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8 months ago ::
Oct 11, 2012 - 12:19AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2012
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Only out in the open where they can all attack you. In a hall way its always just something like 2 each round. In addition, if you show up and get zerg'd by 40 goblins with no warning, your play style is a lot different than any game I've ever played in, but that isn't really the topicwe're discussing either. A 'strong' encounter of that kind should end up in pc roflstomps in my opinion. And if you replaced half those goblins with an equally strong hero I think you'd find something similar happening
Anyway, I agree with the geometric 'issue' out in the open, in general. At the same time however, your burning hands spell is going to hit 5 goblins instead of just two and killing each outright. do this three times (which you can at 1st level even) and that's 15 goblins. So it takes 3 rounds with tons of attacks coming at you. I get that this would be really tough to survive. There are bound to be some 20s wiping out your little wizard, but he's pretty much your only hope at that moment.
Ultimately though I disagree fundamentally in many different ways which just scaling the xp up because of this. While 10xp may not be the optimal number for an ibby (goblin), I think a static value is going to be better, simpler and the way to go. The encounter rules tell you not to stack up on low level stuff or high level stuff as it will necessarily sorta break stuff. At low levels, the goblin really shouldn't be level 1 but level 1/2. And if you look at its xp value, that kinda makes sense. So stacking up on these would break normal encounter rules. So...
Encounter rules for ibbies would probably say things like every 10 goblins is accompanied by a goblin leader or some such. Making 40 goblin zergling rushes impossible in and of itself. 1 Leader = 8 goblins. So just throwing in two leaders makes that encounter look a lot better. Of course, leaders have +3 more to hit and do 3 more damage.
BTW love bushwhacker and sneaky stealthy ibbies!
Currently running a playtest, weekly, online D&D Next Session using a virtual table system called roll20.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 11, 2012 - 12:34AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2012
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Lastly, I really think the tough encounter for level 1 is probably just a bit too high in general. 6 orcs are likely to TPK in my opinion just as 40 gobbers would.
Currently running a playtest, weekly, online D&D Next Session using a virtual table system called roll20.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 11, 2012 - 9:16AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Feb 22, 2012
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I want to say the xp is about right. The problem is that the monsters are still too weak. If you look at the goblins stats, they probably are worth only about 10 xp. The xp needs to go up to make them realistic, but this requires them to become tougher to justify that increase in xp.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 11, 2012 - 10:09AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2012
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The best way would be to multiply additional monsters xp by half the total number of monsters used.
Number Xp value multiplier
of
Monsters
1 goblin 5xp 0.5
2 goblins 20xp 1.0
3 goblins 45xp 1.5
4 goblins 80xp 2.0
5 goblins 125xp 2.5
6 goblins 180xp 3.0
etc...etc...
Basically when you hit about 10 the cost of each monster is times five. 20 would by times 10. So 20 goblins would cost 2000xp as an encounter...
I think this is actually more broken (and definitely more complicated) than the rules really require or allow. Every situation would handle greater numbers differently anyway. If your heroes are in the open and can each get swarmed by handfuls of goblins vs your heroes encountering the goblings in a hallway where only a couple goblins can fight the pcs at a time. It is all entirely situational which is why I think a single number does it the most justice.
I'd prefer to use the xp budgeting rules as given, even if there are some 'breaking' points.
However, I'd also enjoy seeing some scaled up versions of different monsters. Maybe these need to have a different name, but maybe they really don't, I'm not sure. For example, can we define a zombie as having 10 hps per level with +2 to hit + 1 per 3 levels etc etc? do we need to simply define 10 different zombies at different levels?
I'm not sure. As a DM, I scale monsters all the time on the fly, so I have no issues with this. Keeping the xp chart as the encounter budget doesn't bother me in the least. If I want to throw 40 goblins at the party, I have no problem giving them the budgeted result in xp rather than some weird scaled up version just for sheer numbers. The numbers themselves are adding the multiplier.
In 3e, you might remember that some of a multiplier was built into the CR system.
If you were level 2 and encountered 8 Cr 2 creatures , it would count as Cr 8 (or something) which would be more than 8 times the xp if I remember correctly. But most dms just calculated 8 CR2s instead which essentially just means adding them up.
The problem is regardless of how they are coming at you they still have the same attrition rate. 26 attacks the first round followed by 24 attacks the second round followed by 22 attacks the third round followed by 20 attacks in the fourth round is still 32.2 hits and 4.6 crits. Short of not having a ranged attack standing in a hallway is not going to help very much because both groups will have penalties to hit and they will even out.
The difference between 2 goblins and 20 in a combat is geometrically difficulty. Even if you can take out 2 goblins per round you are still getting a bunch of attacks against you some of which will get lucky and hit or crit you.
Number Total Attacks Per Round
Of Attacks Round #
Goblins 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th
2 2 2
3 4 3 1
4 6 4 2
5 9 5 3 1
6 12 6 4 2
7 16 7 5 3 1
8 20 8 6 4 2
You should start getting the point. The difficulty is geometrically increased each time you add 1 monster to the mix. So the xp cost (not to be confused with the xp reward) should go up in a similar geometric way. Now maybe my initial numbers are not optimal, but the idea is good. Maybe just multiply it by the number of monsters in the group. Of course they would need to reverse the math on that.
Take a look in the test packet in the pdf spells. you send 20 goblins and my two mages drop them all taking no hits in one round with two castings of burning hands. You can't think in a vacume. Players have ways of dealing with groups of monsters besides hack and slash. Oh look there are a bunch of orgres comming twards the castle ... lets wait till they get to the gate and dump a large ammount of oil on them and set them on fire ... one torch later no more ogres.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 11, 2012 - 12:21PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2012
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Take a look in the test packet in the pdf spells. you send 20 goblins and my two mages drop them all taking no hits in one round with two castings of burning hands. You can't think in a vacume. Players have ways of dealing with groups of monsters besides hack and slash. Oh look there are a bunch of orgres comming twards the castle ... lets wait till they get to the gate and dump a large ammount of oil on them and set them on fire ... one torch later no more ogres.
I also echo'ed this above. While I feel like the ogre/oil/castle scenario is probably not really a true encounter worthy of an equal level of exp, the environment and team matters a LOT!. And while two mages probably won't kill 20 goblins in one round, they'd likely kill half of them depending on who acts first and what the gobbers are doing (if they aren't chopped down first). But this is what 1st level is like for a mage anyway. A single orc can walk up and slice the mage down just as easily.
What am I saying? I'm still down for keeping the xp static. 10 xp per goblin. Fine no problem. If 40 goblins seems silly to you, then don't build this as an encounter (I probably wouldn't). How does your group walk into 40 goblins w/ no other mobs/leadership. They've done something very very abnormal. Did they slaughter the goblin leadership already? Did the route the rest of the goblins into this 10xp goblin hoard in some way? Why aren't the goblins running already? I can't imagine the story that leads to this, and thus, not an encounter I'd build. Maybe they backed 40 goblins into a dead-end cave after killing the leadership and force the goblins to fight? At level 1, you'd probably just let them go. Which would give you 400 xp in my campaign anyway. You've handled the 'threat' by doing the right thing.
Currently running a playtest, weekly, online D&D Next Session using a virtual table system called roll20.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 11, 2012 - 2:08PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Dec 21, 2007
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The numbers don't add up very well, but that's partially a flaw that can't be overcome using their current method: you either have simple math, or you have more accurate math. Difficulty is NOT linear, but it has to be in order to make encounter building quick and easy. Sometimes they come up with a great solution that fixes all the problems: sometimes they don't. 40 kobolds for a level 1 party is a "don't." Ultimately, there is still a lot of finnesse in encounter building using this system. And they still have a ways to go with the math. At the same time, the monster numbers are pretty similar and I saw our party slice through the 2nd playtest like butter. So something had to be bumped up. Unfortunately they chose "total monsters," which was already high. The real issue is that trying to RUN 40 kobolds is basically impossible. It's not fun for anyone.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 11, 2012 - 6:13PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2012
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The real issue is that trying to RUN 40 kobolds is basically impossible. It's not fun for anyone.
Yeah, I'd agree with this as well. I think the system will get there through simple addition. If the issue is that you want to run 100 goblins with no superiors and figure out what the true challenge rating should be, then I get that. Maybe the encounter building can ad hoc some exp like one of the OP had suggested. However, I don't have that kind of desire whatsoever and think the natural thing to do, is not that, but rather to add in some bosses.
If there is a race that is going to run on true mobbing without any superior elements present, perhaps they can build that as a separate encounter listing altogether. However, I'm in favor of spicing it up with higher level leadership to fill out the xp instead.
Currently running a playtest, weekly, online D&D Next Session using a virtual table system called roll20.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 11, 2012 - 7:49PM
#18
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Only out in the open where they can all attack you. In a hall way its always just something like 2 each round. In addition, if you show up and get zerg'd by 40 goblins with no warning, your play style is a lot different than any game I've ever played in, but that isn't really the topicwe're discussing either. A 'strong' encounter of that kind should end up in pc roflstomps in my opinion. And if you replaced half those goblins with an equally strong hero I think you'd find something similar happening
Anyway, I agree with the geometric 'issue' out in the open, in general. At the same time however, your burning hands spell is going to hit 5 goblins instead of just two and killing each outright. do this three times (which you can at 1st level even) and that's 15 goblins. So it takes 3 rounds with tons of attacks coming at you. I get that this would be really tough to survive. There are bound to be some 20s wiping out your little wizard, but he's pretty much your only hope at that moment.
Ultimately though I disagree fundamentally in many different ways which just scaling the xp up because of this. While 10xp may not be the optimal number for an ibby (goblin), I think a static value is going to be better, simpler and the way to go. The encounter rules tell you not to stack up on low level stuff or high level stuff as it will necessarily sorta break stuff. At low levels, the goblin really shouldn't be level 1 but level 1/2. And if you look at its xp value, that kinda makes sense. So stacking up on these would break normal encounter rules. So...
Encounter rules for ibbies would probably say things like every 10 goblins is accompanied by a goblin leader or some such. Making 40 goblin zergling rushes impossible in and of itself. 1 Leader = 8 goblins. So just throwing in two leaders makes that encounter look a lot better. Of course, leaders have +3 more to hit and do 3 more damage.
BTW love bushwhacker and sneaky stealthy ibbies!
Nope, goblins have ranged attacks too which they can do with penalties for intervening creatures. So all of them that can see you get to attack. Likewise ranged attacks against the goblins have the same penalties so they are basically a wash. Everyone gets to attack everyone. In rare cases crowded hallways that have corners might cut off some attackers, but that could work both ways...
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8 months ago ::
Oct 13, 2012 - 7:45AM
#19
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One of my only player kills in 4e came from too many minions on the day the wizard was off studying scrolls. So, 4e, though it is very well balanced, doesn't fully balance this either. 4e does recommend you don't make an entire encounter our of minions, and that advice probably still holds. And, it also mentions that a few low level minions are under-represented as threat, and that advice likely still holds (though with bounded accuracy, it's likely not quite as true anymore).
As for this exact question -- 5e is supposed to be swingy, and I think we're seeing this. If the party goes first, the wizard starts with burning hands, takes out a few, the fighter kills 2, and team monster swarms the fighter and cleric, the battles going to be fairly even. If the monsters go first, swarm the rogue and wizard, and get a couple of lucky crits, the battle's going to fall into TPK territory pretty easily.
Of course, party composition matters a lot. 2 wizards, 1 fighter, 1 cleric is going to be night and day different from 4 rogues.
The part that bothers me is that this doesn't really leave a lot for the fighter and rogue to do, if things start going south. In 4e, if the battle went bad, you had improvisation, sure, but then you also had setting up your dailies, and maximizing their effectiveness and timing. And, trying to decide whether to use them or not. I recognize they weren't universally loved, but I wonder, if my party is jumped by 26 goblins, and I'm a fighter, what do I do to maximize my chance of survival. "hope to roll high" doesn't seem fun.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 13, 2012 - 1:45PM
#20
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Date Joined:
Feb 10, 2007
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The burning hands spell is a cone 15 feet long. Goblins take up a 5 foot space therefor the absolute most you can kill with one casting of the burning hands spell is six; one in the first five feet two in the second and three in the third. It's impossible for two casters to kill 20 goblins in one round.
Actually unless the casters are facing in two different directions or are fifteen feet apart their spells will overlap causing even fewer goblin deaths.
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