Am I missing something in monster design?

[Mengu]

But what you're suggesting here, really, is that while I *could* do that, I would really need to tweak these monsters (re-design them, essentially) or else, yes, they will end up bland and flat.

I really think this is best.

Looking at the level 8 example, the average damage is 2d8+7. I tend to modify things a bit, according to the flavor of the monster.

Let's say it's an Orog soldier with a greataxe. I might be tempted to change the hit line to 2d12+3 (1d12+27 on crit) and target is marked. Then probably give them a backhanded swing, as an encounter power to have them make the attack against two targets once per encounter, and a deathblow, and give them an aura 1 that slows if you start your turn in it. This makes the damage more swingy, and very scary on crits, and holds to some of the bloodline features of orcs and ogres, as well as an ability or two that makes them soldiery.

For a drow skirmisher with a longsword and hand crossbow, I might make the crossbow and longsword hit lines do a little less damage, but give the drow a bonus for combat advantage, and add a poison to the crossbow. While they might do the same average damage, they won't feel the same. Hand crossbow hit line would be something like 2d6+4 damage, and ongoing 5 poison damage and slowed (save ends both). The long sword would do 2d8+4 damage and the drow can shift one square. The drow would also deal 1d6 additional damage with combat advantage. And of course they have their cloud of darkness to make it easier for them to gain combat advantage.

A level 8 goblin lurker with a dagger might do a measly 2d4+7 damage on a hit, but gain +1d6 with combat advantage, and another +1d6 against bloodied targets. And he maybe weakens targets on a recharge, and has shadow walk, gaining concealment when he moves 3 or more squares.

It's not the damage that makes a creature unique, it's how they deal that damage, and their other abilities. So behind the screen even if you were rolling 2d8+7 for a greataxe, a longsword, and a dagger, the players would never know. But telling them how the bonus damage is gained, gives them more options for tactics. The cleric might be inclined to use Beacon of Hope to weaken Orogs in an encounter, as well as for better healing against their brutal attacks. The wizard might be inclined to thunderwave the drow out of their darkness. The dwarf might decide he can tank the drow fairly well because of his resistance to poison. The warlock might decide to infernal moon curse the goblin lurker so he won't easily get combat advantage or concealment.

The more varied the monster tactics are, the more fun solutions PC's will have to deal with them. So for monster design, I'm typically more inclined to give monsters conditional damage or typed damage to boost the damage up to (or beyond) the average expected damage, but leave an unconditional damage value not too far below the expected average. This is especially true for soldiers, brutes, and skirmishers.

 

[DNH]

Thanks for all the replies; some really good points in there (notably, Mengu's penultimate paragraph in post #11). However ...

I really don't want to appear ungrateful but I fear that some of the replies are missing the point. Or rather that I have not fully explained myself. I do not have the time, inclination or indeed the interest to redesign these monsters to conform to the new maths. Some people clearly thrive on monster design but I am not one of them. I much prefer to read the statblocks given to me and then run the encounter with them.

This standpoint of mine leaves me in something of a quandary: I either

• leave the monster stats as they are, but in the knowledge that they are based on the old maths and so will become increasingly less of a challenge to the PCs as we progress in levels, or ...
• update the monster stats to the new numbers but know that unless I do some tweaking to them, they will be pretty samey, flat and bland.

Another option would of course be to actually do that tweaking, but as I mention at the start of this post, that is not something I am likely to do.

Hmm. I shall consider how best to proceed.

 

[Kingreaper]

If you are unable to apply effort to this upgrading of monsters, perhaps due to a lack of time, I will give you another option.

I'm not exactly flush for cash at the moment, but I have plenty of time for editing monsters etc.
Make me an offer, let me know which monsters you need updating to the new math, and if your offer is reasonable I'll send you the updated stats.

EDIT: In fact, if you do want to take me up on such a service, I'll even be willing to produce custom monsters for you.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Given the new maths for monster design (ie post-MM3/Essentials), am I right in thinking that things have become a little ... flat? What I mean to say is this: take an 8th-level monster, a hulking thug of an oroc that attacks with a greatsword. As per the tables, he does ... 2d8+7 damage on a single target with an at-will attack. Now take a different 8th-level monster, a wily but weedy goblin with a dagger. As per the tables, he does ... 2d8+7 damage on a single target with an at-will attack. Hmm.

Silly question: Why do you have a level 8 goblin? Hulking thugs, as has been mentioned, do extra damage and have extra hit points - but lower AC. The goblin with the dagger is likely to be a skirmisher - fewer hp but better AC. And have movement powers. And because they are wily but weedy they are likely to do low damage without combat advantage and high damage with; 2d4+7 base, but with a 2d6 sneak attack if they have combat advantage. (2d4+7 avg = 12 or -25% from the average damage expression. 2d4 + 2d6 + 7 = average 19 (20 would be high, so this is near enough)). As a goblin they get goblin tactics, and as a skirmisher they get other movement powers to help them gain flanking. And get utterly crippled by a well-played defender or controler who can prevent them moving to flank.

Or how about one single 8th-level monster. When he attacks with his longsword, he does 2d8+7 damage. When he fires off his crossbow, he does ... 2d8+7 damage.

Very unusual. Again, you've neglected the roles. If the monster's artillery they will be doing high damage at range or 2d10+9, but low in melee or d6+9 (or 2d6 + 5) and shooting into melee provokes OAs. And they have a low AC. Which means they are scary at long range but if you can catch them you can kill them. On the other hand if they are a soldier they are unlikely to deign to use a crossbow and brutes aren't likely to be doing high damage at range although they do in melee. So a vanilla skirmisher, yes. But the reason to use such a vanilla skirmisher is to bulk up the numbers without using minions, so it doesn't matter.

Is that right?

Only if you want very streamlined and simple monsters.

Also, looking at some older (MM1) monsters, they have a varied range of values for their defences ("AC 27; Fortitude 25, Reflex 22, Will 23" is not unusual) but the new maths state "Level + 12" for all defences, with some monster roles receiving a bonus. The monster from whom the above defences was quoted (a Level 11 Soldier) would now be "AC 27; Fortitude 23, Reflex 23, Will 23".

Is that right too?

No. The numbers given are average. You then tweak up and down to get the averages for your version of the soldier, so the fort +2 ref -1 on the recommended defences is fine (fort +2 ref +1 would be a bit much as it would increase the average by 1 rather than 1/3).

Like I say, maybe I am missing something. To be fair, *I* am not the one designing these monsters from scratch; I am merely updating some older monsters to use the new maths before I use them in my upcoming game. It may well be that there are further considerations that come into play in ground-up design and that an attempt to update like this is going to miss that.

Any thoughts?

There are. Hope that some of that helped.

Edit: The two ways of tweaking I know are a flat damage boost per level to each monster under the old design and pulling simple replacement monsters out of MM3/DSCG/MV

 

[the-golem]

If you are unable to apply effort to this upgrading of monsters, perhaps due to a lack of time, I will give you another option.

I'm not exactly flush for cash at the moment, but I have plenty of time for editing monsters etc.
Make me an offer, let me know which monsters you need updating to the new math, and if your offer is reasonable I'll send you the updated stats.

EDIT: In fact, if you do want to take me up on such a service, I'll even be willing to produce custom monsters for you.

Hoho! Kingreaper, If I was flush for cash, I'd be passing it right off to you.

And DNH, I dunno if you have a DDI subscription or not, but with the Monster Builder editing monsters really isn't that hard.

I know you said you don't have the time or the inclination to design new monsters or whatnot, but you really didn't mention any of that in your original post. To me, and it looks like to several others, the point was "New rules = bland, unless I missed something." To which pretty much every response was "yep, you missed something."

All that clarified, with all the new information in hand, and you don't want to update the old monsters, then you really only have one option.

Use the old stats.

But really, if you're updating them anyway, "to the new, bland rules," taking an extra minute to tweak the damage really won't hurt anything.

 

[Spatula]

I feel like I'm not getting your point. You make it sound like you have to re-design every monster from the ground up, when in reality the difference between "old" and "new" monster numbers is a handful of numerical tweaks.

* soldiers have their attack bonuses reduced by 2?
* brutes have their attack bonuses increased by 2?
* elites & solos maybe have their defenses lowered by 2?
* everyone does more damage - I believe I've heard "Add +1/2 the monster's level" as a quick fix
* level 11+ solos lose 1/5 of their HP.

Otherwise there's nothing particularly wrong with the design of the vast majority of monsters. Most old solos and some old elites are the only ones that might benefit from an actual redesign. And even then it's not strictly necessary.

Thanks for all the replies; some really good points in there (notably, Mengu's penultimate paragraph in post #11). However ...

I really don't want to appear ungrateful but I fear that some of the replies are missing the point. Or rather that I have not fully explained myself. I do not have the time, inclination or indeed the interest to redesign these monsters to conform to the new maths. Some people clearly thrive on monster design but I am not one of them. I much prefer to read the statblocks given to me and then run the encounter with them.

This standpoint of mine leaves me in something of a quandary: I either

• leave the monster stats as they are, but in the knowledge that they are based on the old maths and so will become increasingly less of a challenge to the PCs as we progress in levels, or ...
• update the monster stats to the new numbers but know that unless I do some tweaking to them, they will be pretty samey, flat and bland.

Another option would of course be to actually do that tweaking, but as I mention at the start of this post, that is not something I am likely to do.

Hmm. I shall consider how best to proceed.

 

[Psikus]

This standpoint of mine leaves me in something of a quandary: I either

• leave the monster stats as they are, but in the knowledge that they are based on the old maths and so will become increasingly less of a challenge to the PCs as we progress in levels, or ...
• update the monster stats to the new numbers but know that unless I do some tweaking to them, they will be pretty samey, flat and bland.

Another option would of course be to actually do that tweaking, but as I mention at the start of this post, that is not something I am likely to do..

It is possible to do some quick monster tweaking without homogeneizing them so much. For that, I'd recommend the following steps.
- For standard monsters, use the original damage expression and add bonus damage equal to one half the monster's level. If the monster is a brute, make the bonus two thirds the monster's level instead.
- Give soldiers a -2 penalty to attack rolls, and brutes a +2 bonus to attack rolls.
- Give Elite monsters a -2 penalty to AC and highest defense.
- For minion monsters, make their damage equal to 4+level/2, or 5+(0.6*level) if they are brutes.
- Skip solo monsters altogether, or be prepared for long, easy (and boring) encounters.

This will give you monsters that are close enough to modern standards to have fun, challenging encounters. If it still looks like too much work, I'd try just changing damage values, as it is by far the most important step.

Also worth noting: if you are playing adventures of lower levels (1-4), you can get away with leaving the monsters unchanged, as the math changes won't make much difference.

EDIT: ninjaed!

 

[Mengu]

update the monster stats to the new numbers but know that unless I do some tweaking to them, they will be pretty samey, flat and bland.

Actually, it's worth noting, the players haven't the foggiest, that you're rolling the same damage for a dagger vs a greataxe, so while they might be same damage, they won't necessarily be bland. If it's easier to roll 2d8+7 on all damage rolls, feel free to do so. Simply articulate the descriptions to indicate how the dagger causes the damage in multiple slashes back and forth, or finds a chink in the armor, and how the axe slices through hide armor like a hot knife through butter and threatens to sever limbs. The players won't know you rolled 2d8+7 behind your screen for both attacks. They'll just know one attack did 15 damage, the other did 17 damage. Tactically they won't have different approaches to stop being damaged, but with some colorful descriptions, it shouldn't be bland. And monsters rarely do "just damage". Old or new, they all have some other abilities that will help distinguish them as individual or unique.

And sometimes even if you modify just one monster for an important encounter to add it some individuality, it only takes a minute to do so, and the impact upon the players is well worth it.

 

[DNH]

Actually, it's worth noting, the players haven't the foggiest, that you're rolling the same damage for a dagger vs a greataxe.

This is very true.

Unfortunately, I have a player in my group who will all too readily cry foul!

"WTF?! 21 damage with a dagger?! He hit me with a massive greatsword last round and only did 8 damage! What gives?!"

Cue cries of "&%@$-ing ridiculous" and "unrealistic" and sulky (and petulant) almost-silence from this player for the rest of the session.

*sigh*

 

[keterys]

... do they do the same cries when their thief hits someone with a dagger for 60 damage?