What number should a player have to roll to score a "hit"?

[ForbidenMaster]

How about some math?

Low Monster Defense (Brute & Artillery): Level+12
Med. Monster Defense (Skirmisher, Lurker, Controller): Level+14
High Monster Defense (Soldier) Level+16

Fighter Starting Attack Bonus:
4 (STR) + 2 or 3 (proficiency) + 1 (Weapon Talent) = 7 or 8

Rogue Starting Attack Bonus:
4 (DEX) + 3 (proficiency) + 0 or 1 (Weapon Talent) + 0 or 2 (combat advantage) = 7 or 8 or 9 or 10

Warlord Starting Attack Bonus:
4 (STR) + 2 or 3 (proficiency) = 6 or 7

Ranger Starting Attack Bonus:
4 (STR or DEX) + 2 or 3 (proficiency) + 0 or 1 (Prime Shot) = 6 or 7


7 is the most occurring and common number so we can start there and you can adjust by 1 (5%) as you see fit.

Base Attack Bonus vs Low Monster Defense = 7 vs 13
A 6 or higher is needed to hit, and a 5 or lower is needed to miss, so there is a 75% chance to hit and a 25% chance to miss.

Base Attack Bonus vs Med. Monster Defense = 7 vs 15
An 8 or higher is needed to hit, and a 7 or lower is needed to miss, so there is a 65% chance to hit and a 35% chance to miss.

Base Attack Bonus vs High Monster Defense = 7 vs 17
A 10 or higher is needed to hit, and a 9 or lower is needed to miss, so there is a 55% chance to hit and a 45% chance to miss.


Even with the extra options you get as you level up, unless you are diligent about getting every bonus you can, your chance to hit without bonuses from powers and good tactics will decrease. Put bluntly, once you are past first level your best odds are behind you.

 

[brassbaboon]

OK, so my level 9 ranger has a +15 to hit with his main melee weapon, and a +13 (usually) to hit with his bow.

If I'm reading this right, then for him to hit 70% of the time, that means the "average" monster he should be facing should have an AC of 22. If we assume that he is getting combat advantage, then that would be an AC of 24.

It has been my experience that the average AC of the monsters our DM has been throwing at us is about 27, and the last two significant solo encounters we had both had an AC of 29. An AC of 29, with combat advantage, means my ranger has to roll a 12 to hit, which is a 40% chance to hit.

Our barbarian went through both of those encounters and hit only one time in each of them (my ranger did quite a bit better).

Does this mean our DM is making our encounters too difficult? Or are we as a party not utilizing our skills/powers properly?

 

[Pierson_Lowgal]

OK, so my level 9 ranger...It has been my experience that the average AC of the monsters our DM has been throwing at us is about 27

Yes.

Med. Monster Defense (Skirmisher, Lurker, Controller): Level+14

= 23, at 9th level.

 

[Turtlejay]

OK, so my level 9 ranger has a +15 to hit with his main melee weapon, and a +13 (usually) to hit with his bow.

If I'm reading this right, then for him to hit 70% of the time, that means the "average" monster he should be facing should have an AC of 22. If we assume that he is getting combat advantage, then that would be an AC of 24.

It has been my experience that the average AC of the monsters our DM has been throwing at us is about 27, and the last two significant solo encounters we had both had an AC of 29. An AC of 29, with combat advantage, means my ranger has to roll a 12 to hit, which is a 40% chance to hit.

Our barbarian went through both of those encounters and hit only one time in each of them (my ranger did quite a bit better).

Does this mean our DM is making our encounters too difficult? Or are we as a party not utilizing our skills/powers properly?

I don't think this has to be your DM's fault, but like a lot of things, the devil is in the details.

The excellent post before yours pointed out that since players get + 1/2 level to hit, but monsters get +1 level to defense, players start to fall behind. Enhancement bonuses and stat increases can mitigate that (leaving you about 5 points behind by the end of epic), but basically once you start into the big bad world, things change.

Were you flanking? Do you have a healbot leader or a tactical leader? Or some combination? Do you have a controller applying status effects (blindness, dazed) that help you hit?

The game seems to assume that some level of to hit bonus is coming from outside your inherent, granted one. This is why the point of this thread is hard to nail down. How often should you hit? That's easy to debate. What should a monster's defense be? Almost impossible to debate. If you make say, all 5th level monsters have the same defenses, then you eliminate many of the tactical choices players have. When faced with an encounter, in addition to the thoughts about which threat is greatest and where the party can gain an advantage, players can think about which creature has defenses that are lowest to their favorite attack powers.

I know as an illusionist this though crossed my mind every fight. Targeting only will meant I was at an advantage versus brutish monsters, and at a penalty versus others (generally).

A varied range of defenses allows for more dynamic combats.

Jay

 

[ForbidenMaster]

OK, so my level 9 ranger has a +15 to hit with his main melee weapon, and a +13 (usually) to hit with his bow.

If I'm reading this right, then for him to hit 70% of the time, that means the "average" monster he should be facing should have an AC of 22. If we assume that he is getting combat advantage, then that would be an AC of 24.

It has been my experience that the average AC of the monsters our DM has been throwing at us is about 27, and the last two significant solo encounters we had both had an AC of 29. An AC of 29, with combat advantage, means my ranger has to roll a 12 to hit, which is a 40% chance to hit.

Our barbarian went through both of those encounters and hit only one time in each of them (my ranger did quite a bit better).

Does this mean our DM is making our encounters too difficult? Or are we as a party not utilizing our skills/powers properly?

Your Dm is either using level 11 Soldiers; level 13 Skirmishers, Lurkers and Controllers; or level 15 Brutes and Artillery. With the exception of the former (and even then it is questionable), your DM is ignoring the advice offered in the DMG.

• Choose threats within two or three levels of the characters’ level.
• Threats in an easy encounter can be as many as four levels below the party’s level.
• Threats in a hard encounter can be as many as three to five levels above the party’s level.

DMG page 56

If the average monster you are facing is 4-6 levels above yours, your DM is either trying to challenge you in every encounter, or didnt read over the rules carefuly enough.

Even following the rules, you have to take into account the role of the monsters that are placed in an encounter. A level 4 soldier against a level 1 PC is perfectly acceptable according to the rules, but that soldier has a 20 AC and the PC has a +7 to hit... Situations like that generally dont turn out as being very much fun.

IMO, unless you really know your party, the best beginners strategy to use when building encounters is to use only monsters of equal level to the party. It really isnt that difficult to level monsters to get the monsters you want on par with your PCs, and using the monster builder it is as easy as pie. If you want a big boss, have your big boss at a couple levels above the level of your party, but for the most part have same level monsters, with extra monsters for harder encounters.

 

[DracoSuave]

Not to pick a fight with you Draco, but I'd say hair color is less important. I am backed up by PHB pg 447 and DMG chapter 6, including the DDI article in Dungeon 36b. Just saying

No, I understand the source of the information, just dispute it's relevance. Fights are PCs vs Monsters, and seeing as they aren't decided by the same metrics, you can't reasonably use monster vs monster as a comparison for any legitimate PC battle math.

In this not sarcastic paragraph, I'll suggest looking at the DMG suggested defenses for a monster of the level you are looking at. Look at expected offense (1/2 level bonus, probable magic bonus, and stat bonus starting at a reasonable level). That should show you a good range. While you were on that page, I'd have you notice that different monster roles had different defense values for different defense stats. This means that any one character might hit on a low number, or a high one, depending on the makeup of the opposition. Smart players use this to ensure they hit more often.

Well, yes, some roles have different defenses than others... but there's variances. The only -real- way to figure out where the numbers lie is to grab some hard data. Take some monsters, some non-optimized but non-gimped PCs, take the numbers, and crunch them.

Morons like me build an Illusionst that attacks *only* will, and then silently pray every Friday night that their DM is not at home making a party of illithid solos to eat his brain.

Heh.

Personally I don't think you're a moron for doing that. It's cool to have a weakness. You're not totally useless, you're just a bit narrow. Grab a Tome and you're good to go anyways.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Even if they don´t play by the same rules, i still believe the number show the mindset of the designers about what is fun.

PCs tend to have a bit higher AC than average (16 instead of 15) and their attack bonus should be at least +6 (16 main stat, +3 proficiency or 18 main, +2 proficiency) so this is about the same as monsters have...

so hitting at 60% without special tactics against average monsters seems to be fun. And it seems to be fun if you are hit less than that. (You can have AC 20 if you like it)

 

[DracoSuave]

Even if they don´t play by the same rules, i still believe the number show the mindset of the designers about what is fun.

PCs tend to have a bit higher AC than average (16 instead of 15) and their attack bonus should be at least +6 (16 main stat, +3 proficiency or 18 main, +2 proficiency) so this is about the same as monsters have...

so hitting at 60% without special tactics against average monsters seems to be fun. And it seems to be fun if you are hit less than that. (You can have AC 20 if you like it)

True but level 1 is an outlier, to be quite honest. The difference between fresh character, and that point in level 2-3 when the party has itself decked out in armor is non-trivial. Not to mention, the level variance of opposition is more favorable to the player when you can start encountering monsters of lower level than you, a benefit you simply can't enjoy at level 1.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, psychology aside I'm not really sure it is necessary for PCs to hit better than 50/50 overall. However I think what any analysis vs a given monster fails to take into account is what is the actual mix of monsters you face and how often do you actually have a particular chance to hit?

At first blush it seems like the math would say a level 1 PC is hitting on a 6-8 and maybe a 10 or even 11 vs soldiers, but probably an average of 7 vs a baseline monster with a baseline PC sounds right. The problem is you don't actually engage baseline monsters. You engage a variety of monsters with different defense numbers. More than that the monsters with higher defenses are usually higher level and thus each hit is worth less. This means that in reality a PC's hit chance averaged over all the attacks he makes (which is all the player really sees and cares about) is going to be some factor less than that ideal 7.

Its almost impossible to say for real what PCs hit on overall. Its going to depend on the mix of monster roles and levels used by a given DM. I'd say in fact that the variance due to different monsters is going to be greater than the variance due to different character builds. This is because dropping a level +2 skirmisher into a fight in place of some level +0 skirmisher means not only is the monster's defense 2 higher, but it takes about 2x as many hits (and thus attack rolls) to kill him. So, you end up with the tougher monsters dominating the equation.

I think this is the main reason why it is becoming more and more apparent to 4e DMs that overlevel monsters are generally a bad idea. I think its why MM2/DMG2 ditched boosted defenses for elite/solo monsters as well. No amount of wimpy lower level monsters really budges the hit average down much. It was a nice theory to make elites have better defenses, but in practice it wasn't balanced out by their XP cost. Solos were so much to the extreme that it required knocking off 20% of their hit points to get it right. Considering DMs seem driven to overlevel these types of monsters it just made it that much worse. I know I've learned to NOT do that and I think the DMG guideline is generally too liberal. The only time I've found it to be really fun to have overlevel monsters is controllers or maybe artillery where one bigger one can replace a couple equal level ones and to-hit doesn't fall too far.