D&D 4E Less hit points in 4e?

[Atlatl Jones]

In the threads about the pit fiend, and the article a while ago about paladin smite powers, many people commented on how the the damage looked. "1d6+11+5 for a 26th level monster, pathetic!"

I strongly suspect that the hit point 'scale' has changed across the board in 3e.

In the last D&D podcast, a couple people talked about how easy or hard it would be use Star Wars Saga characters along with 4e D&D characters, like having a Jedi running around in the temple of elemental evil. The speakers said:
"You'd have to figure out something for hit points, some sort of conversion there."
"Well yeah, you'd have to decide one way or the other which system you're going with, but wouldn't necessarily have to change the hit point totals."

This might have been talking about D&D's blooded condition, or Saga's condition track, or it might be about a more fundemental change in his points than we've heard about yet.

 

[FourthBear]

it does remind me of all of the furore when they started first posting 3e stat blocks. "OMG! Look at those stats! They're ridiculously high, what kind of a video game mess are they trying to foist on us?" I definitely remember people claiming that all the various things in 3e that led to hit point inflation (relative to 1e and 2e) would result in cartoonishly invulnerable characters that had no fear of damage. In practice, I think most people found the game quite deadly enough when the criticals and multiple attacks started raining down.

 

[Gloombunny]

The lack of +Con items alone will make a big difference to high-level characters' hitpoints.

 

[Imp]

I tend to imagine they're making fights longer, in terms of rounds played, and not so much the 2-or-3-round all-out lethality-fests that 3E's known for. So, less damage, a little more like mid-high level fights in earlier editions that way. That's fine with me.

 

[Benimoto]

We've seen some examples of hitpoints in the revised stats for the D&D minis creatures that have been released. The levels of the creatures released so far only go into the early teens, but creatures seem to have roughly 7 HP a level, with many of the highest creatures having as low as around 6 HP/level. For example, the skirmish version of Bruenor Battlehammer is a level 12 dwarf with 85 hp. The Dwarf Warlord in the rulebook is also level 12, with only 80 hp. For comparison, in the 3.5 RPG stats, Bruenor is level 13 with 154 hp.

Of course sometimes they cut down on the abilities of the miniatures pieces to keep them manageable, but my speculation is that yes, the HP for higher level characters and creatures are going down, which seems natural given the removal of iterative attacks and the smoothing over of critical hits.

One thing that seems a little fishy with the stats is that in the minis game, the level 14 Angel of Vengeance has 90 HP, or around 6.4 a level. The level 26 Pit Fiend's RPG stats have 375 HP, or 13.4 a level. That could be the regular/elite difference there, or it could indicate that I shouldn't be looking at the miniatures games HP for any indication about the RPG.

 

[arscott]

I think based on what we know about them, it's reasonable to assume that an elite monster will have up to twice as many hp as a non-elite monster of the same level--They're supposed to count as two monsters on a battlefield, so they should be able to take twice as many hits.

 

[Victim]

I'd expect damage per round to be dropping far more than HP. In many ways, 3e damage was too high. Many characters I've seen can expect to kill themselves in 2 rounds. In a group battle, that's especially stupid since the HP mechanic vastly rewards taking out characters all the way. A few characters coordinate their actions, and you have people going from full to dead in a round.

Simply put, offense is very strong now and is probably getting nerfed.

 

[Cadfan]

I wouldn't automatically make these assumptions.

First, while its a 26th level monster, you can't compare it to a CR 26 monster. Level and CR are NOT the same between editions.

A 26 CR monster was supposed to be an adequate fight, alone, for a party of 4 PCs. Simple enough.

But 4e uses an opponent slot kind of system, where you have a number of monster slots about equal to the number of party members. Some monsters use up multiple slots (a "solo," like a dragon, is 5). An elite monster, which includes the Pit Fiend, uses up two slots. This means that in a fight, your standard 4e party of five characters is NOT facing just one pit fiend. It is facing maybe two pit fiends, and a regular 26th level monster.

In addition, there are different types of melee monsters. One type is the "soldier" type, which we have been told covers monsters that are tactical and durable, rather than brutal and highly damaging. The Pit Fiend is a soldier monster. It has a whole lot of hit points, and some very high defenses. This fits its combat role.

Finally, the pit fiend's damage isn't all that low. Imagine a fight with two pit fiends, and some unknown ally, versus 5 PCs. First, both pit fiends are doing an automatic 15 damage per round per pit fiend to everyone within 25 feet. Lets assume they do a reasonably good job of boxing everyone in- that means up to about 30 damage per round per character, automatically. Or 150 damage per round, BEFORE they attack.

They also penalize armor class, and summon mook enemies. The mook enemies probably aren't so tough (though we haven't seen their stats), but against a foe with a penalized AC, they probably add up. There are a lot of them, after all.

Meanwhile, the pit fiends have attacks that not only do damage on impact, they create ongoing damage effects. A smart pit fiend is going to hit one character, leave them poisoned and on fire, then move on to the next character. This makes the damage add up pretty quickly. And the pit fiend's high AC and hit points, plus its ability to summon allies to absorb damage for it, mean that the fight will likely go on for quite a while.

Anyways, I don't know how much healing a level 26 cleric can toss out. But its going to be near 150 points per round to handle the aura effects of the pit fiend alone.

And of course the two pit fiends still have an ally, who benefits from the pit fiend's aura of fear, and who can add to the encounter.

I'm sure the pit fiend will be able to handle himself.

 

[Jorunkun]

Wildass guess: Could it be that creatures (and N/PCs) can now go fully negative on hits, reaching "bloodied" condition at zero and dead at negative HP-1?

Just a thought ...

J.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

I think it is a good thing

if average damage/round goes down. I have run way too many 2-3 round fights as a DM.

Ken