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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5501981" data-attributes="member: 87792">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.  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.  Only if you want very streamlined and simple monsters.  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).  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</blockquote>

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