Dear bloody god: Calystrx (Threats to Nentir Vale Preview)

[BuzzardB]

Well this is just perfect, was planning to have the BBEG in my current game eventually be revealed as a red dragon in a big climactic fight. Now he can be a big THREE headed red dragon.

 

[Herschel]

The thing that worries me though is her HP. Since MM3, the idea for HP going forward seemed to be among other things, "less HP, more Damage'. Looking at the Level 17 White Dragon in the MV (who's also a Brute), we see it has 668 HP, which is less than Cal even though she is 3 levels lower. Was this intentional, due to the fact that she has multiple heads?

~Teo

Hmm, Calastryx's HP seemed to have been calculated thus: (15*10 + 21)*4 = 684. Correct me if I am misremembering, but solos usually use base 8 HP per level, instead of the role-dependent HP (brutes 10, lurkers/artillery 6, everyone else 8). This strikes me as potentially an error.

Yeah, Cal's hp must be wrong.

Curious to see how it runs. I suspect it'll be a bit swingy between groups that can do massive attack penalties, and those that have more traditional methods that the action recovery will largely mitigate.

Really, you guys can't be happy with a cool new monster and have to try and find fault because it doesn't match some "magical formula" in your head?

 

[Mentat55]

Or maybe Talaeden saw something that did not seem to compute and we concurred. I don't think the hit points are that big of a deal, but it is still 120 HP more than what we'd expect for a level 14 solo. That is almost a full level 14 monster's worth of extra hit points.

 

[keterys]

If by "magical formula" in our heads, you mean the official formula provided by WotC, that is fairly easy to get wrong for solos? Sure, yes.

You should see how many flaws I found with the Monster Vault, despite being extremely happy with it. Finding errors is a useful skill, in my experience.

 

[Herschel]

Maybe I'm just burned out by all the pointless, hyperbolic negativity towards designers on here lately but so what if it doesn't follow the formula perfectly? Sure, it has higher HP, but isn't it a named, capstone monster? IMO it should have something extra.

 

[keterys]

Did you look at the same stats I did?

Cause I think it _got_ something extra.

Without needing its hit points to be off by 2 * 15 * 4 = 120

 

[Aegeri]

I would assume it is probably deliberate to not follow the standard HP formula in this solos case (using d10s instead of D8s). Wizards have been known to make the odd weird HP error in their monsters from time to time though. I am actually not terribly worried about it having 120 HP more at paragon tier.

 

[Matt James]

i would assume it is probably deliberate to not follow the standard hp formula in this solos case (using d10s instead of d8s). Wizards have been known to make the odd weird hp error in their monsters from time to time though. I am actually not terribly worried about it having 120 hp more at paragon tier.

nda

 

[Aegeri]

nda

Despite your mysterious answer of NDA (WHATEVER COULD THAT MEAN?) I can only assume (if this wasn't an error) this means there has been a monster mathematics adjustment. If so, I am now even more excited to see this book

 

[Colmarr]

If so, I am now even more excited to see this book

I'm not. My limited experience suggests that some of the MM3 changes put monster math beyond the bounds of safety for casual players. If Calastryx is some sort of indication of the new default, then I fear casual players will be completely unable to keep up with the monster math.