Reducing PC HP for more challenging fights? By how much? (Shorter fights problem.)

[Alisair Longreach]

There are mathematical imbalances between PCs and monsters that get more pronounced as the PCs advance in level. To Illustrate:

Monsters get a +1 bonus at each level to AC, defenses and attacks and +8 hit points dependent on role.

PCs get a +1 bonus at every even level to Ac, defenses and attacks. They also also get another +1 bonus from magic items at roughly every 5 levels. PCs also get a +1 bonus from ability score increases at 8th, 14th, 21st and 28th level.

The PCs get a total +8 bonus per tier while the monsters get a +10 bonus.
The PCs increase their damage output by +3 per tier while the monsters get +80 hit points.

The average 1st level PCs damage is 8 points. The average 1st level monster has 30 hit points and thus needs 4 hits to be killed. The 1st level PC hits a 1st level monster on 11+ on the die so his hit success is 50%.
A 1st level combat encounter will take 8 turns to finish on average.

The average 11th level PC damage is 11 points. The average 11th level monster has 110 hit points and thus need 10 hits to be killed. The 11th level PC hits an 11th level monster on 13+ so his hit success is only 40%.
An 11th level combat encounter will take 25 turns to resolve.

Reducing monster hit points and AC/defenses will only reduce a high-level Heroic or Paragon encounter with a few turns. Reducing PC hit points will only result more Total Party Kills.

My solution:

Give the PCs Implement or Weapon Expertise (from PHB2) as a bonus feat at 5th level. This increases their hit success and thus reduces the combat encounter a couple of turns.

Also give the PCs Paragon Defenses (from PHB2) as a bonus at 11th level. This decreases the monsters hit success against PC defenses. Upgrade this feat to Robust Defenses at 21st level.

Also let the PCs add the 1/2 level bonus to the damage of all their powers. This will cut the length of higher level combat encounters nearly in half.

Another suggestion is to let the PCs have their Action Point refresh at every encounter and remove the limits on Magic Item Daily Powers activations. This eliminates Milestones bookkeeping.

 

[keterys]

The average 1st level PCs damage is 8 points. The average 1st level monster has 30 hit points and thus needs 4 hits to be killed. The 1st level PC hits a 1st level monster on 11+ on the die so his hit success is 50%.

A +7 to hit at 1st level is pretty common. A normal AC for a monster at 1st level is 15. So, a bit better than that.

The average 11th level PC damage is 11 points.

Umm, what? 1d10+5(Stat)+3(Enh)+2(Feat)+2(Item/Feat/Misc) nets you 17.5 conservatively. Ignoring encounter powers (you've got 4, after all) which would make that 2d10+12 or 23 damage, at least. Nevermind striker bonuses, bonuses from allies (my warlord, for example, gives out +5 or +6 damage for multiple rounds each combat), some of the more broken items like reckless + bloodclaw, etc.

I DM an 11th level game and play a 10th and 2 12ths in other games, and the average damage is about 30 from what I've observed... and if I excluded one game of all halflings where no one is really trying, it'd probably be more.

For example, my warlord's strike deals 2d10+22 and gives everyone a +6 damage bonus against his target. Very few creatures survive the round. On an elite, I might add Inspired Belligerence for CA and +5 damage. His War of Attrition is 2d10+22 and everyone gets +5 attack and damage with at-wills. The rogue in his group deals ~1d8+3d8+23 with Sly Flourish, so about 46/47 damage after any one of my buffs, and he very rarely misses. The fighter I think does 2d6b1+26 with brash strike, which is about 40 damage with my buff... stuff dies very, very quickly.

The average 11th level monster has 110 hit points and thus need 10 hits to be killed. The 11th level PC hits an 11th level monster on 13+ so his hit success is only 40%.

Looks a lot different when you make that 4 hits and correct the 11+ mistake from the start. The hit drift still exists, though. Area and close attacks are a lot more common at paragon than at 1st, though, so you do get to hit multiple enemies a lot which often speeds things up.

Interestingly, you gain 3 encounter powers going from 1st through 11th, so combats increasing a round is pretty acceptable to me. It's more than that that I'm iffy on.

Reducing monster hit points and AC/defenses will only reduce a high-level Heroic or Paragon encounter with a few turns.

I'm seeing 5 round paragon combats now, often enough... the worst so far was an 8 round fight against a room full of trolls. And I do mean _full_. They healed sooooo much. Just one source of fire damage, single target. Ick.

Reducing PC hit points will only result more Total Party Kills.

My warlord did one paragon adventure (widely considered a tough one by LFR standards, CORE1-14) in which he never once needed to throw a healing power. In fact, I only threw a single healing word the entire game to give someone +2 attack and +5 damage (Battlelord of Kord)... it healed all 5 damage on the character (of the surge + 3d6 + 7 it could heal).

Give the PCs Implement or Weapon Expertise (from PHB2) as a bonus feat at 5th level. This increases their hit success and thus reduces the combat encounter a couple of turns. Also give the PCs Paragon Defenses (from PHB2) as a bonus at 11th level. This decreases the monsters hit success against PC defenses. Upgrade this feat to Robust Defenses at 21st level.

Agreed. Stupid math drift, making people spend feats to fix it is awful. That said, what's your opinion on the +4 defense feats?

Also let the PCs add the 1/2 level bonus to the damage of all their powers. This will cut the length of higher level combat encounters nearly in half.

Eh... this makes mulitattack powers even better than they already are. For example, +15 damage per hit nets Twin Strike the equivalent of 3W, making it better than some epic encounter, and even daily, powers. Not that it wasn't really already, but stake in the heart. Reducing hp does this just as well as adding damage. Adding damage once per round would also work, but frankly it'd be more complex and a bit of a pain.

Another suggestion is to let the PCs have their Action Point refresh at every encounter and remove the limits on Magic Item Daily Powers activations. This eliminates Milestones bookkeeping.

Limits on daily magic items causes a bunch of problems at higher levels, when you can buy lvl 2-10 items for their daily powers and use them over and over.

 

[Alisair Longreach]

Keterys, my math example was with a not-min-maxed PC and I ignored bonus damage from use of encounter/daily powers and striker damage and multiple targets. I simplified the math to better illustrate my point.

Have you ever fought a Dragon three levels above your party? Believe me, after the first hour it gets boring real fast. The +½ level to PC damage speeds up those Elite and Solo fights. Extra damage on multiple target attacks? So what? Let the Controllers feel badass. A Minion blasted for 10 damage or 25 damage is still a dead Minion.

I know that removing the limits on magic item use opens it up for many kinds of abuse but if you have adult and mature players you could make a "Gentleman's Agreement" about avoiding the worst cheese.

Lugging around dozens of Dwarven Armor and the like for free effects is not OK. One Daily item power use per body slot is OK. Going Nova in a big Boss fight is OK. Changing items during rests is not OK.

 

[Markn]

The average 11th level PC damage is 11 points. The average 11th level monster has 110 hit points and thus need 10 hits to be killed. The 11th level PC hits an 11th level monster on 13+ so his hit success is only 40%.
An 11th level combat encounter will take 25 turns to resolve.

This is WAAAAAYYY off the mark.

For the rest of your points, I pretty much concur with Keterys.

 

[Markn]

Keterys, my math example was with a not-min-maxed PC and I ignored bonus damage from use of encounter/daily powers and striker damage and multiple targets. I simplified the math to better illustrate my point.

It does not require min-maxing to get appreciably above the number quoted. One or two feats and proper magic items for the level alone will increase the damage. Also you haven't included striker powers (quarry, sneak, curse), classes that can add to the damage using a daily or an encounter power. And we still haven't talked about min maxing yet. I'm not trying to be rude or anything but you are not looking at the numbers properly.

 

[Flipguarder]

Keterys, my math example was with a not-min-maxed PC and I ignored bonus damage from use of encounter/daily powers and striker damage and multiple targets.

I'm sorry but I just could not let this slide. I told the DDI character builder to make an 11th level earthstrength warden (one of the least damage focused specs out there) and its at will does 11+1d8.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I have a group going on Tuesdays, with 5-6 players and me as a DM. The group is very well optimized, but no broken combo's or broken item's allowed. I have even banned weapon/implement expertise.

Most encounters last for 4-8 rounds and take 30-40 minutes. I skip players that aren't ready when I call out their character name and let them have their turn if they can state their action. When a player haven't thought of an action when I call their character name, they usually just use the first at-will power they can think of. As an experienced DM my monster-turns are usually very quick. I do some mistakes, but so does my players, so it evens out, and makes for a good laugh.

Since the action is so fast-paced players pay close attention to the game and there are very few interruptions when fighting. It is a positive circle that makes for some very fun combats and sessions.

I found that running more than 5 mobs at a time with a larger group just made things crowded. I usually just up one mob from normal to elite for every player over 5.

Instead of fiddling with hp, one could fiddle with to hit/defenses instead. This is also a much smoother way of doing things compared to adjusting damage.

Add +1 to hit to all monsters, and -1 to all monster defenses
(this adds something like +10% DPR to both the monsters and characters)

If you think the players have it too easy, you can just give the monsters +2 to hit, or the if it is too hard, give the monsters -2 to all defenses.

Adjusting the to-hit is probably also more fun for the players, as hitting is more fun than missing.

 

[keterys]

Keterys, my math example was with a not-min-maxed PC and I ignored bonus damage from use of encounter/daily powers and striker damage and multiple targets. I simplified the math to better illustrate my point.

Right, but you simplified _too far_. It's disingenuous. A feat would give +2 damage at that level. You have 3 dailies, 4 encounters at that level, plus various utilities and such. Striker damage really does matter - that's an easy +4 to +8 for at least 1/4 of attacks, etc.

Have you ever fought a Dragon three levels above your party?

A few weeks ago - I believe the average party level was 5.6 or 5.8, though my fighter happened to be 7th. 9th level red dragon, 3 rage drakes (5th? possibly upleveled to 7, hard to be sure), 8 ranged attacking minions. I believe the fight took about 7 rounds as I remember making at-will attacks only a couple times, plus three encounter powers, one daily, and one stun. It did take a couple rounds for the rage drakes and such to arrive, they got pretty slaughtered by the rain of steel, tempest dance, come and get it, sweeping blow once they did... that character was doing 1d10+10 I believe, wasn't getting a lot of bonuses to damage otherwise though I almost always had combat advantage and did get divine glow one round, but 'AoE' was a very serious deal for that fight (we also had a wizard, sorcerer, paladin, and cleric).

The DM did call it with like 3 minions and a rage drake left, cause it was clear we'd won, so that would have probably been another round.

Believe me, after the first hour it gets boring real fast. The +½ level to PC damage speeds up those Elite and Solo fights. Extra damage on multiple target attacks? So what? Let the Controllers feel badass. A Minion blasted for 10 damage or 25 damage is still a dead Minion.

Not multitarget. Multiple attack. Twin Strike, Vault the Fallen, etc. The difference between multiattack powers and single becomes immense, to the point where 'Make 1W twice' actually outweighs '7W once', and you're only accelerating that. Reducing hp doesn't rock the boat in the same way.

For example, in the all halfling game a 600 hp solo at 480 hp is a lot more palatable, and they can continue to use their character builder to figure out their damage and such.

I know that removing the limits on magic item use opens it up for many kinds of abuse but if you have adult and mature players you could make a "Gentleman's Agreement" about avoiding the worst cheese.

Sure - instead I just use a house rule that states that using a daily power locks off the item slot for the day. You can use all your slots, but you can't swap items out once you use it. Same deal with encounters, for the more rare 'use an encounter power over and over from many purchases' silliness. I do it for slightly different reasons, but eh.

Lugging around dozens of Dwarven Armor and the like for free effects is not OK. One Daily item power use per body slot is OK. Going Nova in a big Boss fight is OK. Changing items during rests is not OK.

I actually am not so big on going nova in a big boss fight... it basically encourages people to hoard everything they have, which slows the game down. I'm a big fan of encouraging people to spend a daily every fight, and to pick dailies that have an encounter long effect.

 

[Stalker0]

I think the arguments here highlight that party's of different builds and different run styles have different experiences.

If you run a party of nearly all strikers, I highly doubt you need to change much. The party does big damage so monster hp isn't an issue, the party doesn't have a lot of healing/defensive abilities so monster damage is still scary.

But change that to a party of mostly controllers and you'll likely have a different experience. You might beat the same level monsters just fine, but it may take a lot more time to do it.

Further, some parties are really good are remembering their powers and getting their attacks in, others are much slower. Both will have different experiences about speed.

I think this fact is critically important when considering if/how much you want to tweak monster hp and damage. Some parties find no changes are necessary, others aren't satisfied until they cut monster hp in half, and double the damage. And if you start a new campaign with a completely different set of rolls, you may find the rule you were using doesn't have the same effectiveness.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, I've got a couple people who never learn their powers... and they'll just do at-wills over and over. So I've started to help steer them towards designs where that works... the sly flourish rogue with minor action encounter powers for when she misses, the hellish rebuke warlock whose encounter powers are for forced movement or area effects, etc.

Don't have a real solution yet for the paladin yet, cause yeah, if he doesn't pay attention he'll just do his 1d8+8 each round... and he's got some very notable encounter and daily abilities.

Other groups, a step is never missed and combats over 4 rounds are rare, rare indeed.