Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stalker0" data-source="post: 4750513" data-attributes="member: 5889">I ran an 14th level npc cleric against an 11th level paladin just recently, with the paladin just squeaking ahead. It came down to the paladin did more damage with big dailies, a few crits and slightly less 1 rolling than the cleric (there were a lot of 1's rolled on both sides!).Basically, it comes down to PCs have access to more powers than NPCs, and so are actually throwing around better effects and damage, at least for a period of time. The PCs can also activate secondary hps more often. Now you could have the balance be that the npc cleric has lower hp and more damage, but that increases the risk that the player get blown away with lucky rolls. Some love that, others hate it, regardless, its the route 4e has chosen.I have one player that hates the distinction, he feels npcs are "better" than PCs... other players just don't care.Getting back to the elite/solo argument, I personally think elites are fine, though solos have too many hitpoints. But a 50% reduction is not called for, even a 15% reduction can have dramatic results.Remember that a parties damage output tends to be extremely high at the beginning of a combat, with action points and big powers. I have seen them strip off 50% of a solos hitpoints in just a few rounds. However, they can't keep that up...which leads to the "grind" people mention. If you take off just the last 10-15% of the monsters hp, you lose the rounds that the players grind with at wills but maintain the monster's ability to take the pain long enough to be a threat.</blockquote>

Verification