How important is variety of target numbers?

[Asmor]

I ran D&D last night using a little cheat sheet* with example skill DCs, damage amounts, etc by level. I didn't have any stat blocks, and when we had a combat, I just gave all the enemies abilities on the fly.

It worked out pretty well, but one thing that worried me a bit at the time was whether it would feel too homogenous using the similar target numbers all the time.

In particular, in combat, the "base" defenses were 14 for everything, with +2 for AC. On top of that, I threw in a +2 here and a -2 there (so the orc had a -2 will; the soldiers had +2 AC) as I felt appropriate.

What this means is that every monster's AC was either 14, 16 or 18; and other defenses were 12, 14 or 16.

This bothered me at the time, but the more I'm thinking about it, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that maybe it's not such a bad thing. There's already a lot of variance in the dice, and how important is it really that the players get a good distribution of 30%, 35%, 40%, etc chances of hitting?

The skills were along the same lines; I would decide whether skill checks should be easy, medium or hard, and just the use the exact number printed, every time, regardless of circumstances (circumstances would, instead, help me dictate the difficulty I should choose).

I'm actually starting to come to the conclusion that consistency might even be preferable. I kind of like the idea that someone can look at their +x to attack and say definitively that it equates to a y% chance to hit against a "normal" monster.

So what do you think? Is variety of target numbers important, does it not matter, or is consistency more beneficial?

*I got the cheatsheet from Sly Flourish

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

It doesn't seem to matter much in my games. On occasion I hear people figure that an NPC likely has a poor Fort defense, as they're not tough-looking and not wearing armor.

It used to be a bit more. We have a barbarian player who has 1 or 2 attacks that target Fort, but everything else targets AC. We used to have a psion who had Id Insinuation, which weakens a target's Fort defense, but virtually no one could take advantage of that. We used to have a rogue who could target Reflex with certain attacks, but everything else was vs AC.

PC defenses vary a lot more. Last level, the dwarf "cleric" PC had a Reflex of only 13, which is pretty lethal, but fortunately for him the nastiest attacks don't seem to target Ref. I think he has a 14 now, which is still low. (His Fort defense is surprisingly low, too.) I give a lot of monsters non-AC attacking powers, even "martial-type" powers, and find I can easily hit the barbarian's Fort defense, etc. Pretty much the whole group has high AC. TLDR: I find monsters attacking various NADs to play a bigger role than PCs attacking various NADs, and so PC NAD variance is more important than monster NAD variance.

I'm a bit curious about how you figured stats for orcs and soldiers though. Most orcs are brutes; can I assume you also gave them poor AC? I guess what I'm really asking is did you apply AC mods for brute and soldier before sprinkling in your fixes?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you run into two issues. At a certain point there's a bit of a blandness that can set in with monsters. You can use various traits and powers to get around that, but it can start to feel a bit homogeneous. The other question is how well the numbers fit the concept of the monster. Should a slow cumbersome monster have a high reflex, ever? The numbers follow levels in order to establish basic encounter balance, but it can start to feel quite gamist at some point. Kind of a trade off.

 

[Asmor]

The numbers follow levels in order to establish basic encounter balance, but it can start to feel quite gamist at some point. Kind of a trade off.

I agree. I've always viewed 4e as a very gamist system (as opposed to 3e's simulationism), and I fall on the side of the coin that views that as a positive thing.

Does it make sense, from a flavor standpoint, for a zombie or something to have an abysmal reflex save? Probably. Is it a good thing for any attack that targets reflex to auto-hit the zombie? Probably not, imho.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Let's say for sake of argument that running it the way you did it eventually takes out an amount of flavor equal to X. (Silly, I know.) Then I say that if you get a lot of positive things out of doing it that way, find a way to put back in most of the flavor while keeping your method.

For example, I bet you'd get about 80% of the noticeable flavor back by simply putting in a single note on monsters where it made sense, and standardizing on that. For example, you can tag any monster with "Good AC", "Good Fort", etc. You can also do the same thing with "Bad" versions. You don't do this with monsters unless it leaps out.

So goblins, orcs, bandits, etc. use your system. You grab a zombie. They are thought of as slow. So you slap the "Bad Dex" label on it. Then they meet a big, sleek cat monster. You slap "Good Dex" on it. Start with these labels as +2 or -2, for good and bad respectively. Adjust values as needed to make it work the way you want. Limit yourself to only one label per monster, and only on the ones where it leaps out at you.

There, most of the flavor of the old way in a faction of the mind space.

 

[Kannik]

So what do you think? Is variety of target numbers important, does it not matter, or is consistency more beneficial?

I would say yes, variety of target numbers is important, and what's more important for differentiation between monsters now lies in their powers, or put better, "what they can do". Playing between the +2 to -2 range off the base numbers for what works for a monster (ie, the ubiquitous lumbering brute at -2 (or more, if its appropriate) reflex) is probably enough. But that the lumbering brute has a brutal hammer swing that hits two people and pushes them back 4 is more important to add in or include, while the agile ceiling-leaper can shift 6 and attack once during that movement. The players will notice that, and will not notice (nor care) that the target values are near each other, especially given the die roll random factor, as you stated.

Have fun with the powers, attacks and effects... they make the monster.

peace,

Kannik

(of course, if the high-level party is fighting a bunch of street thugs then they should have low low defences by comparison... )

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Let's say for sake of argument that running it the way you did it eventually takes out an amount of flavor equal to X. (Silly, I know.) Then I say that if you get a lot of positive things out of doing it that way, find a way to put back in most of the flavor while keeping your method.

For example, I bet you'd get about 80% of the noticeable flavor back by simply putting in a single note on monsters where it made sense, and standardizing on that. For example, you can tag any monster with "Good AC", "Good Fort", etc. You can also do the same thing with "Bad" versions. You don't do this with monsters unless it leaps out.

So goblins, orcs, bandits, etc. use your system. You grab a zombie. They are thought of as slow. So you slap the "Bad Dex" label on it. Then they meet a big, sleek cat monster. You slap "Good Dex" on it. Start with these labels as +2 or -2, for good and bad respectively. Adjust values as needed to make it work the way you want. Limit yourself to only one label per monster, and only on the ones where it leaps out at you.

There, most of the flavor of the old way in a faction of the mind space.

Using this technique can avoid two problems with 4e monsters, IMO:

In order to have good defenses, monsters (and NPCs) need high stats. After a few levels, it can get ridiculous. A 15th-level fighter is pretty much obligated to have a 20 Wisdom (to have a decent Will defense) and an 18 Dex (to have a slightly below average Ref defense), which is kind of silly when the fighter is wearing scale mail. In addition, a 15th-level PC fighter won't have ability scores that good (maybe their Strength will match, but they won't be doing acrobatics competitions). Also, if you wanted to give a wizard higher Will than Ref, you can just slap "good Will" and probably "bad Fort" on him and spend more time planning on abilities (especially important for a wizard).

 

[S'mon]

In order to have good defenses, monsters (and NPCs) need high stats. After a few levels, it can get ridiculous. A 15th-level fighter is pretty much obligated to have a 20 Wisdom (to have a decent Will defense) and an 18 Dex (to have a slightly below average Ref defense), which is kind of silly when the fighter is wearing scale mail.

Eh, 4e monster defenses don't key off stats at all?

 

[DracoSuave]

Using this technique can avoid two problems with 4e monsters, IMO:

In order to have good defenses, monsters (and NPCs) need high stats.

The only stat a monster needs to have good defenses is called 'level'.


Seriously tho, monster defenses should have gains and losses. If a monster design wants to have a high fort then you gotta deduct from its reflex or will or both.

You want monsters to be variant and all that, stop looking at static stats and thinking 'Man, if this fortitute is 2 points higher, that'll totally throw them a curve ball.' Cause it doesn't. You won't make the monster feel different.

POWERS are where monsters find variance. You want a monster to feel defensively different, give him defensive powers, reactions, interrupts, auras, the sorts of things players interact with that aren't straight math.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Eh, 4e monster defenses don't key off stats at all?

Did they change that too? Where does 13 + 1/2 level / 16 + 1/2 level come from?