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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Upper_Krust" data-source="post: 9729658" data-attributes="member: 326">In the game last week, I was playing a Level 14 Fighter Battle Master (Heavy X-Bow build) and the rest of the group were: Level 16 Rogue Arcane TricksterLevel 15 Fighter ChampionLevel 16 Barbarian Level 15 PaladinSo very Martial Heavy (the week before the Paladin was not there and another player had a Warlock) and also 5 PCs.But I was shocked how easily we crushed the adventure's final encounter and how little damage the enemies dealt. For reference these were the 2014 versions of the monsters.We did get a bit lucky on Initiative and with a couple of rolls (the Barbarian hit two crits on the Storm Giant) and my Fighter somehow landed 6 hits with Action Surge on Graz'zt taking -5 on each to hit roll for +10 damage.But it highlighted how feeble high CR monsters are when stacked against a half-decent party. Using the 7.5 per CR damage output (suggested by Mike Shea)CR 12 = 90 damageCR 16 = 120 damageCR 24 = 180 damage (though personally I would say 210, with 15 points for CRs 21-24)The Storm Giant can do about 60 damage.The Marilith can do about 100 damage.Graz'zt can do 68 or 170 using 3 Legendary Actions to attack. Which on paper looks okay but in practice hiding 60% of his damage output within Legendary Actions is a mistake. I know Graz'zt is not necessarily a damage dealing brute (he did briefly Charm the Champion Fighter) but he just crumpled like tin-foil.2024 Storm Giant deals 72 (but same HP) and the 2024 Marilth deals 117 (HP increased to 220), so definite improvements.Hit Points were also a bit flimsy (with 20 per CR as an average)CR 12 = 240 Hit Points, Storm Giant had 230CR 16 = 320 Hit Points, Marilith had 189CR 24 = 480 (I'd suggest 560), Graz'zt had 346My overall takeaway is that I can see why high-level play gets a bit of bad reputation - the monsters don't hit hard enough. While 2024 improved monsters slightly they also boosted Players by at least as much. Encounter XP budgets have increased - however that fight was just over 100,000 XP which is almost a High Difficulty encounter for a Party of 5 Level 20 characters, let alone 5 characters averaging Level 15.Anyone else had similar experiences at High-level?</blockquote>

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