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Issues with the "NPCs" in the MM and HotDQ (SPOILERS!)
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<blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6410669" data-attributes="member: 5143"><p>To elaborate slightly on what others have said:</p><p></p><p>In combat, the "difficulty" of an enemy is determined entirely by how quickly the monster can kill you in comparison to how quickly you can kill the enemy. The factors in this somewhat complicated formula are: AC, HP, Saves, To Hit, Damage, Special abilities.</p><p></p><p>A monster with an 8 AC and 10 hitpoints can still be extremely dangerous if it has +20 to hit for 40d6 points of damage. Though it will be randomly dangerous and randomly extremely easy. The same thing happens if it has a save or die ability.</p><p></p><p>What CR should this creature be? It can easily hit and kill level 10 PCs without much of a problem. But if the PCs can avoid even one attack then they'll win easily and it wasn't that big of a challenge.</p><p></p><p>Now, consider that creature if its attack bonus is based on its hitdice. It would likely be +3. The only people it would ever be truly dangerous against is low level people. Now level 10 PCs are unlikely to be hit at all and it virtually guarantees they'll win every time.</p><p></p><p>Basically, basing the To Hit bonus off of CR says "I'd like monsters that the PCs fight to not be hoping for natural 20s to hit while still being able to construct glass cannon type enemies." Without it, every enemy that has +20 to hit ALSO needs to have 200 hitpoints. It's nice to be able to make monsters who are extremely easy to kill but do a lot of damage from time to time. However, the reverse is more often true. It's nice to have extremely tough enemies that miss most of the time.</p><p></p><p>Because, when it comes down to it, there will be 5 or 6 PCs and when fighting an enemy, they can output 5 times the damage of a single enemy. You need that enemy to have a lot of hitpoints if they are going to survive long enough for the players to consider them TOUGH. But you don't want them to hit 100% of the time simply because they have a lot of hitpoints. This discrepancy can't simply be fixed with con, either. We're talking about having monsters with 80 hitpoints that still are CR 2. You want the monster to have the same bonus to hit as a Level 2 character. Which would mean they'd have 2 hit dice. Unfortunately, in order to give that monster 80 hitpoints you'd need to increase their con to 50 or 60. It simply doesn't work.</p><p></p><p>However, if you based the bonus to hit on CR, then the hit dice can be whatever you want in order to have an exciting combat. The main point of hitpoints is to determine how long you want the enemy to hang around, anyway. In 4e there were Solos, Elites, and Standard monsters. They all had the same bonus to hit and damage(or close to it) but had quite a bit different hitpoints. This allows the designers to do the same thing.</p><p></p><p>It lets you engineer a monster for a specific combat type. If you want to use 5 of a monster at once, you keep their hitpoints down so the combat goes quickly and the PCs have a real chance of lowering the damage output of the enemy each round of combat by taking one of them out. In contrast, if you want an encounter that is going to take on the PCs by itself then you give it a lot of hitpoints so that it survives multiple rounds of combat while still not having an overwhelming chance to hit or too much damage.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Majoru Oakheart, post: 6410669, member: 5143"] To elaborate slightly on what others have said: In combat, the "difficulty" of an enemy is determined entirely by how quickly the monster can kill you in comparison to how quickly you can kill the enemy. The factors in this somewhat complicated formula are: AC, HP, Saves, To Hit, Damage, Special abilities. A monster with an 8 AC and 10 hitpoints can still be extremely dangerous if it has +20 to hit for 40d6 points of damage. Though it will be randomly dangerous and randomly extremely easy. The same thing happens if it has a save or die ability. What CR should this creature be? It can easily hit and kill level 10 PCs without much of a problem. But if the PCs can avoid even one attack then they'll win easily and it wasn't that big of a challenge. Now, consider that creature if its attack bonus is based on its hitdice. It would likely be +3. The only people it would ever be truly dangerous against is low level people. Now level 10 PCs are unlikely to be hit at all and it virtually guarantees they'll win every time. Basically, basing the To Hit bonus off of CR says "I'd like monsters that the PCs fight to not be hoping for natural 20s to hit while still being able to construct glass cannon type enemies." Without it, every enemy that has +20 to hit ALSO needs to have 200 hitpoints. It's nice to be able to make monsters who are extremely easy to kill but do a lot of damage from time to time. However, the reverse is more often true. It's nice to have extremely tough enemies that miss most of the time. Because, when it comes down to it, there will be 5 or 6 PCs and when fighting an enemy, they can output 5 times the damage of a single enemy. You need that enemy to have a lot of hitpoints if they are going to survive long enough for the players to consider them TOUGH. But you don't want them to hit 100% of the time simply because they have a lot of hitpoints. This discrepancy can't simply be fixed with con, either. We're talking about having monsters with 80 hitpoints that still are CR 2. You want the monster to have the same bonus to hit as a Level 2 character. Which would mean they'd have 2 hit dice. Unfortunately, in order to give that monster 80 hitpoints you'd need to increase their con to 50 or 60. It simply doesn't work. However, if you based the bonus to hit on CR, then the hit dice can be whatever you want in order to have an exciting combat. The main point of hitpoints is to determine how long you want the enemy to hang around, anyway. In 4e there were Solos, Elites, and Standard monsters. They all had the same bonus to hit and damage(or close to it) but had quite a bit different hitpoints. This allows the designers to do the same thing. It lets you engineer a monster for a specific combat type. If you want to use 5 of a monster at once, you keep their hitpoints down so the combat goes quickly and the PCs have a real chance of lowering the damage output of the enemy each round of combat by taking one of them out. In contrast, if you want an encounter that is going to take on the PCs by itself then you give it a lot of hitpoints so that it survives multiple rounds of combat while still not having an overwhelming chance to hit or too much damage. [/QUOTE]
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