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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 5991490" data-attributes="member: 3424">At 2nd level, the dwarf's key stats are as follows:Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10.AC 16, HP 27, Hit Dice 2d12 + 1d8 Greataxe: +6 vs. AC, Damage 3d6+3 (including 1d6 Expertise Dice)The dwarf was eventually triumphant in the next three fights against two zombies each, although the zombies got quite lucky and managed to bring him down to 13 hp first.In the first fight, the dwarf won initiative and killed one zombie with his first attack. The second zombie missed its attack and was killed by the dwarf's second attack.The second fight went pretty much like the first, except that the second zombie hit and did 3 points of damage to the dwarf before it was killed.In the third fight, the dwarf rolled a natural 1 on his attack roll, and so both the zombies managed to counter-attack. One of them hit him for 5 points of damage. The dwarf then killed the zombies over the next two rounds, but the second zombie managed to hit him again for another 6 points of damage.As mentioned, the zombies were actually quite lucky as:1. They managed to hit three times out of five attacks even though they needed a roll of 14+ on a d20 each time.2. The dwarf actually rolled a natural 1 on his first attack in the third fight, or the zombies would only have been able to attack a total of three times.If the dwarf hadn't rolled any natural 1s, and if the zombies' hit success rate had been closer to the expected value, the zombies would have only hit once out of three attacks, and the dwarf would only have lost around 5 hit points. Given that the dwarf had actually gone through three slightly tougher than "average" fights and earned enough XP to gain a level, it seems that "average" difficulty might not actually be very difficult.So, after killing another six zombies and losing about half his hit points (14) in the process, the dwarf returns to civilization, takes a long rest, and levels up. When he returns, he will face three fights of three zombies each: 600 XP, again slightly tougher than the average 425 XP budget for an "average" fight for a 3rd-level character.</blockquote>

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