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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AllisterH" data-source="post: 4190744" data-attributes="member: 51325">Heh  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> We were just talking about the Angel of Valor and now we can see for ourselves what the WOTC designer was talking about with regard to how boring combat would be.Against a SINGLE 1st level PC, there's no question that the angel of valour will smash the unlucky PC into the ground but it won't actually do this in one round.I think the economy of actions is what makes this fight BEATABLE for enough 1st level PCs. Note: This is all speculation and simply looking at the numbers and NOT backed up by actual playtesting.The defenses on the Angel of Valor are HIGH but say you use the 6 DDXP 1st level characters. The Angel can't oneshot a PC into death (on average, the Angel does 19 pts of dmg per round. Certainly more than enough to bloody ANY of the 1st level PCs) however, since it only can act once per round, when the 6 other PCs have their turn, two PCs use actions that involve a healing surge (negating the dmg from the Angel's turn). Which then leaves 4 PCs wailing on the Angel of Valor. As the designer pointed out, the Angel's defenses are so hgih and its HP as well that basically the PCs are only hitting on an 18-19 and it will take a LONG time to get it down to 0.  However, the PCs should evenutally be able to get it down.Which is what you expect from what the numbers tell you. A 350 xp encounter for 6 1st level PCs _IS_ a beatable encounter.Reduce the number of PCs in half and it gets a hell lot more dicey. Not only did you lessen the number of healign surges among characters in half, but the Angel of Valour is now only facing 1 attack per round (given that 2 PCs are using their actions to negate the damage that the Angel of Valor does). You can actually see where this is a change from 3E. When the 3E designers created the "Cure X" spells, they basically left them as is from earlier edition (CLW in 2E = 1d8, CLW in 3.x = 1d8 + 1/caster level), however, damage from attacks went up at a much faster rate. They didn't do the math which looking at the Angel of Valor and other monsters, you can see they actually did this time. Not only did the monsters pure damge go down, but healing surges always heal a 1/4 damage meaning that they are properly scaled.This is also why we saw the birth of CoDzilla since it made tactical sense NOT to heal since this was basically wasting an action on the part of the healer (CSW heals 3d8 + 1/caster level but even at level 5, many monsters can easily dish out more than 13 pts of damage per round) but rather to use their offensive spells to kill the target faster. Then use the wand of CLW at the end of the battle.</blockquote>

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