onto the party for extra damage, it doesn't seem right to count the bludgeoning damage when trying to find an analogy for how hot the dragon breath is.

I don't know about 100% thematically appropriate, some people don't believe dragons should have spells at all (I'm not on of them).

Then you (generic "you") would probably want to remove Dragon Sorcerer from your campaign as a class. If dragons aren't magical spellcasters, then why would having a dragon ancestor make you a magical spellcaster?

*snip the rest*

Good gaming to you too Dave!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I, on the other hand, think it's an excellent title, since it implies the 5th edition we have today *isn't* advanced.

But if you just make monsters harder, then it still isn't advanced. It still has no ecologies to speak of, no weather except for whatever the DM pulls out of his hat on the fly, no social structure or organization, no logistics, no vehicle rules...

Thanks, but ten CR 1 creatures are toast with a single fireball, which is only a minor inconvenience to a CR 10 critter.

Good luck inflicting 42 HP of damage with a single 8d6 fireball. (Average 28 HP of damage, 14 on a save.)

Fireball is great against CR 1/8 and 1/4 creatures, sometimes good against CR 1/2. Doesn't generally work on CR 1.