So, about Expertise...

[Regicide]

Indeed, +3 attack is a _lot_ like ~30 hp, +1 to two ability scores, +3 attack, +3 all defenses, all skills, a new encounter, a new daily, and a new utility.

A 30% increase in DPR means the fight ends that much faster and so you get hit 30% less. Whats the point of hp or defenses when you can simply end the fight before they even matter?

Skills? Do people actually use those? 30 power cards in front of me to choose from, not one of them is a skill. 5E will get rid of them.

 

[keterys]

I guess that at least settles the question of whether we're playing the same game

 

[DrSpunj]

Please forgive the thread necromancy here, but I did state in the other thread I was reading through this one again!

I've solved this in my game by having paragon and epic monsters do more damage.

I'm just curious how much you've increased damage at the upper tiers and how much shorter you expect those combats to be now. By +1[W] per tier? By adding +MonsterLvl for damage instead of 1/2 damage?

As I said, my campaign is only at 4th level so this is mostly just for the sake of mental gymnastics, but it's still fun from a puzzle solving perspective.

Thanks!

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm just curious how much you've increased damage at the upper tiers and how much shorter you expect those combats to be now. By +1[W] per tier?

Yes. +1[W] for Paragon, +2[W] for Epic.

There are a few Paragon level monsters that do D20 damage, but I changed that to 2D10 so that nearly all monsters do D6 through D12 dice damage.

But, this change was not implemented to decrease the number of rounds of combat. It was made to make monsters slightly more threatening, especially due to putting in the +1 per tier NAD fix.

The +1 per tier to hit change is what I think will decrease the number of rounds of combat. Theoretically, that should decrease the number of rounds by ~33% at high Epic level. So, a 15 round encounter should be finished in 10 instead.

 

[Elric]

There's an extensive discussion of the underlying math issue, that monsters gain attack and defense faster than players, and potential house rule fixes, in this thread. It also includes suggestions for increasing monster damage.