Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Explain Bounded Accuracy to Me (As if I Was Five)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9286745" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Take up the issue with WotC. I'm using their own monster CR math, directly published in the book. (You can see <a href="https://samhaine.wordpress.com/2020/12/28/dd-5e-adjusting-monster-hp/" target="_blank">a copy of these numbers here</a>, where the author refers to them as "pretty much right" amongst other things.) If it's wrong, they're literally telling people to create monsters with way too much health. Not that this surprises me in the least. It's an open secret that numerous MM creatures don't actually follow the claimed math for determining a creature's CR, and I have seen credible claims from credited consultants that in most cases this is because their CRs were tweaked ad-hoc due to playtesting.</p><p></p><p>Also, that's only counting monsters in the MM. There are several more CR4 monsters than that--e.g. at least one in MPMM, and several spread across various adventures, which have roughly that amount of HP (e.g. the Clockwork Stone Defender from MPMM has 105 average HP and is a CR 4 creature.)</p><p></p><p></p><p>Then bump it up to CR 5. From what I can see, five different creatures solely from the Monster Manual have at least 120 HP at CR 5, and Volo's, MPMM, Bigby, and numerous adventures have added more. The problem remains effectively unchanged.</p><p></p><p>And fine, sure, let's look at the actual stuff here. Remember, the vast majority of the damage being dealt here comes from flat damage (STR, magic weapon, GWM)--critting, even on a greatsword, only adds ~7 damage, or ~8.33 with GWF. Not that impressive compared to the 18 flat damage (5 STR + 3 weapon + 10 GWM).</p><p></p><p>If using GWM, that's a -5 to hit. Average AC for a CR 6 creature is 15, so (with a +3 weapon) that's a net 75% hit chance (of which 15 points are crit): .6(8.33+18)+.15(2×8.33+18) = almost exactly 21 average damage per attempted attack. Given we're making 8, possibly 9 attacks in a given round (blowing through all the Fighter's resources in the process), we can probably assume that that average will be reasonably accurate overall. That means ~168 damage, give or take, per round. That definitely does (over)kill one target. So you can kill...at best...two of these things per round. By blowing <em>everything you have</em> to do so.</p><p></p><p>On any other round, you're doing ~84 damage. This is not enough to kill a single CR 5 creature in one turn, even on the basis of the average HP of actually printed CR 5 creatures (rather than the instructions for how to build a CR 5 creature, which claim such creatures should have 131-145 HP, not the <strong><em>90</em></strong> HP that is actually average for CR 5 creatures). A party of five level 20 characters going up against eleven CR 5s is <em>not</em> going to be having a "wow, look how effortlessly we're stomping these" even though they're literally <em>fifteen levels</em> beyond fighting such creatures as a main focus. The claimed experience--that things you once saw as deadly threats, but now see as gnats to be swatted aside--simply doesn't exist with 5e monsters past CR 3 or 4. It <em>emphatically</em> doesn't exist for monsters of CR 7+.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9286745, member: 6790260"] Take up the issue with WotC. I'm using their own monster CR math, directly published in the book. (You can see [URL='https://samhaine.wordpress.com/2020/12/28/dd-5e-adjusting-monster-hp/']a copy of these numbers here[/URL], where the author refers to them as "pretty much right" amongst other things.) If it's wrong, they're literally telling people to create monsters with way too much health. Not that this surprises me in the least. It's an open secret that numerous MM creatures don't actually follow the claimed math for determining a creature's CR, and I have seen credible claims from credited consultants that in most cases this is because their CRs were tweaked ad-hoc due to playtesting. Also, that's only counting monsters in the MM. There are several more CR4 monsters than that--e.g. at least one in MPMM, and several spread across various adventures, which have roughly that amount of HP (e.g. the Clockwork Stone Defender from MPMM has 105 average HP and is a CR 4 creature.) Then bump it up to CR 5. From what I can see, five different creatures solely from the Monster Manual have at least 120 HP at CR 5, and Volo's, MPMM, Bigby, and numerous adventures have added more. The problem remains effectively unchanged. And fine, sure, let's look at the actual stuff here. Remember, the vast majority of the damage being dealt here comes from flat damage (STR, magic weapon, GWM)--critting, even on a greatsword, only adds ~7 damage, or ~8.33 with GWF. Not that impressive compared to the 18 flat damage (5 STR + 3 weapon + 10 GWM). If using GWM, that's a -5 to hit. Average AC for a CR 6 creature is 15, so (with a +3 weapon) that's a net 75% hit chance (of which 15 points are crit): .6(8.33+18)+.15(2×8.33+18) = almost exactly 21 average damage per attempted attack. Given we're making 8, possibly 9 attacks in a given round (blowing through all the Fighter's resources in the process), we can probably assume that that average will be reasonably accurate overall. That means ~168 damage, give or take, per round. That definitely does (over)kill one target. So you can kill...at best...two of these things per round. By blowing [I]everything you have[/I] to do so. On any other round, you're doing ~84 damage. This is not enough to kill a single CR 5 creature in one turn, even on the basis of the average HP of actually printed CR 5 creatures (rather than the instructions for how to build a CR 5 creature, which claim such creatures should have 131-145 HP, not the [B][I]90[/I][/B] HP that is actually average for CR 5 creatures). A party of five level 20 characters going up against eleven CR 5s is [I]not[/I] going to be having a "wow, look how effortlessly we're stomping these" even though they're literally [I]fifteen levels[/I] beyond fighting such creatures as a main focus. The claimed experience--that things you once saw as deadly threats, but now see as gnats to be swatted aside--simply doesn't exist with 5e monsters past CR 3 or 4. It [I]emphatically[/I] doesn't exist for monsters of CR 7+. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Explain Bounded Accuracy to Me (As if I Was Five)
Top