D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Either that or the table doesn't start at the expected CR 0. That thing's so far off the MM results that some detail has likely been obscured by the Need to Make News. (Mind, the table is likely still flawed - just not in the most obvious manner.)

# ? Nov 28, 2014 06:46

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 28, 2024 20:37

Darwinism: Jan 6, 2008

ascendance posted:

The monster chart is well and truly messed up. 93 HP for a 2nd level party to whack through? Thats just going to be a drag. 23 damage average is also more than enough to kill a level 2 character in one round.

This might be the legendary monster table or something, because it looks twice as tough as the average monster of each level.

The problem is that the legible text says something like "If all you need are simple stats for a monster of a particular challenge rating, follow the steps here."

edit: I mean, we're missing the whole thing for sure, but from what we can tell? This is the actual Create-A-Monstar table.

edit2: It seems like the CR stuff may be more flexible, reading the parts that I can read. It may be the case that for a really damaging monster you'd use the high damage CR but lower CR HP and defenses and stuff? Do we actually know the table goes through 1/8th CR and such? Because 0/1/2/3 etc would make a lot more sense

lastedit: ...but only for HP... what the hell is going on here?

Darwinism fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Nov 28, 2014

# ? Nov 28, 2014 07:02

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

If the table didn't start at CR 0, then it'd be even more way-off.

If it started at CR 1/8, then that means that a CR 1/8 monster should have 0-1 (0.5) DPR. A CR 1/8 Kobold hits for 1d4+2 damage

Trying to play National Treasure with the cut-off text to the left and going by Mearls' previous comments does suggest that there's something in there about Defensive CR and Offensive CR, which you're then supposed to average together, but if a monster has Defensive CR 2 and Offensive CR 6, they'd meet in the middle for an average CR of 4. That still doesn't explain why so many CR 4 monsters fall below both suggested the HP/AC range and the DPR range. Same with CR 2.

You'd expect that an offensively-built CR 4 to fall below the AC/HP range and fall within or exceed the DPR range*, but they don't do that, either.

* Insofar as a monster is supposed to exceed the range in the first place, in which case why come up with a range at all.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 07:20

Chevy Slyme: May 2, 2004; We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

gradenko_2000 posted:

If the table didn't start at CR 0, then it'd be even more way-off.

If it started at CR 1/8, then that means that a CR 1/8 monster should have 0-1 (0.5) DPR. A CR 1/8 Kobold hits for 1d4+2 damage

Trying to play National Treasure with the cut-off text to the left and going by Mearls' previous comments does suggest that there's something in there about Defensive CR and Offensive CR, which you're then supposed to average together, but if a monster has Defensive CR 2 and Offensive CR 6, they'd meet in the middle for an average CR of 4. That still doesn't explain why so many CR 4 monsters fall below both suggested the HP/AC range and the DPR range. Same with CR 2.

You'd expect that an offensively-built CR 4 to fall below the AC/HP range and fall within or exceed the DPR range*, but they don't do that, either.

* Insofar as a monster is supposed to exceed the range in the first place, in which case why come up with a range at all.

Maybe sum, rather than average? How do the CR 4 monsters compare to CR2 numbers? Or 1+3?

# ? Nov 28, 2014 07:23

Gerdalti: May 24, 2003; SPOON!

Here's the full monster chart for you guys, hopefully that'll help.

http://imgur.com/a/N9gdC

# ? Nov 28, 2014 19:23

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Gerdalti posted:

Here's the full monster chart for you guys, hopefully that'll help.

http://imgur.com/a/N9gdC

Thank you! That's very much appreciated.

If I'm reading this right:

Step 1 says pick an intended CR for the monster that the group is supposed to be fighting, using either the encounter building rules or the guideline "a single monster of CR x is a medium encounter for four characters of level x"

Step 2 then says to use the table to get a baseline set of stats for the monster, given the CR that you have in mind

Step 3 then says to adjust the stats for the monster, given the concept that you have in mind for the monster

Step 4 then says to:

4.1 Get the Defensive CR of the monster by cross-referencing the HP (which you supposedly adjusted in Step 3) with a given CR, then adjusting the CR up or down depending on the AC (which you supposedly also adjusted in Step 3)

4.2 Get the Offensive CR of the monster by cross-referencing the DPR with a given CR, then adjusting the CR up or down depending on the attack bonus (again supposing you also adjusted the two in Step 3)

4.3 Average the Defensive and Offensive CR to get a Final CR

4.4 Change the monster's proficiency bonus if its final CR says it should be different

4.5 Assign an exp value based on the final CR

That's totally loving backwards!!! You already had a CR in mind when you began the whole exercise in Step 2!

If the CR goes up or goes down because I'm making an Ogre and want to make it a bag of HP with slightly lower AC, then the CR doesn't mean anything because the Medium encounter I had planned for four adventurers is now an Easy or Hard encounter. If I, on the other hand, make my "adjustments" in such a manner as to not change the final CR, then what the gently caress was the point of Offensive and Defensive CR and averaging it together and AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

# ? Nov 28, 2014 19:49

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

gradenko_2000 posted:

Thank you! That's very much appreciated.

If I'm reading this right:

Step 1 says pick an intended CR for the monster that the group is supposed to be fighting, using either the encounter building rules or the guideline "a single monster of CR x is a medium encounter for four characters of level x"

Step 2 then says to use the table to get a baseline set of stats for the monster, given the CR that you have in mind

Step 3 then says to adjust the stats for the monster, given the concept that you have in mind for the monster

Step 4 then says to:

4.1 Get the Defensive CR of the monster by cross-referencing the HP (which you supposedly adjusted in Step 3) with a given CR, then adjusting the CR up or down depending on the AC (which you supposedly also adjusted in Step 3)

4.2 Get the Offensive CR of the monster by cross-referencing the DPR with a given CR, then adjusting the CR up or down depending on the attack bonus (again supposing you also adjusted the two in Step 3)

4.3 Average the Defensive and Offensive CR to get a Final CR

4.4 Change the monster's proficiency bonus if its final CR says it should be different

4.5 Assign an exp value based on the final CR

That's totally loving backwards!!! You already had a CR in mind when you began the whole exercise in Step 2!

If the CR goes up or goes down because I'm making an Ogre and want to make it a bag of HP with slightly lower AC, then the CR doesn't mean anything because the Medium encounter I had planned for four adventurers is now an Easy or Hard encounter. If I, on the other hand, make my "adjustments" in such a manner as to not change the final CR, then what the gently caress was the point of Offensive and Defensive CR and averaging it together and AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

Holy poo poo this is terrible :stare:

# ? Nov 28, 2014 20:00

Darwinism: Jan 6, 2008

Gerdalti posted:

Here's the full monster chart for you guys, hopefully that'll help.

http://imgur.com/a/N9gdC

So you use the chart to determine the stats for a monster of a certain CR to challenge your party, then just ehhhh mess with them, then you go back to the chart to find out what messing with them did to the actual CR and hope that it's still within the range that you want? Why are there multiple steps involved to get to the same drat place as "Step 1: Just find the numbers you want and average the CR for them, you're done." And then, at the end, they admit that these rules are pretty much pointless and that you need to playtest it to have any idea if it's balanced or fun!

I just can't help but compare it to

Also:
"Round the average up or down to the nearest challenge rating to determine your monster's final challenge rating. For example, if your creature's defense challenge rating is 2 and its offensive rating is 3, its final rating is 3." Why? Why wouldn't the rating be 2?

edit: Beaten but holy poo poo this bears repeating, this is just so incredibly bad

# ? Nov 28, 2014 20:04

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

How game work? What game do?

People are being paid for this.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 20:06

Gerdalti: May 24, 2003; SPOON!

Well I've got the DMG now, so if anyone wants to see full page cell pics of anything else, let me know.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 20:15

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Darwinism posted:

I just can't help but compare it to

I basically fell in love with that image* when I first discovered it, and a lot of the stuff I've been doing in my idle time has been an effort to approach the problem on similar terms, for any given game.

Forgive my waxing melodramatic, but my God, this is a "the Emperor has no clothes" moment for me.

_{* And similar mechanics in 13th Age, 4th Trifold, etc.}

# ? Nov 28, 2014 20:18

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

So it looks like the flaws are:
-The printed monsters in the Monster Manual - you know, an official publication filled with monsters that came out before the DMG - do not conform to the chart.
-They're still using the rear end-backwards concept of one monster against an entire party. Even in 3E, if not earlier, people saw problems with this due to the action economy, in that you can overwhelm your opponent with more actions in what was dubbed the "Ackbar strategy".

# ? Nov 28, 2014 21:15

Harthacnut: Jul 29, 2014

Taking the figures from AlphaDog's table, here's the CR2 monsters defensive and offensive CRs calculated using the monster building guidelines

pre:

Allosaurus:                Defensive CR - 1/2   Offensive CR - 4   Calculated CR - 2
Awakened Tree:             Defensive CR - 1/2   Offensive CR - 2   Calculated CR - 1
Centaur:                   Defensive CR - 1/4   Offensive CR - 3   Calculated CR - 2
Gargoyle:                  Defensive CR - 1     Offensive CR - 1   Calculated CR - 1
Giant Boar:                Defensive CR - 1/4   Offensive CR - 2   Calculated CR - 1
Giant Constrictor Snake:   Defensive CR - 1/2   Offensive CR - 2   Calculated CR - 1
Giant Elk:                 Defensive CR - 1/4   Offensive CR - 4   Calculated CR - 2
Grick:                     Defensive CR - 1/8   Offensive CR - 1   Calculated CR - 1/2
Griffon:                   Defensive CR - 1/2   Offensive CR - 3   Calculated CR - 2
Hunter Shark:              Defensive CR - 1/4   Offensive CR - 2   Calculated CR - 1
Nothic:                    Defensive CR - 1     Offensive CR - 1/2 Calculated CR - 1
Ochre Jelly:               Defensive CR - 0     Offensive CR - 1   Calculated CR - 1/2
Ogre:                      Defensive CR - 1/4   Offensive CR - 2   Calculated CR - 1
Pegasus:                   Defensive CR - 1/2   Offensive CR - 2   Calculated CR - 1
Plesiosaurus:              Defensive CR - 1/2   Offensive CR - 2   Calculated CR - 1
Polar Bear:                Defensive CR - 1/4   Offensive CR - 4   Calculated CR - 2
Rhinoceros:                Defensive CR - 1/8   Offensive CR - 3   Calculated CR - 2
Saber-Toothed Tiger:       Defensive CR - 1/2   Offensive CR - 2   Calculated CR - 1
Swarm of Poisonous Snakes: Defensive CR - 1/4   Offensive CR - 1   Calculated CR - 1/2

I assume the grick, jelly and the swarm of snakes use their save DC rather than attack bonus to calculate the offensive CR, and some may have powers that increase their offensive CR further. Note that defense is hugely decreased in official monsters to increase their offense, but even so damage is also for the most part reduced in favour of increased attack bonuses.

e: Okay no, checking basic rules (forgot they were a thing) nothing has a save DC capable of improving their offensive CR

Harthacnut fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Nov 28, 2014

# ? Nov 28, 2014 21:33

Elector_Nerdlingen: Sep 27, 2004

I guess 6 out of 19 isn't bad for just eyeballing it :downs:

e: This actually bears out what I said a couple months ago about the centaur and the ogre. The ogre isn't as challenging except book says it is.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 23:57

polisurgist: Sep 16, 2014

AlphaDog posted:

If you're happy to ignore the encounter-building rules and the encounter-per-day stuff, then no problem. It's just kind of weird to complain about having a single encounter in a day being too easy when the rules explicitly state 6-8 medium difficulkty encounters per day as the standard.

But that's actually a way more interesting way of doing things than "4 bandits appear and demand your treasure. You laugh at them, kill them, and move on. It was actually pointless running this combat" followed the next day by "A wild boar rushes out of the bushes and attacks you for no reason. You kill it easily and eat boar that night. It was actually pointless running this as a combat" followed the next day by "4 more bandits, you know the score" and so on.

Let's take the example of a 2 week overland journey between a capital city and an outlying town. There are going to be days when nothing interesting happens. When something interesting does happen, it should be more interesting than "a dude attacks you and you beat him easily".

Days 1-5, nothing happens. You're in the heartland of the kingdom. The roads are patrolled.

Day 6, you've passed out of the safest areas and suddenly there are bandits everywhere. It's a series of ambushes and waves of reinforcements culminating in a boss fight, because like gently caress 4 random mooks would try ambushing a party of dangerous murderhobos.

Day 7 you rest up.

Days 8-10, nothing much happens. You're now travelling on a road through the wild forest on the way to the outpost.

Day 11, a series of weird events occurs. Wild animals rush out of the bushes and attack you for no reason. The bushes rush out of the bushes and attack you for no reason. The mud itself rises up and attacks you. It culminates in a fight against an insane nature spirit.

Days 11-14, you continue on your way and reach the outpost.

There, you've got 2 x 6-8 "encounters" that produced a meaningful challenge, instead of one encounter per day that is pointlessly easy.

e: Or just don't do random encounters and instead plan a couple of single day sidequests that will appear during a journey and let the players choose if they want to interact with those or not. Or just handwave the journey and get on with the story like a whole lot of people used to do in 2e.

Eh, generally my problem is having more plot to get through than is really practical, so what I'm looking for in random encounters is specifically not subplots and boss fights, because if I want those, I already have them baked in. What I want is that when the characters are trying to get from here to gently caress Mountain and the path there is said to be fraught with danger, once they get to gently caress Mountain, the trip should have reasonably conveyed the notion that someone in their right mind might consider that journey dangerous, even if they weren't attacked by bandits riding owlbears and even if the danger they encountered was something they easily dealt with because they're adventurers with levels.

I also want to avoid every trip from point A to point B be becoming Zeno's Paradox. Constantly having strange old men approach them and ask that they recover the Jade Monkey by the next new moon when they're already rushing to stop a dragon's ghost from summoning a robot kraken or something.

Singular encounters, even if they're risky, don't eat up a hell of a lot of real-world time and can still be a sufficient complication without being a whole world unto themselves. I do want them to be better at actually complicating things, which a Medium difficulty combat against four bandits certainly didn't, but that's a matter of just making them more dangerous and/or loving with the rest rules (I've already house ruled it so that regaining hit dice on a long rest is a bit of a crapshoot depending on how well fed and provisioned you are, which is even harder while traveling, specifically so that random setbacks like this work, and I might mess with that further).

Maybe all this ends up being more of a pain that is worth it and we go back to handwaving, but for the time being, this fits the style of game I'm running.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 01:24

Harthacnut: Jul 29, 2014

I'm an idiot with too much time on my hands, so here's A-F of the basic rules monsters. I've noted when monsters have powerful enough effects, such as immunities or area attacks, that could change their CR from the calculated figure. Note that the Flesh Golem has the HP of a CR 2 monster, but its pitiful AC drops its defensive CR to 0, whereas the Flying Sword has CR 1/8 levels of HP, but high enough AC to inflate its defensive CR to 2 (Well, 2 and 1/8, but in instances like those I rounded down, or up if it was 1/2).
_{pre:
Adult Red Dragon: Defensive CR - 13 Offensive CR - 15 Calculated CR - 14 Official CR - 17 (Monster has immunites, area attacks)
Air Elemental: Defensive CR - 3 Offensive CR - 5 Calculated CR - 4 Official CR - 5 (Monster has immunities)
Allosaurus: Defensive CR - 1/2 Offensive CR - 4 Calculated CR - 2 Official CR - 2
Animated Armor: Defensive CR - 2 Offensive CR - 1 Calculated CR - 2 Official CR - 1 (Monster has immunities)
Ankylosaurus: Defensive CR - 1 Offensive CR - 4 Calculated CR - 3 Official CR - 3
Ape: Defensive CR - 1/8 Offensive CR - 1 Calculated CR - 1/2 Official CR - 1/2
Awakened Shrub: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 0
Awakened Tree: Defensive CR - 1/2 Offensive CR - 2 Calculated CR - 1 Official CR - 2 Monster has resistances)
Axe Beak: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 1/2 Calculated CR - 1/4 Official CR - 1/4
Baboon: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 0
Badger: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 0
Banshee: Defensive CR - 1/2 Offensive CR - 1 Calculated CR - 1 Official CR - 4 (Monster has immunities)
Bat: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 0
Basilisk: Defensive CR - 1 Offensive CR - 2 Calculated CR - 2 Official CR - 3 (Monster has petrify)
Black Bear: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 1 Calculated CR - 1/2 Official CR - 1/2
Blink Dog: Defensive CR - 1/8 Offensive CR - 1/4 Calculated CR - 1/4 Official CR - 1/4
Blood Hawk: Defensive CR - 1/8 Offensive CR - 1/4 Calculated CR - 1/4 Official CR - 1/8
Boar: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 1/2 Calculated CR - 1/4 Official CR - 1/4
Brown Bear: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 3 Calculated CR - 2 Official CR - 1
Bugbear: Defensive CR - 1 Offensive CR - 1 Calculated CR - 1 Official CR - 1
Camel: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 0
Cat: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 0
Centaur: Defensive CR - 1/4 Offensive CR - 3 Calculated CR - 2 Official CR - 2
Chimera: Defensive CR - 3 Offensive CR - 5 Calculated CR - 4 Official CR - 6 (Monster has area attacks)
Cockatrice: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 1/2 (Monster has petrify)
Constrictor Snake: Defensive CR - 1/8 Offensive CR - 1/4 Calculated CR - 1/4 Official CR - 1/4
Crab: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 0
Crocodile: Defensive CR - 1/8 Offensive CR - 1/2 Calculated CR - 1/4 Official CR - 1/2
Cyclops: Defensive CR - 5 Offensive CR - 6 Calculated CR - 6 Official CR - 6
Death Dog: Defensive CR - 1/4 Offensive CR - 1 Calculated CR - 1/2 Official CR - 1 (Monster has disease)
Deer: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 1/8 Calculated CR - 1/8 Official CR - 0
Dire Wolf: Defensive CR - 1/4 Offensive CR - 2 Calculated CR - 1 Official CR - 1
Doppleganger: Defensive CR - 1/2 Offensive CR - 2 Calculated CR - 1 Official CR - 3 (Monster has immunities)
Draft Horse: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 0
Eagle: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 1/4 Calculated CR - 1/8 Official CR - 0
Earth Elemental: Defensive CR - 5 Offensive CR - 5 Calculated CR - 5 Official CR - 5 (Monster has immunties)
Elephant: Defensive CR - 1 Offensive CR - 5 Calculated CR - 3 Official CR - 4
Elk: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 2 Calculated CR - 1 Official CR - 1/4
Fire Elemental: Defensive CR - 3 Offensive CR - 3 Calculated CR - 3 Official CR - 5 (Monster has immunities)
Fire Giant: Defensive CR - 8 Offensive CR - 10 Calculated CR - 9 Official CR - 9 (Monster has immunities)
Flameskull: Defensive CR - 1/4 Offensive CR - 3 Calculated CR - 2 Official CR - 4 (Monster has immunities, spells)
Flesh Golem: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 4 Calculated CR - 2 Official CR - 5 (Monster has immunities)
Flying Snake: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 2 Calculated CR - 1 Official CR - 1/8
Flying Sword: Defensive CR - 2 Offensive CR - 1/4 Calculated CR - 1 Official CR - 1/4 (Monster has immunities)
Frog: Defensive CR - 0 Offensive CR - 0 Calculated CR - 0 Official CR - 0
Frost Giant: Defensive CR - 5 Offensive CR - 8 Calculated CR - 7 Official CR - 8 (Monster has immunities)}

Harthacnut fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Nov 29, 2014

# ? Nov 29, 2014 01:31

Elector_Nerdlingen: Sep 27, 2004

polisurgist posted:

...this fits the style of game I'm running.

Well as long as it suits you I guess you're doing it right!

Harthacnut posted:

I'm an idiot with too much time on my hands

Oh awesome, I was going to do that and now I don't have to.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 02:17

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

So encounter math is basically a shot in the dark? Did they not coordinate, was the formula hashed out only recently?

# ? Nov 29, 2014 06:52

Rannos22: Mar 30, 2011; Everything's the same as it always is.

dbzfandiego posted:

So encounter math is basically a shot in the dark? Did they not coordinate, was the formula hashed out only recently?

Pretty much no one will give a poo poo about a formula. Whoops I just accidentally killed my game's party.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 07:00

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

The funniest part is that coming up with an a formula would be far easier than what they actually did.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 07:26

P.d0t: Dec 27, 2007; I released my finger from the trigger, and then it was over...

dbzfandiego posted:

So encounter math is basically a shot in the dark? Did they not coordinate, was the formula hashed out only recently?

The answers to those questions are Up To The DM�

Doesn't it feel great to ~*FINALLY*~ have the power back where it belongs?

# ? Nov 29, 2014 07:32

Sage Genesis: Aug 14, 2014; OG Murderhobo

The idea that you can get a monster's CR by averaging the offensive CR and defensive CR is... slightly perverse to me. If you see a monster with CR 5 it could be 5 OCR / 5 DCR, but it could just as easily be 9/1 or 1/9. One of these is a glass cannon that can probably kill a party member or two if it wins initiative. The other is a boring slogfest where you have to saw through the hit points of an otherwise nonthreatening, unchallenging monster. Neither is a good option.

I don't expect every CR 5 monster to fall within the exact average ranges. Some variance can keep things interesting from time to time. But this "system" seems to be both awful at its job and also doesn't match up with the pre-existing monsters. That's actually sort of impressive.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 08:55

Stormgale: Feb 27, 2010

Don't forget with bounded accuracy that high offensive slow defence monster is even more deadly especially at higher levels when you can swarm with them.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 10:36

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

polisurgist posted:

Eh, generally my problem is having more plot to get through than is really practical, so what I'm looking for in random encounters is specifically not subplots and boss fights, because if I want those, I already have them baked in. What I want is that when the characters are trying to get from here to gently caress Mountain and the path there is said to be fraught with danger, once they get to gently caress Mountain, the trip should have reasonably conveyed the notion that someone in their right mind might consider that journey dangerous, even if they weren't attacked by bandits riding owlbears and even if the danger they encountered was something they easily dealt with because they're adventurers with levels.

I also want to avoid every trip from point A to point B be becoming Zeno's Paradox. Constantly having strange old men approach them and ask that they recover the Jade Monkey by the next new moon when they're already rushing to stop a dragon's ghost from summoning a robot kraken or something.

Singular encounters, even if they're risky, don't eat up a hell of a lot of real-world time and can still be a sufficient complication without being a whole world unto themselves. I do want them to be better at actually complicating things, which a Medium difficulty combat against four bandits certainly didn't, but that's a matter of just making them more dangerous and/or loving with the rest rules (I've already house ruled it so that regaining hit dice on a long rest is a bit of a crapshoot depending on how well fed and provisioned you are, which is even harder while traveling, specifically so that random setbacks like this work, and I might mess with that further).

Maybe all this ends up being more of a pain that is worth it and we go back to handwaving, but for the time being, this fits the style of game I'm running.

If it's important to the plot that the area be survivable but nonetheless fraught with danger... why not write some encounters to make it that way? Random encounters IME don't tend to make an area excitingly fraught with danger, they tend to unexpectedly vary from ignorable speedbumps to TPKs without much warning.

Planned encounters don't have to include old men asking the party to find the jade fuckwit for him, they can just be 'this area is filled with bandits and owlbears, you fight some bandits and owlbears'.

The real thing though, is that with a well-planned, well-executed system for designing monsters, *you can still randomly generate encounters if you want*. You don't HAVE to use the good system wel, you can still use it with random generation etc. But if you then WANT to use it in a planned way (or, indeed, make more predictable randomness) you can.

You can always use a good system in a random way, but it's a LOT more difficult to use a random system in a good way.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 10:45

Elector_Nerdlingen: Sep 27, 2004

Sage Genesis posted:

I don't expect every CR 5 monster to fall within the exact average ranges. Some variance can keep things interesting from time to time.

Vary the monsters that appear instead. If the tools worked properly, you could vary any monsters yourself and know exactly how much harder/easier you were making them. You could build 8 different types of orc of CR 0-4 that were varyingly hard to fight and you'd know how tough they were when you were putting your encounters together and the one that matches the CR of the one in the monster manual would have exactly the same stats.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 13:51

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Now that the DMG is in wide release, what's the word on those fix-everything "modules" that were supposed to be included? Are they just as half-baked as expected?

# ? Nov 29, 2014 18:00

Degs: Mar 2, 2014

Soooooo I'm about to play a D&D game for the first time in like 8 years. How does everyone feel about paladin vs bard in 5E? These are both classes I've never played in previous editions.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 18:05

Gerdalti: May 24, 2003; SPOON!

Kinster posted:

Soooooo I'm about to play a D&D game for the first time in like 8 years. How does everyone feel about paladin vs bard in 5E? These are both classes I've never played in previous editions.

I'm playing a paladin and having a blast. I do have a second character ready to roll, it's a bard. I think both classes look fun and play well in this edition. I'm looking forward to playing a monk down the road too.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 18:08

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Kinster posted:

Soooooo I'm about to play a D&D game for the first time in like 8 years. How does everyone feel about paladin vs bard in 5E? These are both classes I've never played in previous editions.

Bard is straight-up one of the best classes in the game.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 19:06

Rannos22: Mar 30, 2011; Everything's the same as it always is.

Wasn't the bard really lovely in some edition? I seem to have associated bards with garbage class at some point but it looks like everyone else has the opposite reaction to them.

Rannos22 fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Nov 29, 2014

# ? Nov 29, 2014 20:12

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Rannos22 posted:

Wasn't the bard really lovely in some edition? I seem to have associated bards with garbage class at some point but it seems like everyone else has the opposite reaction to them.

2E Bard, man. Everything bad about the 2E Thief with none of the dubious 'good' things.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 20:18

Slippery42: Nov 10, 2011

They seemed to have a steady formula going from CR 1 to 19. Where the weirdness happens is below CR 1, and it carries over to every subsequent row. From CR 1/8 to 1/4 to 1/2 to 1, average HP increases more quickly than going from CR 1 to 2. Shouldn't increasing a fraction of a CR point give a fraction of the increase in power? This seems to be the case for the damage per round increases. I did some back of the napkin math on a reddit thread about the monster-builder chart and came up with the following:

First, adjust the CR 1/8 average HP downward to something more sane. After all, the average of 21 is roughly twice the amount of HP the average PC has at level 1. I don't own a monster manual, but among the creatures listed in the PHB, the highest HP on a CR 1/8 creature was 12. Between CR 1/8 and 1, average damage per round increases by between 1/3 and 2/3 of the increase when going from CR 1 to CR 2. The average HP increase going from CR 1 to 2 is 15, so following the pattern set by DPR below CR 1, they should be getting somewhere between +5 and +10 HP per CR increment. If we gave CR 1/8's average HP a starting point of 12 and increased HP by +8 each step, CR 1/4's average HP would be 20, CR 1/2's 28, and CR 1's 36. That's a difference of 42 average HP, which is incidentally quite close to the gap between the DMG chart and examples from the MM that was posted upthread. It still might not be good, but it feels less obviously broken.

Is there any reason why a variant of point buy couldn't be used as guidelines for monster design? Start with a bunch of baselines like 10 AC, 1 damage on hit, 30 ft move speed, and +0 to all ability modifiers. The "points" would be HP, and you'd subtract from those as you add to these baseline stats, throw on special features, etc. Each CR increment would give a higher HP pool to draw from.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 20:25

Rannos22: Mar 30, 2011; Everything's the same as it always is.

Night10194 posted:

2E Bard, man. Everything bad about the 2E Thief with none of the dubious 'good' things.

That must have been it considering that was the edition I grew up on (assuming you mean the 2nd edition that was out prior to wizard's 3rd edition). So did they just not have any spells then? I thought I just avoided them because "jack of all trades" has always meant to me "can do lots of stuff poorly". That and there's not a ton of good iconic bards in popular fantasy media which kinda makes it hard to get hyped about making one.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 20:47

Maxwell Lord: Dec 12, 2008; I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.; Grimey Drawer

3.0 bards were kinda not great either, 3.5 gave them a bit of a boost.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 21:20

Darwinism: Jan 6, 2008

Outside of gimmick builds, bards were still pretty drat bad. But still better than fighters!

# ? Nov 29, 2014 21:29

neonchameleon: Nov 14, 2012

Rannos22 posted:

Wasn't the bard really lovely in some edition? I seem to have associated bards with garbage class at some point but it looks like everyone else has the opposite reaction to them.

Ignore the 2e Bard haters. They are comparing the Bard to the wrong class. A Bard in 2e was the best way of playing a low level wizard in a game without a pack of hirelings; a level 3 bard cast like a level 2 wizard (off the same number of XP), had a decent number of hit points, weapons, and armour, and some thief skills. The wizard only definitively pulled ahead at magic at level 7 - and the game soft-capped only a couple of levels after that.

The 3.0 Bard was complete garbage. It took away most of the advantages the Bard had over the wizard (including the XP table; Bards used to level like Thieves). And then gave them fighter-type nerfs for good measure.

The 3.5 Bard was actually a very well designed class. But people were too used to the 3.0 Bard, and most of the strengths of the 3.5 bard were subtle.

And then there was the 1e Bard, which was a hot mess - a proto-prestige class that required human dual classing through fighter and thief before you could play one.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 21:37

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

3.5e bards were hella buffbots. I hated that part of 3e.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 21:46

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

Has a crunchy RPG really managed to make a jack-of-all-trades class properly without it just being worse in both aspects and not being incredibly redundant? Can't think of a D&D example - I'd say Warcaster for the Iron Kingdoms RPG, but it's a niche that I personally enjoy but gets incredibly neglected.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 21:54

mastershakeman: Oct 28, 2008; by vyelkin

Sure, in 2e you could be a Jack of all trades by just multiclassing warrior/thief/wizard!
Or just being a bladesinger.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 22:01

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 28, 2024 20:37

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Jack-of-all-trades characters don't really have much of a mechanical place in a game where you've got four or five people playing. They'll already have most bases covered unless they're all making similar characters.

# ? Nov 29, 2014 22:02

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

«‹›1608 »