Bashing bags of hitpoints

[Maxperson]

Not me. I seem to be prone to bouts of bad luck, which in my last-ever* 4e game saw me lose all of my limited-use powers (daily and per-encounter) to misses. When I finally managed a hit, it was with a piddly at-will power.

I'd much rather the deck was stacked assuming most attacks hit, even if that meant a lower average damage per hit. Indeed, a couple of bad experiences like the above have left me almost wishing for the remove of attack rolls altogether!

* Incidentally, it's a coincidence that that was the last-ever 4e game - it wasn't a conscious decision, never mind being one motivated by that bad experience.

I never really played 4e, so I can't speak to that experience. It seems, though, that boring and drawn out is boring and drawn out, whether through misses or hits that do little. I'm not convinced that 5e's method is much better. Hitting and doing little seems like a negated success to me.

3e's DR wasn't hugely fun either. IME, players hate seeing their successes negated (see also 3e's confirmation roll for critical hits, or the miss-percentage for displacement).

Yeah. That's why if you rolled a 20 in our games and didn't confirm the crit, your damage die was maxed. It gave you a little something, even if you didn't confirm the critical.

Consider two cases: one where an average hit does 15 damage, but the creature has DR10 and 18 hit points; versus one where an average hit does 15 damage, the creature has no DR but 58 hit points.

The maths suggest that these two cases are effectively the same - the creature dies on the fourth hit. However, the latter is much more likely to give a more satisfying game experience, because the PCs aren't "losing" 40 hit points of damage.

I guess it's perspective. Both of those seem to be the same to me. The problem was that in 3e, things with DR ALSO had a lot of hit points in most cases.

 

[delericho]

I think the solution to misses not being fun shouldn't have been having HP scaling being the main factor of increasing CR. It should have been to make the hitting/missing mechanics more fun.

Sure, I could agree with that, if it were actually implemented.

Sadly, my experience is that games (and groups) are more likely to give extra to those players who are lucky (or, also my experience, 'lucky') than they are to shore things up for those who hit a bad streak - you're more likely to see a house rule to give people who score a crit "a little something extra", or effects that trigger if you hit twice in a single round, or whatever.

I have no possible idea how one would do this and fully admit I am a member of the peanut gallery on this one.

One suggestion I might make is an adaptation of "13th Age's" Escalation Die - if you miss an attack you are awarded an ED of d4. Each successive miss then boosts that die type (d6, d8, d10, etc). If and when you eventually hit, that ED is then rolled and added to your damage done.

That way, although the miss sucks (which is probably unavoidable), when you do finally hit it is at least worthwhile.

(As a corollary to that, though, giving characters a very small number of high-impact but limited-use powers should be a no-no, at least if they're wasted on a miss. The bad experience I related was very much an outlier, but it really sucked to watch everyone else unload massive damage while I wasted my attacks, only to finally score a hit... and find I might as well not have bothered.)

 

[delericho]

I never really played 4e, so I can't speak to that experience. It seems, though, that boring and drawn out is boring and drawn out, whether through misses or hits that do little.

The thing is that that experience wasn't boring and drawn out. It was blood-boilingly frustrating and drawn out.

 

[TwoSix]

I disagree. I'd rather hit with 1 attack out of 4 and have that one attack wreck the creature, than to see 4 attacks hit and have them all shrugged off. In 3e I never had anyone come to me after a fight and say, "Man, I really loved the low AC and DR 10 on that creature. It was great to hit a lot and do almost nothing!"

Have to disagree. For me, I might not know the exact hit points, but hit point scaling in 5e isn't a black box either. So I know that my hit probably did somewhere between 20% to 25% of damage on a smaller minion, or maybe between 5-10% on a boss type monster. Every once in a while, something will go down faster or slower than I expect, but it's usually around where I'm anticipating.

 

[5ekyu]

This was particularly noticeable in a fight vs 3 gibbering mouthers (AC 9, HP 67) and a living wall (HP 207 (!) AC 12). The living wall at least was interesting because it could cast spells at them. The gibbering mouther fight was just a chore.

Has anyone else noted this?

Duration of fights and Monster HP - In my experience (and some others if numerous posts i have seen on these forums are indicative) in 5e i commonly have to raise the Hp of monsters to get combats vs 4 man parties to last a decent stretch - like 5+ rounds. obviously, raise Hp and increase numbers of adversaries are all flavors of the theme. So, from that my belief is that *if* one is encountering the neverending wall-o-hp it is encounter design & party based, not a feature of 5e itself.

Encounter Design - if you do not want as much simple walls of HP with little flavor, use less of them. My settings have their share of those but the cases where thats the big mainstay of the adversary lunch buffet are almost never. When they are the focus is often a choice between engage or evade... its just rare that killing the dull meatsacks is an actual objective. Most often when it does need to be a kill the meatsack thing, its because they are being used as part of a bigger fight where there are interesting things afoot in the scenario and where YES ABSOLUTELY by design time spent killing the meatsacks is actually time spent "doing what the bad guy intends" - which again prompts the PCs to look around that approach *if* possible.

Party - not sure of your PCs but the class/levels would seem to be ones that have a wide variety of options and good opportunities to output damage without major resource drain along the lines I have seen. So, again not seeing a specific 5e problem as much as maybe a mismatch between encounter design, Gm choices and group preferences. Why throw so much "meatsack" adversaries in a scene that it will make the scene boring for your players? NOTE" "its a module" = "I wanted to". Like the old joke about the guy saying "doc it hurts when i do this" the doc would tell you "then dont do that." One of the things i do as Gm is to keep the players in mind when it comes down to details and fiddly bits... not scripting it to them but i almost never want a scene to be so simple it is boring and adding fiddly bits that both make sense for the NPC/situation and create opportunities for PCs to see diffierent approaches as useful helps make every challenge more unique, challenging and interesting.

BTW there are also feats in 5e (if you use those) where against easy-to-hit targets a character can take -5 to hit and gain +10 damage per hit.

But, at a core, one of the design principles in 5e was not just bounded accuracy (no longer ever escalating Ac) but also that its more fun to hit and damage than to miss - which makes bigger HP totals and reasonable Ac a better design choice. Would your players have been happier to take just as long against the gibberlings but have half their attacks miss?

Were there ways in the encounters that felt like a chore where the PCs could avoid or minimize or bypass the boring part and still get to the objective? If not, then the place to look for the cause of the "was just a chore" is the GM seat.

 

[robus]

For my table I've found that the HP for higher level monsters has not scaled with the power of the party. Basically the party (at level 15) was able to take down CR appropriate monsters in one round. And given my generally appalling initiative rolls for my monsters they would typically be the last to go and thus first to die!

Maxing hit points has brought some challenge back to the combat rounds. And while the party tends to deal with things within a couple of rounds they're made to sweat as damage has a chance to be inflicted by the monsters. For example the wizard in the party was heartily walloped by some Cavelight Moss (thanks Tomb of Beasts!) the other day.

But the biggest challenge to any combat is the narration. If you can no longer narrate the combat in an engaging manner, new interesting/exciting things happening each round as Quickleaf suggests, then it's probably time to narrate the end of it (assuming everyone at the table can see where it's going of course).

 

[iserith]

Have to disagree. For me, I might not know the exact hit points, but hit point scaling in 5e isn't a black box either. So I know that my hit probably did somewhere between 20% to 25% of damage on a smaller minion, or maybe between 5-10% on a boss type monster. Every once in a while, something will go down faster or slower than I expect, but it's usually around where I'm anticipating.

Even for in-person games, I use Roll20 and have the hit point bar visible to the players. It's great for them judging the efficacy of their attacks. It's awesome when they really smack a monster and the bar moves just barely. That really gets them going. I think there's something to being fairly transparent about hit points. It gives the players a sense of progress in my experience and keeps them engaged. This might help with the "bashing bag of hit points" issue.

 

[5ekyu]

Sure, I could agree with that, if it were actually implemented.

Sadly, my experience is that games (and groups) are more likely to give extra to those players who are lucky (or, also my experience, 'lucky') than they are to shore things up for those who hit a bad streak - you're more likely to see a house rule to give people who score a crit "a little something extra", or effects that trigger if you hit twice in a single round, or whatever.



One suggestion I might make is an adaptation of "13th Age's" Escalation Die - if you miss an attack you are awarded an ED of d4. Each successive miss then boosts that die type (d6, d8, d10, etc). If and when you eventually hit, that ED is then rolled and added to your damage done.

That way, although the miss sucks (which is probably unavoidable), when you do finally hit it is at least worthwhile.

(As a corollary to that, though, giving characters a very small number of high-impact but limited-use powers should be a no-no, at least if they're wasted on a miss. The bad experience I related was very much an outlier, but it really sucked to watch everyone else unload massive damage while I wasted my attacks, only to finally score a hit... and find I might as well not have bothered.)

You know - quite a few games approach this neighborhood in a way with how flaws are implemented... Everytime your flaw bites you (by your intent or gm) you get a bennie to use later often in the form of insiration or hero point or bonus xp type mechanic, but few actually work that into the in play die rolls.

Often its as you say - since 20 gives you bennie, 1 gives you a baddie.

But in some games we see charity mechanics serve the enjoyment well. Munchkin board game sends discards to the lowest level players, for instance.

Integration of escalation for fails and 1s as a mechanic is very interesting.

My game uses the proficiency die so... Lots of possibility for easy integration.

Thanks.

 

[Prakriti]

I came up with a solution for this problem, but I haven't tested it yet: give everything minimum HP. This includes PCs.

The math is really simple, because 1 HD = 1 HP. If a creature has 8 HD, then it has 8 base HP, plus whatever it gets from Constitution. A level 5 PC, for instance, has 5 HP + Con. A Gibbering Mouther has 36 HP (down from 67). A Fire Elemental has 48 (down from 102).

If the HP loss is too steep for PCs, you might consider keeping the max-HP-at-level-1 rule. Either way, combat should go much faster.

 

[Lanefan]

Not me. I seem to be prone to bouts of bad luck, which in my last-ever* 4e game saw me lose all of my limited-use powers (daily and per-encounter) to misses. When I finally managed a hit, it was with a piddly at-will power.

I see times like this as just a part of the game.

3e's DR wasn't hugely fun either. IME, players hate seeing their successes negated [...]

Consider two cases: one where an average hit does 15 damage, but the creature has DR10 and 18 hit points; versus one where an average hit does 15 damage, the creature has no DR but 58 hit points.

The maths suggest that these two cases are effectively the same - the creature dies on the fourth hit. However, the latter is much more likely to give a more satisfying game experience, because the PCs aren't "losing" 40 hit points of damage.

If the players don't know how many h.p. the monster has (and they shouldn't!) and the DM is doing a half-decent job of narration, the end result should look exactly the same: each hit is clobbering the monster for between 1/3 and 1/4 of its total hit points and thus should be narrated the same.

The PCs really shouldn't be able to tell whether they're putting 5 points into an 18 h.p. foe or 15 into a 58 h.p. foe.

(see also 3e's confirmation roll for critical hits, or the miss-percentage for displacement).

Confirmation rolls for crits don't negate a success; they merely represent a chance for an additional success.

A '20' is already a success in that you've (almost certainly) hit; now the crit roll gives you a chance to succeed further and really clobber the thing. Failing on the crit roll by no means negates the success already achieved, that of hitting the monster for damage.

It's all in how you look at it.

The miss percentage is different, in that it does in fact negate what would otherwise be a successful hit. A better mechanic here is to simply have these effects give a flat AC bonus, or for displacement in particular have it auto-negate the first would-be hit (which blows its cover) but then do nothing further as the attacker has seen through it.

Lanefan