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Am I the only one who doesn't like the arbitrary "boss monster" tag?
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6004621" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>I do like shifting monsters along the solo-minion scale to represent PC advancement. An example I used once was orcs. In classic D&D, an orc is prettymuch an orc, except for a few leader types that are a bit tougher. They quickly become a trivial challenge. In 3e, you could fight plain orcs for a while, and keep fighting orcs - the DM just gives them more and more character levels, so, a 18th, you're figting 18th level Clerics of Gruumsh and the like. In 4e, you could also just scale up a monster, from a 1st level or to an <em>nth</em> level orc Elite with a couple of class or class-style powers. But, you could also keep the same orcs, but as the party leveled up, change their stats to reflect the way the challenge they represent changes. At 1st level, a single warrior of a tribe of uruk-hai-like uber-orcs might by a solo challenge for the party, a 'boss' at the end of an adventure where they finally track down the agent provacatuer that's been causing trouble in their corner of the world. Five levels on, the same sort of orc (maybe that first one's twin brother, looking for revenge, maybe the exact same uber-orc if he escaped that boss fight) might be statted out as a same-level elite. Another 4 or 5 levels, and they're 'just' standard monsters. Another 18, and the paragon level PCs are facing hordes of the same sort of orc warriors, but now they're only minions. When those get too easy, the DM can pull them together into even-higher-level mobs. You keep fighting the same sort of monster, in the fiction, the modeling is just changed to fit their changing role in the PCs story. </p><p></p><p>'Bounded accuracy' tries to give monsters that same sort of longevity without changing their stats. You go from an orc being a modestly tough monster to a minion-equivalent as your minimum damage potential (damage/hps being the primary source of scaling under bounded accuracy) exceeds it's hps, and it's damage potential becomes nearly trivial compared to your hps.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6004621, member: 996"] I do like shifting monsters along the solo-minion scale to represent PC advancement. An example I used once was orcs. In classic D&D, an orc is prettymuch an orc, except for a few leader types that are a bit tougher. They quickly become a trivial challenge. In 3e, you could fight plain orcs for a while, and keep fighting orcs - the DM just gives them more and more character levels, so, a 18th, you're figting 18th level Clerics of Gruumsh and the like. In 4e, you could also just scale up a monster, from a 1st level or to an [i]nth[/i] level orc Elite with a couple of class or class-style powers. But, you could also keep the same orcs, but as the party leveled up, change their stats to reflect the way the challenge they represent changes. At 1st level, a single warrior of a tribe of uruk-hai-like uber-orcs might by a solo challenge for the party, a 'boss' at the end of an adventure where they finally track down the agent provacatuer that's been causing trouble in their corner of the world. Five levels on, the same sort of orc (maybe that first one's twin brother, looking for revenge, maybe the exact same uber-orc if he escaped that boss fight) might be statted out as a same-level elite. Another 4 or 5 levels, and they're 'just' standard monsters. Another 18, and the paragon level PCs are facing hordes of the same sort of orc warriors, but now they're only minions. When those get too easy, the DM can pull them together into even-higher-level mobs. You keep fighting the same sort of monster, in the fiction, the modeling is just changed to fit their changing role in the PCs story. 'Bounded accuracy' tries to give monsters that same sort of longevity without changing their stats. You go from an orc being a modestly tough monster to a minion-equivalent as your minimum damage potential (damage/hps being the primary source of scaling under bounded accuracy) exceeds it's hps, and it's damage potential becomes nearly trivial compared to your hps. [/QUOTE]
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Am I the only one who doesn't like the arbitrary "boss monster" tag?
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