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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 9:03AM
#1
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Date Joined:
May 15, 2008
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I've been reading through some back articles of Chris Perkins' fabulous "The Dungeon Master Experience" and I came across this article. In it, Chris reveals a spreadsheet which purports to list the average damage a monster's At-Will and Encounter attacks are expected to do per turn, and the various ways to create a dice expression that can arrive at that average. In the following week's article, Chris then reveals that at the table he sometimes simply uses that average value and adds a d6 to the damage to speed up his turns in combat. I love this idea, especially now that my players are entering Epic Tier. We are running the Scales of War adventure path, and so I opened up the adventure to see what average damage values my monsters should be dealing, and found a massive discrepancy. According to Chris Perkins' spreadsheet, a level 23 non-brute monster should deal an average of 31 damage with an at-will attack. Below is a snippet of the statblock for a Level 23 Elite Skirmisher (Gwenth, Vampire) printed in the adventure:  Bloodletter (standard, at-will)  Weapon
+28 vs AC; 2d6+3 damage, and ongoing 10 damage (save ends).
2d6+3 gives an average of 10 damage - an average that, according to Perkins's table, is appropriate of a Level 2 monster! Only if we add in 2 round of the ongoing 10 damage does Gwenth's damage approach the average.
So perhaps this is an anomoly to account for the ongoing damage. I searched for a monster with a simple damage expression and foud the Cambion Impaler, a Level 19 Skirmisher. His basic attack:
Spear (standard, at-will) Weapon
+24 vs AC; 3d6+8 damage.
3d6+8 equals 18.5 damage, a value appropriate for a level 10 monster (According to the spreadsheet).
My party routinely goes through level-appropriate and higher encounters with nobody getting bloodied, and some characters never even taking damage. Are the monsters printed in the adventure path underpowered? It certainly seems they are failing to hit these supposed "expected average damage values," and it makes for really boring fights.
What started as a plan to speed up encounters seems to have opened a big can of worms for me. I really want to finish out the campaign, but if the system is falling apart at the start of Epic, I'm not sure what I can do to fix things to challenge my players for the next nine levels.
Does anybody have any advice on this?
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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 9:16AM
#2
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Date Joined:
May 15, 2008
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A quick Follow-Up:
I looked through all the monsters from the adventure and found that the Level 19 Nothic Mindblight had been updated to the new monster statblock in the Compendium. Comparig the two statblocks, there's a huge difference in damage output for its at-will claw attack:
Old Statblock: 2d6+3 and ongoing 5 necrotic (save) -- average 10 + 5 ongoing
New Statblock: 2d10+6 and ongoing 10 necrotic (save) -- average 17 + 10 ongoing
Average damage for a 19th-level monster with an at-will is 27, so it would appear that ongoing damage is simply added to base damage.
It would appear I'm going to have to do some revising of damage values on most of the adventure path monsters to properly challenge my players.
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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 9:56AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2009
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I've been running Scales of War and have revised all damage expressions since hitting paragon tier. I've also tuned up a lot of the monsters powers and traits - especially elites and solos.
The plotline for this series is pretty interesting (if your group enjoys the on-rails experience or you are okay with making it your own) but the monsters are woefully underpowered as written.
Example - a level 13 elite soldier that was doing 1d4+3 damage with an attack. Really? REALLY???
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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 9:59AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2009
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A word of caution though. If your PC's have been used to the whiffle ball damage of this mod for a long time, don't just spring the change on them unannounced. They have probably neglected defensive and healing powers because they simply weren't needed. I would tell your players to expect a damage spike after an upcoming point (a session, a level or the beginning of a new mod) and let players retrain powers and feats liberally.
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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 10:36AM
#5
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Date Joined:
May 15, 2008
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Thanks for the reassurances. I guess I know what I'm doing this weeekend . . .
Definitely not worried about neglected defenses for the heroes.
Long rests come due to lack of daily powers, rather than low healing surges.
The Paladin (AC 36 or so) rarely takes damage, almost never gets bloodied, and only infrequently uses his healing abilities.
The Warden has (I think) 3 ways to use a healing surge in each encounter, and another 2 ways daily.
The Wizard and Bow Ranger have plenty of ways to avoid close combat.
And I can't remember the last time any of them used a consumable healing source, despite the rather large stockpile they've accumulated.
The Avenger might have a bit of trouble, as he's the one who absorbs the most damage; however, these changes might just force the party to be less reckless and work as a team rather than as five individual death machines.
And *gasp* combats might actually be dangerous again!
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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 10:56AM
#6
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And *gasp* combats might actually be dangerous again!
Combats can be "dangerous" as-is if you threaten the PCs' goals instead of just their limbs.
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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 11:04AM
#7
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Date Joined:
May 15, 2008
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In my expereince, after about 17th level, the Adventure Path starts to come unglued. Every meaningful encounter in the AP does indeed "threaten the PCs' goals," but has, since late Paragon for us, been a mechanical cakewalk for the party.
All I want to do is put some tangible risk back into fighting. As it is, there is very low risk in attacking first and asking questions later, as the party has yet to face a foe that can really hurt them, thanks to flawed damage values. With updated damage values, they'll be forced to really think about how to achieve those goals.
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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 11:20AM
#8
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In my expereince, after about 17th level, the Adventure Path starts to come unglued. Every meaningful encounter in the AP does indeed "threaten the PCs' goals," but has, since late Paragon for us, been a mechanical cakewalk for the party.
All I want to do is put some tangible risk back into fighting. As it is, there is very low risk in attacking first and asking questions later, as the party has yet to face a foe that can really hurt them, thanks to flawed damage values. With updated damage values, they'll be forced to really think about how to achieve those goals.
Death is always a way to threaten their goals because if they're pushing up daisies, they ain't succeeding in their goals. The problem is, as you've discovered, that's not much of a threat (not to mention death is the least interesting of all failures). I dare say even with you working tirelessly to improve the numbers in the monster stat blocks, you're not going to challenge them much at all. You're simply going to get them to expend more resources per encounter, increase the length of the combats, and further encourage optimization/failure mitigation. The arms race will begin anew.
The best way to challenge them in light of this is to look at each encounter, examine the goals/objectives in that encounter for both the PCs and the "bad guys," and then make the encounter focus on that rather than total annihilation of either side. Ideally, the PCs should be able to curb stomp everyone on the map and still lose or hightail it out of there with their immediate goal attained and still win.
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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 11:39AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2009
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I know your group is ahead of mine so there isn't much I can provide that'll be useful to you, but here's an example of a character I restatted for an upcoming encounter. (this is from Haven of the Bitter Glass) Spoiler:
Show
Pennel (P) Level 14 Elite Soldier
Medium natural humanoid, human XP 2000
Initiative +15 Senses Perception +17
HP 276; Bloodied 138
AC 30; Fortitude 25, Reflex 27, Will 26
Saving Throws +2
Speed 6
Action Points 1
TRAITS
Defender of Telicanthus – When Pennel attacks a target, that target is marked until the end of Pennel’s next turn. While marked by Pennel, enemies lose all resistance and immunity to psychic damage, and deal half damage to Telicanthus.
STANDARD
m Crystal Dagger (standard; at-will) ✦ Psychic, Weapon
+21 vs. AC; 3d6 + 12 damage.
r Crystal Strands (standard; at-will) ✦ Psychic, Weapon
Ranged 10; +19 vs. Reflex; 3d6 + 12 damage, and the target is pulled 3 squares.
M/R Crystal Bloom (standard; at-will) ✦ Psychic, Weapon
Pennel makes two basic attacks.
C Crystal Bloom (standard; recharge when bloodied) ✦ Psychic
Close Burst 3, +19 vs. Reflex. Hit: 3d8+12 damage and the target is immobilized, save ends. Miss: Half damage and the target is slowed until the end of Pennel’s next turn.
TRIGGERED
M/R Cut Off (immediate interrupt; usable when an enemy leaves a square adjacent to Pennel or moves into a square adjacent to Telecanthus, at-will)
Pennel makes a basic attack against the target. If the attack hits, the targets movement ends.
Alignment Evil Languages Common, Deep Speech
Skills Acrobatics +18, Insight +17, Stealth +18, Thievery +18
Str 10 (+7) Dex 15 (+9) Wis 17 (+10)
Con 19 (+11) Int 20 (+12) Cha 23 (+13)
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9 months ago ::
Aug 30, 2012 - 11:43AM
#10
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Date Joined:
May 15, 2008
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Unfortunately, this is the Scales of War Adventure Path, and I simply don't have the time or energy to completely overhaul the entire thing just to make more interesting consequences for a failed combat.
Every encounter's goal is to move the story forward; the ojectives for the PCs are "get past the bad guys" or "kill the bad guys" and the bad guys are there to stop the PCs. It's called an adventure path for a reason, and we're aware that it's railroading and my players are okay with it.
Your solution is great for a homebrew campaign; it simply doesn't apply here.
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