Design & Development: Elite Bulette

[WhatGravitas]

New article is up, folks!

Design & Development: Elite Bulette

So... the bulette is an elite monster now... The article is kinda short, however. But article is article, eh?

Cheers, LT.

 

[Rechan]

I'm kinda disappointed that's our Design and Development article for this week.

Doesn't look bad.

 

[shilsen]

It's short, but it seems to have all kinds of little crunchy bits of info in the description of the fight.

But I'll leave it to the truly dedicated to make a list (and, presumably, start a fight).

 

[KingCrab]

I'm wondering why they introduced this elite monster idea instead of just making the monster into a challenge for a higher level party. Perhaps they are responding to the concern that higher level (than the party) monsters can often result in PC deaths, so they purposely design the creature to be more challenging, yet not do damage to any one character too quickly?

 

[PoeticJustice]

I'm kinda disappointed that's our Design and Development article for this month.

Doesn't look bad.

Fixed that for you.

 

[captaincursor]

It's the Fezzik rule. You learn different techniques for fighting many people, than you do fighting one person at a time. So it seems to be with monsters. There's a design technique when they are supposed to fight many people, and a different one when they are only supposed to fight one at a time. A consistent source of irritation for me is when the big bad monster that I fear is going to TPK the party goes down in two rounds because of the heavy co-ordinated assault that the PCs lay on it. Hopefully by designing some monsters to take on multiple PCs this won't happen as much, and by coming up with a naming scheme this makes it easy to pick up of the books when you are designing an encounter.

 

[pawsplay]

Unless they're going to promote solo play, "counts as two monsters" and "is slightly more dangerous" work out to exactly the same thing.

 

[WhatGravitas]

...(than the party) monsters can often result in PC deaths, so they purposely design the creature to be more challenging, yet not do damage too any one character too quickly?

Yup. That's a lesson learned from 3E's CR-system. Also, the reverse is problematic: PCs that are higher level than the CR can often mop the floor very easily with lower CR-opponents.

That's because we have several level-dependent variables:

AC, Attacks: Describe the "danger" of the monster, because it makes it less easy to hit, and can hit PCs easier. These are static things during a combat.

Hp, Damage value of attacks: Describe the ablative effect of the monster, i.e. how long it takes to vanquish the monster and the impact the monster has on the PC resources.

Total damage dealt by the monster: That's the problematic bit - it depends on the attacks, but also on the AC and hp (because hp allows it to last longer). The total damage dealt by the monster rises faster than the other variables - because of these independent dependences on the CR/appropriate level - it's proportional to hp (and hence level) and attacks (and hence level) and perhaps AC (and hence level), meaning a quadratic or cubic rise.

However, we have to fix up the AC and attacks fitting to the PC level to get a "good" hit-and-miss rate - otherwise the monster is too easy or too hard.

This means we have to have proper, level-appropriate hp and damage dealt, but if we only increase hp, we have to decrease the damage dealt by the monster to keep the overall impact on PC resources the same.

But the CR system cannot do that, and the reverse is also true (which explains why lower-CR monsters are so easily killed off, because the PC rise in their "CR" for the monsters).

Because parts scale linearly (AC, attacks), but others scale quadratic or worse, it's hard to tie it's overall impact on the party in a single number.

Differentiating into a "level" (AC, attacks) and "elite/whatever rating" (hp, damage dealt), allows judging these different proportionalities better and hence give a better estimation of overall impact on the party.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Roger]

Bulette number one dives into the earth... Safely in the ground, it heals some damage and then burrows under the heroes...

That's... interesting. Hmmm. Without knowing hardly anything about it, I think, on the whole, that I like it.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[Scribble]

Unless they're going to promote solo play, "counts as two monsters" and "is slightly more dangerous" work out to exactly the same thing.

Depends on what you're describing with that statement.

Counts as two monsters for purposes of experience or treasure gained, is not the same as, counts as two monsters for purposes of how much damage it can do to a party, or how many options it has in a fight.