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dwarf74 posted:I have grave doubts about the saving throw system, btw. My prediction is that it will need to be pretty heavily houseruled. Ideally it works on the same principle as AC attacks: base accuracy is quite high creating diminishing returns on stacking additional accuracy. The problem is that the effects of spells are often much, much more severe than straight damage. Some of the key offenders have been constrained with HP requirements or Concentration (Creeping Doom, Confusion) preventing them doubling up with buffs, but there's a good chance that those constraints don't matter because the powers are just that powerful.
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Jul 3, 2014 04:06
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MonsterEnvy posted:Just to tell you. D&D next is not the name of the game. It's officially just Dungeons and Dragons and is referred by the people making the game as D&D 5th Edition. This stated in twitter Next was the name of the playtest. This is not a big deal just somthing to point out. quote:Also here is the stats for a Young Green Dragon. moths posted:Ok you had me up until here. Quadratic_Wizard posted:I actually like this a lot more than 4e's design where solos were pretty much immune to debuffs of any kind, with a "save at the start and end of your turn, get a +5 bonus to all saves, and immune to half a dozen of the most common effects" Take the dragons in 4e's Monster Vault. All of them have a 80% chance of passing every saving throw, and they automatically clear any stunning, dazing, or dominating effects at the end of their turn. Later, they get the ability to clear stunning and dominating off turn. At the end of the day dealing with this crap is the hardest question any modern game needs to answer. Frankly they should have just stripped all the stuns and petrifies and "lol, gently caress you"s out of the game entirely.
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Jul 3, 2014 06:03
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moths posted:I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out! Also Quadratic_Wizard's example was somewhat amiss, since Superiority maneuvers don't have a saving throw. The maneuver in question is Drive Back: if your superiority die is equal to or greater than the target's strength mod you push the target 15 feet away from you in a straight line, no save. Still, yes, it did require the fighter's impact to be worth ignoring. Oh, man, could you imagine if fighters had, I dunno, crippling blows, or bleeds, or 100-damage Save-or-die execute abilities that were actually worth burning an insta-save on? Wild and radical thoughts! quote:If Next isn't going to be dominated at every level by skinny dudes in robes, they haven't done much to indicate so.
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Jul 3, 2014 07:00
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Lothire posted:Been having a good time with one of the PbP games on here using the playtest. It's low level involving a lot of "I swing at it" action, but I'm interested in seeing how things play out as we go. They've announced a digital toolset in the works (Morningstar by Trapdoor Technologies) some time ago. There was also a lot of talk about how they want to listen to community feedback before they start making changes/erratas, while also giving those changes out to the public as test phases before deciding to commit to them. • Something that D&D has long struggled with is inserting specificity where it really ought to stick with generalities. For example you want to use longwords, probably because of the mental image you have of your character, the mental image you have of a longsword, and (we can be honest) the d8 damage dice. But a longsword isn't strictly a longsword: it's any and every 1d8 (1d10 Versatile) slashing weapon. In the same measure a scimitar is any and every slashing weapon that you use with 2WF." So why call it a longsword or scimitar and not "versatile 1d8 slashing weapon"? Because "longsword" is more evocative and less clinical and dispassionate than an uncut stat block.
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Jul 3, 2014 07:46
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FRINGE posted:The reintroduction of Speed Factor or something similar could help that.
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Jul 3, 2014 08:07
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treeboy posted:maybe I'm in the minority, but that actually sounds like a neat template, harsh, but a nice setpiece encounter to cap off an adventure or campaign
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Jul 3, 2014 17:39
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ERHMAGHAAAD! SERVERS GUNNA CRAAAAAASH! Or not because, you know, it's a 3mb PDF being hosted on Hasbro's Transformers-fueled servers and not a 2gb WoW patch. First impression: pleasantly surprised it's vaguely laid out. I was honestly expecting it to look the same as the playtest documents.
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Jul 3, 2014 18:18
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MonsterEnvy posted:Apparently Concentration can be interrupted as well.
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Jul 3, 2014 21:48
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Agent Boogeyman posted:Okay, so looking at the ability score generation, is it just me or are they basically throwing a huge "gently caress you!" to anyone who doesn't want to leave their fate up to the dice and just do the sensible thing and generate through point buy? With 4d6, drop lowest, you can have a chance for some pretty swingy stats, but you also have a chance to start with ability scores of 16 or higher BEFORE racial mods. Point buy nets you with a baseline of 8's and nothing can be lower, but the highest you can pay up to is... 15? Really? So I could start with a 17 after racial mods OR probably start with much higher than that? Why are we STILL rolling randomly to generate ability scores when the entire reason it was there in the first place was to generate what class your character could qualify for way back in FIRST EDITION? WHY?
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Jul 3, 2014 23:00
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treeboy posted:Can you cast at a higher level for additional healing like Cure Wounds?
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Jul 4, 2014 00:36
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Deptfordx posted:Also in all the previews, do we have a definitive list of all the Character classes that are coming in the new Players Handbook. We've actually seen the Sorcerer's Wild Magic table and the Warlock's fluff page.
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Jul 4, 2014 00:50
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petrol blue posted:Can things other than spells (or spell-like, etc.) call for saving throws? Maybe strength saving throw would be for something like "can you hold the spiked portcullis up, or does it squish you?" Just guessing here, I'm not far into the pdf myself.
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Jul 4, 2014 02:17
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gently caress it, everyone's talking about Basic, I'mma start scraping the Starter set for info and junk. 8 pages of monsters and a 2 page explanation of monsters. Bugbear, Commoner, Cultist, Doppelganger, Evil Mage, Flameskull, Ghoul, Giant Spider, Goblin, Grick, Hobgoblin, Plot character undead, plot character elf, Nothic, Ochre Jelly, Ogre, Orc, Owlbear, Ruffian, Plot character, Skeleton, Spectator, Stirge, Twig Blight, Wolf, Young Green Dragon, Zombie. Monster art for the weirder poo poo is put inline with the adventure on the page where the beastie shows up. For the most part. Twig Blights just get a written description. Every monster shows up during the adventure except the Ochre Jelly. All monster stats are at the back: kiss your tight 4e adventure layout goodbye. Monsters are bolded the first time they show up in an encounter like so: "Four goblins are hiding in the woods, two on each side of the road." So if you see goblins[/i] on a page three times it's talking about three different sets of [b]goblins. I would be amazed if anyone could wing it out of this book. There's a lot of little poo poo like DCs for skill checks that's just hidden in the paragraphs. Traps are all written out in long form. The adventure feels much denser as a result. SPOILERS N SHEET! SORT OF! The first character level is covered over the course of an ambush and a small cave. All told: 17 goblins, 4 wolves, 1 boss goblin (15 HP), 1 bugbear. Biggest fight is (potentially) 3 goblins, 1 wolf, and 1 bugbear. The bugbear swings for 2d8+2 and has a surprise attack for 2d6 if he gets a surprise round. Goblins are CR 1/4, have 7 HP, and do 1d6+2 damage for both their scimitar and shortbow attacks. Part 2 is in town and the adventure mentions that the encounters are basically a montage that takes place over the course of several days. Lots of RP, lots of quests, lots of story hooks. The lull ends when the party gets jumped by a bunch of Jets for one of the following reasons: •Asking the wrong questions •Being in the wrong part of town •Sticking their noses where they don't belong •No goddamn reason at all. The adventure passively incentivizes executing all the gang members. The players then raid the gang lair where there's actually multiple rooms that aren't crammed full of monsters, and even a pack of skeletons that the party can get around with savvy play. They don't get experience for that, though. They do get experience for freeing slaves, though. There's a Nothic that tries to bargain with the party instead of fighting. They get XP for either outcome, but if you barter you're probably not going to get away with stealing his poo poo, which includes a +1 sword with a description and history. Looking at the appendix there's at least 8 permanent magic items in the adventure. There's a few other medium encounters strewn around the cellar, and it caps off with a sort-of encounter with a mage who has a solid chance of seeing the players coming and taking off before they even get there. The adventure assumes players will level up to 3 somewhere in the middle of Part 2. More?
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Jul 4, 2014 03:24
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petrol blue posted:Thanks for this, it's really interesting! What are the magic items like, there aren't any (that I've found Yeah, they won't be added to Basic until next month at the earliest, November at the latest. I'd suspect next month, since they're not in the PHB, but they are kinda core to how a lot of people play the game. You've got your basic boring +1 armour and weapons. Boots of Springing and Striding: your speed becomes 30, unless you're already faster, you can't be slowed by carrying too much or wearing heavy armour, and you can jump 3x normal distance making the Fighter and Rogue class features utterly meaningless. Sort of. They stack. Woo. Gauntlets of Ogre Power: your strength becomes 19, unless it's higher. gently caress you, Fighter! Ring of Protection: +1 Ac and saving throws. Spider Staff: can be used as a quarterstaff, does +1d6 poison damage on a hit when used as a weapon. Has 10 charges. You can use 1 charge to cast Spider Climb or 2 charges to cast Web. The staff gets 1d6+4 charges back every day. If you run the staff dry you roll a d20, on a 1 it disintegrates. Here's the loving rub: you can only use that spell ability if the spell is on your class list. Congrats, you just undermined the one thing theoretically balancing the Wizard. Staff of Defense: same as above, except +1 AC instead of the poison damage, and 1 charge for Mage Armour and 2 charges for Shield. Wand of Magic Missiles: 7 charges, can spend 1-3, casts Magic Missile as a level 1-3 spell. Regains 1d6+1 charges per day. Same crumble rules. "You can use this wand even if you're incapable of casting spells." Basic magic martial weapon: +1 damage and accuracy. Basic magic caster weapon: 5-10 free spell thoughts.
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Jul 4, 2014 03:51
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MonsterEnvy posted:I would like more. Also Is the surprise thing the only thing the bugbear has for powers? Technically his 2d8 is a special power: bugbears get double damage dice. Otherwise, no. And the CR/XP system says he's more or less equal to a wizard mob that can Hold Person 3x/day. He has 5 more hit points. Seriously, gently caress caster mobs.
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Jul 4, 2014 04:04
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DalaranJ posted:You know what adventure everyone loved? Keep on the Shadowfell. Let's do a thematic callback to that.  This one's actually a good deal more complex. The KootS cave was, what, two rooms, and the big risk was chaining the encounters. This is actually a bit more like a multi-stage climb through a large, if brutish, trap. There's a couple different paths through the thing, and you even have a chance to chump-shot the "boss". quote:Yes, please. NPC reactions are mostly written out like "so and so likes cakes, if the players bake them a cake they'll perform sexual favours in return. They hate spiders. If there's a spider in the cake they still perform the favours, but they use teeth. They can be persuaded to try anal on a DC 15 Charisma (Persuade) check." Sorry, I have no idea where that example came from. But yes, all in all there's a decent volume of words dedicated to roleplaying specific and generic NPCs.
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Jul 4, 2014 04:33
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MonsterEnvy posted:A Bugbear is CR 1 meaning it's threat to a party of 4 level 1's. (Level 1 Wizards can't cast hold person as it's a level 2 spelll) Also caster mobs in this game would get ripped apart as they don't have the stamina to take hits. AC 12 HP 22 Spd 30 Saving throws: -1, +2, +0, +5, +3, +0 Challenge: 1 (200 xp) 4th level spellcaster, spell save DC 13, +5 to hit, knows cantrips: light, mage hand, shocking grasp 1st level (4 slots): charm person, magic missile 2nd level (3 slots): hold person, misty step Bugbear AC 16 HP 27 Spd 30 Saving throws: +2, +2, +1, -1, +0, -1 Challenge: 1 (200 xp) Brute: melee attacks do one extra die of damage (included below) surprise attack: if it surprises and hits it deals 2d6 extra damage Morningstar: +4, one target, 2d8+2 Javeline: +4, 1d6+2 or 2d6+2 in melee
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Jul 4, 2014 04:41
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Part THREEEEEEEEEEEE! Page of stuff continuing the plot threads, summarizing wilderness travel, and a random encounter chart that's in play as the party moves between a variety of locations out in the countryside. Roll d20, on a 17-20 there's an encounter of (roll on chart): 1d8+2 Stirges 1d4+1 Ghouls 1 Ogre 1d6+3 Goblins 1d4+2 Hobgoblins 1d4+2 Orcs 1d4+2 Wolves 1 Owlbear The first locale is a pure RP/persuasion/investigation type stuff. The second is one of those rear end in a top hat Evil Mages and his 12 zombies. You can cut a deal with the dickhead, though, and kill orcs for him in exchange for information. Party gets 200 xp for parley, or 800 xp, cash, and a ring of protection for murdering him. Next: Ruined town full of zombies, stick bugs, and giant spiders. And a druid/ranger dude living Bear Grylls style. This is where the dragon on the cover lives. He's probably gonna kill your level 3 party, but if you drive him off you get 2000 xp, and somehow manage to kill him you get 3900. Also he's got a neat magic item in his horde. It's a +1 axe that deal max damage to Plant creatures and things made of wood, and there's a short little three-line story that goes along with it. Cute. There's also a small enclave of dragon cultists hiding in a barn outside town who aren't terribly interested in picking a fight. If you decide to kill them anyway they've got some diamonds. This is where the adventure softly ties into Tyranny of Dragons. Foruuuuuth: orc camp. Kill, loot, move on. Fifth: Ruined castle set piece. Lots of goblins, some hobgoblins, a grick, a captured owlbear (even XP for murder or release), and a big showdown with a super bugbear, a wolf, and a doppelganger. There's a sidebar at the start of the block discussing what to do if the players try to trick their way in with disguises and lies. "It's okay if the characters circumvent combat and talk their way past the defenders." There's a couple different ways in and out of the location, and several different side-distractions. Four of these locations can lead to the party finding the information that they need to move on with the plot, and all of them have side-quest goals. Either way the party now knows about the Cave of Ultimate Cave-Based Evil and have time to go back to Phandelfelderdelver and rest up/turn in quests before heading on. Paaaaaart Foooooooooor Big cave, Drow, Underdark, Spiders, Undead. Players should be level 4 by this point, but if they skipped a lot of stuff or were stupid enough to leave people alive then they might still be level 3 and could die okay good luck. No note about withdrawing and coming back, but there's only a light time limit on any of this, really, so a party that's getting their asses kicked should be able to go back to town and heal. And I was wrong, the Ochre Jelly is on this location's wandering monster table, and one shows up in an encounter. "Monsters roam through all areas of the mine. Random encounters remind players that monsters aren't neccessarily confined to specific areas, and that no part of the dungeon is safe. Encounters with wandering monsters are an effective ay to keep the players and characters on their toes, alleviate player boredom, and tax party resources. However, having too many random encounters can become tedious, so use them sparingly." 20 encounters in the cave ranging from a solitary pit trap to some poison mushrooms to stirges and ghouls and jellies oh my. Some decent stuff in here. There's basically four different things going on: the main villain the PCs are trying to stop from getting to MacGuffintown, the undead guards of MacGuffintown, the local wildlife, and the PCs, all kinda pushing against each other. There's a good potentially social encounter with a dead wizard (best kind), a puzzle/fight with a Spectator, some neat magic items (a +1 mace that's also a lantern and does bonus damage to undead), lots of different paths through the area, and a trapped shrine that punishes greedy players by dropping rocks on their heads. The "boss" isn't anything spectacular, but it's a decently complex dungeon that took me a while to decipher. Like, not that it's hard, half the encounters are "there are ghouls in this room, they attack you" but there's a lot of different parts. The big bad, actually, is kind of a pushover, but there's good incentives for bringing him back alive, additional incentives to clear the entire mine, and not everything is    
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Jul 4, 2014 06:04
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DalaranJ posted:Well the cave might have been one of the most tolerable parts of KoTS actually. Chance is 20% (17-20 on a d20) There's no generic reaction table in the adventure (there is in the DMG come November, but... yeah) but there's nothing prohibiting you from negotiating, and probably a dozen times the adventure has notes specifically for talking instead of fighting. I can't tell you if it's a well constructed adventure, challenge wise, the system is still too oblique to me and the writing of the adventure doesn't really help with that at all (you have to dig to find, or compile yourself, the XP budgets for encounters, and there's no guideline for what constitutes a hard encounter) but structurally it's pretty decent. There's a lot of different ways to achieve goals, lots of side stuff to poke around in, lots of world and adventure hooks, a giant looming "this dragon will eat you all" carrot-on-a-stick to get the party hyped for leveling up so they can come back and kick it's rear end, ways for enemies to slip away entirely, and some fun loot.
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Jul 4, 2014 06:20
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Fuschia tude posted:An adventuring party was basically an army in miniature
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Jul 5, 2014 06:08
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Amethyst posted:I mean, is the small maneuver list boring in a vacuum, or is it only boring next to the never ending smorgasbord of poo poo in the spell list? It's not boring, and you do get new additions, but your 15th level Maneuvers are, by definition and all practicality, the ones you wanted least. You had the entire pool in front of you, so of course you grabbed the best/coolest/most "you" maneuvers at level 3, then your runners-up at level 7, then the "yeah, I could use that" at 10, and by level 15 you're down to "sure, why not." There's never anything that you're thirsty for. There's no "oh, sweet loving Jesus, at level 15 I can get Own the Battlefield, 4 dice, all my allies get to make an attack as a reaction and add 4d10 damage!  "
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Jul 5, 2014 06:50
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Crain posted:So currently are there any good sources for monster stats? Other than :files: or that Frog God adventure path? My friends and I wanted to try and do a game over the weekend if possible, maybe not a full adventure but just some random encounters and dungeon crawling. But if it's better to just wait till the 15th we'll probably do that. No foldout battlemaps, though, so you'll have to copy things onto your own battlemat, no big deal. Edit: Monsters out of the playtest, which I guess is technically :files: at this point(?), are serviceable. HP was the biggest thing that changed, though some creatures got a solid boost to their to-hit. The only things that really seem to have a pattern based on CR are HP and damage on a successful hit. I dunno, I'll plug it all into a spreadsheet tomorrow, but here's a rough guide to making stuff. CR 0 - 4 HP, 2 damage CR 1/8 - 5 HP, 4 damage CR 1/4 - 7 HP, 5 damage CR 1/2 - 11 HP, 5 damage CR 1 - 25 HP, 10 damage CR 2 - 45 HP, 13 damage CR 3 - 55 HP, 16 damage Saving throw advantage seems to be really uncommon, so most monsters have -1 to +3 on their saves, and AC is haphazard at best, ranging from 8 to 18. 13 seems to be the average. The saving throw DCs are pretty tightly in the 10-13 range. To hit is usually +3-5. LFK fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Jul 5, 2014 |
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Jul 5, 2014 08:02
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Laphroaig posted:So designing encounters on the fly looks to be really loving hard compared to 4E... does the CR system automatically do this math for me or something? I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that I won't have to pull out a spreadsheet to do my encounter design like the bad old days of 3.5. If you translate it into a sane chart that bothers to draw an assumption about party size then it's actually useful. Misandu posted:Really that Ogre should probably be CR 4. That would mean that 4 of them would be a Hard encounter for 4th level characters, and would nicely adhere to 4th Editions "Don't use Monsters +3 levels ahead of the party" advice, while still making it available to use by the book's own logic against level 2 parties. Instead we're probably going to get another one of those charts about using lower CR monsters together to create more challenging encounters, or wait maybe we already got some advice on how to do that! Oh, and here's a chart of expected monster DPR vs middling PC hit points. I went right down the middle to reduce the spread. In practice most everyone is going to aim for a +5 which helps tons.  Something I'm not quite sure of, though, is that if my Con goes up do I get back-pay on the hit points?
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Jul 7, 2014 17:24
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Misandu posted:Is this using actual numbers from the available materials? What do the different colors represent? Does this assume Monsters only use At-Will abilities? It's extrapolated from the Starter Set numbers. Anything above CR 8 is suspect, but since PC toughness doesn't really surge in the same way as their damage output or ability to respond to damage, I feel somewhat safe assuming it holds steady. I did a bunch of comparisons and found that at-will output damage was pretty reliably ~65% of a median characters' HP (1d8+2) at every level I had data for except level 1. This doesn't reflect any changes in to-hit or AC/Saves, though, so I think the numbers are accurate-ish, but it's not a pure reflection of how hazardous monsters are relative to PC level. I also didn't factor in burst damage because I don't have enough monsters to compare. And, yes, the colour coding is there to show when DPR is roughly equal to total HP, so you can see that against a level 5 party a CR 9 creature has high enough expected DPR to knock out PCs with d10's or less every round.
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Jul 7, 2014 19:14
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P.d0t posted:Because they couldn't just say your HP is [whatever you roll each level]+[level*CON mod] You don't even need to sacrifice the "natural language" either! "Your Maximum Hit Points are equal to: [Die roll]+[level*CON mod]. If your Con score changes during the course of the game then your Hit Point maximum changes too, as though you had the new bonus from 1st level."
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Jul 8, 2014 00:40
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LongDarkNight posted:Good news! Stat reduction, though... god drat. Who in their right mind likes re-calculating a bunch of dependent poo poo in the middle of a fight? Being easy to fix does not balance out being annoying! Also you should totally send me Secret Monster Manual so I can waste my existence making graphs of an elf game.
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Jul 8, 2014 07:20
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ritorix posted:Make poo poo up, no math fixes needed because the math is so hosed just leave it be
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Jul 11, 2014 06:34
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Comstar posted:I'm planning on playing the starter set next week when it comes out in Australia. Three of us want to act as DM's for old times sake, and prevent burnout. How could we split up the adventure so we can each DM a part? From what I've heard there's different smaller locations we could each do, is that correct? The adventure is from the blandest, most forgettable part of FR, though there's a lot of hooks for the dozens of various factions which means work if you want to change it. The adventure ties softly into Tyranny of Dragons. Basically there's a side event where you might run into an organization that's central to that adventure path.
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Jul 11, 2014 18:18
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I've spent a lot of time pulling apart the monster math, the CR system, and the XP values and, yes, it's somewhat arbitrary. There's general trends, but it gets wackier and wackier as levels go on. Values scale at vastly different rates, defences are assigned seemingly at random, EHP is alternately well-balanced and all over the place, and the XP values relative to the encounter building guidelines is an ever-shifting relationship. All the evidence indicates that creatures at a given CR level are worth progressively more of a given level's XP budget. For example level 1 a Hard encounter is 3 CR 1 creatures, but at level 8 it's 1 CR 8 creature, and unless the XP values flatten off by mid levels a single CR X creature is worth more XP than a "hard" encounter for level X. That said, this could actually explain why CR20 creatures have 450-500 HP, if a CR 20 creature is worth 26000 XP. Ther ecould be a very strange, counter intuitive, but potentially functional system underneath.
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Jul 15, 2014 09:50
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MonsterEnvy posted:It's Personally not a big deal to me (If you don't memorize them you can always write them down as well) as the ones in the starter set have pretty simple spells that are rather easy to remember. Besides there won't be nearly as many monsters with spells in the statblock as their used to be. Also you're wrong about there not being "nearly as many monsters with spells in the statblock as their used to be." If something was a caster in 3e or earlier it's a caster now. Even a goddamn Flameskull, a monster that has no sensible reason to be a Level X Spellcaster, has spells instead of powers. There will be just as many casters in 5e as in 2e and 3e.
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Jul 16, 2014 01:16
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Gizmoduck_5000 posted:That's okay. I was hoping to snag a copy to peruse on my own. I don't want to bother you or your friends with a 3rd hand Q&A. I can just wait two weeks and be surprised with everyone else.
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Jul 16, 2014 22:43
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Yeah, I was too slow, now it's just a graveyard of [deleted]. Really I just want a better rundown of the Warlock than "they get Eldritch Blast, and some spells, and there's a patron thing, and some other abilities" summary that most people who've snagged it seem to be wont to give. Do the three pacts differ in meaningful ways, or do they all play the same with a different paint job? Is pact separate from sub-class? What's their spell list/progression like? All that junk.
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Jul 16, 2014 23:16
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MartianAgitator posted:So how much better would the game be if you just removed Fighters and Wizards and renamed Monks Fighters and Warlocks Wizards? +/- 2% Rough estimate.
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Jul 17, 2014 08:00
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Gizmoduck_5000 posted:Spellcasting for the Warlock is weird. They get 4 general spell slots of any level up to 6th. They also get an ability that essentially grants one spell slot each of 7th, 8th and 9th level. I don't understand why they didn't just save the space and give them a progression table. Also, yes, holy poo poo, that Fiendish feature. In the context of 5e that's pretty awesome. Star Pact's is one of those ones that sounds interesting on the page, but in reality characters communicate non-diegetically by default. All in all good to see the Warlock's still pretty cool. (Also thanks Treeboy, too!)
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Jul 17, 2014 08:08
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Oh, I figured out monsters. Well, I figured out monsters in the way that monsters would be figured out for 4e, but this is clearly not how Mearls and co are doing it. 1dX+Con HP per CR (starts at 0). The game uses the following: Large: d10. Medium: d8. Small: d6. Tiny: d4. This causes a lot of problems if something's ludo/narrative role doesn't agree with its size category. Damage is a bit funkier for the CR<1 creatures, but what it should be is 1d8+2 as baseline for CR1, then an extra 1d8/CR. Defences and everything else, as done by the game, are: gently caress it, whatever. Personally I'd give AC 13 to casters, 15 to skirmishers, and 18 to defenders, and give everything +3, +2, and +0 to distribute between the major defences, and just ignore that the minor defences even exist. Caster level = CR+2 (basically a caster of a given CR has access to the next higher tier of spells over the PCs at that level) Use the PC to-hit and Spell DC progression. Given that the math of 5e is so often a clusterfuck you can toss crap on willy-nilly to this baseline and blend right in. It makes conversion kinda easy. Basically 5e's design assumes you sparingly use anything with a CR close to the PC level, and mostly just throw hordes of significantly lower CR creatures at them. Given how poorly CR seems to function as a predictor of difficulty I kinda have to agree. If the party's level 8 they should be fighting mostly CR 3-5 monsters.
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Jul 20, 2014 00:08
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DalaranJ posted:I think number of hit dice is actually arbitrary and they are aiming for a target HP level per CR. The target HP largely conforms with this line, though. For save DCs basically just give everything a 13, 15, or 17 depending on how hard you want it to be. Looking at their monsters a lot of them are just basically made up based on "feels." I'm curious to see their "build your own monster" guidelines because it's kinda a mess. Honestly after spending so many hours staring at their monsters I just want to throw any of Mearls' monster math and build your own based on numbers back-solved from expected PC abilities. You know, how it should have been done.
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Jul 20, 2014 08:09
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MonsterEnvy posted:I Honestly don't see how they are a mess. Stuff like the Ogre has a high hp but low ac and nothing to strengthen it other then hitting hard. While the CR 2 nothic gets more then one attack and the gaze along with decent AC, hp and saves. The nothic and the ogre do the same expected damage, except the nothic has better defences and range. Compare the ghoul, bugbear, and giant spider and see if you can figure out the pattern behind their stats. A Grick only has 27 HP. The owlbear and the ogre fill the same narrative role, but the owlbear has significantly better defences and double the expected damage output of the ogre despite being only 1 CR higher. There's rough trends, for sure, but there's no real equivalency. The trade off in one area doesn't necessarily have a commensurate trade off in another, and core stats in particular are assigned based on "if this monster were a real living thing, what would its stats be?"
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Jul 20, 2014 20:37
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MonsterEnvy posted:Orge and Nothic. Ogre has more hp then Nothic does a bit more damage with it's attacks and has a better to chance to hit. I would rank them around the same level of difficulty to fight. What's the formula? You're falling into the same trap as the people who wrote this poo poo, just sort of eyeballing it and going "yeah, that sounds okay" when boiled down to a rough description, but look at the actual numbers and tell me what the pattern is. I mean, for gently caress's sake, your owlbear/ogre comparison is "it's better, that's why it's a higher CR"? That's like the poster child of dartboard-design. Below are all the stats of the Starter monsters. What makes something CR5? 
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Jul 21, 2014 01:10
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MonsterEnvy posted:Who gives a poo poo about about a formula. Pretty much no one will give a poo poo about a formula. quote:The Chart there is pretty much higher CR means more hp and or damage. quote:And yes the Owlbear is stronger because it is stronger it has a higher CR it's simple.
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Jul 21, 2014 02:30
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treeboy posted:Glancing at it you might want to further separate by size category. For instance hit dice look to be based on size, d4 for tiny, d6 for small, d8 for medium, and d10 for large. I bet that's the starting point for a bunch of other calculations The D at the end was part of one of my many attempts at culling a pattern for defences out of the numbers. It was basically an arbitrarily defined defensive value that I was cross checking with damage and a bunch of other stuff, but there's no pattern. The only pattern is that Higher CR = More Damage and More HP. Stats are Fantasy Biology, and thus defences are Fantasy Biology. So I fully expect the monster building section to look an awful lot like 3e's with modifications based on size, origin, phase of the moon, and so on and so on and so on. I don't think it'll be hard to come up with our own system for making monsters, but the monsters in the book will likely remain inscrutable. The one caveat on that is that I suspect the numbers are intentionally hosed, aside from HP and Damage. My guess is that they're hoping "bounded accuracy" takes care of the rest, that the margins for PC performance are sloppy enough, and combats short enough, that as long as nothing really has an AC above 18 or a save above +12 it'll work "as intended".
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Jul 21, 2014 05:57
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