[4e] Houserule Suggestion

[JaxGaret]

It seems to be pretty widely agreed that a fair number of monsters have too many HP in 4e. Here's a simple fix: Cut the monsters' HP in half, and drop their monster level by 1. The encounter XP calculations work just fine using this method, and your battles should go by much more quickly.

[Goober4473]

That's what minions are for.

I haven't found that monsters have too many hit points at all. In fact, it's refreshing that monsters can actually take an action or two before being mowed down. Every monster is an interesting component to the fight, and every fight is a challenge, not just a tiny hit to your daily resources. It's not an expendature of 20-25% of your hit points and spells, but rather a much larger percentage of your encounter cababilities (hit points, action points, and encounter powers), and a smaller usage of daily capabilities (daily powers and healing surges).

You may be finding this because at the end of a fight, the party is beat up and mostly out of encounter powers. But that's normal. That's why they have healing surges, and only need 5 mintues to get their encounter powers back.

[JaxGaret]

That's what minions are for.

Minions effectively have no HP; what if you simply want monsters who don't have a ridiculous amount of HP? There can be a middle ground between zero and too many.

I haven't found that monsters have too many hit points at all. In fact, it's refreshing that monsters can actually take an action or two before being mowed down.

Most Elites and especially Solos take way more than an action or two to be killed. It takes a long time in some cases where you're grinding away at them with At-Wills round after round after round. In some cases it can be fun, but in others not so much.

You may be finding this because at the end of a fight, the party is beat up and mostly out of encounter powers. But that's normal. That's why they have healing surges, and only need 5 mintues to get their encounter powers back.

How is that relevant to my point? Combat will be just as deadly, it will simply take less time to complete.

[Yakk]

What do you base your arguments off of?

I have a reasonably detailed chunk of mathematics that worked on how to make Elites that where not "punching bags of HP". It did result in their HP being reduced by about 30%, but their Defense stats also went up, and their damage output gets tweaked.

I haven't done an analysis of solo monsters.

...

The basic problem with punching bags of HP is twofold.

First, it punishes players who dare attack an elite/solo while any other monsters are alive.

Second, it can quickly reach a point of ridiculousness, where any party capable of killing the creature is in little danger from the creature's attacks.

[JaxGaret]

What do you base your arguments off of?

I based it off of analysis of the Experience Point Rewards table on page 56 of the DMG: To make a Standard monster into an Elite monster, you apply a template. Its XP reward amount gets doubled when you do so. To make an Elite monster into a Solo monster, you apply a template, and then double its HP and increase its saving throw bonus from +2 to +5. Its XP reward amount gets doubled, and then increased an additional 25% on top of that. You can parse that out to see that doubling a monster's HP and increasing its saving throw increases its XP reward total by 25%. It follows that halving a monster's HP should decrease its XP reward total by a bit less than 20%, depending on how significant the saving throw bonus is.

By looking at the XP reward table on a level by level basis, we can see that a decrease in monster level by 1 varies from a reduction in XP reward of 14% to 20%, for an average of about 17%.

If we assume that the saving throw's effect on the XP reward is the same 3% difference between 20% and 17% (which may or may not be reasonable), it then follows that reducing a monster's HP by half will just about decrease its monster level by 1.

I have a reasonably detailed chunk of mathematics that worked on how to make Elites that where not "punching bags of HP". It did result in their HP being reduced by about 30%, but their Defense stats also went up, and their damage output gets tweaked.

Could you elaborate?

The basic problem with punching bags of HP is twofold.

First, it punishes players who dare attack an elite/solo while any other monsters are alive.

Second, it can quickly reach a point of ridiculousness, where any party capable of killing the creature is in little danger from the creature's attacks.

I couldn't agree more. That's why I started this thread.

[ghost_warlock]

Maybe this is a problem that can be solved by an approach from a different angle. Not sure if it'll help, but I had an idea for some houseruling to make the characters more versatile. Might be an easier/better fix than nerfing the monsters.

In my houserule, characters don't replace encounter/daily powers at 13th+, instead they simply add the new powers to their list of powers known like they did for the first 10 levels. This will increase the amount of bookkeeping players will have to do. Still, for players concerned about verisimilitude , forgetting powers never made any In-Character sense anyway. With this houserule, at 30th level, characters will know 7 encounter powers, 7 daily powers, and 5 utility powers (plus powers from paragon paths and epic destinies).

The idea behind this houserule is that, in some circumstances, the effect of a 15th-level power may be more helpful to the character (and the group) than the high-damage 25th-level power they would have replaced it with in a normal game.

However, characters still have a hard limit of how many of these powers can be used per encounter/day, based on a 'fatigue'-style principle. Play from 1st to 10th remains unchanged. After 11th, each character can use four encounter powers per encounter. After 12th, each character can use four daily powers per day. Characters will only be able to use the same power once per encounter (if an encounter power) or day (if a daily power). (None of these limits account for abilities that allow characters to re-use or regain used powers, such as Reliable powers and some Paragon/Epic abilities). In this way, at-wills should remain about as important as they are in the Core game.

Note that this houserule doesn't allow characters to use a particular, potentially game-breaking power (e.g., Blade Cascade) more often than they otherwise would; they just have more options to choose from when deciding which power to use. Hopefully, by the time characters amass a large number of powers, the player will have a solid understanding of the game and what each individual power does so choosing a power won't take much longer. (Using index cards with the power descriptions on them, as suggested elsewhere, would probably also speed things up if that's important.)

As an Optional, Additional houserule, characters could spend a daily power slot to use an additional encounter power if they wanted to for some reason (but not vice versa). For example, a 13rd-level fighter who has already ran out of encounter powers, but has yet to use all of her dailies, could sacrifice a daily power slot to use an encounter power intead. (I wouldn't expect it'd be too unbalacing if the character wants to sacrifice a use of a daily to re-use a particular encounter power she's already used.)

These houserules do not change the way multiclass power-swapping works, nor allow characters to learn more powers from a second class than they would be able to by Core. Also, these houserules do not change anything about utility powers.

[Grug]

I was playing the built in adventure last night, and the players got to the Skull Skull room. It seemed a bit odd that the Guardian Drakes had double the hp of the kobolds and when two are next to eachother, the power of friendship lets them do enough damage to drop the fighter in one round. Am I missing something?

[MammonAzrael]

I was playing the built in adventure last night, and the players got to the Skull Skull room. It seemed a bit odd that the Guardian Drakes had double the hp of the kobolds and when two are next to eachother, the power of friendship lets them do enough damage to drop the fighter in one round. Am I missing something?

Yes. The joy and gleeful cackle as two little dinosaur/drake pets horribly mutilate the defenders while the rest of the party is knocked into green goo by a hunk of rock on a rope. God that was fun.

On topic, it does seem like it could be a little on the mindless pounding side, but I haven't gotten to experience that first-hand yet. The only house rule I'm currently considering is allowing players who multiclass into other classes instead of a Paragon Path to gain that classes features when they would normally gain the PP features.

ghost_warlock, your house rule seems potentially dangerous with Retraining. Or did you cover that and I just missed it?

[The J Pizzel]

ghost_warlock, your house rule seems potentially dangerous with Retraining. Or did you cover that and I just missed it?

I was thinking the same thing. I really like that houserule though. I might use it. I think I'd give the player a choice though. At the beginning of campaign...you may either add new powers without having to swap and not get to retrain; or we can do it by the book and swap high for lows and do get to retrain. All in all, I kinda like the houserule though.

jP

[JaxGaret]

I have a reasonably detailed chunk of mathematics that worked on how to make Elites that where not "punching bags of HP". It did result in their HP being reduced by about 30%, but their Defense stats also went up, and their damage output gets tweaked.

You know what this is, pretty much? If you use my above proposed houserule, and then you raise the monster's level by 1 the way it tells you in the DMG - which increases its attacks and defenses by 1, and adds a level worth of HP - then you get an end result which is pretty similar to what you just stated.

Sounds good to me

Yes. The joy and gleeful cackle as two little dinosaur/drake pets horribly mutilate the defenders while the rest of the party is knocked into green goo by a hunk of rock on a rope. God that was fun.

Those guard drakes look pretty mean. Did you take a look at them in the MM? Vicious little dinos.

On topic, it does seem like it could be a little on the mindless pounding side, but I haven't gotten to experience that first-hand yet. The only house rule I'm currently considering is allowing players who multiclass into other classes instead of a Paragon Path to gain that classes features when they would normally gain the PP features.

That's an interesting idea, I'll have to take a closer look at that when I get home.

ghost_warlock, your house rule seems potentially dangerous with Retraining. Or did you cover that and I just missed it?

Dangerous and a little more complicated than I'd like it to be.

[Yakk]

I based it off of analysis of the Experience Point Rewards table on page 56 of the DMG: To make a Standard monster into an Elite monster, you apply a template. Its XP reward amount gets doubled when you do so. To make an Elite monster into a Solo monster, you apply a template, and then double its HP and increase its saving throw bonus from +2 to +5. Its XP reward amount gets doubled, and then increased an additional 25% on top of that. You can parse that out to see that doubling a monster's HP and increasing its saving throw increases its XP reward total by 25%. It follows that halving a monster's HP should decrease its XP reward total by a bit less than 20%, depending on how significant the saving throw bonus is.

Elites also get a defense bonus, and an increase in damage output, that is significant.

Your changes also mess up some of the game timing -- the idea, in 4e, is that you have to use your at-wills reasonably often, and you cannot just spam encounter powers. Your massive reduction in monster HP will mean that parties can often beat a creature using only encounter powers (as they have less HP to beat through).

Could you elaborate?

Ayep. Here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83415

You (or I) could attempt a similar mathematical attack on creatures, in order to make fights shorter while placing the same amount of damage-threat on characters.

I couldn't agree more. That's why I started this thread.

[JaxGaret]

Elites also get a defense bonus, and an increase in damage output, that is significant.

That's only if you're not using the template method. If you are using the template method, you simply add a template to a Standard monster and it becomes an Elite monster, with no further modification necessary. Likewise, if you add a template to an Elite monster, all you need do further is raise the Saving Throw Bonus by +3 (instead of +2) to a total of +5, and double its HP, and you have a Solo monster.

Note that most templates already include defense bonuses and offensive features.

Your changes also mess up some of the game timing -- the idea, in 4e, is that you have to use your at-wills reasonably often, and you cannot just spam encounter powers. Your massive reduction in monster HP will mean that parties can often beat a creature using only encounter powers (as they have less HP to beat through).

Applying both my houserule and raising the monster's level back up by 1 (as per the DMG pg 174) for a total monster level adjustment of zero is just about equivalent to your method, and has the same benefit of not forcing the DM to recalculate XP rewards.

If there is a monster that you feel doesn't need to undergo this houserule transformation, by all means, don't apply it. It's there for the monsters that are more HP sinks than anything else.

Ayep. Here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83415

Very cool. I'll read it in depth asap.

You (or I) could attempt a similar mathematical attack on creatures, in order to make fights shorter while placing the same amount of damage-threat on characters.

Indeed.

[Yakk]

That's only if you're not using the template method. If you are using the template method, you simply add a template to a Standard monster and it becomes an Elite monster, with no further modification necessary. Likewise, if you add a template to an Elite monster, all you need do further is raise the Saving Throw Bonus by +3 (instead of +2) to a total of +5, and double its HP, and you have a Solo monster.

Note that most templates already include defense bonuses and offensive features.

Yes -- the "extra offensive power" comes from the extra abilities those templates contain. (Admittedly some, like bodyguard, have no extra offense -- but that's OK as well: some monsters being "really hard to kill" as a feature is acceptable. Every elite being "really hard to kill" isn't! (to me))

Lich: aura that does 5 damage to any enemy near it, and gets a free per-encounter power on a recharge 56.

Battle lord: +1d6 to damage to every ally (with condition), crits on 19/20, and a heal power.

Bodyguard: very little (but not no) extra damage. Lots of extra defense!

Death Knight: +5 damage per attack, aura that boosts undead nearby offensively, burst damage and undead heal...

Death Master: 4 free minions (sick!)

Damagogue: Lots of defenses. Boosts defenses of allies.

Demonic Acolyte: Defenses. +2 damage per tier.

Devastator: Extra AOE control (better offense), free recharge of per-encounter powers

See the pattern?

And that is on top of the +1 action point. :)

...

I'm claiming that the problem with Elites is that their offense is generally not boosted enough, while their defense is boosted too much.

Your change might lower defense too much, and not grant that much offense.

[JaxGaret]

some monsters being "really hard to kill" as a feature is acceptable. Every elite being "really hard to kill" isn't! (to me))

I agree completely. Some fights should take a while, but it's when every fight is a grind that it can be a problem.

I'm claiming that the problem with Elites is that their offense is generally not boosted enough, while their defense is boosted too much.

I would say the same thing, and doubly so for Solos (literally).

Your change might lower defense too much, and not grant that much offense.

It might, but I prefer to err on the greater side of this issue for the moment. I can always reign it back in if it feels like too much.

Also, did you miss the fact that your method and mine are pretty much the same in the end?

[ArmorArmadillo]

The basic problem with punching bags of HP is twofold.

First, it punishes players who dare attack an elite/solo while any other monsters are alive.

Second, it can quickly reach a point of ridiculousness, where any party capable of killing the creature is in little danger from the creature's attacks.

The second part with I agree can be a problem; but I see the first as a good thing.

Elites and Solos are meant to be tough lieutenants and final bosses, on a cinematic level it works best for players to be punching through lesser baddies on their way to them.

[JaxGaret]

The second part with I agree can be a problem; but I see the first as a good thing.

Elites and Solos are meant to be tough lieutenants and final bosses, on a cinematic level it works best for players to be punching through lesser baddies on their way to them.

Agreed, but I think that Yakk and I also agree that the balance is a bit off; it's simply too much harder to kill the next higher "tier" (Minion/Standard/Elite/Solo) of monsters than the previous tier.

[ArmorArmadillo]

Agreed, but I think that Yakk and I also agree that the balance is a bit off; it's simply too much harder to kill the next higher "tier" (Minion/Standard/Elite/Solo) of monsters than the previous tier.

Again I think that's intentional...but I'll need more personal playtesting experience before I can really judge the divide.

[JaxGaret]

Again I think that's intentional...but I'll need more personal playtesting experience before I can really judge the divide.

If you apply it pretty much across the board (to Standards, Elites, and Solos all) then the ratios won't change.

Like Yakk said, it might be a bit too drastic of a cut, but the maths add up. Could use some tweaking, of course

[ghost_warlock]

ghost_warlock, your house rule seems potentially dangerous with Retraining. Or did you cover that and I just missed it?

Complex I get, but how could this be so "dangerous?" When you retrain, you simply swap a power for one of the same level or lower, of the same type, from the same class.

In my system, you don't swap low-level powers for high-level powers at the various levels you'd normally do so, you simply add a new power known. Reiterating, you can't ever, in my system, swap a lower-level power for a higher-level one.

You can still only use 4 encounters per encounter and 4 dailies per day at high level.

A 30th level character will likely know (* = paragon path power):
Encounter powers: one each of 1st, 3rd, 7th, 11th*, 13th, 17th, 23rd, & 27th.
Daily powers: one each of 1st, 5th, 9th, 15th, 19th, 20th*, 25th, & 29th.
Likely, the character will often use the 13th, 17th, 23rd, & 27th encounters and the 19th, 20th*, 25th, & 29th dailies (but they still have access to the low-levels if the character prefers a specific effect).

In the normal system a character would likely know/use:
Encounter powers: one each of 11th*, 17th, 23rd, & 27th.
Daily powers: one each of 19th, 20th*, 25th, & 29th.

I guess the difference between the 11th-level paragon encounter power and the 13th-level class encounter power break this homebrew.

[Goober4473]

So I think I have two problems with the original topic of this thread.

The first is, half hit points is half the danger, unless the monster does all its damage and poses all of its threat up front. Take for example a monster that does 10 damage per round on average, and live for 6 rounds, for a total of 60 damage. Cutting its hit points in half means it lasts for 3 rounds, for a total of 30 damage. This is half the effectiveness of a monster, not one level less. A level 2 monster with half health is not 80% as effective as a level 2 with full health. Especially when you take into account maneuvering, flanking, etc. The monster is going to generally be part of a team of monsters, and when you cut down half the team, the fight is more than 50% complete, because the enemy now deals less damage, and has less options tactically.

The second problem is the idea that combat is too long, and characters don't have enough options. If the fight has vaguely interesting terrain, and a full array of monsters, the fight should be interesting if it lasts even 10 rounds. Even first level characters generally have a few encounter powers from race, class features, and their 1 normal encounter power, plus creative use of at-will powers, tactical maneuvering, etc.

I always hated in 3.x when I threw a group of monster at the party, and they all died in a couple rounds. In 4th Edition, a level 1 non-minion goblin actually has a chance to do something interesting, and a group of them can actually be a fun encounter, inctead of a couple rounds of the monsters dealing tons of damage and then dying, or even worse, the monsters doing nothing and then dying.

If a fight lasts 5-10 rounds, there's enough time for it to be good, and memorable, instead of blowing the crap out of your enemies and moving on.

[ghost_warlock]

I always hated in 3.x when I threw a group of monster at the party, and they all died in a couple rounds. In 4th Edition, a level 1 non-minion goblin actually has a chance to do something interesting, and a group of them can actually be a fun encounter, inctead of a couple rounds of the monsters dealing tons of damage and then dying, or even worse, the monsters doing nothing and then dying.

If a fight lasts 5-10 rounds, there's enough time for it to be good, and memorable, instead of blowing the crap out of your enemies and moving on.

I disagree that a fight with a single, level 1 goblin should last more than 2-3 rounds or be particularly memorable. Some fights exist for no other reason than to use up dailies and/or healing surges so the characters don't face the BBEG at 100%. The goblin should have just enough hp to deal enough damage to justify the use of a healing surge (~10 damage to a single combatant at 1st level) and then promptly die/bugger off.

Fighting the BBEG when you know that you're at 50% is much more climatic than fighting the same foe at full strength.

[JaxGaret]

The first is, half hit points is half the danger

Incorrect. Two monsters at half hit points each are stronger combined than the same monster with normal HP by itself. Why? Because they are dealing twice the damage per round before one of them drops and pose twice the number of targets/flanking partners, that's why. Also, economy of actions matters: it's always better to have more actions than fewer actions, all other factors being equal.

Just try it. You'll see that it works pretty well. If you reduced their HP by 25% instead of half, you will have monsters who are quite a bit overpowered.

[Yakk]

The second part with I agree can be a problem; but I see the first as a good thing.

Elites and Solos are meant to be tough lieutenants and final bosses, on a cinematic level it works best for players to be punching through lesser baddies on their way to them.

The ratio is way off, at least in my play testing.

They are snooze fests, because they are merely punching bags of HP.

....

So what is the right thing to do to make half-HP monsters balanced?

Currently, 5 monsters doing uniform damage per round do a total of:
1+2+3+4+5 = 15 (kill time) * (damage per round)

damage. If we want to halve creature HP, the (kill time) goes down by about half.

Simple model:
new kill time = old kill time/2
damage per round unchanged.

n(n+1)/2 * (kill time / 2) * (damage per round) = 15 * kill time * damage per round

n(n+1)/2 /2 = 15
n(n+1)/2 = 30
n(n+1) = 60
n^2 + n - 60 = 0

-1 +/- sqrt(1+240)
------------------
2

n = 7.26

...

Now, some monsters have per-encounter abilities they can shove up front. On the other hand, monsters often need actions to deploy their threat effectively (move into position to flank, etc), during which PCs often beat some death into the swarm.

If we assume that each monster gets one per-encounter that makes them twice as effective, on average, on a given round, then 5 monsters do 20 (at-will per-round damage) * (kill time).

For the half-HP monsters, we get:
(n(n+1)/2+n) /2 = 15
n(n+1)/2 +n = 30
n(n+1) + 2n = 60
n^2+3n-60 = 0
-3 +/- sqrt(249)
--------------- == n
2

n =~ 6.4

So we now have a target n to replace 5 full-HP monsters -- between 6.4 and 7.3.

Divide by 5, we get: x1.28 to 1.46
Invert, we get: 68% to 78% of current monster XP value.

Now, things get worse. Players have per-encounter powers that do extra damage at the start of a fight. This means the first X HP are easier than the second X HP, as per-encounter (or maybe daily powers) start to peter out.

This causes problems. The number of per-round and per-day powers a party has at level X varies with level. At low levels, characters have half an action point, 1 or 2 per-encounter attack powers, 1 daily power, and at-will attacks.

At high levels, the character has 4 or 5 per-encounter, 4 per-day, half an action point, and at-wills. Plus utility powers that boost damage output, etc.

Clearly, more of the Damage budget ends up being paid for with per-encounter and per-day powers as you gain levels.

[Person_Man]

For a new system, I think its important to run through a long campaign just using the rules as written. Once everyone has a handle on it, then you can start introducing house rules. Every edition of D&D has required the DM to rebalanced encounters - though I usually just choose weaker or stronger enemies, rather then nerfing or buffing their base statistics. Perhaps that would be a better solution - once everyone has played for some time, ignore CR (or whatever they're calling it now) and use your own best judgment.

But seriously, give everyone a chance to get used to the rules. It may be that your players have all just made weak choices, not that the monsters are too strong.

[Yakk]

Person_Man, the problems I'm describing with elite is a relative value against normals.

In essence, (damage per round) / (rounds to kill) of Elites is way way way off normal creatures (way lower). And, (damage per round) / (difficulty of disabling) Elites is also off (way higher).

Regardless of player choices, it is pretty damn obvious that killing Normals first is optimal, and stun-locking (or disabling) Elites first is optimal. There is some conflict here, as stun-lock powers cause damage (which is wastful if you are killing Normals first), but...

My transformation I'm describing on Normal mobs, in comparison, is about reducing creature HP while keeping the "total damage and daily powers/resources the players use" to be about the same. It is true that optimized characters might be able to kill creatures using per-encounter powers better, resulting in the "at-will spiral" at the end being less of an issue. But we are talking about a binary order of magnitude problem.

(If fully optimized characters are 2x as powerful as naively optimized characters, then 4e has broken, much like 3e was broken. Note I'm talking about character optimization, not tactical optimization. And by naively optimized, I mean "don't be an idiot and have low dex as a rogue, or have a high int, or...". Maybe something will pop out tactically (like rogue stealth-cheese.))

As it stands, it currently seems extremely optimal to swarm a single monster, kill it (while tossing control powers at other creatures to keep them off of your back), then move on to the next one. With 5 characters beating on one normal monster target, you kill it in ~1 round using encounter powers, and ~2 rounds with at-will powers.

Players who don't follow that tactic will have a worse problem (maybe that is why OP's PCs find monsters live so long?)

[JaxGaret]

*maths*

we get: 68% to 78% of current monster XP value.

Average that again to get 73% of norm, which is a fair bit less than I had figured (83% of norm). Overkill (hitting a single monster for more damage than you need to bring it to zero HP is exacerbated the more monsters you fight), flanking opportunities, and overall economy of actions make up for much of that difference, I imagine. It's pretty close, all said.

More insightful stuff!

I appreciate your contributions here, Yakk, I am much obliged.