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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 3:07PM
#1
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In 4e, minions don't roll for their damage. They just do a number. That's convenient when there's a bunch of puny dudes. The variability comes not in what they roll, but in how many of them hit you.
In Next, monster damage is expressed as things like "11 (2d8 + 2) damage". I've been rolling the dice, of course, because that's how D&D works. You roll the dice for monster damage.
What would happen if we didn't, though? Has anybody been running sessions just using the flat number? Is that what I'm supposed to be doing? It is the thing not in parens, after all. Obviously it'd speed things up at the cost of (I assume) making monsters more predictable. I don't really want to create situations where it's like, "It doesn't matter if it hits me. It does nine damage", but the speedup is tempting. (Although Next combats are already fast.) Has anybody experimented with this? (Or has everyone but me been doing it this way?)
Dwarves invented beer so they could toast to their axes. Dwarves invented axes to kill people and take their beer.
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'"
- Gary Gygax
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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 3:09PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Jun 27, 2004
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I haven't personally, but I believe 13th Age may have switched to static monster damage at some point. And another game I enjoy, OldSchoolHack, has player-characters with only like 5 hit points, enemies with between 1 and 10 (and I guess more, sometimes), and attacks that generally do 1 or 2 damage (with some capable of getting all the way up to 4 or 5 with a lot of talents stacked together).
Feedback Disclaimer
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Yes, I am expressing my opinions (even complaints - le gasp!) about the current iteration of the play-test that we actually have in front of us.
No, I'm not going to wait for you to tell me when it's okay to start expressing my concerns (unless you are WotC).
(And no, my comments on this forum are not of the same tone or quality as my actual survey feedback.)
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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 3:10PM
#3
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The number outside the parentheses is the average. On average, you should be getting a number close to that when you roll for damage. So really, other than the damage being more consistent with each hit, there really shouldn't be an real change.
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so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin."
NPC: "Really?"
Fighter: "Yes."
NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?"
Fighter: "I do."
NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?"
Fighter: "What?"
NPC: "I don't know what it means either."
Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do."
NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics."
Fighter: "These what?"
NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
D20 Modern Toon PC Race.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 3:17PM
#4
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2012
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What would happen if we didn't, though? Has anybody been running sessions just using the flat number? Is that what I'm supposed to be doing? It is the thing not in parens, after all.
I think what you're supposed to be testing is what it's like to have the option of taking flat damage or rolling. Since that sort of thing is really personal preference, though, I don't see how it could hurt to leave the flat damage testing to people who like flat damage and leaving the roll damage testing to people who like rolling.
If there's a serious issue with either method (which there shouldn't be), then trust the other people to find it.
The metagame is not the game.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 3:22PM
#5
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I get that in the aggregate it's the same amount of damage and that it shouldn't be anything of a balance concern. I'm curious if people have found that using flat damage makes the monsters less exciting or too predictable or shifts things to too much of a metagamey level when players have too clear an idea of how much damage something will do if it hits. Also, some googling suggests that 13th Age does have flat damage for monsters, or at least it did at some point. This article actually discusses flat damage, and it seems pretty on board with it. (Although you'd assume it would be, or they wouldn't have gone with flat damage.)
Dwarves invented beer so they could toast to their axes. Dwarves invented axes to kill people and take their beer.
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'"
- Gary Gygax
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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 3:51PM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2009
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I have used both damage roll and used static damage for monsters. Static damage is faster, more stable and predictable, while damage roll takes slightly longer to resolve (especially with multiple monsters) and his random thus more swingy and unpredictable.
Same for monsters Hit Points. Its really a matter of preferances. But i think its great to have both options in the statblocks.
Yan
Montréal, Canada
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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 4:19PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jan 19, 2010
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As bounded accuracy is designed to make running larger encounters of lower-level enemies feasible from a math perspective, I find the option for static damage to encourage this possibility further--When I have to deal with a dozen plus weak creatures with decent chance to hit, static damage can allow me to cruise through their turns and maintain good speeds.
It's a small thing, but there is good value in it me thinks.
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Endorsed by the C.C.A.A. Booty Patrol.
"If all the classes can compete on equal footing in a combat situation then it becomes less about "Which is the best" and more about "Which conveys the character I want to play"." - Areleth
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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 4:26PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Dec 27, 2011
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I used the flat numbers when I was running a session and we really needed to wrap up. It worked pretty well; the fights didn't last long enough for the players to really notice that I wasn't rolling, let alone start predicting monster damage in metagame.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 4:33PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Oct 17, 2007
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Also, some googling suggests that 13th Age does have flat damage for monsters, or at least it did at some point. This article actually discusses flat damage, and it seems pretty on board with it. (Although you'd assume it would be, or they wouldn't have gone with flat damage.)
Yes, 13th Age uses static damage for monsters. It was changed during playtest because of monsters damage being too swingy (and it was: everyone in the game hits hard and crits are x2).
So I had a go at this in our 4E campaign too and I actually liked it. Also it allows me to do x2 crits there, which is good for drama.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 4:34PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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Back when the monsters had bad accuracy.... I used the flat damage and faked rolling damage when I rolled the d20 for the first hit and every other hit afterward. But they rarely hit. 
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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