Were MM1 monsters truly underpowered?

[UngeheuerLich]

Basically, non-Solo, Heroic tier monsters from MM1 should be fine without modifications, and, as mentionned, there's a few overpowered ones. Just go easy on the Brutes and Soldiers.

To expand on this, however, how is MM2? The math for Solos was changed here, but are MM2 monsters also underpowered?

The MM1 needed erratas from day one... actually before day one... I remember the preview video of chris perkins where he wanted to show a brute, opening the book at the hill giant entry and wondering how low the damage actually is and mumbling: 1d10+5 damage... yeah thats a lot...

MM2 in general worked usually as intended at that time. So for most monsters, the quick +1/2 damage per level fix could be used to get good challenging fights... some monsters may not even need that fix... Monsters that act twice or more a round should roll initiative normal and be given a second turn at +10 and their full alotment of actions each turn.
The bebilith acts on initiative 20 and 10 IIRC what is a joke at that level... the static modifier of all characters is higher than 10 by default...

 

[TheUltramark]

It is to a certain extent, just a more complicated one.

For a monster, it is based on level and role. A lot of the monster's attack modifiers and defenses are just level+X ... PCs should go up at a similar rate, but it's spread between stat bumps at 4's, 8's and 11's, 1/2 level mod, magic items, feat choices, etc. A PC can choose to take feats which improve their defenses instead of damage, and thus is able to fiddle around with the formula to various degrees. Monster creation is meant to be simpler ... since they tend to not live through a combat, it's easier to just bake in all the fiddly bits.

and my point of view is that a monster with a 20 str should do more damage with an axe than a monster with a 12, and it is NOT "baked in" that way. Simple fix on my end.

 

[TheUltramark]

I will keep an eye out for this unbalance thing that everyone seems to be tweaking about.

three things I will do to try nip it in the bud are:
-less rest for the party, and make them aware of that fact (sometimes the threat alone is enough to stop using dailies and ap in every fight)
-use ability mod's for monsters, come to think, use any other modifiers i can think of too.
-limit the amount of magic - which makes a party in any edition tougher than they need to be

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I wonder if the initial thinking was that parties would not have a leader, and that's why the damage was low initially?

Brad

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I wonder if the initial thinking was that parties would not have a leader, and that's why the damage was low initially?

Brad

Unfortunately the damage was inconsistently low. If your party doesn't have leaders, rage drakes (actually guard drakes, MM1) will still eat your 2nd-level party for lunch.

 

[keterys]

Not all damages were dreadful - lots of stuff could really pump out the damage (Needlefang Drake Swarm or Beholder Eye of Flame, for two easy examples)

But... far more flatly couldn't. The initial monster selection was far too variant in capability, suggesting a very serious flaw (or lack) in their initial damage setting system. An Oni Night Haunter might do, say, 19 damage, total, before dying... as an elite. While a single bloodfire harpy, same level normal, might manage 130 damage.

I actually had 347/487 MM1 monster listed as definitely needing damage improvement, prior to MM3, and just 15/487 MM1 monsters listed as potentially high damage. Course, by MM3 standards the latter might be a smaller list... stuff like the Hobgoblin Warcaster just barely makes that cut, and it is slightly over MM3 values (it basically just does a 1-2 13 damage blast 5 enemies only, half on miss and 1-2 15 damage melee attacks), but it hardly sticks out anymore.

 

[DarkMasterBR]

[MENTION=24759]brad[/MENTION]: I don't think that's the case. I DM for a group with a bad Warlock (ie, the player plays his char very poorly) and semi optimized Fighter and Paladin (ie, they try to optimize it, but they go for cool instead of maximum DPR). The Fighter is striker oriented and the Pally is leader oriented. Anyway, party of 3, level 11, no leaders, and if I throw them a balanced 5 player encounter from MM1, most of the time they will not be challenged, period. Maybe I'm a bad tactical DM, but most monsters have a lot of hit points and no damage output that threatens this leaderless party.

 

[GreyLord]

I'm going to go against the flow here and say, no, I actually think the higher damage and lower AC of Monsters MM3 and beyond is a detraction for players.

I've run into many groups where new players get turned off because they get a TPK in the first encounter in 4e...either with the first module in the starter kit, or otherwise.

Most of this is because they also have an inexperienced DM as well...who has no idea about tuning something a little down if it's too hard for the party...but I think it reflects why people think MM1 monsters were not that tough whilst MM3 are.

It isn't so much that the Heroic tier MM1 monsters are more balanced than Paragon...or that MM1 monsters are so less optimized than MM3...as much as players learned better how to micormanage their powers and abilities. MM1 monsters are more catered towards those players that haven't crunched the numbers, that aren't coordinated to work seamlessly as a team, and aren't super educated on what Monsters have what abilities vs. what their characters are...aka...system experts.

By the time a group hits Paragon they hopefully are starting to learn the system pretty well...and hopefully the group is working better together. By the time MM3 came out, hopefully the experienced players could do a cakewalk over what would be a difficult encounter for new players.

A decent DM could change this (as they could with any system) and instead of a single Hill giant...toss 3 Hill Giants against them...3 times the chance to hit...with the possibility of 3d10+15 dmg per round.

With the original MM1 I've TPK'd several groups in Paragon, but the secret typically was to USE A LOT OF MINIONS...Vampire spawn were great undead minions for low level Paragons to deal with...etc.

This increases the number of hit chances the enemy gets while not increasing XP so dramatically as you would with a normal enemy...and with the right tactics you can avoid them getting hit with one giant minion killer.

On the otherhand, using these same tactics with the MM3 will cause a party to get TPK'd a LOT more. In that light, you'd have to have a group that gel'd well and had good system knowledge to face that.

I don't think the monsters in MM1 were particularly underpowered...more as it depends on what type of party and who you play with determines whether MM1 monsters were underpowered...or MM3 monsters are overpowered.

Most of the time it starts to become more obvious to a group that MM1 monsters are underpowered by Paragon or Epic simply because their knowledge of what works and what doesn't is good enough to start showing the MM1 weaknesses. However, prior to that transition, I'd say MM3 monsters can actually be TOO hard for them in many circumstances.

In short...I suppose that means I agree MM1 monsters are underpowered, at least for most who would have the time to come to the boards...but I'll say it with great reservations...with the same double back that MM3 monsters are okay for those that come to the boards, but in some instances may overdo it, especially for those new to the game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

[MENTION=4348]GreyLord[/MENTION] Eh, my players aren't exactly good at studying the system or picking the best possible options. They look at stuff, pick something that fits their character concept, and generally they'll pick the option that is better than the other options, but they're not going to plan super feat synergy, etc. They had some quite tough heroic encounters, one or two that could have been TPKs with say a couple more bad rolls. Still, overall characters made death saves rarely and didn't always follow sound tactics. Now, since I've been adjusting all monsters to MM3 standards for damage? Well, this particular group is playing paragon now and they're starting to get more seriously challenged. I definitely use lower level monsters than before and the speed of combat has increased. If the whole party whales on a monster, the sucker is going down, even if they're all using at-wills. Before every fight was on the verge of slog, or at least most of them.

I think now you can craft a fun encounter with less need to tweak things. It makes adventure building easier for sure.

 

[keterys]

Most groups start at level 1, so they're not really seeing much of a difference between MM1 and MM3+ anyways. In some cases it's harder, but in other cases it's actually easier because there are less outliers to get screwed up by...

Like that silly mod that had 5-7 needlefang drake swarms in it, pre-errata.

It's paragon+ play that is affected the most, and that's not something people new to the system should be doing, I hope.