D&D (2024) A Different Way To Run High Level Monsters

[dave2008]

I am working on an actual useful design document/draft set of rules and will post them once they are done.

I am interested in seeing your draft rules. As described in this thread I am not understanding the benefit of your approach yet. Thank you for sharing!

 

[LordEntrails]

One other thought for your draft. You mentioned you gave info or clues to the PCs that things were not normal for fighting the boss. Would love to hear more on this and how you telegraphed that to the players.

 

[jgsugden]

Wouldn't the PCs that go after the monster just be the first ones to deal damage before the monster resets again? I mean, PC1 and 2 go and deal 100 damage and then monster goes and resets damage because you did not meet threshold. Now PC3 and 4 go and deal 80 damage. This carries over to PC1 and 2's turn since the monster has not gotten to go a second time.

Again, the math does not add up. There are inconsistencies that do not align. You're noting one element that can align when one set of the facts are considered, but it does not align with significant elements of the information provided.

While dealing 40 damage per turn could result in a resetting via healing that gave the later PCs a chance to contribute on the main foe - the entire premise for why the system was created points to that not being the expectation.

The PCs were dealing 550+ damage in less than 2 rounds - which means that they were averaging about 75 to 100 damage per character turn in every mock ups ... but yet the real PCs were also just dealing 40 per turn per notes.

Further - if you're run high level games, 40 damage a round is kind of odd for many PCs. How much damage does a high level fighter deal in round one? 2014, close to 200. 2024, closer to 130. How much does a Shapechanged PC deal at 17th level?

The underlying problem that required this system to address was that they dealt far too much damage for the normal rules to provide a good experience, yet in practice they dealt half or less of that damage.

 

[jayoungr]

So for the actual con, I developed a different system. Instead of a giant pile of HP, the godling (a Collossus per the MM) has 3 "Hit Boxes." The PCs filled a hit box if they collectively did 150 points of damage to the godling in a single round, and it was defeated when 3 hit boxes were filled.

How long did the bosses last using this system? Did they typically go down in three rounds, or did it take longer?

 

[Reynard]

Again, the math does not add up. There are inconsistencies that do not align. You're noting one element that can align when one set of the facts are considered, but it does not align with significant elements of the information provided.

While dealing 40 damage per turn could result in a resetting via healing that gave the later PCs a chance to contribute on the main foe - the entire premise for why the system was created points to that not being the expectation.

The PCs were dealing 550+ damage in less than 2 rounds - which means that they were averaging about 75 to 100 damage per character turn in every mock ups ... but yet the real PCs were also just dealing 40 per turn per notes.

Further - if you're run high level games, 40 damage a round is kind of odd for many PCs. How much damage does a high level fighter deal in round one? 2014, close to 200. 2024, closer to 130. How much does a Shapechanged PC deal at 17th level?

The underlying problem that required this system to address was that they dealt far too much damage for the normal rules to provide a good experience, yet in practice they dealt half or less of that damage.

In post #27, I gave an example of what the damage tracks looked like.

 

[Reynard]

How long did the bosses last using this system? Did they typically go down in three rounds, or did it take longer?

Yes, which was what I was aiming for for a con game and felt pretty good overall: everyone got their big guns off, and no one ended up with a dead round.

The final boss, with its 5 separate hit boxes, would have lasted longer but I let them take 2 out in one round due to meteor swarm, mostly because we were running low on time. In retrospect, I would have made 4 instead of 5 for that monster (3 heads plus the body, rather than plus body AND a separate tail).

 

[jayoungr]

Yes, which was what I was aiming for for a con game and felt pretty good overall: everyone got their big guns off, and no one ended up with a dead round.

"Yes" to what? Three rounds?

 

[Reynard]

"Yes" to what? Three rounds?

Correct.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

In post #27, I gave an example of what the damage tracks looked like.

If I understand what jgsugden is getting at:

I am at RPG Con in Mildord Mass, running 4 sessions of of high (17th) level D&D 2024 epic fights. I playtested a couple times and each one, the damage power output of the PCs was just unbelievable, and even CR 25 Legendary creatures with minions died in less than 2 rounds.

I believe the issue is that this unbelievable damage output doesn't seem to match the damage shown in those tracks if the entire party was able to contribute to advancing to the threshold.

 

[Reynard]

If I understand what jgsugden is getting at:

I believe the issue is that this unbelievable damage output doesn't seem to match the damage shown in those tracks if the entire party was able to contribute to advancing to the threshold.

I ran two playtests in Fantasy Grounds using the vanilla D&D 2024 Colossus versus a 5 player 17th level party. Those were not the same PCs as the con game, btw. In both cases, the Collossus was down by the middle of round 2.