Character & Monster Scaling & HP - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Character & Monster Scaling & HP

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
Steely_Dan
Mar 04, 2012 4:16:56 I have removed 1/2 level from Character's and Monster's Attacks, Defences and Skills, I find it really helps with the scaling problem, characters can fight a wider range of monsters at any given level.

I have also reduced Monster HP, so a Skirmisher for example, would get 8 + Con + [level x 4), helps a lot with grind.

In place of +X items, I give all characters an inherent +1 bonus to Attacks and Defences per 5 levels (1-5th level +1, 2-10th level +2 etc).

Has anyone else tried something similar?
#2
AbdulAlhazred
Mar 04, 2012 9:59:12 Which scaling problem do you mean? I'd note too that monsters actually have a +1/level and PCs are expected to gain bonuses that amount to that from feats, stat bonus, enhancement, etc. So to do this properly in 4e you basically need to get rid of anything (or nearly anything) that is a static bonus to-hit on the PC side. The other alternative being to leave monsters with a 1/2 level bonus and just remove it from PCs, which in theory should just cut to-hit bonus growth in half (obviously the same would be done with defenses). Skills and other bonuses would also need the same treatment in order to keep all the numbers properly related to each other (though skill use vs defenses only comes up once in a while and you could just special case those to be fixed DCs as the newer monster stat blocks generally do).

There are certain specific peculiarities with this system. For instance if you eliminate ALL changes in to-hit bonus then a 30th level PC is effectively no better at making attacks or skill checks than a 1st level PC. This can create weird situations when high level characters interact with lower level ones, but you could discount this as a corner case that again can be dealt with by using static DCs in specific situations (those DCs will have to be adjusted downward though if something is revisited at a higher level, which can be a bit of an issue for some people). Of course if you retain half of the bonus progression then this isn't an issue, high level PCs are just less incredibly better at stuff than low level ones, which is perfectly fine and could even be dealt with in other ways if you wanted.

Here's the thing though, you will probably have to mess with the hit point progression in order to make this work. With NO bonus growth you'll need to consider the required increased damage to achieve a given power curve. For example if a level 1 PC is equal to a goblin then they would have (roughly) the same hit points, defenses, and to-hit. How many of the same goblins are needed to threaten say a 10th level PC? The best rule of thumb is 3 hit kills are the target for 4e. So lets say 5 goblins will be a threat to a 10th level PC. If a level 1 PC has 30 hit points and a goblin does say 10 damage then 5 goblins will do 50 damage and you'd need 150 hit points on a 10th level PC. If the number is 3 goblins then 90 hit points is OK. Of course 3 level 1 goblins threatening a level 10 PC is a LOT shallower curve than 4e has now. 90 hit points for a 10th level fighter is pretty close to what you see now in 4e, so you're going to end up with considerably less durable PCs vs weaker monsters in general. This may actually cause a 'reverse sweetspot' where instead of needing to use a narrow band of monsters to keep them from getting too tough and too weak you actually can't use weaker monsters because they're so much more effective than their XP cost suggests. Once you hit this point there's no longer any one given XP value for a specific monster which works to set the level of challenge, instead you'd need a complicated formula or table to create an XP budget where, oddly enough, lower level monsters XP value would actually increase vs higher level PCs.

This also cuts the other way. You'll find that the current monster HP growth curve is too shallow and higher level monsters will trivially easily succumb to focus fire. Of course the opposite will happen too, one hit from a higher level monster will just outright kill a PC because the only way they'll have to be tough is huge damage output. Battles become setups where attacks are highly lethal and you have a sort of rocket tag. Again, you'd have to adjust both damage output and hit points to create the curve you want to go along with the to-hit curve.

A setup where you just cut out HALF the to-hit bonus (half-level for PCs and half of the monster 1/level bonus) will produce less odd results. In that case You may be able to get away without tweaking hit points, though fights against higher and lower level enemies will still come out somewhat different. I suspect you'll find though you will still have to adjust monster damage output upwards somewhat and you'll still end up with a somewhat swingier system.

Anyway, the upshot is all numbers are interrelated. Once you go down the path of changing some, you have to change others. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but of course it gets less and less convenient when your monsters and PCs numbers are all reworked. While I think the 4e curve may not be ideal IMHO it is really TME to mess with it, lol. I suggest creating highly dynamic encounters with lots of strategies available for achieving victory that aren't so much related to hit points or provide ways to do high damage to enemies with clever play, or just aren't based on 'kill everyone' as the primary goal.
#3
Steely_Dan
Mar 04, 2012 10:48:58
The other alternative being to leave monsters with a 1/2 level bonus and just remove it from PCs, which in theory should just cut to-hit bonus growth in half (obviously the same would be done with defenses). Skills and other bonuses would also need the same treatment in order to keep all the numbers properly related to each other (though skill use vs defenses only comes up once in a while and you could just special case those to be fixed DCs as the newer monster stat blocks generally do).

Yes, so a 16th level character does not have +8 to all attacks, defences and skills, and a 16th level monster would have its attacks, defences and skills reduced by 8 (stops number bloat, if +11 does the same job as +19, why not).

Sorry, I forgot to mention that instead of +X items, I give all chararcters +1 to Attacks and Defences per 5 levels (1-5th level +1, 6-10th level +2 etc). So a character's attacks and defences go up by Ability Score increases and per 5 levels (I'd like a slight flattening of the scaling in 4th Ed, this works very well for us).

It makes fighting monsters you fought 7 levels ago not a total wipe.

For Skills, you just reduce the DCs accordingly.
#4
complete4th
Mar 04, 2012 20:17:43 Can't say that I've messed with the math in this particular way. When I want my players to fight monsters they fought seven levels ago, I re-cast them as minions and throw in a dozen or so extra.

Kudos on the elegant math though!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Steely_Dan Mar 04, 2012 4:16:56	I have removed 1/2 level from Character's and Monster's Attacks, Defences and Skills, I find it really helps with the scaling problem, characters can fight a wider range of monsters at any given level. I have also reduced Monster HP, so a Skirmisher for example, would get 8 + Con + [level x 4), helps a lot with grind. In place of +X items, I give all characters an inherent +1 bonus to Attacks and Defences per 5 levels (1-5th level +1, 2-10th level +2 etc). Has anyone else tried something similar?
#2 AbdulAlhazred Mar 04, 2012 9:59:12	Which scaling problem do you mean? I'd note too that monsters actually have a +1/level and PCs are expected to gain bonuses that amount to that from feats, stat bonus, enhancement, etc. So to do this properly in 4e you basically need to get rid of anything (or nearly anything) that is a static bonus to-hit on the PC side. The other alternative being to leave monsters with a 1/2 level bonus and just remove it from PCs, which in theory should just cut to-hit bonus growth in half (obviously the same would be done with defenses). Skills and other bonuses would also need the same treatment in order to keep all the numbers properly related to each other (though skill use vs defenses only comes up once in a while and you could just special case those to be fixed DCs as the newer monster stat blocks generally do). There are certain specific peculiarities with this system. For instance if you eliminate ALL changes in to-hit bonus then a 30th level PC is effectively no better at making attacks or skill checks than a 1st level PC. This can create weird situations when high level characters interact with lower level ones, but you could discount this as a corner case that again can be dealt with by using static DCs in specific situations (those DCs will have to be adjusted downward though if something is revisited at a higher level, which can be a bit of an issue for some people). Of course if you retain half of the bonus progression then this isn't an issue, high level PCs are just less incredibly better at stuff than low level ones, which is perfectly fine and could even be dealt with in other ways if you wanted. Here's the thing though, you will probably have to mess with the hit point progression in order to make this work. With NO bonus growth you'll need to consider the required increased damage to achieve a given power curve. For example if a level 1 PC is equal to a goblin then they would have (roughly) the same hit points, defenses, and to-hit. How many of the same goblins are needed to threaten say a 10th level PC? The best rule of thumb is 3 hit kills are the target for 4e. So lets say 5 goblins will be a threat to a 10th level PC. If a level 1 PC has 30 hit points and a goblin does say 10 damage then 5 goblins will do 50 damage and you'd need 150 hit points on a 10th level PC. If the number is 3 goblins then 90 hit points is OK. Of course 3 level 1 goblins threatening a level 10 PC is a LOT shallower curve than 4e has now. 90 hit points for a 10th level fighter is pretty close to what you see now in 4e, so you're going to end up with considerably less durable PCs vs weaker monsters in general. This may actually cause a 'reverse sweetspot' where instead of needing to use a narrow band of monsters to keep them from getting too tough and too weak you actually can't use weaker monsters because they're so much more effective than their XP cost suggests. Once you hit this point there's no longer any one given XP value for a specific monster which works to set the level of challenge, instead you'd need a complicated formula or table to create an XP budget where, oddly enough, lower level monsters XP value would actually increase vs higher level PCs. This also cuts the other way. You'll find that the current monster HP growth curve is too shallow and higher level monsters will trivially easily succumb to focus fire. Of course the opposite will happen too, one hit from a higher level monster will just outright kill a PC because the only way they'll have to be tough is huge damage output. Battles become setups where attacks are highly lethal and you have a sort of rocket tag. Again, you'd have to adjust both damage output and hit points to create the curve you want to go along with the to-hit curve. A setup where you just cut out HALF the to-hit bonus (half-level for PCs and half of the monster 1/level bonus) will produce less odd results. In that case You may be able to get away without tweaking hit points, though fights against higher and lower level enemies will still come out somewhat different. I suspect you'll find though you will still have to adjust monster damage output upwards somewhat and you'll still end up with a somewhat swingier system. Anyway, the upshot is all numbers are interrelated. Once you go down the path of changing some, you have to change others. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but of course it gets less and less convenient when your monsters and PCs numbers are all reworked. While I think the 4e curve may not be ideal IMHO it is really TME to mess with it, lol. I suggest creating highly dynamic encounters with lots of strategies available for achieving victory that aren't so much related to hit points or provide ways to do high damage to enemies with clever play, or just aren't based on 'kill everyone' as the primary goal.
#3 Steely_Dan Mar 04, 2012 10:48:58	The other alternative being to leave monsters with a 1/2 level bonus and just remove it from PCs, which in theory should just cut to-hit bonus growth in half (obviously the same would be done with defenses). Skills and other bonuses would also need the same treatment in order to keep all the numbers properly related to each other (though skill use vs defenses only comes up once in a while and you could just special case those to be fixed DCs as the newer monster stat blocks generally do). Yes, so a 16th level character does not have +8 to all attacks, defences and skills, and a 16th level monster would have its attacks, defences and skills reduced by 8 (stops number bloat, if +11 does the same job as +19, why not). Sorry, I forgot to mention that instead of +X items, I give all chararcters +1 to Attacks and Defences per 5 levels (1-5th level +1, 6-10th level +2 etc). So a character's attacks and defences go up by Ability Score increases and per 5 levels (I'd like a slight flattening of the scaling in 4th Ed, this works very well for us). It makes fighting monsters you fought 7 levels ago not a total wipe. For Skills, you just reduce the DCs accordingly.
#4 complete4th Mar 04, 2012 20:17:43	Can't say that I've messed with the math in this particular way. When I want my players to fight monsters they fought seven levels ago, I re-cast them as minions and throw in a dozen or so extra. Kudos on the elegant math though!