Why must numbers go up?

[Ariosto]

This is perfectly OK since such a creature won't spawn unless a hero capable of hitting it is nearby.

... And so people use divination to identify a hero and kill it at birth (if not before). Those that escape are pariahs, since the plague that swept the cities of their god-kings and left the surviving population of mere mortals usually immune but carriers. (It is extremely likely to kill heroes eventually, given enough exposure, but not before becoming somewhat deadly to normal humans as well.) Even without that, of course, a hero's metamorphic field itself mutates mortals (especially some children) into creatures capable of causing considerable inconvenience in great enough numbers.

Sure, the hero could do the same for soldiers sent against a monster -- but it's so much less trouble to be rid of them both!

 

[Garthanos]

I am busy picturing you guys rolling hundreds of dice for this process.. its a funny sight. I mean geek is one thing. Sorry I mean Thousands of Dice... and I am seeing them piled up to your arm pits too.

1) why use rules at all for npc vs npc... what happens is what dm decides... done
2) abstract hit points mean hits are not hits and misses arent misses.
3) it doesnt take heros to have levels... minions can be any level.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I am busy picturing you guys rolling hundreds of dice for this process.. its a funny sight. I mean geek is one thing.

1) why use rules at all for npc vs npc... what happens is what dm decides... done
2) abstract hit points mean hits are not hits and misses arent misses.
3) it doesnt take heros to have levels... minions can be any level.

1) Yep.

2) Nope. A hit is a hit and a miss is a miss. Abstract hit points let us interpret hits and misses in a variety of ways.

3) Indeed. Another part of the problem in an insane universe.

 

[Garthanos]

1) Yep.

2) Nope. A hit is a hit and a miss is a miss. Abstract hit points let us interpret hits and misses in a variety of ways.

Well you mostly got what I was saying... the abstraction means some of those hits you might see in the "game world" as near misses where the targets luck is wearing then... and some of those misses you see as a weapon bouncing off of or even cutting something inconsequential but having no long term impact ... The narrative is beyond that.

Something the size of a barn.. might be hard to miss in terms of the latter but difficult to cause any real impact on... unless you are skilled enough to find the tender bits.

 

[RangerWickett]

Rather than scaling defenses, I'd prefer flat defenses, and let higher attack rolls yield more damage. As in, you beat his AC by 5, add +5 damage (or something similar but balanced).

But that's a fairly simple, unified mechanic, and it doesn't work well if your business model is to sell lots of books with hundreds of feats and powers that are all slightly different.

You can run Mutants & Masterminds with one book, because all the powers work the same. Guess how many M&M books I own vs. how many 4e D&D ones.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

4e is just too balanced in this regard:

having monsters of same levels that don´t always follow the rules, higher attack, lower defense, etc. would make it a bit more dynamic. This way increasing numbers helps. (Some monsters still hit you, but you nearly autohit them once you leveled up, etc.)

It would all have worked out better if monsters increase at the same attack and defense rate as players, or maybe only +2/3

 

[pemerton]

That raises again the question of "why", because D&D went for a long time with chances to hit generally increasing by level. I don't recall anyone scoffing at a purple worm because of its modest AC. Being able to hit it (or, for that matter, Orcus) did not mean one was going to beat it!

In 4e, at least, the answer is that to-hit chances affect not only the amount of damage inflicted per round, but also the imposition of status affects.

 

[Ariosto]

imposition of status affects

D&D went for a long time with chances of getting status effects generally decreasing by level.

 

[LostSoul]

D&D went for a long time with chances of getting status effects generally decreasing by level.

Not those imposed on NPCs by PCs.

 

[Jhaelen]

Rather than scaling defenses, I'd prefer flat defenses, and let higher attack rolls yield more damage. As in, you beat his AC by 5, add +5 damage (or something similar but balanced).

That's the way I remember MMORPGs to work:
Monster names are also colour coded to show the expected difficulty:
- If playing solo you go for yellow to orange mobs against which your damage is average or go after blue and green monsters to kill large numbers in short time, since your damage is boosted against them.
- Hitting grey mobs will usually insta-kill them but doesn't grant any xp while hitting purple monsters ony does 1 or 2 points of damage...

In MMORPGs defenses also decrease if a monster is attacked by a large number of players. In that way mobs can be set to basically require a certain minimum number of players because otherwise they're unable to deal any (significant) damage to it.

Anyway, scaling damage definitely would work just as well as scaling defenses, maybe even better. It doesn't have the same psychological effect, though, I guess.