Legend4ry Lessons, part 2: Monster Math

One of the biggest critiques that has been pointed out by the Legend4ry D&D rule-set/house-rules/hack/whatever is that the monster math didn't add up. It was said it would essentially be a super deadly game of rocket tag. An example of this was a L8 Elite Owlbear who would utterly eviscerate any party it ran across due to having two high scoring hits each round. Awesome, but not necessarily what we want, right?

Or something like this...

So, I took it upon myself to delve into the math of this. I had some help from C. Steven Ross over at DMG 42 as well as by viewing some of The Hydra DM's posts. They are much better at this math thing than I am, and it shows!

The first thing I decided to do was look at the average hit points for a PC by level. As Legend4ry on covers the Heroic Tier of play, this was fairly easy. Before C. Steven Ross pointed an easy formula to discover average HP, I had done it by hand, essentially building the "Big Four" as I would but only figuring out their Constitution score based on class needs. Below is both the spreadsheet with my work and the simple formula supplied by Ross.

As you can see from the above, my math wasn't too far off, though the average PC HP does seem more akin to the Striker of the bunch. This may lead some credence to the claim that 4e was a game built for Strikers, but that is neither here nor there for this discussion.

Courtesy of Elfwood.com

Figuring out average monster damage by level for the Heroic Tier was easy enough, luckily most of the work had been already done for me. Below is a chart for average regular and brute monster damage for both At-Wills and Encounter powers. I had saved this a long time ago, so I'm not sure as to its source and for that I apologize.

It's pretty easy to just on the fly double the average damage output and compare it to the PC's average HP per level. As we can see from this, it's definitely do-able, albeit very deadly. Below is the average minion damage output, including brutes, as well as average non-brute damage for both single target and multiple target powers. 

Now, double minion damage does one thing here, it actually makes them a threat. That's one thing thus far in this research that I am quite pleased with. Minions run fast and quick and now they are a real threat? As both a player and a DM, yes please! For the average non-brute monster damage it's pretty similar to the chart above but illustrates the multi-target attacks. 

So from this we can see that just straight up doubling the damage doesn't work. I'm tempted to keep double damage rules in for the minions though, I really like them being an actual threat. What that means is that I could see full encounters designed with only minions and I like it! Granted, that's not for everyone. 

What can we do about the damage output here and make it deadlier? Someone suggested +75% damage and another suggested +50% damage. Both of these seem viable and I'm intrigued, but I'll have to look over it a bit more. Another suggestion, and this might be my favorite so far; was to keep the monster HP halved but just add 2 or so levels to the monster budget. Mobs still do the same damage, fall quicker, but you can afford bigger baddies or just more baddies this way. I quite like it and it's definitely working more in line with the 4e design concept.

So what now? It's a good question, and honestly I don't know. It's going to take a little more digging and research, but here is what we have before us as far as options go:

• 1/2 Monster HP, x2 Damage
• 1/2 Monster HP, +75% Damage
• 1/2 Monster HP, +50% Damage
• 1/2 Monster HP, +2 Levels to Encounter Budget
• x2 Minion Damage

I've learned a lot since I originally posted the Legend4ry D&D Basic Rules on Monday and I think it's showed. I am also very grateful for it. It can be hard to take criticism at times, constructive or not, but it is vital to the design process and to the vision I have in my head for Legend4ry. Thanks to everyone for their input, even if it was just to go and play OD&D or AD&D! :)

If you would still like to give the Legend4ry Basic Rules a looksie, you can either click the new-fangled link in the upper right corner of my blog or click here for a direct link. 

Also, be sure to check out Sersa V's Fourthcore Hub for a gathering of like-minded design and discussion sites for 4e. There are ton of great sites on there that I highly suggest checking out.

As always, until next time,

-blob

You can follow me on Twitter @Sorcerer_Blob or via the hash-tag #legend4ry

OH! And while this post was VERY crunch heavy (and perhaps boring to you non-math-heads like me) the next post will be much for akin to the Fourthcore fluff we love with the idea for a room entitled "The Room of the Immovable Golem."