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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Separating challenge and complexity in monster design
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<blockquote data-quote="ProgBard" data-source="post: 7013281" data-attributes="member: 6803722"><p>This is a good point, and true, with the caveat that I think it applies mostly to solo monsters.</p><p></p><p>Consider that a horde of plain-vanilla goblins can overwhelm the resources of even a high-level party. By the same token, a by-the-numbers boosted-CR goblin champion in plate with 15 HD won't last long on its own, but a couple-three of them could give the PCs a pretty hard time even without adding any features more interesting than multiattack. Both of those fights might be boring slogs (or they might not, depending on how you ran 'em), but they'd be at the very least a mathematically-sufficient "challenge."</p><p></p><p>Part of the issue, I think, is that the term <em>challenge </em>itself is pretty slippery even in this limited context, and it's easy to use it in ways that its meanings sort of slide into each other - one more way in which it's necessary to be clear about your design goals in this matter.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ProgBard, post: 7013281, member: 6803722"] This is a good point, and true, with the caveat that I think it applies mostly to solo monsters. Consider that a horde of plain-vanilla goblins can overwhelm the resources of even a high-level party. By the same token, a by-the-numbers boosted-CR goblin champion in plate with 15 HD won't last long on its own, but a couple-three of them could give the PCs a pretty hard time even without adding any features more interesting than multiattack. Both of those fights might be boring slogs (or they might not, depending on how you ran 'em), but they'd be at the very least a mathematically-sufficient "challenge." Part of the issue, I think, is that the term [I]challenge [/I]itself is pretty slippery even in this limited context, and it's easy to use it in ways that its meanings sort of slide into each other - one more way in which it's necessary to be clear about your design goals in this matter. [/QUOTE]
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Separating challenge and complexity in monster design
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