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4 months ago ::
Feb 01, 2013 - 12:16AM
#1
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Now I'm not sure if we're simply doing something wrong, but I threw my party of 4 level 4s, being a cleric, fighter, rogue, Ranger(Rogue with a bow atm) against a Devil, Horned (Malebranche), level 10 with minimal nerfing, basically I didn't use the daily power to summon more. I was rolling averagely hitting occationally and they were rolling well. Now I'm not complaining that they were able to do this but it seems like the monsters are fairly weak atm, some higher level monsters aren't nearly as strong as some lower level ones, is any else experiancing this?
Next session we will be doing a mock battle against a level 20 with no nerfing to see what happens(they are all level 5 right now)
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4 months ago ::
Feb 01, 2013 - 12:39AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Apr 10, 2009
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You are correct.
In my own experience I've seen my party beat encounters that should have been hard for a group three levels higher than them (they were sixth). The encounter should have been off the scale for them.
Monster defenses need to go back up - at least to where they were in the October packet, if not higher.
Monster attacks are improved, although personally I'd rather see them hit a bit more often (and if necessary to balance that, do a bit less damage) rather than the current model of fewer hits and high damage. But at least they did fix the attack bonuses somewhat (although plate and shield - especially in the hands of a hill dwarf - continue to make players into gods.
Some monsters are especially inappropriately weak - dragons come to mind as a specific example (e.g. The Black Dragon: AC 15? Really? Dragons are supposed to tough! And a breath weapon that does 4d6+4 damage on a level 11 creature?)
And, in some cases, hit point may need to go up as well - although raising the defenses has a comparable effect. At present I'd like to see them start with either 3 points more AC (on average) or 30% more hit points - and from there we can see how that plays.
Carl
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4 months ago ::
Feb 01, 2013 - 5:17AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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Yeah, the monsters are glacially making progress to something playable. They still really blow chunks.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 01, 2013 - 5:41AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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I blame it on monster design.
Most of the low level monsters are designed to be encountered in large groups. So they get off a lot of weak attacks but the damage accumulates.
But past level 6, every thing is built to be encountered as solos or pair with the XP budget. So monsters deal little damage but can't overcome the numbers of the PCs.
Low level monsters are "minions" and weak "standards". Mid levels are "elites"
. High levels are "solos with standard effects and damage"
Monsters need to either uniformly built based on level or they need encounter tags to match their encounter rate.
Orzel, Halfelven son of Zel, Mystic Ranger, Bane to Dragons, Death to Undeath, Killer of Abyssals, King of the Wilds.
Constitution Based Class for Next!
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4 months ago ::
Feb 01, 2013 - 7:30AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2007
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Monsters in any edition should grow at a formulaic rate proportionate to the growth of the players. Low level monsters shouldn't be built to necessarily fight in groups, and high level monsters shouldn't necessarily be built as one to two per encounter.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 01, 2013 - 7:47AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jun 16, 2007
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I wish monsters worked the way Mearls was hoping back when Bounded Accuracy was new. He was saying how ideally, with accuracy bounded and progression marked primarily by damage and HP, the concept of minions, elites and solos could be accomplished by using lower and higher-leveled opponents. Ogres might be like Solos for a level 1 group, Elites for a level 2 group and standards for a level 4 group. By level 8, they might even be Minions.
But what are we deciding constitutes an appropriate difficulty for "average" encounters? Perhaps Wizards of the Coast is aiming low because they want the average adventuring day to have tons of encounters. What was their number of encounters per day, again?
I don't use emoticons, and I'm also pretty pleasant. So if I say something that's rude or insulting, it's probably a joke.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 01, 2013 - 7:48AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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Monsters need to either uniformly built based on level or they need encounter tags to match their encounter rate.
Yup, but you try saying that to the bounded accuracy love club. I did before Christmas and it got nowhere.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 01, 2013 - 8:33AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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@kadim
Bounded accuracy is not the culprit here (from what I've seen). Bounded accuracy only effect the AC and to hit.
The issue is that the damage and HP scaling. Or correctly, the bad formula used for it.
Ogres are level 4 at 300Xp. They are not "standard" at level 4 though. They are somewhere between standards and elites for level 4's. Minotaurs are 5s at 500XP and the same issue.
But goblins? Low XP lower damage chumps that barely can fill the budget with outnumbering the PCs.
Orzel, Halfelven son of Zel, Mystic Ranger, Bane to Dragons, Death to Undeath, Killer of Abyssals, King of the Wilds.
Constitution Based Class for Next!
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4 months ago ::
Feb 01, 2013 - 8:56AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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@kadim Bounded accuracy is not the culprit here (from what I've seen). Bounded accuracy only effect the AC and to hit. The issue is that the damage and HP scaling. Or correctly, the bad formula used for it. Ogres are level 4 at 300Xp. They are not "standard" at level 4 though. They are somewhere between standards and elites for level 4's. Minotaurs are 5s at 500XP and the same issue. But goblins? Low XP lower damage chumps that barely can fill the budget with outnumbering the PCs.
You're preaching to the choir. I know and you know that bounded accuracy was never meant to replace level based stuff, but just you wait 'till they descend on the thread so they can "set the record straight".
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 12:58AM
#10
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Another thing I've noticed is that the game is heavy in the burst damage, throwing what should be a balanced encounter against my party using the given stats on some monsters would literally kill them in one hit if they hit. and the PCs seem to have a ton of burst damage as well.
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