New monster damage expressions - What do they mean for the game?

[Abraxas]

Use lower level encounters...

now you get: better damage/hp ration on monsters --> more exiting combats!

They are already exciting enough - boredom was not a problem. I am more concerned that these changes will turn our game into one encounter - extended rest, one encounter - extended rest, one encounter - extended rest...

For my group, reducing the number of rounds a combat takes (because lower level monsters have less HP) while still taking the same amount of damage (because monsters will do more damage) is unlikely to improve our gaming experience.

I understand why the changes were made - those reasons were not an issue in the game I am in, so these are solutions in search of a problem. I believe this will cause people I game with to stop choosing their feats and powers because of their cool factor and instead choose feats and abilities because of their efficiency. I hope I am wrong.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

actually, i believe, the number of rounds a combat take won´t be reduced if the DM (I assume, it is you) will just have slightly lower level combatants:

in lower levels, you hardly notice the difference with the new statistics as there already have been very hard hitting opponents (which were usually one or two levels higher than the average level 1 PC)

In higher levels, you are now free to take more exiting feats, because you won´t need maxed out damage to have a good balance between attack/hp ratio... I don´t know your group, but i guess you will adapt very fast and get good results... you will just have to accept, that the average combat is now one or two levels lower than before... (which will make monsters a bit easier to hit and PC´s a bit hit less often, but harder... banning expertise feats will bring hitting enemies down to usual levels i guess)

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

I can't be the only DM who grinned when they saw that.

I've been railing about monster damage ever since my PC's hit Paragon...especially typed damage.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

actually, i believe, the number of rounds a combat take won´t be reduced if the DM (I assume, it is you) will just have slightly lower level combatants:

in lower levels, you hardly notice the difference with the new statistics as there already have been very hard hitting opponents (which were usually one or two levels higher than the average level 1 PC)

In higher levels, you are now free to take more exiting feats, because you won´t need maxed out damage to have a good balance between attack/hp ratio... I don´t know your group, but i guess you will adapt very fast and get good results... you will just have to accept, that the average combat is now one or two levels lower than before... (which will make monsters a bit easier to hit and PC´s a bit hit less often, but harder... banning expertise feats will bring hitting enemies down to usual levels i guess)

Yeah, I think you're pretty much right. Lower level monsters will hit a bit less, thus the increased damage will mostly make things a bit more swingy but not a lot more dangerous on a per encounter basis.

 

[Jack99]

I agree with your assessment. I'd definitely tell the players before the encounter that you've switched to the new, higher damage expressions to allow them to adapt by playing more carefully.

This is key - I have already posted on my campaign blog, telling the players of the chabges coming, so that they are prepared.

 

[kaomera]

Yeah, I think you're pretty much right. Lower level monsters will hit a bit less, thus the increased damage will mostly make things a bit more swingy but not a lot more dangerous on a per encounter basis.

I would tend to disagree. Swingy combats are more dangerous for the PCs, and when you add to that the fact that you'll be running more combats per level I think there could be a problem.

I don't think I like the update, but I don't think it's anything I'm going to get upset over. I haven't actually had a campaign get above 5th level, and the only thing that would really tend to bug me would be if lower-level encounters meant taking longer to level up. I think I may be less likely to go back to playing LFR, given the update, but that was already a situation where we had hard encounters vs. inexperienced players with (sometimes grossly) unoptimized characters.

As a DM I'm already reducing monsters' defenses, raising their attacks, revising damage (both up and down, depending on circumstances), and generally tweaking conditions. I also remove all but two or maybe three attacks from most monsters, just to make them readable / playable at the table. So I'm doing a lot of modifications, and while the update certainly doesn't help that, it's not really adding extra work either. Oh, and I'm not bothering with strict XP awards, so I don't have to worry about the levels dragging if I don't want to.

As a player I'm a bit more worried, but I still don't think it's going to be too terrible. We're leveling at a good pace right now, and while I don't really want to slow that down I don't think it's going to end up being a big problem. If the DM doesn't lower average encounter levels we could be in trouble. I dunno, maybe we'll pull through regardless. In any case, there have also been encounters that really weren't that much of a real challenge, but I don't expect that to change much.

My real concern is that I'm seeing spates of misses as far more of a concern than damage output. Like I said, I haven't played at Paragon or above yet, and if people are saying it's been an issue I'm quite willing to take their word for it. But I've definitely noticed that when you get a good number of misses / failures in a row (and I've had entire rounds where no-one, PC or NPC has hit with anything) it feels "grindy" in an immediate sense, even if overall the encounter is fun. Part of that is just luck, but I think that instituting a +2 / +3 overall accuracy boost has helped, at least in the game I DM.

 

[Iron Sky]

The main difference I see happening in my game is I stop throwing Level + 2 encounters as the baseline at my paragon-level party and go more for Level + 0 as the baseline. Net result? The party levels up every 2-3 sessions instead of every 1-2...

As-is, since my group hit paragon, they've leveled up 4 times in 6 sessions... I mostly see this update as an indirect method of bringing player level advancement and encounter difficulty back to what the DMG says.

It'll be interesting to see how it effects our other (on-hiatus) game that we played from level 1 to 21. It was bad enough (or we were good enough) that mid-Paragon, some of our Strikers would go through whole fights without using encounter powers... one day we did something like 7 encounters and only took an extended rest because we ran out of bad guys, still had most of our dailies and enough surges for a few more fights.

As a caveat though, our group is highly optimized, pretty much all powergamers now, though, interestingly, only about 1/3 of our group were powergamers back in 3.5e. 4e makes it so much easier to do, that even our players that didn't care about it in 3.5 can do it quickly and easily now. Also, we have no house-rules aside from occasional uses of Stalker0's Obsidian Skill Challenge system, otherwise, it's as RAW as we can make it.

 

[kaomera]

One thing I just thought of: if you're switching to lower-level enemies as standard, would you also do away with "bonus" expertise (if any)?

The main difference I see happening in my game is I stop throwing Level + 2 encounters as the baseline at my paragon-level party and go more for Level + 0 as the baseline. Net result? The party levels up every 2-3 sessions instead of every 1-2...

Well then I hope my paragon-level experiences (someday, when we finally get there) prove similar. Although I'm not sure if will ever be able to throw a L+2 encounter at the group I DM without it ending in a TPK.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I understand why the changes were made - those reasons were not an issue in the game I am in, so these are solutions in search of a problem. I believe this will cause people I game with to stop choosing their feats and powers because of their cool factor and instead choose feats and abilities because of their efficiency. I hope I am wrong.

If the changes were meant to fix issues you never had, then I think you can safely skip them. If you're fine where you are, then why change? Those updates were made because people were complaining about grind and lack of danger from monsters or whatever.

 

[Vaeron]

The damage at Epic levels was badly needed. In one of the Epic-level modules the party gets jumped by a 24th level elite Aspect of Orcus who hits for... about 12 points of damage. That's like half a healing surge at epic levels. Biggest let-down ever. The new damage expressions go a long way towards fixing that.

But at heroic levels? Damage increase is NOT needed, in my opinion. PCs don't have a lot of HP, and the math hasn't broken down yet. If I go back and start running a low level campaign, I will definitely NOT increase damage until paragon levels kick in. But at Epic - oh yeah, badly needed. Monster damage output was a joke.