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Really Pants posted:Magic very quickly becomes the easiest solution to most problems, a lot of monsters just have lists of spells rather than unique abilities, and some monsters are purpose-built to screw over a low-magic party. I haven't seen one yet but I assume there are also anti magic monsters?
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Feb 17, 2015 14:51
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Golems were intended to be anti-magic, but wound up being anti-melee with huge glaring magic weaknesses.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:00
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gradenko_2000 posted:I have attempted to create a fix for this. I have not been able to playtest it yet, but the underlying math and principles are sound, and nobody has piped up yet with any violent reaction. Part 1 and Part 2 Awesome, thanks! That's about 10 pages of stuff right there, so a lot to go over, but I really appreciate it.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:15
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Both these posts cleared up a lot for me. I think my confusion about unarmed strike came from checking out some monk profiles that might have been older and had unarmed strike listed as dual wielding. How you both broke down the attacks fixed that. The advice to go short swords until martial arts boosts to 1d6 was also good. When it finally does hit 1d6 I'm looking forward to punching faces. It is disappointing that the elemental discipline is made like that. Being able to swap out techniques would be more useful and entertaining. Mind you I am saying this as someone who is a fan of the Avatar/Korra series so wanting to punch someone AND light them on fire at the same time has a real appeal. In regards to the grappling that was just me trying to think of good ways to add flavor to combat. I'm an MMA fan and clinch fighting can be very punishing. Maybe down the road or through suggestions from players they could add mechanics for monk clinch fighting. Though I suppose that doesn't stop me from roleplaying during combat something along the lines of "I grab the orc in a tight clinch, striking his midsection with high knees then breaking away." It sounds more interesting then "I punch the orc."
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Feb 17, 2015 15:38
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As the DM I've been doing my utmost to inject flavor into the combat - rolling minimum damage becomes "you slash mightily at the orc, but it jumps backward and you merely graze its arm; it grunts in pain, but quickly recovers" whereas a critical hit with maximum damage becomes "you feint a thrust with your greatsword; the orc parries, but you've already redirected your attack, pivoting around as your blade becomes a blur of steel flashing around you to sever the orc's arm, which flies through the air in an arc of blood; the orc staggers in shock for a second, then falls, dead before it hits the ground" or STTE. As the player, I would imagine you might want to phrase it more as an attempt to do something, i.e. "I shoot in for a double leg takedown, attempting to drive him down and back into the wall" or the like. Honestly though the D&D combat system has never been intended to resemble real martial arts, unarmed or armed, and it's hard to try to make it directly translate except through narrative flourishes.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:50
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It's a good idea to "flavor" your attacks as much as possible, but there are only so many ways you can describe 1d6+4 damage before you start wishing it actually did something else and that's when you start running into the 40-year issue of having the DM adjudicate attack powers and effects that aren't there.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:58
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Trast posted:In regards to the grappling that was just me trying to think of good ways to add flavor to combat. I'm an MMA fan and clinch fighting can be very punishing. Maybe down the road or through suggestions from players they could add mechanics for monk clinch fighting. Though I suppose that doesn't stop me from roleplaying during combat something along the lines of "I grab the orc in a tight clinch, striking his midsection with high knees then breaking away." It sounds more interesting then "I punch the orc." Yeah, totes flavor it however you like. And to address E. Monks again, it's not like they're bad, just wonky compared to the other options Monk has. Open Hand and Shadow are pretty front-loaded, giving you good stuff from the start and then giving you yet more stuff later, while Elemental doles out a handful of effects over the entire progression. Point is though, even as an E. Monk, you're still a Monk, and they're great. Plus with Fangs of the Fire Snake you can nuke poo poo pretty handily, just as I said before, it devours your ki pool to do so.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:59
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P.d0t posted:Open question: how does stealth work? By DM decree, mainly. The rules are reasonably clear on four points: 1) You are hidden when your stealth roll beats a target's passive perception 2) You can only make your stealth roll when you are heavily obscured (by terrain, darkness, or invisibility) from the target 3) If you maintain stealth to within attacking range, you get to participate in a surprise round and have advantage on attack rolls 4) In combat, you can use your action to "hide" if you're out of line of sight. Hiding during an active combat is tougher because everyone involved is on alert. I interpret that as advantage on passive perception (+5). Where it falls apart is: -How is distance factored in? How close do the two sides have to be before the stealth vs. passive perception contest even begins? -Does moving from behind your cover immediately break stealth? What about sneaking past a guard looking the other way, then? Do they roll active perception or something? Since they technically don't see you because they're facing the wrong way, do they still rely on passive perception? -The PHB says that being in a heavily obscured area blinds you. So how do you know who you're sneaking from? I'd assume something like poking just your head out from cover to see, but would that provoke any response from the perceiver? -In combat, how "shared" is information? Say a rogue keeps ducking behind a corner to break LoS then hides (via cunning action) in order to gain advantage for the next turn. One enemy is on to these shenanigans and moves toward the rogue's position and gains line of sight, but the rest of the enemy team is still out of it. Does the rogue still have advantage against everyone besides the one enemy who can see him/her?
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Feb 17, 2015 17:48
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I don't think that's so much where it "falls apart" as "that's where the GM is going to have to make some judgments, one way or another."quote:-In combat, how "shared" is information? Say a rogue keeps ducking behind a corner to break LoS then hides (via cunning action) in order to gain advantage for the next turn. One enemy is on to these shenanigans and moves toward the rogue's position and gains line of sight, but the rest of the enemy team is still out of it. Does the rogue still have advantage against everyone besides the one enemy who can see him/her? That one enemy could just use a second to go: "HEY GUYS, THERE'S A loving ROGUE WITH A CROSSBOW IN THIS BUSH." And the information is "shared" without any need for telepathy or wizardry.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:40
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MonsterEnvy posted:Assassin Rogue, Berserker Barbarian are still pretty good classes. Assassin has some cool out of combat stuff and if it can get the drop on some one deals fantastic damage. Berserker is just plain powerful. Though there are big downsides to using it's full power more then once every long rest. Berserker Barbarian: I like the roleplay possibilities of using Intimidating Presence out of combat, and Retaliation basically has no downside and is awesome. But stacking exhaustion from Frenzy is so loving debilitating that it's a feature that you'll probably only be able to use for the final encounter before a long rest (8 hours). It's probably better than taking the Bear Path, but I would argue that Eagle Path offers better roleplaying opportunities and better in-combat positioning capabilities (because you can dash forever), and the Wolf Path's later in-combat capabilities are so good that it probably actually beats the Berserker Barbarian, even if you're fighting alone (because you can knock up to a Large opponent prone every turn as a bonus action so long as you've hit them with an attack that turn)
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Feb 17, 2015 18:56
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The great thing about Totem Barb is you can pick different animals at each decision point to suit your taste or the party's needs.
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Feb 17, 2015 19:07
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Generic Octopus posted:The great thing about Totem Barb is you can pick different animals at each decision point to suit your taste or the party's needs. Bingo. The only hard part then is in deciding whether you want to constantly knock enemies prone or if you want to be able to fly
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Feb 17, 2015 19:24
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Generic Octopus posted:Yeah, totes flavor it however you like. And to address E. Monks again, it's not like they're bad, just wonky compared to the other options Monk has. Open Hand and Shadow are pretty front-loaded, giving you good stuff from the start and then giving you yet more stuff later, while Elemental doles out a handful of effects over the entire progression. Fangs of the Fire Snake does look pretty nasty. Do you think lowering the ki costs or opening up their disciplines to a long rest and prepare from the list style would help them out some? Well that would be more theorycrafting and less newbie advice.
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Feb 17, 2015 20:22
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Here's my opinions, feel free to ignore them.Slippery42 posted:-How is distance factored in? How close do the two sides have to be before the stealth vs. passive perception contest even begins? This question isn't super-relevant unless you were planning on not getting particularly close to a guard. You should only have to make one stealth check and a failed stealth check should generally mean you engage the moment you're in LOS of each other. So the precise distances don't matter. quote:-Does moving from behind your cover immediately break stealth? What about sneaking past a guard looking the other way, then? Do they roll active perception or something? Since they technically don't see you because they're facing the wrong way, do they still rely on passive perception? If your spend an action out of cover, you are revealed when that action resolves. So if you attack a dude, you're revealed. If you move out of cover and then discard your action, you're revealed. Whenever your action for the turn is dead is when you're revealed. quote:-The PHB says that being in a heavily obscured area blinds you. So how do you know who you're sneaking from? I'd assume something like poking just your head out from cover to see, but would that provoke any response from the perceiver? I'm not sure why you'd need to see him at all? Like I guess if you're trying to choose which way to go then it'd help but Stealth in D&D has always been presented as a very internal thing. You are hidden/silent or you're not, it's not been presented as something where you need to gauge your mark and make decisions and going all MGS with stealth requirements is directly impacting a rogue's ability to be relevant. If a rogue throws down a smoke bomb and tries to hide, don't be a dick about it, that's awesome. quote:-In combat, how "shared" is information? Say a rogue keeps ducking behind a corner to break LoS then hides (via cunning action) in order to gain advantage for the next turn. One enemy is on to these shenanigans and moves toward the rogue's position and gains line of sight, but the rest of the enemy team is still out of it. Does the rogue still have advantage against everyone besides the one enemy who can see him/her? The surprise rules seems to indicate that this is the case by default- that some individuals standing next to each other can be surprised and others not, but obviously there's a ton of stuff the guy with LOS can do to change that. If the guy doesn't have time to yell for whatever reason, then yes. I'd base whether or not the dude has time to yell before next round on whether he has move or an action left after getting LOS since that seems like the fairest way to determine it.
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Feb 17, 2015 21:11
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Trast posted:Fangs of the Fire Snake does look pretty nasty. Do you think lowering the ki costs or opening up their disciplines to a long rest and prepare from the list style would help them out some? Well that would be more theorycrafting and less newbie advice. At a glance it looks like the ki costs for the elemental disciplines that replicate spells outright were determined by "spell's level +1," which seems arbitrary when Open Hand gets a save-or-die for 3 ki. Since their spell toolbox is so limited it probably wouldn't hurt balance much to standardize the costs to some low value like 2-3 ki. Maybe something like 2 to cast at its lowest level, 3 or 4 to cast the highest available (by that I mean like, at seventh level a fireball could be cast as a level 4 spell, then as a level 5 spell at monk level 9...basically parallel to the levels spellcasters would get those spell levels, which is what the "Spell & Ki Points" table is doing). I dunno, it's tough for me to gauge how much the spells should cost in ki because while it makes sense to try & limit it a bit to avoid abuse/spam, these things are competing with 1 ki stuns & a 3-ki save-or-die & no-cost prones/pushes/etc. Would probably change the Fire Fangs thing to just be 2 ki for the whole effect like the Water Whip & Unbroken Air disciplines, both because I like things standardized and because I want it to be competitive with Stunning Strikes/Quivering Palm. To be perfectly honest I'd rather they just got a suite of their own powers designed around ki like Fire Snake/Water Whip/etc. instead of replicating spells, but eh. Swapping stuff at a long rest is something I'd probably want to be able to do, & again their toolbox is limited so it doesn't strike me as a huge deal.
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Feb 17, 2015 21:15
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AlphaDog posted:A monster's CR is the thing (the only thing) that defines what its XP value is (Page 275 of the DMG "Experience points by challenge rating"). It still does not matter. If you are building an encounter and say you are going to make a 5000 xp encounter. It does not matter what CR of monsters you use in that and generally as long as their CR does exceed the Level of the party they are fine to use in building that 5000 XP encounter. I am completely serious that the system works the way it currently is. It is not broken or useless. It does what it says it is supposed to do.
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Feb 18, 2015 00:12
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QuarkJets posted:Berserker Barbarian: I like the roleplay possibilities of using Intimidating Presence out of combat, and Retaliation basically has no downside and is awesome. But stacking exhaustion from Frenzy is so loving debilitating that it's a feature that you'll probably only be able to use for the final encounter before a long rest (8 hours). It's probably better than taking the Bear Path, but I would argue that Eagle Path offers better roleplaying opportunities and better in-combat positioning capabilities (because you can dash forever), and the Wolf Path's later in-combat capabilities are so good that it probably actually beats the Berserker Barbarian, even if you're fighting alone (because you can knock up to a Large opponent prone every turn as a bonus action so long as you've hit them with an attack that turn)
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Feb 18, 2015 00:16
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MonsterEnvy posted:It still does not matter. If you are building an encounter and say you are going to make a 5000 xp encounter. It does not matter what CR of monsters you use in that and generally as long as their CR does exceed the Level of the party they are fine to use in building that 5000 XP encounter. Yes it does, because the xp numbers you use to get to that 5000xp limit are entirely based on the CR of the monster. The CR of the monster defines the XP it's worth. You can't fit certain monsters into that xp budget because their xp number is too high because their cr number is too high. What about that is hard for you to understand? The intention of the original question was extremely clear: "How would I go about fixing monster CRs to put together more appropriate encounters?" - like, the dude wants a better system for putting encounters together. Your answer was "that isn't even broken because technically you could quibble that the number you use is called xp and not cr", which I pointed out is unhelpful and misleading because that's what it is. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 00:57
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Did the guidelines for fan created content ever get released? I vaguely remember hearing that the would be announced "early in 2015".
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Feb 18, 2015 01:08
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AlphaDog posted:The intention of the original question was extremely clear: "How would I go about fixing monster CRs to put together more appropriate encounters?" - like, the dude wants a better system for putting encounters together. Your answer was "that isn't even broken because technically you could quibble that the number you use is called xp and not cr", which I pointed out is unhelpful and misleading because that's what it is. All I want to know is how to use the 5E MM to quickly assemble a collection of monsters that won't kill my players' characters but will put up a medium-to-difficult fight. As it is the rugby team I manage as a player-coach gets our butts kicked almost every game; doing the same in my inchoate DM career would prove I am a failure at both sports and dorkdom.
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Feb 18, 2015 01:30
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Apollodorus posted:All I want to know is how to use the 5E MM to quickly assemble a collection of monsters that won't kill my players' characters but will put up a medium-to-difficult fight. As it is the rugby team I manage as a player-coach gets our butts kicked almost every game; doing the same in my inchoate DM career would prove I am a failure at both sports and dorkdom. I haven't gone over gradenko's stuff, but if it's any good, it's the best you're gonna do. There's enough variance in monster/encounter design (from what I've seen that is; I don't have an MM so my knowledge is mostly gleamed from play, message boards, and talking to my dm) and also PC party composition that it's possible (and probable) that you'll end up missing the mark in terms of difficulty and have to adjust on the fly. Don't worry so much about loving up or whatever, it's just a dice game.
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Feb 18, 2015 01:40
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Generic Octopus posted:Don't worry so much about loving up or whatever, it's just a dice game. This is the most important thing. But yeah, if you want the encounter-building system to be better than it is, look at Gradenko's stuff. I can't find anything glaringly wrong with it - it's similar to the way I tried to re-do it months ago, but I couldn't get the math to work out like he has. The encounter building system in the Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 02:01
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Apollodorus posted:All I want to know is how to use the 5E MM to quickly assemble a collection of monsters that won't kill my players' characters but will put up a medium-to-difficult fight. As it is the rugby team I manage as a player-coach gets our butts kicked almost every game; doing the same in my inchoate DM career would prove I am a failure at both sports and dorkdom. Make medium to difficult fights using the guidelines. Unless your players are unlucky the guidlines do work well. Here this program is useful as hell. http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder for making encounters in 5e. AlphaDog posted:
There is no encounter building system in the monster manual. It's in the Basic rules and DMG. Could you give an example of this system. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 02:11
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MonsterEnvy posted:Make medium to difficult fights using the guidelines. Unless your players are unlucky the guidlines do work well. The rules don't produce well balanced encounters all the time, which is the whole point. MonsterEnvy posted:There is no encounter building system in the monster manual. It's in the Basic rules and DMG. Well spotted, thanks for pointing it out. I've edited my original post to reflect that I accidentally typed the wrong thing. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 02:17
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AlphaDog posted:The rules don't produce well balanced encounters all the time, which is the whole point. Show me an unbalanced one that does not involve an intellect devourer. Lets assume party of 4 and that they are level 5.
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Feb 18, 2015 02:20
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That's what I said, yes. The rules don't produce well balanced encounters all the time, which is the whole point. Thanks for finally agreeing.
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Feb 18, 2015 02:24
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AlphaDog posted:That's what I said, yes. The rules don't produce well balanced encounters all the time, which is the whole point. Thanks for finally agreeing. I don't think it needs to be fixed still. One thing especially as minor as the Intellect Devourer does not ruin the whole it is made of. Anyway all that matters is how Apollodorus feels about it for his game. The site I linked is still very helpful for any 5e game.
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Feb 18, 2015 02:38
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"The system always produces well balanced results if you ignore the times when it doesn't" is a statement that I could agree with, sure.
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Feb 18, 2015 02:44
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Apollodorus posted:All I want to know is how to use the 5E MM to quickly assemble a collection of monsters that won't kill my players' characters but will put up a medium-to-difficult fight. As it is the rugby team I manage as a player-coach gets our butts kicked almost every game; doing the same in my inchoate DM career would prove I am a failure at both sports and dorkdom. The revised monster table I made and linked you should produce a "Medium" difficulty fight if you create as many monsters as there are player-characters, of the same level. If you have three level 4 players, create three level 4 monsters. For easier fights, make the monsters outnumbered. For harder fights, make the players outnumbered. To make the difficulty steps more granular, use lower-level monsters, or "Minion"-type monsters that go down in one hit no matter what and deal half the damage of the "base" monster. Stats can also probably be adjusted by 25% up or down. To easily create encounters using the in-game rules, use this: http://donjon.bin.sh/5e/random/#encounter Plug in the number of monsters you have, plug in their level, plug in the difficulty you want the fight to be and you're off to the races. I even specifically requested that the creator of the tool include the CR of the monsters used to generate the encounter so you can replace it with whatever equivalent CR monster you want. I cannot guarantee that the encounters will actually be as challenging as the difficulty that you want, but this is the most straightforward method to generate encounters within the guidelines of the books. Most of the "it's too easy to die" concerns usually revolve around the first three levels when players don't have a large HP buffer and don't have a lot of abilities and resources to adapt to circumstances.
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Feb 18, 2015 02:50
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AlphaDog posted:"The system always produces well balanced results if you ignore the times when it doesn't" is a statement that I could agree with, sure. Your trying to make an Anthill into a Mountain here. Thats why I asked for an example no including the Intellect Devourer. I have never said the System always produces well balanced results ether. I just said that generally the system works. I and many others that understand it have not had any trouble using it. It's not perfect but it does not need to be fixed. gradenko_2000 posted:
I like Kobold FIght Club better still http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 02:51
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MonsterEnvy posted:Your trying to make an Anthill into a Mountain here. Thats why I asked for an example no including the Intellect Devourer. I have never said the System always produces well balanced results ether. I just said that generally the system works. I and many others that understand it have not had any trouble using it. It's not perfect but it does not need to be fixed. So let me get this clear: You know that it's an imperfect system that doesn't always produce well balanced results [i]and[/i] you feel that there's no need to fix or improve it. Right? I guess we agree on the first part then? The second part is your opinion, which I'm not going to argue with. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 02:59
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Apollodorus posted:All I want to know is how to use the 5E MM to quickly assemble a collection of monsters that won't kill my players' characters but will put up a medium-to-difficult fight. As it is the rugby team I manage as a player-coach gets our butts kicked almost every game; doing the same in my inchoate DM career would prove I am a failure at both sports and dorkdom. If you run stock monsters you'll have some issues with special abilities and spells. Basically, carefully consider what an average combat looks like against whatever enemy you are going to run. Think about stuff like 'if these kobolds get a bit lucky, what does a turn's worth of damage look like?'. If you're running mostly solo monsters then you shouldn't be too worried. At low levels you may have some issues, since lucky shots from some monsters can insta-kill most players, but past level 3 or so I wouldn't be particularly afraid unless you're hitting low-hp players. The CR guidelines aren't great, but you should get within 'not awful' distance pretty consistently.
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Feb 18, 2015 03:10
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AlphaDog posted:So let me get this clear: Your making it sound worse then it is, but yes this is correct.
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Feb 18, 2015 04:18
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MonsterEnvy posted:Your making it sound worse then it is, but yes this is correct. "How bad it is" is the opinion part, yes. You don't think the imperfections or poorly balanced results are bad enough or frequent enough that the system needs to be fixed. That's fine, and I'm not arguing with you because to you it's true. You don't think the system needs to be fixed. You're not going to fix the system. That's OK. Since you've acknowledged that it is an imperfect system that doesn't always produce well balanced results, can you please stop interjecting with variations of "but it's not even broken" when people who do think it's bad enough to warrant a fix are discussing how to fix it?
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Feb 18, 2015 05:31
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AlphaDog posted:"How bad it is" is the opinion part, yes. You don't think the imperfections or poorly balanced results are bad enough or frequent enough that the system needs to be fixed. That's fine, and I'm not arguing with you because to you it's true. You don't think the system needs to be fixed. You're not going to fix the system. That's OK. I just dislike all that talk you did. An OK would suffice. On another topic as we understand each other. Kitchner posted:I haven't seen one yet but I assume there are also anti magic monsters? The closest I would say is probably the Rakshasa with it's limited Magic Immunity. Golem's are anti magic in way that they are immune to a lot of stuff but it's fairly easy to get around. Helmed Horrors are Immune to 3 Spells that are chosen by it's creator. (Aka the DM can pick 3 spells it is immune to.) Monsters with Legendary Resistance are kinda sorta anti magic. There are lots of monsters that can fight casters well but it is still not a focus on them.
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Feb 18, 2015 06:12
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MonsterEnvy posted:Show me an unbalanced one that does not involve an intellect devourer. Lets assume party of 4 and that they are level 5. No, let's assume that they're level 2- level 5 would take forever to generate out and level 1 is way too easy because it's super rocket-taggy so let's do level 2. Level 2 fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric encounter a single centaur at 100ft range on a steppe. This is a medium encounter and should not be scary, so the party has already had an encounter in which half their short-rest resources and one quarter of their long-rest resources (rounded up) have been expended. They all used the standard array. They all took the non-roll option for HP when they hit level 2. They're all humans because I'm throwing together 4 characters to satisfy your delusion. Fighter: 16 Str, 16 Con, 14 Dex, 13 Wis, 11 Int, 9 Cha 16/22 HP Defense Specialization Action Surge has been expended Second Wind is available Chainmail, shield, and longsword Durable Feat Init +2 AC 19 +5 1d8+3 Cleric: 16 Wis, 15 Str, 14 Con, 13 Cha, 11 Dex, 9 Int 12/17 HP Prepared Spells: bless, cure wounds, 2 Spell slots remaining Cantrips: Light, Resistance, Sacred Flame Spell save DC: 13 Spell attack modifier: +5 Channel Divinity expended Disciple of Life Martial Adept feat (distracting Strike/Riposte) - superiority die is available Mace, chainmail, light crossbow with 20 bolts, priest's pack, shield, holy symbol Init +0 AC 18 +4 1d6+2 +2 1d8 Rogue: 16 Dex, 16 Cha, 14 Con, 13 Wis, 11 Int, 9 Str 12/17HP rapier, shortbow with 20 arrows, leather armor, two daggers, thieves' tools and burglar's pack Actor feat Init +3 AC 14 +5 1d8+3 (+1d6 sneak) +5 1d6+3 (+1d6 sneak) Wizard: 16 Int, 15 Dex, 14 Con, 13 Wis, 11 Cha, 9 Str 9/12 HP Cantrips: mage hand, light, ray of frost Prepared Spells: burning hands, sleep, magic missile 2 spell slots remaining Spell save DC: 13 Spell attack modifier: +5 quarterstaff, component pouch, scholar's pack, spellbook War Caster feat Init +2 AC 12 +1 1d4-1 Centaur: 18 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Con, 9 Int, 13 Wis, 11 Cha 45/45 HP Multi-attack Longbow +4 1d8+2 Hooves +6 2d6+4 Pike +6 1d10+4 (+3d6 charge) AC 12 Init +2 So let's get some average numbers out of the way, taking into account AC, attack bonus, and crit rate for player damage: Centaur Longbow: To Fighter- 2 damage To Cleric- 2.3 damage To Rogue- 3.6 damage To Wizard- 4.2 damage Centaur Hooves: To Fighter- 4.4 damage To Cleric- 5 damage To Rogue- 7.15 damage To Wizard- 8.3 damage Centaur Pike: To Fighter- 3.8 damage To Cleric- 4.3 damage To Rogue- 6.2 damage To Wizard- 7.1 damage Centaur Pike with Charge: To Fighter- 8 damage To Cleric- 9 damage To Rogue- 13 damage To Wizard- 15 damage Cleric Crossbow: 2.7 damage Rogue Shortbow: 4.7 damage Rogue Shortbow with Sneak Attack: 7.2 damage Magic Missile: 10.5 damage Ray of Frost: 3.4 damage So let's get something out of the way really quick here. First of all, if the centaur gets a charge off on the wizard, he will probably die. Not incapacitated or disabled. The average situation on a charge including AC and everything else if the centaur charges the wizard is the wizard is dealt 23.3 damage and dies instantly. Even at full health, a Centaur can instagib the wizard some 30-40% of the time. If the centaur charges the rogue, the rogue will definitely drop and might die. Same with the cleric. If the centaur uses his double longbow attack on the wizard, the wizard will often drop. If the uses his double longbow attack on the rogue, there is a chance he could drop and doing it twice will certainly cause him to drop. So let's start out by first pointing out that for a "medium" encounter in a system that works just fine with no difficulties, this encounter sure does require total precision to avoid instant death or enemy snowballing! Second, lets' point out the centaur's speed and range. 50 yard speed, 150 yard range. I stopped listing player damage values when I ran out of options for players to actually attack a centaur that doesn't choose to engage. So initiative is rolled at 100ft. You dash to get within 40 feet of him, he pincussions someone and runs 50 feet. You dash to within 30, he does his charge combo. You could have the rogue use bonus actions to catch up on turn one, but then the rogue's out of the fight because he gets charged. So the rogue moves, sneak attacks, dashes on turn 1. The wizard magic missiles. The centaur pincussions the rogue and runs because how ya gonna stop him? On turn two, the wizard is right at the edge of range and uses a second magic missile, then closes to within 90. Everyone else dashes again except rogue moves, shoots, dashes, centaur charges cleric and cleric goes down. Here are the HP values at the end of turn 2: Wizard: 9/12 Rogue: 3.8/17 Fighter: 16/22 Cleric: OUT Centaur: 11.1/44 Fighter with longsword: 5.5 damage At this point, the wizard can close to within 60 and use ray of frost to slow the centaur, which does not all that much. The rogue can't come within 10 feet of the centaur without getting pasted, nor can the wizard. Assuming that we let the rogue move behind a thing, hide with bonus action, move back out, crossbow attack, the centaur does go down this turn on average. Barely, though, by about 2 points. If things go slightly against the party meaning the centaur's still up at the end of this turn, then he can charge either the rogue or the wizard and have a 30% chance of clearing the fighter's AOO and killing either one of them (since the rogue is already low). This all has a sort of "dick DM" vibe to it, so feel free to ignore, but the point here is that even the AVERAGE situation with the party members making NO positioning mistakes is that the cleric is wiped, the Rogue is almost dead, and the Wizard is out of spells. If the party makes positioning mistakes, someone can die. If the dice go against them, they all can die! This is a "medium" encounter! Really! For real!
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Feb 18, 2015 06:22
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Like I know we're not supposed to poo poo up the thread with anti-5E stuff but at what point does Monster Envy's math-averse bullshit cross the line from totally acceptable 5E cheerleading into totally unacceptable 5E bad advice? If you're DMing 5E you need to know that there are landmines. It's nothing you're not used to if you've run 3.5 or PF or something, and if someone wants to say it's better than those games in this respect I'll believe it, but you need to know.
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Feb 18, 2015 06:24
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I mean even if you're not TRYING to kill the players. Even if you're a good DM focusing the fighter. If the players don't know what's coming, they might not do the perfectly smart thing. The wizard might not throw out his magic missiles at the first sign of trouble. Players might try to fight the centaur at range (which is a MISTAKE), you drop two arrows into the fighter bringing him down to an average of 12HP- maybe he doesn't pop his Second Wind right away because he doesn't realize that the next turn you're going to charge him and knock him rear end over teakettle. If you hit with both the charge and hooves, HE COULD DIE. He has 34HP to dead and the average of the charge if both attacks hit is THIRTY ONE HIT POINTS. That's the AVERAGE. He could die, turn 2. He could die turn 1 if you charge right away and get a few 6's! The guy whose job it is to take hits dying from a "medium" encounter on turn one because of a bad roll! This is a "medium" encounter for a party of 4 level 2 PCs and the fighter could die with a quirk of the dice just because he didn't pop his Second Wind the moment he took 5 damage.
30.5 Days fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 06:32
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Yeah but why are a group of player characters fighting a centaur or the centaur fighting the PCs? Unless the PCs are all evil in which case they deserve to get pasted by a neutral good hunter/gatherer.
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Feb 18, 2015 06:42
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Victorkm posted:Yeah but why are a group of player characters fighting a centaur or the centaur fighting the PCs? Unless the PCs are all evil in which case they deserve to get pasted by a neutral good hunter/gatherer. Actually going over the dragons, good creatures do seem to be just better than their evil counterparts with the same CR.
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Feb 18, 2015 07:04
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