Community

Jan 24, 2013 -- 3:53PM, Lawolf wrote:

Umm...any humanoid with a 2h weapon.  You basically just said PCs can never fight humanoids who might use 2h weapons (like orcs, barbarian invaders, militia soldiers, etc) until the party reaches level 3+.

Also, the numbers in the bestiary right now are bunk. I'm not basing my math on them at all, but on what they should be.

Ideally light weapons would do d6, 1-handed d8, and 2 handed d10. Simple weapons would be reduced 1 step. Most monsters would tend to have between a 10-16 in their attack stat for +1 to +3 bonus damage on top of their weapon bonus.

This gives us somethign along these lines.
Level 0 monster such as a dire rat, a goblin or kobold. 1d6+0 to 1d6+2 damage.
Level 1 monster such as a human soldier or Orc. 1d8+1 to 1d10+2 damage.
   


Now you will probably argue that I am just inflating HP and Damage, but you would be wrong. I didn't touch the top end damage of a level 1 monster (like an Orc with a greataxe). In fact I reduced it because I reduced 2h weapon damage to d10. Also, that argument would show a complete lack of understanding of basic math. All my method is doing is allowing DMs to create more organic challenges for level 1 PCs (such as humanoid enemies with two handed weapons). My method also allows for much cleaner scaling of monsters and HP growth overall.

No, you aren't just inflating HP and damage.  You are inflating HP and damage, and also making Con a much weaker stat than it already is, even though you admit yourself you would rather take other stats over Con.

>(like an Orc with a greataxe)

Doesn't exist.  Despite what you might think, monsters are balanced based around the level on PC expected to face them.  You want realism?  Give the orcs 20 strength, a martial damage die, and have them carry throwing spears as well as greatswords.  A couple of them can kill even your inflated HP characters in a round.   D&D is a game first, not a reality simulation.  Sure, an Orc can hypothetically use a greataxe, just as a level 1 NPC mage could cast sleep, but the weapons and spells a player has access to at level 1 are not very fun to play against at that level.  Damage values are set to make combat fast, but if you give the monsters the same high damage weapons that the players use it just becomes a game of russian roulet where the first solid hit is a kill.

In D&D, a 14 str orc with a great axe isn't balanced to be a level 1 monster.

Now, in your game with fighters starting out with 25 hp, sure a 1d10+2 damage monster is okay.  The problem is you just made all the existing level 1 monsters irrelevant, 1d6 damage is a joke with PCs running around with 20+ hp.  So you manually tweak every little monsters and basically turn them all into level 2 monsters to compete with the PCs, who coincidentally have HP similiar to level 2 PCs... hmm.  I have to wonder, maybe you would just be better off starting your game at level 2, and leaving the system alone.  You can play with your greataxe weilding monsters and it's unlikly that anyone would get one shot, and you can have your more heroic game, all without messing up a working system.

Jan 24, 2013 -- 4:12PM, pauln6 wrote:

This isn't quite true.  What it does is open up options for more mixed encounters.  Sure a single kobold is no challenge but why would you want it to be?  Kobolds are damgerous in groups.  With more hp you can tailor your encounters to be more varied and interesting.  If you want a tough orc with a huge axe you can use them in the knowledge that your pcs can handle him.  If you want a quick and simple easy to kill guard, you can use youre low damage level 1 monster.  Options are good.

What do you mean not true?  What you describe works perfectly with a group of level 2 PCs.  Or it could hypothetically work with a group of level 1 PCs with massive bonus HP equal to Con score, but using level 2 PCs requires NO changes to the existing game, while using the level 1 hp=Con+roll system requires gutting the existing system and who knows what the results and backlash would be.

Here is the real issue with Con mod to HP per level - the game should not fall apart at the edges.

We can have a PC (elf wizard or rogue) with 10 con and a d6 HD who by level 20 has about 72.5 HP on average. If they have a 12 Con they have 92.5 HP on average. If they have 14 Con and toughness, 132.5.

At the same table we can have a hill dwarf fighter with 20 Con who by level 20 has about 300 HP (better of 2d12 HD for 9 average, +5 Con, +1 toughness = 15 per level average).

These may seem like edge cases but they will be more common than you think. I mean the stereotypical elf wizard is frail with high dex and the stereotypical dwarf is high str and con.

Monster math of the game just cannot support this variance where PC 1 has 72 HP, PC 2 has 92 HP, PC 3 has 132 HP, and PC 4 has 300. With my suggestion monster damage can scale at a clean +1.75 average damage per level (or about 1d6 every other level). With Con mod to HP per level, monster damage must scale at about 2x that rate and also leads to the very likely possibility of "poorly made" PCs outright dying to anything that remotely resembles a challenge to "well made" PCs.

Removing Con mod from HP per level gives us the HP variance without breaking the game. At level 20 at 4HP (or d6) per level + Con score the wizard will have around 90 HP and at 6HP (or d10) per level + Con score the fighter has 135 HP. The fighter has 50% more HP than the wizard, not 300% more. Note: I would change toughness and the dwarven racial feature to grant +1 stamina instead of more HP.

Now the Con Score to HP at level 1 is a whole other HP issue that has more to do with making PCs harder to 1 shot than with HP scaling. It has the added benefit of allowing for more diverse enemies at level 1 though. Your PCs won't have to worry about being 1 shot by a level 1 human barbarian with a greataxe for example (although they will still rightly fear such a warrior). DMs will not have to worry about why every human bandit the PCs come across only uses a shortsword and has a 10 strength.

Also remember that due to geometric scaling, being able to sustain a few attacks is a good thing.  Lets say you have a 4v4 fight where each round your party can drop 1 enemy:

Round 1 - party takes 4 attacks
Round 2 - party takes 3 more attacks (7 total)
Round 3 - party takes 2 more attacks (9 total)
Round 4 - party takes 1 more attack (10 total)

So if we assume monsters hit 50% of the time and the fighter can only take 4 hits before dropping, the fighter is likely going down on round 3 if ganged up upon and almost assuredly dead by round 4. Just because PCs can't be 1-shot doesn't mean that fights aren't deadly.

Lastly, remember my suggestion for Stamina (instead of HD healing):

You have 3 + Con mod maximum stamina points. During a short rest you can spend stamina to recover 25% of your max HP. Once per encounter you can spend a point of stamina on one of 3 effects:

Action Surge - Take an extra action
Heroic Effort - Reroll any d20 roll
Second Wind - Spend an action and recover 25% of your maximum HP

You can take an hour long rest to gain all the benefits of a short rest, and regain 1 point of stamina. An extended rest recovers all lost stamina. 

Stamina will be useful for any class and make constitution a useful attribute even if constitution no longer affects HP per level.