D&D 5E Q&A -- Dec 20: Puzzle monsters and spell points.


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I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich
I really like their answer for #2.

I'm not someone who has ever had a problem with "undead are immune to Sneak Attack!", but their points about (1) having the immunity mechanics be broad and not limited to specific abilities, and (2) having immunities change the way the monster is approached, are spot on. I am into limited immunities for unique creatures.

....not sure how that might interact with "Fire elementals: can they take fire damage?", and "shouldn't golems be immune to magic?" but I am at least on the same page with them as far as how to approach that question. :)
 


Minigiant

Legend
Supporter
1) They really should place two value for these monsters. One for with summons and one without.

2) Make sense. If you make the decision to base a lot of a class around a single class feature, then it could be a bad idea to make 20%-25% of the monsters flat out immune to it. Otherwise 25% of the time, that class plays different.

3) Makes sense and expected. An rather easy. They could even go Traditional Vancian by giving casters more slots.

In my homemade setting, elf and gnome magic uses spell slots, human magic uses spell points, dwarves and halflings magic uses individual recharges.
 

Kinak

First Post
3.5 sneak attack immunities were pretty over the top and I don't think many people would argue with scaling it back a bit.

That said, I think the real problem with sneak attack is that it never really gets its time in the spotlight. While your pyromaniac invoker might be hosed against a red dragon or fire elemental, you get to feel like a god against trolls and ice creatures.

While it makes sense certain enemies are immune to precision damage, it makes just as much sense that some enemies are specifically vulnerable to it. Zombie headshots, beholder eyes, vampire hearts, a certain dragon's missing scale, and the boss's glowing secret weakness could all provide chances for those characters to shine.

Giving rogues some chances to be really glad they have sneak attack will do far more to help them enjoy the class than removing the times they feel bad about having sneak attack.

Cheers!
Kinak
 

the Jester

Legend
3.5 sneak attack immunities were pretty over the top and I don't think many people would argue with scaling it back a bit.

That said, I think the real problem with sneak attack is that it never really gets its time in the spotlight. While your pyromaniac invoker might be hosed against a red dragon or fire elemental, you get to feel like a god against trolls and ice creatures.

While it makes sense certain enemies are immune to precision damage, it makes just as much sense that some enemies are specifically vulnerable to it. Zombie headshots, beholder eyes, vampire hearts, a certain dragon's missing scale, and the boss's glowing secret weakness could all provide chances for those characters to shine.

Giving rogues some chances to be really glad they have sneak attack will do far more to help them enjoy the class than removing the times they feel bad about having sneak attack.

Cheers!
Kinak

Great idea!

You must spread it around etc.- someone cover for me, please?
 


Kobold Stew

Last Guy in the Airlock
Supporter
Done, Jester.

Edit: Scooped. Ha! Double your pleasure and double your fun, everything's better with double mint gum.
 
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I like my 'boss fights' to have some element of puzzle. Maybe the villain has a power that makes him a bit tougher than usual until you figure out how to thwart it. Maybe there's something dangerous happening in the background that you need to figure out how to stop while you're trying to avoid the big scary monster.

If you could let rogues use sneak attack to tear out a beholder's eye, that would F***ing Rock! I'm going to see if I can implement that in some of the last ZEITGEIST adventures we release for 4th edition.
 

ccooke

Adventurer
1) They really should place two value for these monsters. One for with summons and one without.

Should they?

The Lich in the playtest has two fifth-level spell slots. It can cast Cloudkill.
In quite a number of tactical settings, that is a horrifically powerful spell - 6d8 poison damage every round, for up to ten rounds (as long as the Lich concentrates - and since it doesn't affect undead, the Lich can stay in the cloud happily). The lich is a pretty good tough solo encounter for a party of four 5th-level characters (I know, I ran it as that a couple of weeks ago).

But what if I didn't cast it? I mean, in the fight I'm thinking about, a 5th-level lightning bolt was better for the first round. In some cases, a fifth level magic missile or fireball might be better - they can hit a vastly wider-spread group than a 20' radius area.

But does this mean that the Bestiary should contain two XP values for the lich - one casting Cloudkill, one not?

Of course not.

The XP value needs to show the balanced *potential* value of defeating that creature. If it doesn't use all of its abilities, it's still been defeated, the party just had a (possibly) easier time of it. Maybe the tactical situation was such that it couldn't use those abilities. In that case, hopefully the party had some part in causing the situation that "weakened" the creature. If so, they earned the XP that way. If they had nothing to do with the situation, then the GM has constructed it.

I can see basically three reasons why a GM might weaken a creature by using its full abilities:

1) The GM has a specific goal and is twisting the creature to fit it. This is, I believe (am I wrong?) fairly rare (as in: probably most of us have done it from time to time, but the vast majority of monsters we run are as standard). Some GMs are experienced enough to do this well and can work out a reasonable XP value for the resulting creature. Some GMs are not, and they would probably be best served by looking for a closer match in the bestiary and using that, or looking for another creature from a prior edition and converting it (I've seen some good conversion guides - the 4e one (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...E-edition-monsters-to-D-amp-D-Next-on-the-fly) seems to work really well, which is a great relief for my two 4e games that are converting to 5th)

2) The GM forgot about them. In which case, it seems a shame to penalise the players for a mistake on the GM's part.

3) The GM made a mistake, used a creature that's just too powerful and is trying to tone it down to avoid a TPK (I'm assuming that most of us have been there at some point or other). I think in this case, it's usually better to *not* tone down the creature - to try to come up with something that lets the players still defeat it. Maybe some clever use of scenery, or some allies, or a third side entering the fight. Either way, though, it's an issue when the players defeat it. I would probably search for something close enough in abilities at the right level and switch to that, either during the combat if there was time or semi-retroactively (basically, give the players a clue that the creature is weaker than the thing it looks like, and then deal with what it *really* is when the situation has resolved). For XP, I'd look at how tough the fight was retrospectively and then set a reasonable value for the fight based on the number of players and difficulty - effectively, encounter design in reverse.


... that tangented more than I expected. Oh well.
 
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