Were MM1 monsters truly underpowered?

[Tony Vargas]

Whenever topics come up with regards to the deadliness of battles in 4E in its current form... the first thing mentioned is to use MM3 damage expressions, because monsters from MM1 & 2 are underpowered and don't cause enough damage.

MM1 monsters were balanced around a different expectation about combat. 4e tried to create more dynamic combats, that resolved rounds faster with cleaner more systematic rules, but took much longer in rounds to enable deeper tactical play. It didn't go over well. Some groups liked it, but most either found the monsters too 'grindy' (too slow to finish off) or not much of a threat (because they'd found some of the broken combos present with even the PH1, and were rolling over them too quickly for their low damage to add up).

I think there's also an expectation that monsters open up hard, that is, that early in the fight, they demonstrate that they're badass by bloodying a PC or something. By the time you dug up an sufficiently over-levelled or overpowered monster to do that using the MM1, you'd be looking at something the PCs have a lot of trouble hitting - and a TPK.

What it comes down to, as with so many objections to 4e, was that it wasn't 3e, which tended towards much faster (in rounds) and swingingier combats, in which it was critical to bring monsters down fast, or the party would go down fast. Later monsters had lower defenses & hps, and higher damage, to edge them back in that direction. 4e still generally retains it's more dynamic, tactical feel compared to 3e, the difference is just narrower, and it's a lot easier to get that OMG moment out of your players early in a combat (a strong 1/encounter or recharge 6 power helps with that), so they feel like they were facing a real threat.

It was only after the the release of all the additional books, adding in all manner of new class powers, magic items, special rules etc., that building PCs that worked synergistically with each other without even planning or thinking about it became much more commonplace. Much of this was simple power escalation due to expansion, as invariably there were always new powers introduced to the system that for any particular DMs game, had a much better chance of being overpowered in that game based upon how that DM ran it.

Yep, there was power inflation, and I'm sure the monster upgrades have been, in part, to keep up with that, particularly Monster Vault, as there was a definite surge in baseline power with Essentials.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

While power creep does occur, it's fortunately not as bad as in 3.x, due to the simpler more transparent math. But I think you may have a point with the greater number of options. Still, I find the number of options in the PH1 alone to allow great synergy. More to the point, the DM can pick any combo of monsters they want, even inventing new ones if need be, so the DM actually has greater control over power synergy than PCs do.

IMO not only were MM1 monsters underpowered, some were horribly underpowered and some were actually on the right level. The damage wasn't based on level, but on ability scores, which allowed for this problem. I'll never forget the time I killed two PCs with rage drakes in a level-balanced encounter. They were dealing proper damage, and the PCs, who were new to 4e, hadn't gotten the hang of dangerous encounters yet, on the grounds that nothing they had faced up till that point had been a challenge.

As Keep on the Shadowfell progressed, occasionally they'd run into something which seemed horrifyingly powerful, like the Orcus underpriests. These weren't using weapon damage, and so dished out esentially "appropriate" damage. (Incidentally, many of the encounter levels in that adventure were quite poorly planned. 5th-level soldier minions ended up never taking a hit and slaughtering a 3rd-level party. Never use an 8th-level solo against 4th-level PCs, especially pre-MM3. Talk about a slugfest. Kalarel had only one encounter power, but his AC was so high the PCs couldn't hit him.)

Now I'm running Dark Sun, using the proper damage rules. The PCs usually deal less damage with their at-wills than monsters, and have fewer hit points, but have the following benefits:

Action points.

More encounter powers (I count dailies as encounter powers, but those are even more powerful, of course).

Healing (a great way of reducing their hit point disadvantage).

Utility Powers (even one can be very handy, especially if you find one that's an encounter power).

Depending on party makeup, the PCs could have gotten lots of buffs (no clerics in my group) or control effects on top.

I find the fights to be much more satisfying now. At the end of the battles, the only things the PCs have lost are healing surges and maybe a daily or two.

I don't find MM1/MM2 monsters too wimpy to use however, as I always put the monsters on index cards. Even before the MM3 beef, I did so to make assembling monster combos easier. I didn't want to (as an example) have to flip between the "dragon" and "kobold" sections for an encounter. So when the new damage expressions came out, I simply updated all those index cards.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overall, yes, I think they were. They had too low damage, and they could do nothing or very little against status effects. I also think the fights are better now with more monsters with more interesting abilities.

 

[IanB]

I think the problem was a bit exacerbated by the fact that not only was damage a little low in an overall sense, some monsters seemed to be clearly just bugged (like the aforementioned hill giant) - as I recall it didn't even match the guidelines in the DMG1.

So, there was a combination of slightly off balance + a fair number of errors. That said there were still some overpowered monsters sprinkled in with them (hello, mad wraith.)

 

[Mengu]

Few were overpowered, few were fine, most were underpowered. The few overpowered ones got nerfs. The underpowered ones become fine if you just bump their damage up. The fine ones are, well, fine, but it doesn't break the bank to adjust their damage up.

I thought MM1 kobolds, goblins, wolves and gnolls were fine. The higher level you got, the weaker the monsters seemed to get. And I always hated brutes because they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

I do think MM3 took it a little too far, I've been using damage expressions that are a level or two lower for most my monsters, and it seems to work better at the moment. But depending on party resources and play style, I try to use monster damage as one of those many knobs and dials I can tweak to best fit the group.

 

[Obryn]

But the question still stands... were the regular monsters of MM1 actually underpowered when compared to the PCs built from PH1?

Yup. Both mathematically and otherwise.

Soldiers and Brutes were the worst offenders. Soldiers were actually designed specifically to grind - they hit often, but for low damage, and have defenses high enough not to get hit, themselves. Brutes' inherent -2 to attacks made them effectively useless against at-level PCs once you hit Paragon.

As a specific example, look at the Cyclops entry. Any of them, really. The L16 Soldier deals 1d12+7 damage per attack (or an average of 13.5). While it may get more attacks for mark violation, odds are, that's it. Assume he hits 60% of the time (being a soldier) and we're talking about 8 DPR. At this level, even a Wizard has 10x that many. The javelin-chucking Cyclops can deal reasonable damage only on a Recharge 6 power. The Rambler ... moves a lot and does 1d12+6 damage. Basically, they're useless all around. (In comparison, the Soldier's damage is what you'd expect a level 5 or 6 monster to do under the new math. A L16 soldier itself should be dealing an average of 24 per attack, so more like 2d12+11 would be acceptable.)

As a different example, check out Doresain, King of the Ghouls. Check out his stats, and what he can do, and I think you can see how shockingly boring he is. He has two attacks, both of which are boring, and can do something neat if he recharges on a 6. Yay?

It's not about power creep or anything of that nature. Plain and simple, the designers didn't understand 4e yet when the core books were first released. This isn't to condemn them - I admire that they were willing to adjust the game once it hit actual players. But I still think 4e would be better off today if they'd playtested more.

-O

 

[TheUltramark]

I have to be totally honest, I don't know what any of you are talking about.

I've yet to have a problem with the "damage expressions" of any monster in mm1 or mm2, AND, I have 6 players in my game. I find it not a big deal taking one or more of them to 0hp whenever I want in "big fights" and if they roll crappy, it's easy to whoop em in "fair fights".

I may be way off base, but I think the problem is not the monsters are underpowerd , it is that the players in some of the games in question are too powerful. I think in most games players rest WAAAY too much, which makes them way over-powered. If you fight the group of centaurs afore mentioned but your party has 40% fewer dailies, 33% fewer action points, fewer healing surges/heal powers suddenly your monsters look bad ass.

I also see in a lot (not all) games of higher levels, the players have WAY too much magic, again, not the monster's fault. Some games i've been in act like you can roll into any town, plop down your cash, and walk out with whatever magic item you find. Like the local forge is cranking out +4 weapons like an assembly line. It is RARE I let the players buy anything, they have to find it, or sometimes they can trade with npc's, but the local village's general store is always fresh outta magic

 

[Incenjucar]

If your game differs from the norm you will get abnormal results.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I may be way off base, but I think the problem is not the monsters are underpowerd , it is that the players in some of the games in question are too powerful. I think in most games players rest WAAAY too much, which makes them way over-powered. If you fight the group of centaurs afore mentioned but your party has 40% fewer dailies, 33% fewer action points, fewer healing surges/heal powers suddenly your monsters look bad ass.

You're probably right, but managing rests isn't as easy as using more powerful monsters. Most DMs have jobs and lives, and resources to learn this kind of management are rare.

I think rest management is easier if you're using a published adventure, as they usually have "too many" encounters and you can just throw in another one if the PCs are getting lazy/overly cautious. But a lot of DMs write their own adventures, and they tend to have few "extra" encounters ready-to-go.

I also see in a lot (not all) games of higher levels, the players have WAY too much magic, again, not the monster's fault. Some games i've been in act like you can roll into any town, plop down your cash, and walk out with whatever magic item you find. Like the local forge is cranking out +4 weapons like an assembly line. It is RARE I let the players buy anything, they have to find it, or sometimes they can trade with npc's, but the local village's general store is always fresh outta magic

I doubt that's an actual problem. You follow the guidelines, which means no giving +4 weapons to PCs of less than 16th-level. IMC I use inherent bonuses, and it's Dark Sun; you literally can't buy such items. The best you can do is try not to get ripped off at the elven market, befriend a templar (always a risk) or rob them (my PCs did that last game, and only got four items of their level; they did it for the daily powers since they're already getting the bonuses through the inherent bonus system).

 

[Dausuul]

I have to be totally honest, I don't know what any of you are talking about.

I've yet to have a problem with the "damage expressions" of any monster in mm1 or mm2, AND, I have 6 players in my game. I find it not a big deal taking one or more of them to 0hp whenever I want in "big fights" and if they roll crappy, it's easy to whoop em in "fair fights".

What level is your party?