hit point lessons from mm3 on a business card

September 7th, 2010

It seems to me that 4e monster Hit Points don’t scale properly.

From examining the MM3 on a business card, we see that every level, monsters get +1 to hit, defenses, and damage. At level 1, they have about 32 HP, and they get 8 HP per level.

(From what I’ve seen, PCs tend to have comparable to-hit, defenses, and at-will damage. Of course, over the course of a fight, PCs are better than monsters, due to encounter and daily powers, feats, and other complications. In the simplest cases, though, PCs and monsters can stand in for each other.)

So what’s the problem? As far as I can see, the monster math above suggests that at higher levels, fights will drag on longer as monsters gain proportionally more HP. And indeed, in practice, I see this happening. I recently ran a level 30 adventure, and the fights took forever. Here’s why:

Take a level 1 monster. He has 32 HP. He (and his opponents) do an average of 9 points of damage per hit. That’s great! That means it will take about 4 hits to kill a monster. A highly damaging hit (a crit or encounter power) might bloody the monster in one hit. That feels exactly right to me. In fact, according to this excerpt from Player’s Strategy Guide, 4 hits per monster is the design intention: “Assume that your heroes can kill a typical monster with four successful attacks.”

At level 1, we are exactly on target. However, monsters gain 8 HP per level! That means, in order to keep up, the PCs (who should be able to kill a monster in 4 hits) need to increase their average damage by 2, every level. In order to stay on par, all level-30 PCs (leaders and controllers as well as strikers) would need to be doing about 70 damage per hit. There’s no way they can do that! The result? Monster HP outstrips PC damage.
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something is wrong with the wizard

September 6th, 2010

Since it’s Labor Day, I will hold off on part 7 of my Mazes and Monsters retro-clone in favor of a bizarre D&D speculation that, with feats of sophist acrobatics that will astound you, I will turn into a celebration of the US federal holiday, and the brave men and women who make up our national workforce.

I work at a software company. The other day, a QA guy told me, “Something is wrong with the wizard.” Somehow, for a moment, I was transported 1000 years back and maybe 2 or so universes sideways. His words filled me with dark portent (even darker portent than his normal words, which are pretty dark, because he’s QA).

Let me try to describe to you the terrifying scenario that – for a fraction of a second – lived inside my head:

Picture yourself a peasant who lives in a peaceful valley; it’s peaceful because the Good Wizard protects it from the evil threats of the outside world. In the immortal words of John Michael Osbourne:
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The No Win Scenario!

September 4th, 2010

I ran a very fun encounter recently that had a lot of elements of a no win scenario. Only 3 of my 6 players had shown up, and though I scaled down the encounter’s EL for 3 players, they were missing both the cleric and the paladin, the only really good sources of healing they had available to them. To make matters worse, the head guy had a nasty immobilization ray that he kept using on the monk and rogue, and the only other enemy had a reach of two, reducing them to using mediocre ranged attack, while being continually pounded each round.

Things were looking dire pretty early on, with the monk bloodied and the rogue on the verge of unconsciousness. However, I had provided the PCs with a solution that the wizard eagerly jumped on: a skill challenge to free a powerful beast the villain had in enchanted chains. Once free, the beast would attack the villain, giving the PCs a chance to free prisoners in the area and escape. I liked the skill challenge for a couple reasons:

  1. It did a good job of creating the tension of one group trying to buy time in battle so another person can accomplish an important goal, which is a welcome change of pace from most D&D battles where the goal is simply to mash the enemy into a paste.
  2. Each success gave the PCs another potential benefit that could help turn the tide of the battle in their favor.

The skill challenge worked as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

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and now a puzzle challenge!

September 3rd, 2010

This morning I described a king’s tomb, with a narrow hole at the top, under which is a seal that paralyzes all who step on it.

So how would you, a lone thief, rob the tomb? The room is a dome, with the only entrance a hole in the ceiling, 30 feet up. The seal is directly beneath the hole, and occupies a 3×3 square. Treasures are scattered around the sides of the dome. All you have is a weapon and an Adventurer’s Kit.

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graverobbing over the Glyph

September 3rd, 2010

African Civilizations by Graham Connah

African Civilizations by Graham Connah

Let’s rob a king’s grave!

Some West African kings were buried in a manmade hill. First the king and his treasures, along with some unlucky servants, were interred in a wooden dome. Then tons of earth was piled on the dome. Finally the new hill was covered with clay and fire-hardened. This was a difficult tomb to rob – although a narrow vertical chimney was left. (Why? For the soul to escape, as in Greek tombs?)

This chimney could make a good tomb/dungeon entrance. It’s wide enough for one PC to squeeze down; then there’s, say, a 30-foot drop to the floor.

What’s to protect such a tomb against robbers? It’s easy to climb down to the floor on a rope. Let’s say that in the center of the tomb, right under the shaft, is a rune-covered seal; anyone standing on it is paralyzed and takes ongoing damage (no save!) until they’re somehow moved onto a safe square.

I’d play it like this: PC 1 says “I climb down the rope.” The DM doesn’t say that PC 1 is paralyzed; he says, “OK, we’ll get back to you” and asks the other PCs what they are doing. If they yell down into the tomb, they get no answer. Based on how long the PCs spend waiting and talking before they take action, the paralyzed PC might take one, two, or three rounds of ongoing damage. (A mean DM would secretly time the PCs’ discussions and dithering and deal damage every 6 seconds of realtime, but try as I might, I just can’t play D&D like a World-Class Jerkwad.)
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how to be classy

September 2nd, 2010

Be a wine snob!

Wine snobbery, along with an upper-class accent and a superciliously raised eyebrow, is one of the great, easy markers of the upper class. If the PCs hobnob with nobles, then they must drink wine. Invent a superior wine for the extra-elite to drink: it won’t take long before the PCs will know when they’re getting the best.

When giving PCs wine, let them make a History check. If they succeed, they know the wine’s quality, and the player may talk about its “oakiness”, “untertones of astral currant” and “tanens” for one full minute before anyone is allowed to hit them.

Wine snobbery, and overpriced vintages, have been around forever. A good Tokay was quite expensive in the medieval period, and Louis XV called it the “Wine of Kings, King of Wines”. Falernian is mentioned in a lot of Roman authors. On a wall in a Pompeii bar it says: “For one coin you can drink wine. For two you can drink the best. For four you can drink Falernian.”

In my campaign, I’ve invented a few beverages. The Talasay is the most sought-after: a bottle of the Talasay ’82 in a treasure horde might be worth more than the rest of the treasure. Its quality is only exceeded by the emerald wine of the fey lords, after drinking which, it is said, all other wines taste like ash. On the other side of the spectrum, there’s Dogsbreath, good enough only for dwarves to drink.

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Essentials Red Box final thoughts

September 1st, 2010

That’s it! We’ve blogged everything we could blog about the D&D Essentials starter set. Blog of Holding will now stop spamming people with hourly updates and return to a once-a-weekday schedule.

On the whole, I think the new Red Box is a very good intro to 4e D&D. Although it’s mostly useless to me, it’s one of my favorite 4e products so far. I often feel slightly embarrassed when introducing someone to 4e: you don’t realize just how complicated it is until you’re explaining it to someone. I feel that the new Red Box could teach the game to a bunch of short-attention-span but reasonably smart junior high kids.

Hmm, new people playing the hobby is a good thing! But it also means lots of junior high kids talking smack on message boards! MIXED FEELINGS!

The red box is also theoretically a great way to get your start DMing. I’ve got a player in my current D&D game who is going to give DMing a try with the adventure in the red box, while we all play Essentials characters.

I’m super excited because I’ll have a chance to play D&D instead of running it all the time. I hope she’s looking forward to DMing in a slightly simpler but still fun and engaging environment!

I hope she’s looking forward to DMing a PROBLEM PC.

So, at the end of this liveblogging experiment, what does everyone think: should we do another intensive review when we get our copies of Heroes of the Fallen Lands? or is there such a thing as posting too much?

More Red Box thoughts…

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Fighter At-Wills

September 1st, 2010

The fighter at-will stances in the Red Box also aren’t super new or super interesting, but are nonetheless reasonably solid!

  • Poised Assault: Your basic +1 to hit. This will likely be more useful at higher levels or against super-high AC opponents.
  • Battle Fury: +2 damage. Seems like at low levels, the fighter will just turn this on and wade into combat. Not super crazy and interesting but a fun boost, and it will be fun to mess around with optimizing basic attacks!

That’s all I have to say about the fighter!

The end of the book reveals that if you want to continue levleing your fighter, you should get Heroes of the Fallen Lands and use the Slayer build. The Slayer is a striker, and the way it gets its bonus striker damage, according to the preview article on Slayers, is by adding its Strength and Dex modifiers to all basic attacks. However, according to the Red Box fighter’s damage calculation made while killing goblin minions, damage is calculated by adding Strength and Con. Once again, I’m not sure whether the Red Box or the preview article is to be trusted, or whether a Slayer has a choice of Dex- or Con-based builds.

More Red Box thoughts…

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tokens

September 1st, 2010

Besides the books, power cards, and character sheets, the D&D Essentials comes with a one-page ad for other Essentials products, a card with a redemption code for another solo adventure (yay!) a two sided dungeon/wilderness map, and tokens for PCs and all the monsters in the DM book.

Each monster type comes with four tokens, identical except that they’re numbered 1 to 4. I’m seriously considering using tokens from now on, instead of minis, and it’s solely because they’re numbered. We always have a problem matching identical monster minis with their HPs. “Which hobgoblin did you hit?” “The one who is to the left of the hobgoblin who is next to the fighter.” We’ve tried putting numbered scraps of paper under the minis, but that’s cumbersome. We’ve tried replacing the minis with dice, with the pip number representing the monster number, but dice get rolled, and you do NOT want to roll some hobgoblins.

Each of the PC tokens can be flipped over to show a red-ringed Bloodied version of the PC. If you flip over the monster tokens, they just turn into different monsters. It would be nice if there were Bloodied versions of the monsters too, but if a goblin turns into a swarm of rats when bloodied, that will add an interesting new dimension to combat.

More Red Box thoughts…

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Rogue At-Wills

September 1st, 2010

With the Red Box, there are two new rogue at-will attacks and three exciting at-will utilities. I’m not entirely clear on how one gets the utilities since they don’t have a level requirement. In the red box, you get one automatically and get one of the other ones based on the general path you go down when making choices, so it’s unclear if non essentials builds will be able to grab them. Which is a shame for them maybe, because they are pretty neat!

Attacks first:

  • Bump and Run:This at-will is a lot of fun to use and seems reasonably powerful. Aside from normal damage, it allows you to push 1 on a hit. But it also has an effect (happens on a hit or a miss!) that allows you to move half your speed, making it a tempting option even on a miss for those halfling artful dodger rogues who are nigh impossible to hit with an opportunity attack. A good at-will that delivers always useful mobility!
  • Defensive Strike: This at-will doesn’t really excite me, but with an effect that gives a +1 power bonus to all defenses I can’t criticize it too much. Still, I can’t see using this too much over, say, piercing strike, which usually nets a +2-3 bonus to hit since it targets reflex. Then again, there aren’t a ton of rogue powers I would routinely choose over piercing strike anyway!

Utilities:

  • Nimble Positioning: Both the rogue builds from the Red Box get this power, which is great, because it’s awesome. A very simple power, this allows you to shift 2 if you are adjacent to an enemy to another square adjacent to an enemy. Perfect for setting up flanks if your ally is anywhere adjacent to the enemy.
  • Athletic Advance: This allows you to move up to Strength +1 squares, ignore difficult terrain, and gain a +5 bonus to athletics checks as part of the move. In the red box, sadly, this generally means moving 1-2 squares because most rogue builds aren’t going to have super high strength, making this of dubious quality. At higher levels with a Str/Dex rogue, I could see this being another handy at-will for a rogue’s arsenal and also one of this things players will always be trying to somehow sneak into a skill challenge! “I activate Athletic Advance again to make ANOTHER Athletics check with a +5 bonus!”
  • Acrobatic Maneuver: Similar to Athletic Advance, this allows the rogue to move Strength +1 squares, gain a +4 bonus to all defenses for the move, and enter enemy spaces for the move. Entering enemy spaces is fun, and since this is basically free for those rogues who choose this build, this is definitely a power I can see coming up from time to time and being fun to use. On the other hand, exposing yourself to an OA sucks even with a +4 bonus and tends not to be something players look forward to, so that will limit its use to when it’s really needed or can help with a crucial flank, I suspect.

More Red Box thoughts…

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