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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 4929734" data-attributes="member: 30022">Fair points, although if the challenge is to find out which creatures are "problematic", I think swinginess is more of a concern (given 4e's design) than predictably lower-or-higher damage than creatures of comparative level.Take the humble deathjump, versus (say) a specter - which is on the list of High damage creatures. I'm assuming this is solely for spectral barrage (recharge 5 / 6), because a 1d6+2 necrotic touch with no other effects shouldn't be scaring anyone from a 4th level enemy, even if it had +30 vs Reflex.A low-level rogue steps into a room, unaware that enemies are lurking inside...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">3 specters get surprise with their +9 Stealth. One is close enough to use spectral barrage, while the other two charge for spectral touches. Assuming all three hit, the poor PC has taken 20 damage and is prone. If one of them crits, the PC takes another 3-5 damage. He's probably still on his feet.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">3 deathjumps get surprise with their +11 Stealth. All three attack with death from above. Assuming all three hit, the rogue is probably dead outright (reduced to negative bloodied with 45.5 damage, from max hp). If one of them crits, he's almost certainly dead. The deathjumps win initative, and do the same to the next PC in line, dropping him too. Suddenly, a TPK looms.</li> </ul>Creatures that can do predictable damage (even with much better hit chances) are better managed in the context of a fight. You can calculate how many rounds to go between healing, you can make judgements on optimal actions. But there's not much you can do if 4 wolves attack you, and the first one hits. You're suddenly facing a pile of damage from the other three, and you're in trouble.I agree that reducing spikes is the way to go, although (for most creatures) I think that actually takes away from some of the fun. My players tend to respect wolves, simply because of the spike. The concern with needlefangs and deathjumps is that their spikes are just ludicrously large.I guess my summary suggestion is that I'd take Max Damage as a more important weighting that Expected Damage. That applies even more so for bursts and blasts. Hitting four PCs for 2d6+2 damage is far less problematic than hitting one PC for 8d6+8 damge... and in fact may be less problematic than hitting one PC for 4d6+4 damage. A 28 point crit could knock 20% of the party's attack strength out of the combat, whereas 9 points of damage to everyone (with one of them being critted for, say, 14 points of damage) probably won't reduce anyone to 0 hp.(by the way, thanks for doing this analysis - you've certainly drawn my attention to some of the outliers like greenscales and boneshards) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" /></blockquote>

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