D&D (2024) Jumping ahead: Bring back Bloodied for monsters

[Bill Zebub]

MMOs have gotten a lot of crap over the years from tabletop players, but I think boss monster design there is head and shoulders above where it is in 5E.

It's an expectation in World of Warcraft, for instance, for big raid bosses to have multiple health-related triggers for all sorts of changes to an encounter, from armies of spirits stampeding across the battlefield to powerful attacks to the floor being smashed and everyone dropping down to a new battlefield on the floor below. (This isn't exclusive to WoW, of course. I believe it was pioneered in EverQuest's ring events back in 2000.)

YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!

 

[Lanefan]

Better to keep the number of hit points for the triggers in there somewhere so that DMs aren't having to work out what those %s actually translate into at the table.

Except if there's six different ones of the same creature with six different hp values that doesn't work. (e.g. six Trolls, starting h.p. 54, 51, 47, 46, 40, 38).

Unless you put separate trigger blocks for each one, of course, but that seems like a big waste of space when one can just use % or fractions instead of hard numbers.

 

[Lanefan]

MMOs have gotten a lot of crap over the years from tabletop players, but I think boss monster design there is head and shoulders above where it is in 5E.

It's an expectation in World of Warcraft, for instance, for big raid bosses to have multiple health-related triggers for all sorts of changes to an encounter, from armies of spirits stampeding across the battlefield to powerful attacks to the floor being smashed and everyone dropping down to a new battlefield on the floor below. (This isn't exclusive to WoW, of course. I believe it was pioneered in EverQuest's ring events back in 2000.)

I'll have to take your word for this.

The closest I've ever got to World of Warcraft is watching someone else play it, while not really having much clue what was going on despite her best attempts to explain.

 

[cbwjm]

Except if there's six different ones of the same creature with six different hp values that doesn't work. (e.g. six Trolls, starting h.p. 54, 51, 47, 46, 40, 38).

Unless you put separate trigger blocks for each one, of course, but that seems like a big waste of space when one can just use % or fractions instead of hard numbers.

I think in the case of 5e, that's unlikely to be the case. I don't think many DMs use varied hit points for the same monsters. Anyway, I mean in the standard stat block, the one you get in the MM which lists the average hit points you could easily have "trigger 50% (27) hit points". If you're adding in something like this, you want to make it easy for the DMs running the game, especially if you have more than juat a 50% trigger. Having to make them figure out what 25% of 73 hit points in the middle of the game is a sure fire way of making DMs ignore it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wouldn't want to use this sort of thing for a monster or NPC type that would be encountered en masse. This should be something special -- a boss monster or a solo, to use (I think) the 4E terminology.

 

[Lanefan]

I wouldn't want to use this sort of thing for a monster or NPC type that would be encountered en masse. This should be something special -- a boss monster or a solo, to use (I think) the 4E terminology.

Au contraire: I think it should be a feature of many creatures both common and rare, along with PCs and NPCs of certain classes and-or species.

Even the humble little Goblin might have something that triggers at 25% hit points, even if its triggered "ability" is just to drop everything and surrender.

 

[Eltab]

I don't think many DMs use varied hit points for the same monsters.

raises hand
One.

I had a pack of carnivores hunting the heroes as they traversed wilderness terrain. A few had minimum HP (indicating near-juveniles). Most HPs were rolled randomly. Two had max HP and were the 'alpha male / female' of the pack.