Monsters Multiple Damage Dice

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

Uncletroll

Dec 20, 2014 7:31:03

I've noticed that many of the monsters in the Monster Manual have higher damage dice for their wepons than the values stated in the PHB.
I'm not talking about Versitile wepons being used two-handed, but some monsters actualy have double (or more) damage dice for their melee wepons.
The first examples I found of this were the Planetar and Solar Angels, who use Greatswords have 4d6+STR when the Great sword is normally 2d5+STR. The Bugbear and Bugbear Chief also have double damage dice indicated and the Cyclops has triple.

 

I want to know If there is an explination for this that I'm overlooking. Because I haven't found anything in any of the rules that gives these multiplyers to PC's so why do the monsters have them?

#2

Illithidbix

Dec 20, 2014 8:20:38

I presume they get them because they're bigger than characters and so are their weapons.

 

On a vague note, monsters in 5E tends to have the stats they need to fill their role, with less emphasis in trying to systematically justify why.

#3

Novacat

Dec 20, 2014 12:15:22

Uncletroll wrote:
#4

AaronOfBarbaria

Dec 20, 2014 17:27:33

A few months back now, Mike Mearls actually outright said that each size category of a monster above medium gives them another multiple of their weapon's damage dice.

 

That holds true for the majority of monsters (dragons don't follow, but that is likely intentional considering they still lay out fantastically high damage every round).

#5

Cooperjera

Dec 22, 2014 19:00:56

In addition to what AaronOfBarbaria said the bugbear has a feature named Brute.  This feature adds one extra die of damage to the weapon when used.  This feature is found on a couple other creatures in the monster manual.

 

When modifying monsters to increase their CR value (i.e. you may want a CR 2 Scout for the encounter) I found it difficult to increase the damage output to meet the recomended range in the DMG.  You may find that increased number of attacks was used to increase the damage of the creature in the monster manual as the creature CR increases.