Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Aeglos 01-15-06, 12:23 PM	In the 3rd ed. MM, various sized Monstrous Centipedes, for example, have the following Damage: Medium - "1d6-1" (roll d6 and subtract 1?) Small - "1d4-3" (fancy way of writing Damage always = 1 ??) Tiny - "1d3-5" ( :confused: ) What does it all mean? I've checked through the MM and couldn't find any explanation ... maybe I missed it somewhere *shrug*.
Athanatos 01-15-06, 01:30 PM	You find this on a lot of monsters. Basically, you always do a minimum of one damage on a hit (DR notwithstanding). The reason that the actual equation is listed instead of "always 1" is because of conditions that could change it. What if the evil priest of the Vermin God casts a dark blessing that gives his Small Monstrous Centipedes +2 damage? They're going to do 1d4-1 now, not "always 3". Hope I helped.
dok 01-15-06, 01:39 PM	The damage a creature deals has two components: the base damage and the modifiers. Base damage is determined by the weapon. A long sword deals 1d8, while the Bite of a medium-sized Monstrous Centapede does 1d6. The most common damage modifier is a creature's Strength Modifier. Creatures with high strength scores add damage, while creatures with low strength scores subtract damage. A creature with an 8 strength has a -1 strength modifier. The listing for damages is the net of those two components. A creature with an 8 strength (-1) weilding a longsword (1d8) would have a listed damage of "1d8-1", which means you roll an 8-sided die, and subtract 1 from the result. Note, though, that penalties to damage can never reduce the damage to less than 1 point. A Small Monstrous Centipede has a Strength Score of 5. That gives it a Strength modifier of -3. A small creature with a bite attack has a base damage die of 1d4. So the Small Centipede's final damage would be 1d4-3. "Wait, if it's 1d4-3, why not just say it deals 1 point of damage?" Because it won't always deal 1 point of damage. Imagine if a cleric casts a prayer spell in the area and that spell benefits the centipede. Prayer grants a +1 bonus to damage rolls, so under the effects of the spell, the Centipede's bite now deals 1d4-2, which means it deals 1 or 2 points of damage per bite, depending on the roll. If we had just written "deals 1 point of damage", then the prayer spell would let it deal 2 damage with every bite. Let's try another scenario. Instead of prayer, let's have the cleric cast Bull's Strength on the Centipede instead. Now its strength score goes from 5 (-3 modifier) to 9 (-1 modifier). It's damage is now 1d4-1. Now can you see the reason for listing the damage as "base damage die plus or minus modifiers"? When a magical effect changes the modifiers, we can quickly & easily calculate the correct result. One more example just in case. Both the Small and Tiny centipedes normally only deal 1 point of damage with their bite attacks. (1d4-3, and 1d3-5, respectively) Let's say both are affected by bull's strength. We know from above that the Small Centipede's damage is now 1d4-1. The Tiny centipede has a base strength of 1. (-5 modifier) Bull's Strength raises that from 1 to 5. (-3 modifier) So the Tiny centipede, under bull's strength, now has an attack that deals 1d3-3 damage. Notice how the bull's strength spell made a significant difference for the Small Centipede (going from 1 damage to 1-3 damage) but made no difference for the Tiny Centipde. (still only does 1 damage per bite) I hope this clears some things up, but if you have more questions, ask.
Aeglos 01-15-06, 01:48 PM	Ok, that all makes sense. We just started playing recently and haven't really had many situations with modifiers like that. Thanks to both of you for helping to clear that up! :D