Encounter planning wackiness?

[Plane Sailing]

aka, "Say hello to my 30th Level Solo Ogre." aka, "That's one serious Ogre." aka, "Look, the Rogue is doing his tomato paste impression."

I don't think that 'Solo' is a reasonable thing to include here, as solo monsters must have a large number of opportunities to act in order to face off a party (e.g. dragon, beholder). I don't think there is likely to be any reasonable way of allowing a standard humanoid like an ogre to do that.

As a for instance, when talking about Orcs it says that the MM has two pages on orcs, which includes

• Orc Minion
• Orc beserker
• Orc archer
• Orc mystic
• Orc Battlerager

They also point out that Orcs tend to be 'Brutes' while hobgoblins tend to be 'soldiers' - both basically melee combatants, but the former relying on hit points and brute strength, while the latter relying upon armour and tactics.

Cheers

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Irda Ranger!

They don't need a monster for each level. They need a chart for each role. "This is how many HP, how much damage, and what the BAB, Defense and AC should be, etc. for a Brute for levels 1-30. Now take the Brute of your choice and scale appropriately." There's probably also a simple formula for multiplying HP to get you Solo, Elite, Normal and Minion for each level.

That just seems like a backdoor way of adding NPC levels to a monster.

aka, "Say hello to my 30th Level Solo Ogre." aka, "That's one serious Ogre." aka, "Look, the Rogue is doing his tomato paste impression."

That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense (as Plane Sailing points out). Firstly it would be less satisfactory than adding NPC levels - and my guess is that monsters with NPC levels = Elites, so it wouldn't work anyway (unless you added an extra five or so levels). Secondly, the monster in question wouldn't have any new special attacks, so again it would be unsatisfactory.

As I pointed out in my previous post, I don't think my idea for scaling works upward (or downward depending on your perspective). You can't make a minion a standard/elite/solo monster but lowering its level, but you can make a solo monster an elite/standard/minion by raising its level.

I hope there's some discussion about how certain Roles excel in certain environments. For instance, (and any French Knight can tell you this) on an open field 10 Artillery enemies are a lot more powerful than 10 Skirmishers or Brutes; but (and any Persian Emperor can tell you this) in close quarters where they can use terrain to control the flow of combat,

Not sure if that is truly necessary. If you put 10 archers on one side of the battlefield and 10 brutes on the other, chances are the brutes will be whittled down by the time they close the distance (assuming rough parity of level on both sides).

10 Brutes could hold off, oh, I'd say .. 33,333 Skirmishers. etc.

Wouldn't that be 10 paragon soldiers can hold off 33,333 heroic soldiers?

Although I am just wondering how the Spartans managed to avoid all those die rolls of '20' from the Persian Archers. 10,000 archers would roll 500 natural '20's each round. Must be a special shield based feat or something. Maybe theres an immobile crouching technique that turns a large shield into a tower shield, thus giving them an additional 90% cover for as long as they don't move. Thus they would only face 50 successful arrow strikes per round, or one hit per soldier per 2 rounds, an amount of damage soldiers of their level, and with their hit points could easily withstand.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Wouldn't that be 10 paragon soldiers can hold off 33,333 heroic soldiers?

Although I am just wondering how the Spartans managed to avoid all those die rolls of '20' from the Persian Archers. 10,000 archers would roll 500 natural '20's each round. Must be a special shield based feat or something. Maybe theres an immobile crouching technique that turns a large shield into a tower shield, thus giving them an additional 90% cover for as long as they don't move. Thus they would only face 50 successful arrow strikes per round, or one hit per soldier per 2 rounds, an amount of damage soldiers of their level, and with their hit points could easily withstand.

Innate Fortification like ability? Maybe the Spartans DM ruled that 10,000 archer attacks was actually an area attack, and the Spartans regularly succeeded their saves.

On the actual topic:
I'd prefer to go without the 4:5 concept, but I think there is a simple way 4E can accomandate this:
Divide calculated XP for the encounter by 5, multiple by number of PCs. The difference to the original number is the amount of monsters worth in XP you have to add or remove.
That's a pretty straight formula, though how easy it is to actually apply depends on wich monsters are available with the suitable amount fo XP. It at least seems a bit easier then eyeballing CR + Encounter Level. The 3rd edition calculation of 2 x CR X => EL = CR +2 was okay, but figuring out how to apply it with monsters of different CRs and with parties of different size was pretty awkward.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Innate Fortification like ability? Maybe the Spartans DM ruled that 10,000 archer attacks was actually an area attack, and the Spartans regularly succeeded their saves.

Or the tortoise shell shield formation provides total cover...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I don't think that 'Solo' is a reasonable thing to include here, as solo monsters must have a large number of opportunities to act in order to face off a party (e.g. dragon, beholder). I don't think there is likely to be any reasonable way of allowing a standard humanoid like an ogre to do that.

It looks like Irda Ranger is probably right about the scaling, though. I expect that if I grab an orc berserker I can consult the "combat brute" chart, select the Level 30 brute, change the orc's bonuses and HPs to match the chart, and in ten seconds I've got a Level 30 monster. Multiply by 5 (or 4, perhaps) and I've got a level 30 encounter. However, if I want a Level 30 Solo monster, I'd have to advance a Solo monster.

But going back to the original suggestion, which was to populate Orcus's base with level 30 encounters leading up to the big fight, it looks like it'll be easy enough to advance demons, orcs, undead, or whatever you need to the appropriate level. At least, I hope I'm interpreting them correctly, because that would be super.

If instead of trying to advance a basilisk by adding hit dice, all I have to do is look at a chart, plug in updated defenses, attack rolls, and hit points (including special attacks like petrification), I'll be a very happy DM.

 

[helium3]

If instead of trying to advance a basilisk by adding hit dice, all I have to do is look at a chart, plug in updated defenses, attack rolls, and hit points (including special attacks like petrification), I'll be a very happy DM.

I agree. I love advancing monsters in 3.5, but if they make it easier to do in 4E that's a big selling point right there.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Doc!

It looks like Irda Ranger is probably right about the scaling, though. I expect that if I grab an orc berserker I can consult the "combat brute" chart, select the Level 30 brute, change the orc's bonuses and HPs to match the chart, and in ten seconds I've got a Level 30 monster. Multiply by 5 (or 4, perhaps) and I've got a level 30 encounter. However, if I want a Level 30 Solo monster, I'd have to advance a Solo monster.

But going back to the original suggestion, which was to populate Orcus's base with level 30 encounters leading up to the big fight, it looks like it'll be easy enough to advance demons, orcs, undead, or whatever you need to the appropriate level. At least, I hope I'm interpreting them correctly, because that would be super.

If instead of trying to advance a basilisk by adding hit dice, all I have to do is look at a chart, plug in updated defenses, attack rolls, and hit points (including special attacks like petrification), I'll be a very happy DM.

I'm sure that will be quick enough, but it seems as though you could end up fighting the same monsters over and over again only this time they'll be either advanced or with NPC class levels.

In 3rd Edition you could set up an encounter whereby the individual CRs were either Party Average +4 or Party Average -12.

So if the Babau are CR 8, Glabrezu are CR 16, Balor is CR 20 and Orcus is CR 23 (numbers plucked out of the air) you could use all those in the same adventure unofficially filling the roles of Minion, Brute, Elite and Solo opponents.

But in 4E I may not be able to do that right out of the book because of the power distinctions between a Level 30 solo (Orcus) and a Level 10 (or whatever?) Skirmisher (The Babau) don't seem to gel.

Now there could be a simple way around this (one of which I postulated in my first post), or it could be a marketing device...check back in Monster Manual 2 for those Level 30 Minion demons you wanted.

Its going to be very interesting to see how WotC lay out encounters for the E series of modules. The power distinctions and monster roles seem like great DM devices for rapid encounter creation. But at the same time they do seem reliant on those options existing for every level (or perhaps more specifically relevant to every boss monster) in the first place. Otherwise any speed benefit is lost because you'll be forced to advance monsters or give them NPC levels to fit in.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Howdy Doc!



I'm sure that will be quick enough, but it seems as though you could end up fighting the same monsters over and over again only this time they'll be either advanced or with NPC class levels.

In 3rd Edition you could set up an encounter whereby the individual CRs were either Party Average +4 or Party Average -12.

So if the Babau are CR 8, Glabrezu are CR 16, Balor is CR 20 and Orcus is CR 23 (numbers plucked out of the air) you could use all those in the same adventure unofficially filling the roles of Minion, Brute, Elite and Solo opponents.

You could try this, but assuming the party is "appropriate" for this encounter, it would probably have a level of 19. The Babau and posisible also the Glabrezu would have little chance of hitting any of the PCs, and any saving throw based effects would usually be saved against, or not apply at all (thanks to spells like Heroes Feast or Resist Energy (possible Mass)).

But in 4E I may not be able to do that right out of the book because of the power distinctions between a Level 30 solo (Orcus) and a Level 10 (or whatever?) Skirmisher (The Babau) don't seem to gel.

I agree. Even with extended "viability ranges" for monster levels, this doesn't seem to work. The Level 10 Skirmisher would probably be mostly dead weight, and you'd want to advance him or replace with something better.

Now there could be a simple way around this (one of which I postulated in my first post), or it could be a marketing device...check back in Monster Manual 2 for those Level 30 Minion demons you wanted.

Its going to be very interesting to see how WotC lay out encounters for the E series of modules. The power distinctions and monster roles seem like great DM devices for rapid encounter creation. But at the same time they do seem reliant on those options existing for every level (or perhaps more specifically relevant to every boss monster) in the first place. Otherwise any speed benefit is lost because you'll be forced to advance monsters or give them NPC levels to fit in.

There seem to be a lot of stack blocks in the first MM, but will they suffice?
Obviously WotC has a interest i creating MM 2-5 and people buying it. Maybe if the system works well and produces a lot of useable monsters, it will be worth its money?

 

[Intrope]

Well, Amazon thinks there will be 288 pages of MM I. Even if we assume a large 'overhead' of indexes and other info, I'd expect 250+ pages of monsters. Now, we know that the creatures won't split across pages, and will get at least 1 page each--but that creatures often get multiple stat blocks for different roles (orcs apparently get 2 pages and 5 blocks).

So, we probably get 250 to 700 distinct critters (1/pg, low page count to 2.5/pg high page count).

Now, how many roles are there? I don't know if we know this, but it seems to be 6-10 monster roles. Given an even distribution of 10 roles over 30 levels, we'd need a minimum of 300 distinct critters to cover--as such, there's most likely enough creature slots available to 'fill in' a complete level * role grid.

I doubt they'd actually do it that way, though. We're likely to see more of some roles than others, and we already know that MM I is slanted somewhat to the lower end too.

My guesss is that the Epic mix is a little thin, but the Heroic is well-covered. That would be reasonable--some faster-running campaigns will be a bit short of creatures before MM II comes out, but most probably won't be hurting too much. And if the advancement rules aren't really odious, it can fill in some gaps in the upper ranks.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm betting that there will be very little about advancing of creatures, and more of a focus on providing appropriate level creatures across the range 1-30 (W&M says that they have more lower level stuff than higher level stuff in MM1 for obvious reasons).

Considering the new design imperative that means that you can have a good scrap with creatures that are within +/- 5 levels from you, rather than 3e where once CR is +/-2 it becomes much harder to run good fights because of slower scaling of attacks and defences, and a lot of the purpose of scaling monsters is likely to go away.

I wouldn't be surprised if such scaling as exists will be based around when and how to add additional monsters to an encounter (as per earlier comments... e.g. the point at which a skirmisher 6 barbed devil is an elite, the point at which it is a normal and the point at which it is worth a minion.

Cheers