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[D&D 5E] Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

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  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    I hope that you understand that the chart I am talking about clearly demonstrates that the game expects players to be getting an extra +3 from somewhere by epic levels, in a game where magic item bonuses go up to...+3.

    The actual monster numbers in that chart don't support your assertion. When I said there is 4 left missing I was assuming a +2 from magic. I'm left with the conclusion that higher level PCs are supposed to be missing more attacks than lower level adventurers.

    Not your chart, the one in the DMG. (Which incidentally doesn't say monster AC should scale past 19 ever, even though it clearly does when you look at the average AC of actual printed monsters)

    To be clear, that chart was the monsters presented in the MM. I believe those monsters are going to be the ones that are actually used in the vast majority of play and are useful in the discussion to draw a contrast between "Game as it is played" and "Game as it was designed to be played."

    I strongly suspect magic items as part of progression are part of the first. Not sure about the second because even with magic items that to hit gap doesn't disappear.

    I know. The chart that I am referencing from the DMG guidance on how to build a monster, which lists the intended average monster statistics by CR.

    That they frequently don't line up with the monsters they themselves then printed is interesting (for example, the 'average' monster AC is supposed to stop at 19, even for CR 30 monsters - but it pretty obviously doesn't, as evidenced by your chart, and you can find a lot of the poorly-CRed 'killer' monsters by looking for variation from the listed average), but if we're talking about the way the monster math is intended to function, on average, that seems like the most reasonable source.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Except 5e is far looser in execution than that

    That table doesn't take into account that you can mess with the numbers to screw with acuracy. A cr 6 monster doesn't necessarily have that attack bonus, could be higher, could be lower, depends on the damage it is doing and how defensive it is.

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Except 5e is far looser in execution than that

    That table doesn't take into account that you can mess with the numbers to screw with acuracy. A cr 6 monster doesn't necessarily have that attack bonus, could be higher, could be lower, depends on the damage it is doing and how defensive it is.

    Yes, that's why it's a listing of intended average stats.

    The rest of the page includes instructions on how to modify those if you want - including the fact that if you modify them by more than about a point in any direction, it changes the CR.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Like going back to my nimblewright (with haste running)
    Nimblewright

    Medium Construct
    AC: 17 (+7 dex)
    Hit Points: 83 (10d8+30)
    Speed: 40 ft

    Abilities: Str 19, Dex 24, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 17, Cha 19

    Saves: dex +9
    Skills: Athletics +6, Acrobatics +9
    Damage Resistances: bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren't adamantine
    Damage Immunities: force, necrotic, poison
    Condition Immunities: blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, stunned, sleep, disease
    Damage Vulnerabilities: cold, fire
    Senses: blindsight 60 ft. (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 13
    Languages: understands the languages of its creator(We'll get into that), and aquan, but can't speak
    CR: 11ish

    Innate Spellcasting:The nimblewrights spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 14). The nimblewright can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
    At Will: disguise self, enhance ability (cats grace, self only), feather fall (self only), haste (self only)

    Magic Resistance:The nimblewright has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

    Spring Attack: the nimblewright does not provoke opportunity attacks from those it has attacked this round

    Augmented Critical: the nimblewright's rapier attacks crit on a 19-20

    Actions:
    Multiattack: the nimblewright makes two rapier attacks

    Rapier: melee weapon attack, +9 to hit, reach 5 feet, one target, hit 14(2d6+7) piercing damage. On a critical hit the target must make a DC 12 Dexterity Saving throw or be knocked prone

    So that's going to be

    a cr 9 on the defensive side
    With the offensive side ballparked at 12 (i don't currently have the time to do the average damage math for this taking into account the augmented critical and trip abilities so I ballparked it at just above 50 damage per round)

    That puts it at cr 11ish despite the fact that it has a +2 proficiency bonus, a +9 to hit, and an ac of 19 (normal 17 plus the 2 from haste).

    Sleep on
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Sleep wrote: »
    And yet there is no guarantee of magical items, let alone magical armor

    Like, I know this gets trotted out as an argument a lot, but, seriously?

    Can we face facts here?

    We're playing D&D.

    The default assumption is that you're going to be running around with a longsword +1 and chainmail +2 at some point. Because you're playing D&D.

    Yes, you can run a game in which magic items don't exist, but that's not standard D&D.

    Elvenshae on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    And yet there is no guarantee of magical items, let alone magical armor

    Like, I know this gets trotted out as an argument a lot, but, seriously?

    Can we face facts here?

    We're playing D&D.

    The default assumption is that you're going to be running around with a longsword +1 and chainmail +2 at some point. Because you're playing D&D.

    Yes, you can run a game in which magic items don't exist, but that's not standard D&D.

    Pretty sure my last campaign ended without everyone having a magic weapon no problem.

    Sleep on
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    I'm not sure what litigating the concept of an 'average' is supposed to achieve in this conversation.

    You said monsters don't get a 2-point boost in expected accuracy around level 6.

    I pointed out that the monster stats by CR chart in the DMG shows that they get exactly that.

    You're now arguing that you don't have to use the expected values. (Remember, Calvinball! These rules don't count because you don't have to use them!)

    That's true, I guess, although deviating from them by 2 or more points explicitly changes the CR calculation, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the truth value of any of the original claims. Monsters get a 2-point bump in expected accuracy from CR 4-6. Deviating from expected value just means you've deviated from the expected value, it doesn't change what the expected value is.

    For someone who was real hung up on the idea of goalposts being moved because I made a joke about magic item costs and quoted the wrong item rarity, you sure are carrying those things long way away.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    And yet there is no guarantee of magical items, let alone magical armor

    Like, I know this gets trotted out as an argument a lot, but, seriously?

    Can we face facts here?

    We're playing D&D.

    The default assumption is that you're going to be running around with a longsword +1 and chainmail +2 at some point. Because you're playing D&D.

    Yes, you can run a game in which magic items don't exist, but that's not standard D&D.

    Eh, it is definitely a fucking thing for some DMs though. Like I've seen it from a bunch of different folks at different times.

    I'm sorta just neutral on it except I think the system needs to be clear if it needs though items around and let you know what should change if they are/aren't present as expected.

    Ya know, actual game design stuff.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    I'm not sure what litigating the concept of an 'average' is supposed to achieve in this conversation.

    You said monsters don't get a 2-point boost in expected accuracy around level 6.

    I pointed out that the monster stats by CR chart in the DMG shows that they get exactly that.

    You're now arguing that you don't have to use the expected values. (Remember, Calvinball! These rules don't count because you don't have to use them!)

    That's true, I guess, although deviating from them by 2 or more points explicitly changes the CR calculation, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the truth value of any of the original claims. Monsters get a 2-point bump in expected accuracy from CR 4-6. Deviating from expected value just means you've deviated from the expected value, it doesn't change what the expected value is.

    For someone who was real hung up on the idea of goalposts being moved because I made a joke about magic item costs and quoted the wrong item rarity, you sure are carrying those things long way away.

    No I'm saying you are using the chart wrong. They give a starting point yes, but aren't actually or necessarily indicative of all ac's and accuracies you will see at that challenge rating.

    Cr 6 doesn't absolutely mean ac 15, that's not how the system works there's no specific linear growth of AC by challenge rating because you can mess with the ac to hit point ratio to get the real final cr.

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    I'm not sure what litigating the concept of an 'average' is supposed to achieve in this conversation.

    You said monsters don't get a 2-point boost in expected accuracy around level 6.

    I pointed out that the monster stats by CR chart in the DMG shows that they get exactly that.

    You're now arguing that you don't have to use the expected values. (Remember, Calvinball! These rules don't count because you don't have to use them!)

    That's true, I guess, although deviating from them by 2 or more points explicitly changes the CR calculation, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the truth value of any of the original claims. Monsters get a 2-point bump in expected accuracy from CR 4-6. Deviating from expected value just means you've deviated from the expected value, it doesn't change what the expected value is.

    For someone who was real hung up on the idea of goalposts being moved because I made a joke about magic item costs and quoted the wrong item rarity, you sure are carrying those things long way away.

    No I'm saying you are using the chart wrong. They give a starting point yes, but aren't actually or necessarily indicative of all ac's and accuracies you will see at that challenge rating.

    Cr 6 doesn't absolutely mean ac 15, that's not how the system works there's no specific linear growth of AC by challenge rating because you can mess with the ac to hit point ratio to get the real final cr.

    And I'm saying you're using the concept of 'average' and 'expected' wrong.

    There is an average expected AC by CR, which increases as CR rises. Likewise for attack bonuses, spell save dcs, and so on. Some monsters will fall above the average, and some will fall below, because that's what an average is, but that doesn't change the fact that it is the average expected value, and that average expected value has a linear increase as CR increases.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    More to the point when developing encounters cr doesn't describe what you'll be facing accuracy wise at what level.

    Cr is just a part of further calculation used to determine encounter compositions. I can throw a cr 11 at a party of 6 level 5s, and that's still within the bounds of an on level fight. Which totally wangs your whole expected climb in ac position because that cr 11 has a +10 to hit and an 18 ac, and you can definitely face it, and win, at level 5.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Encounter building doesnt actually function the way you are saying it does.

    Adventurer level 7 doesn't necessarily indicate the monsters you will be facing, or what their statistics will be.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Encounter building doesnt actually function the way you are saying it does.

    Adventurer level 7 doesn't necessarily indicate the monsters you will be facing, or what their statistics will be.

    I mean, it certainly does imply the levels of monsters you'll be fighting. You could technically have a level ten party fighting CR 4 monsters but you'd need to include a LOT of them, and more likely than not you'll have a few encounters with 1-3 monsters of a comparable CR to the party level.

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Sorry, I'm having trouble keeping track of what we're talking about.

    First it was 'There's no scaling AC/attack bonuses in 5e' and I demonstrated that there are

    Then it was 'Well monsters don't get an attack increase at the levels players get a corresponding AC increase", and I demonstrated that they do, for monsters of similar CR to their level

    Then it become 'Well you don't have to use the average expected stats for a monster of a given CR' and I pointed out that that was irrelevant

    And now your assertion is that players don't have to fight things of similar CR to level? Again, that's true, but...so? That wasn't the question.

    Monsters scale, just like players do. They very obviously scale at a rate that assumes CR=level (players get +1 attack (and in some cases AC) at level 4, monsters get +1 AC and attack at CR 4. Players get another +1 to attacks at level 5, CR 5 monsters get another +1 average AC. The next time players get a +1 to attacks is when they bump their primary to 20 at level 8, and the next time monsters get another +1 to AC is...CR 8. Player saving throw bonuses and monster save DCs match the same way, and so on). You can fight higher or lower-CR things for a more or less difficult fight, or by increasing either the number of players or the number of monsters to even the challenge back out. None of that changes the way the math scales, or what the scaling math demonstrates about the underlying assumptions of the system. And it certainly doesn't change the fact that the math does scale.

    Abbalah on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Sleep on
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    @Denada

    :snap: :snap: :snap:

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Monsters don't necessarily scale ac and to hit along side players

    Sleep on
  • RendRend Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Yes but monster level correlates with the strength of their stats

    On average, as monster level goes up, their ac and attack bonus goes up too

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Yes but monster level correlates with the strength of their stats

    On average, as monster level goes up, their ac and attack bonus goes up too

    Not necessarily, could just be a glut of hit points or hefty damage on inconsistent hits

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Yes but monster level correlates with the strength of their stats

    On average, as monster level goes up, their ac and attack bonus goes up too

    Not necessarily, could just be a glut of hit points or hefty damage on inconsistent hits

    I didn't say it necessarily went up, I said on average that it does. That those correlate with each other. That means that most monsters of a given level will have roughly a given range of attack bonus and ac, and that rough range increases with level.

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Yes but monster level correlates with the strength of their stats

    On average, as monster level goes up, their ac and attack bonus goes up too

    Not necessarily, could just be a glut of hit points or hefty damage on inconsistent hits

    I didn't say it necessarily went up, I said on average that it does. That those correlate with each other. That means that most monsters of a given level will have roughly a given range of attack bonus and ac, and that rough range increases with level.

    And the average of that range will increase at a rate that corresponds with the rate at which the equivalent player bonuses increase with level

    because that's how the system was designed to work.

    I don't understand how the notion of 'monsters increase in strength at about the same rate that players do, so that the numbers on both sides get larger but the actual difficulty curve stays relatively flat throughout' is in any kind of contention

    not only is it mathematically demonstrated by the monster building guidance and existing monster statblocks, but it's like...the fundamental premise of every RPG since the dawn of time.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Yes but monster level correlates with the strength of their stats

    On average, as monster level goes up, their ac and attack bonus goes up too

    Not necessarily, could just be a glut of hit points or hefty damage on inconsistent hits

    I didn't say it necessarily went up, I said on average that it does. That those correlate with each other. That means that most monsters of a given level will have roughly a given range of attack bonus and ac, and that rough range increases with level.

    And again, that's not necessarily true.

    That cr 11 monster in talking about with the 18 ac and +10 to hit is a horned devil. That falls so far off the cr 11 line as to make the linear reading of that table useless.

    Yes I'll admit higher level monsters are harder to kill than lower level monsters. That's fairly straightforward.

    The thing in contention is that their ac and accuracy absolutely scales in a predictable linear format that the players are expected to keep pace with.

    That is not true because final cr is dependent on multiple factors, and the ac and attack bonus of a cr 19 creature is not necessarily predictable.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    The thing in contention is that their ac and accuracy absolutely scales in a predictable linear format that the players are expected to keep pace with.

    That is not true because final cr is dependent on multiple factors, and the ac and attack bonus of a cr 19 creature is not necessarily predictable.

    To my knowledge that claim has not been made. The claim is that, in aggregate, the stats go up. Which they do. The argument is based on an average value of monster numbers, and doesn't rely on a lack of outliers.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    The thing in contention is that their ac and accuracy absolutely scales in a predictable linear format that the players are expected to keep pace with.

    That is not true because final cr is dependent on multiple factors, and the ac and attack bonus of a cr 19 creature is not necessarily predictable.

    To my knowledge that claim has not been made. The claim is that, in aggregate, the stats go up. Which they do. The argument is based on an average value of monster numbers, and doesn't rely on a lack of outliers.

    Nah the original position was that plate armor costing 1500 gold was bullshit because it gates expected player progression behind too much gold.

    My position being there is no expected ac climb, that increasing ac is always optional.

    Then we jumped onto this table stating it indicated a linear progression in monster accuracy that demanded not just ac progression but magical ac progression that expected the players to all receive +3 armor.

    My position is that isn't at all the expectation of the system.

    Because cr doesn't declare what you are fighting at what level. The encounter building guidelines give an xp total and you can fill it with various different cr monsters that don't necessarily map straight from player level to cr. Secondly even within the cr system cr doesn't necessarily map to a linear ac progression because you can futz with the numbers.

    Sleep on
  • JustTeeJustTee Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    I hope that you understand that the chart I am talking about clearly demonstrates that the game expects players to be getting an extra +3 from somewhere by epic levels, in a game where magic item bonuses go up to...+3.

    The actual monster numbers in that chart don't support your assertion. When I said there is 4 left missing I was assuming a +2 from magic. I'm left with the conclusion that higher level PCs are supposed to be missing more attacks than lower level adventurers.

    Not your chart, the one in the DMG. (Which incidentally doesn't say monster AC should scale past 19 ever, even though it clearly does when you look at the average AC of actual printed monsters). It scales monster proficiency bonuses to 9 when players stop at 6, which is reflected in their listed average attack bonus/spell save DCs. For players to keep pace with that scaling, they'd need an extra +3 from somewhere.

    Just gonna jump in here real quick with a note - Player proficiencies stop at +6 because they are also expected to add ability modifiers to their rolls, which is actually generally expected to be at least 5.

    Additionally, almost every legendary weapon printed that I've read is a +2 or +3. Depending on your party, which in my experience usually only includes 1, maybe 2, strength based fighters, a dex based fighter, and then just like, all the casters (YMMV), if you hand out a legendary weapon per PC, a level 20 character will generally swing their legendary sword at +14. This accounts for things like Ancient Dragons having AC's above 20. An Ancient Red Dragon (CR24) vs level 20 kitted Barb/Fighter/Paladin results in needing an 8 or better to hit, which is balanced by the fact that melee fighters likely won't be hitting a dragon with working wings very frequently.

    Why else would you be playing a campaign to those levels anyways?

    The math behind 5E is actually fairly solid, if you really get into the nuts and bolts of things. Most of it makes some kind of sense, even though it can be difficult to parse what that is. The main issue, though, is that they literally never explain why/how they made the decisions they made, with the exception of some minor explanations of bounded accuracy.

    I have plenty of complaints about 5E, but the underlying math isn't really one of them.

    Edit: Thread moved very fast, going to parse this down.

    As for CR/Stats - the DMG actually does a *very* good job of how to calculate CR based on deviations from the averages listed in the DMG chart. It talks about how big HP should be balanced by low AC, those values being balanced by what player levels are likely to encounter that thing. If your monster has a lot of HP, you reduce their AC, like a CR2 Ogre - 59 HP is a lot at that CR, but it only has 11 AC. Or look at a barbed Devil vs a Bulette - 110HP/15 AC vs 94HP/17AC, respectively. Both CR5.


    The bigger issue is not that you can't calculate/figure out any given monster's CR, or that monsters don't scale with party levels (they do! very clearly!). The bigger issue is that the encounter math for easy, medium, hard, and lethal encounters is *super* wonky. It depends way more on your players than it does on your monsters. Plus, the encounter budgets are based on X number of fights per day, assuming that your casters actually space out their good abilities, and that you give a nebulous amount of rests per day. I'd much prefer something like 4E, that explicitly states how many times / how often a power can be used, and have some kind of consistency in it. But then you start to break vancian spell casting, and that's so integral to D&D that I don't know that D&D is D&D without it.

    JustTee on
    Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Yes but monster level correlates with the strength of their stats

    On average, as monster level goes up, their ac and attack bonus goes up too

    Not necessarily, could just be a glut of hit points or hefty damage on inconsistent hits

    I didn't say it necessarily went up, I said on average that it does. That those correlate with each other. That means that most monsters of a given level will have roughly a given range of attack bonus and ac, and that rough range increases with level.

    And again, that's not necessarily true.

    That cr 11 monster in talking about with the 18 ac and +10 to hit is a horned devil. That falls so far off the cr 11 line as to make the linear reading of that table useless.

    Yes I'll admit higher level monsters are harder to kill than lower level monsters. That's fairly straightforward.

    The thing in contention is that their ac and accuracy absolutely scales in a predictable linear format that the players are expected to keep pace with.

    That is not true because final cr is dependent on multiple factors, and the ac and attack bonus of a cr 19 creature is not necessarily predictable.

    The average of those factors is.

    Because among other things that's how you measure monster difficulty, which is what CR is supposed to be doing.

    A CR 19 creature might have an above-average attack bonus and a below average AC to offset it, or it might have higher-than-average AB and AC but low damage and hp. But the average value that those things are high or low compared to is absolutely predictable, and is definitely based on assumptions about player AC, hp, AB, and damage, and clearly scales in a linear way as you increase in CR.

    The average AC for a CR 10 monster is 17. It is 17 because a CR 10 monster is intended to be a reasonable challenge for a level 10 party, and a level 10 character is expected to have a +9 to attacks, and so will hit an AC of 17 60% of the time. When player attack bonuses are only +5 - at level 3 - a CR 3 monster has an average AC of 13 because that's the AC that gives a level 3 player a 60% chance to hit it.

    You can give your CR 10 monster (or the CR 3 one!) a higher than average AC and lower the hitrate if you want, but that doesn't change what the average is, and that increase will be offset somewhere else (like a lower attack bonus on the monster, or some other feature like low HP or shitty saves), because if it isn't what you have created will cease to be a CR 10 monster.

    The horned devil you're talking about has CR 18 and +10 to hit (a whopping +1 AC and +2 to hit over the average of 17 and +8 for a CR 11 monster) as well as high saves and damage resistance/immunities to boot because it has shitty damage (average of 40 per round, on par with the very low end of CR 6) and low HP (148, again on par with the low end of CR 6) offsetting those bonuses. If you use the CR calculation method explained on the very page we're discussing, it gets an offensive CR of 8 and a defensive CR of 13, which you average to 10.5 and round up for CR 11. It is entirely on-curve for the chart.

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    JustTee wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    I hope that you understand that the chart I am talking about clearly demonstrates that the game expects players to be getting an extra +3 from somewhere by epic levels, in a game where magic item bonuses go up to...+3.

    The actual monster numbers in that chart don't support your assertion. When I said there is 4 left missing I was assuming a +2 from magic. I'm left with the conclusion that higher level PCs are supposed to be missing more attacks than lower level adventurers.

    Not your chart, the one in the DMG. (Which incidentally doesn't say monster AC should scale past 19 ever, even though it clearly does when you look at the average AC of actual printed monsters). It scales monster proficiency bonuses to 9 when players stop at 6, which is reflected in their listed average attack bonus/spell save DCs. For players to keep pace with that scaling, they'd need an extra +3 from somewhere.

    Just gonna jump in here real quick with a note - Player proficiencies stop at +6 because they are also expected to add ability modifiers to their rolls, which is actually generally expected to be at least 5, or in the case of STR-based fighters, potentially higher (belts of various-Giant strengths are super commonly thrown into published adventures, mostly to account for the fact that Barbarian/Strength fighters don't often get that many cool toys to play with, and often are limited by the fact that harder enemies tend to disappear/fly/move around, so you really want to make sure they get to do at least a few big hits per combat).

    So do monsters. They then also get proficiency bonuses scaling them up to +9 proficiency, for an extra +3 - conveniently the same size bonus that magic items cap out at.
    Additionally, almost every legendary weapon printed that I've read is a +2 or +3. Depending on your party, which in my experience usually only includes 1, maybe 2, strength based fighters, a dex based fighter, and then just like, all the casters (YMMV), if you hand out a legendary weapon per PC, a level 20 character will generally swing their legendary sword at +14. This accounts for things like Ancient Dragons having AC's above 20. An Ancient Red Dragon (CR24) vs level 20 kitted Barb/Fighter/Paladin results in needing an 8 or better to hit, which is balanced by the fact that melee fighters likely won't be hitting a dragon with working wings very frequently.

    Yep, there's that 60% chance to hit again. More demonstration that players and monsters scale with each other - but you're only keeping pace there because of the magic sword that, again, the game's math clearly expects you to have - otherwise your character is only swinging with a +11 and has a 45% chance to hit.
    So, maybe your tank gets a legendary shield or armor (which includes a +3 modifier among other cool things it does), your main weapon fighter gets a legendary weapon (also +3), and your spell casters get cool legendary weapon/armor based on what you think that player might enjoy. Then you supplement with other fun magical stuff.

    Why else would you be playing a campaign to those levels anyways?

    Right. And all those +2 and +3 bonuses allow them to keep pace with the upscaled monsters at those levels, which is my point. The system expects players to have those bonuses by that level.

  • JustTeeJustTee Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    JustTee wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    I hope that you understand that the chart I am talking about clearly demonstrates that the game expects players to be getting an extra +3 from somewhere by epic levels, in a game where magic item bonuses go up to...+3.

    The actual monster numbers in that chart don't support your assertion. When I said there is 4 left missing I was assuming a +2 from magic. I'm left with the conclusion that higher level PCs are supposed to be missing more attacks than lower level adventurers.

    Not your chart, the one in the DMG. (Which incidentally doesn't say monster AC should scale past 19 ever, even though it clearly does when you look at the average AC of actual printed monsters). It scales monster proficiency bonuses to 9 when players stop at 6, which is reflected in their listed average attack bonus/spell save DCs. For players to keep pace with that scaling, they'd need an extra +3 from somewhere.

    Just gonna jump in here real quick with a note - Player proficiencies stop at +6 because they are also expected to add ability modifiers to their rolls, which is actually generally expected to be at least 5, or in the case of STR-based fighters, potentially higher (belts of various-Giant strengths are super commonly thrown into published adventures, mostly to account for the fact that Barbarian/Strength fighters don't often get that many cool toys to play with, and often are limited by the fact that harder enemies tend to disappear/fly/move around, so you really want to make sure they get to do at least a few big hits per combat).

    So do monsters. They then also get proficiency bonuses scaling them up to +9 proficiency, for an extra +3 - conveniently the same size bonus that magic items cap out at.
    Additionally, almost every legendary weapon printed that I've read is a +2 or +3. Depending on your party, which in my experience usually only includes 1, maybe 2, strength based fighters, a dex based fighter, and then just like, all the casters (YMMV), if you hand out a legendary weapon per PC, a level 20 character will generally swing their legendary sword at +14. This accounts for things like Ancient Dragons having AC's above 20. An Ancient Red Dragon (CR24) vs level 20 kitted Barb/Fighter/Paladin results in needing an 8 or better to hit, which is balanced by the fact that melee fighters likely won't be hitting a dragon with working wings very frequently.

    Yep, there's that 60% chance to hit again. More demonstration that players and monsters scale with each other - but you're only keeping pace there because of the magic sword that, again, the game's math clearly expects you to have - otherwise your character is only swinging with a +11 and has a 45% chance to hit.
    So, maybe your tank gets a legendary shield or armor (which includes a +3 modifier among other cool things it does), your main weapon fighter gets a legendary weapon (also +3), and your spell casters get cool legendary weapon/armor based on what you think that player might enjoy. Then you supplement with other fun magical stuff.

    Why else would you be playing a campaign to those levels anyways?

    Right. And all those +2 and +3 bonuses allow them to keep pace with the upscaled monsters at those levels, which is my point. The system expects players to have those bonuses by that level.

    Sorry - maybe it wasn't clear - I was trying to agree with you. The math in 5E is *super* tight, and easily the best part of the system, in my mind.

    I honestly wish there were more ways to engage/manipulate this math, particularly with melee combat. Like, a melee combatant could choose to take an actual, effective defensive action (other than Dodge) that might pull attacks and bump his AC above expected levels. Or a fighter that could voluntarily choose to reduce their AC to get stacking damage/hit rolls (barbarian reckless attack is good, but I want *more* of that, and I wish it was more meaningful).

    Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    JustTee wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    I hope that you understand that the chart I am talking about clearly demonstrates that the game expects players to be getting an extra +3 from somewhere by epic levels, in a game where magic item bonuses go up to...+3.

    The actual monster numbers in that chart don't support your assertion. When I said there is 4 left missing I was assuming a +2 from magic. I'm left with the conclusion that higher level PCs are supposed to be missing more attacks than lower level adventurers.

    Not your chart, the one in the DMG. (Which incidentally doesn't say monster AC should scale past 19 ever, even though it clearly does when you look at the average AC of actual printed monsters). It scales monster proficiency bonuses to 9 when players stop at 6, which is reflected in their listed average attack bonus/spell save DCs. For players to keep pace with that scaling, they'd need an extra +3 from somewhere.

    Just gonna jump in here real quick with a note - Player proficiencies stop at +6 because they are also expected to add ability modifiers to their rolls, which is actually generally expected to be at least 5, or in the case of STR-based fighters, potentially higher (belts of various-Giant strengths are super commonly thrown into published adventures, mostly to account for the fact that Barbarian/Strength fighters don't often get that many cool toys to play with, and often are limited by the fact that harder enemies tend to disappear/fly/move around, so you really want to make sure they get to do at least a few big hits per combat).

    So do monsters. They then also get proficiency bonuses scaling them up to +9 proficiency, for an extra +3 - conveniently the same size bonus that magic items cap out at.
    Additionally, almost every legendary weapon printed that I've read is a +2 or +3. Depending on your party, which in my experience usually only includes 1, maybe 2, strength based fighters, a dex based fighter, and then just like, all the casters (YMMV), if you hand out a legendary weapon per PC, a level 20 character will generally swing their legendary sword at +14. This accounts for things like Ancient Dragons having AC's above 20. An Ancient Red Dragon (CR24) vs level 20 kitted Barb/Fighter/Paladin results in needing an 8 or better to hit, which is balanced by the fact that melee fighters likely won't be hitting a dragon with working wings very frequently.

    Yep, there's that 60% chance to hit again. More demonstration that players and monsters scale with each other - but you're only keeping pace there because of the magic sword that, again, the game's math clearly expects you to have - otherwise your character is only swinging with a +11 and has a 45% chance to hit.
    So, maybe your tank gets a legendary shield or armor (which includes a +3 modifier among other cool things it does), your main weapon fighter gets a legendary weapon (also +3), and your spell casters get cool legendary weapon/armor based on what you think that player might enjoy. Then you supplement with other fun magical stuff.

    Why else would you be playing a campaign to those levels anyways?

    Right. And all those +2 and +3 bonuses allow them to keep pace with the upscaled monsters at those levels, which is my point. The system expects players to have those bonuses by that level.

    Or it expects those fights to be harder

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Yes but monster level correlates with the strength of their stats

    On average, as monster level goes up, their ac and attack bonus goes up too

    Not necessarily, could just be a glut of hit points or hefty damage on inconsistent hits

    I didn't say it necessarily went up, I said on average that it does. That those correlate with each other. That means that most monsters of a given level will have roughly a given range of attack bonus and ac, and that rough range increases with level.

    And again, that's not necessarily true.

    That cr 11 monster in talking about with the 18 ac and +10 to hit is a horned devil. That falls so far off the cr 11 line as to make the linear reading of that table useless.

    Yes I'll admit higher level monsters are harder to kill than lower level monsters. That's fairly straightforward.

    The thing in contention is that their ac and accuracy absolutely scales in a predictable linear format that the players are expected to keep pace with.

    That is not true because final cr is dependent on multiple factors, and the ac and attack bonus of a cr 19 creature is not necessarily predictable.

    The average of those factors is.

    Because among other things that's how you measure monster difficulty, which is what CR is supposed to be doing.

    A CR 19 creature might have an above-average attack bonus and a below average AC to offset it, or it might have higher-than-average AB and AC but low damage and hp. But the average value that those things are high or low compared to is absolutely predictable, and is definitely based on assumptions about player AC, hp, AB, and damage, and clearly scales in a linear way as you increase in CR.

    The average AC for a CR 10 monster is 17. It is 17 because a CR 10 monster is intended to be a reasonable challenge for a level 10 party, and a level 10 character is expected to have a +9 to attacks, and so will hit an AC of 17 60% of the time. When player attack bonuses are only +5 - at level 3 - a CR 3 monster has an average AC of 13 because that's the AC that gives a level 3 player a 60% chance to hit it.

    You can give your CR 10 monster (or the CR 3 one!) a higher than average AC and lower the hitrate if you want, but that doesn't change what the average is, and that increase will be offset somewhere else (like a lower attack bonus on the monster, or some other feature like low HP or shitty saves), because if it isn't what you have created will cease to be a CR 10 monster.

    The horned devil you're talking about has CR 18 and +10 to hit (a whopping +1 AC and +2 to hit over the average of 17 and +8 for a CR 11 monster) as well as high saves and damage resistance/immunities to boot because it has shitty damage (average of 40 per round, on par with the very low end of CR 6) and low HP (148, again on par with the low end of CR 6) offsetting those bonuses. If you use the CR calculation method explained on the very page we're discussing, it gets an offensive CR of 8 and a defensive CR of 13, which you average to 10.5 and round up for CR 11. It is entirely on-curve for the chart.

    So the accuracy jump is inconsequential then? Cr 11, and therefore level 11, doesn't actually indicate a specific ac expectation because a cr 11 creature isn't necessarily always swinging a specific attack bonus.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    because a cr 11 creature isn't necessarily always swinging a specific attack bonus.

    You keep saying this, but but presence of exceptions does not change the aggregate math.

    Like, I mostly agree with you that the AC stuff is probably fine because if you have 19 AC I still have a 40% miss chance against you as the horned devil, who we have established has a high hit chance and is level 18. That says to me that even though monster stats are getting better, AC doesn't necessarily need to because at the endpoint you are still appropriately difficult to hit, even without the aid of magic and even if you never actually got full plate.

    But the argument you've established here can be boiled down to "there is no expectation of increasing attack bonus because the increase is not uniform" and that is a very brittle argument

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    .
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Yes but monster level correlates with the strength of their stats

    On average, as monster level goes up, their ac and attack bonus goes up too

    Not necessarily, could just be a glut of hit points or hefty damage on inconsistent hits

    I didn't say it necessarily went up, I said on average that it does. That those correlate with each other. That means that most monsters of a given level will have roughly a given range of attack bonus and ac, and that rough range increases with level.

    And again, that's not necessarily true.

    That cr 11 monster in talking about with the 18 ac and +10 to hit is a horned devil. That falls so far off the cr 11 line as to make the linear reading of that table useless.

    Yes I'll admit higher level monsters are harder to kill than lower level monsters. That's fairly straightforward.

    The thing in contention is that their ac and accuracy absolutely scales in a predictable linear format that the players are expected to keep pace with.

    That is not true because final cr is dependent on multiple factors, and the ac and attack bonus of a cr 19 creature is not necessarily predictable.

    The average of those factors is.

    Because among other things that's how you measure monster difficulty, which is what CR is supposed to be doing.

    A CR 19 creature might have an above-average attack bonus and a below average AC to offset it, or it might have higher-than-average AB and AC but low damage and hp. But the average value that those things are high or low compared to is absolutely predictable, and is definitely based on assumptions about player AC, hp, AB, and damage, and clearly scales in a linear way as you increase in CR.

    The average AC for a CR 10 monster is 17. It is 17 because a CR 10 monster is intended to be a reasonable challenge for a level 10 party, and a level 10 character is expected to have a +9 to attacks, and so will hit an AC of 17 60% of the time. When player attack bonuses are only +5 - at level 3 - a CR 3 monster has an average AC of 13 because that's the AC that gives a level 3 player a 60% chance to hit it.

    You can give your CR 10 monster (or the CR 3 one!) a higher than average AC and lower the hitrate if you want, but that doesn't change what the average is, and that increase will be offset somewhere else (like a lower attack bonus on the monster, or some other feature like low HP or shitty saves), because if it isn't what you have created will cease to be a CR 10 monster.

    The horned devil you're talking about has CR 18 and +10 to hit (a whopping +1 AC and +2 to hit over the average of 17 and +8 for a CR 11 monster) as well as high saves and damage resistance/immunities to boot because it has shitty damage (average of 40 per round, on par with the very low end of CR 6) and low HP (148, again on par with the low end of CR 6) offsetting those bonuses. If you use the CR calculation method explained on the very page we're discussing, it gets an offensive CR of 8 and a defensive CR of 13, which you average to 10.5 and round up for CR 11. It is entirely on-curve for the chart.

    So the accuracy jump is inconsequential then? Cr 11, and therefore level 11, doesn't actually indicate a specific ac expectation because a cr 11 creature isn't necessarily always swinging a specific attack bonus.

    Once again: You said the barbed devil was not in line with the chart. The barbed devil is in line with the chart, has its correct CR, and when shown this you have elected to change the subject. Again.

    CR 11 does indicate an expected attack bonus (and corresponding AC). The barbed devil has an above average attack bonus for its CR because it has below-average damage for its CR. That continues not to change what those averages are or why they were set.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    When you guys are done I'll make a little comment about how 5E is designed for a grid. That should keep things going for another dozen pages.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    because a cr 11 creature isn't necessarily always swinging a specific attack bonus.

    You keep saying this, but but presence of exceptions does not change the aggregate math.

    Like, I mostly agree with you that the AC stuff is probably fine because if you have 19 AC I still have a 40% miss chance against you as the horned devil, who we have established has a high hit chance and is level 18. That says to me that even though monster stats are getting better, AC doesn't necessarily need to because at the endpoint you are still appropriately difficult to hit, even without the aid of magic and even if you never actually got full plate.

    But the argument you've established here can be boiled down to "there is no expectation of increasing attack bonus because the increase is not uniform" and that is a very brittle argument

    It's brittle but it isn't wrong.

    See in 4e there was required ac progression because monster accuracy did increase in a uniform mannner.

    Without a guaranteed uniform increase in accuracy there's no expected or guaranteed increase in ac. It becomes an option to include or exclude magical armors on a whim because while the system has the expectation of danger increasing over level, it does not explicitly expect any one statistic of the monsters to necessarily increase over the levels. If you rolled up your own monsters you could very well keep accuracy flat over the course of most of the game with damage being the increasing number. You could keep all monsters at +5 to hit with ever increasing damage pools and numbers of attacks. 3 attacks at +5 that do 10d10+mod damage each are still cr 17 offensively.

    While danger definitely increases over level. Ac and accuracy don't necessarily have to. The system does not prescribe it or necessitate it.

    Sleep on
  • Mongrel IdiotMongrel Idiot Registered User regular
    Can I just step in here to say that the shadow sorcerer in Xanathar's can summon a huge, spectral dog to unerringly hunt and maul opponents, and that I, for one, think that's pretty neat?

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    JustTee wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    I hope that you understand that the chart I am talking about clearly demonstrates that the game expects players to be getting an extra +3 from somewhere by epic levels, in a game where magic item bonuses go up to...+3.

    The actual monster numbers in that chart don't support your assertion. When I said there is 4 left missing I was assuming a +2 from magic. I'm left with the conclusion that higher level PCs are supposed to be missing more attacks than lower level adventurers.

    Not your chart, the one in the DMG. (Which incidentally doesn't say monster AC should scale past 19 ever, even though it clearly does when you look at the average AC of actual printed monsters). It scales monster proficiency bonuses to 9 when players stop at 6, which is reflected in their listed average attack bonus/spell save DCs. For players to keep pace with that scaling, they'd need an extra +3 from somewhere.

    Just gonna jump in here real quick with a note - Player proficiencies stop at +6 because they are also expected to add ability modifiers to their rolls, which is actually generally expected to be at least 5, or in the case of STR-based fighters, potentially higher (belts of various-Giant strengths are super commonly thrown into published adventures, mostly to account for the fact that Barbarian/Strength fighters don't often get that many cool toys to play with, and often are limited by the fact that harder enemies tend to disappear/fly/move around, so you really want to make sure they get to do at least a few big hits per combat).

    So do monsters. They then also get proficiency bonuses scaling them up to +9 proficiency, for an extra +3 - conveniently the same size bonus that magic items cap out at.
    Additionally, almost every legendary weapon printed that I've read is a +2 or +3. Depending on your party, which in my experience usually only includes 1, maybe 2, strength based fighters, a dex based fighter, and then just like, all the casters (YMMV), if you hand out a legendary weapon per PC, a level 20 character will generally swing their legendary sword at +14. This accounts for things like Ancient Dragons having AC's above 20. An Ancient Red Dragon (CR24) vs level 20 kitted Barb/Fighter/Paladin results in needing an 8 or better to hit, which is balanced by the fact that melee fighters likely won't be hitting a dragon with working wings very frequently.

    Yep, there's that 60% chance to hit again. More demonstration that players and monsters scale with each other - but you're only keeping pace there because of the magic sword that, again, the game's math clearly expects you to have - otherwise your character is only swinging with a +11 and has a 45% chance to hit.
    So, maybe your tank gets a legendary shield or armor (which includes a +3 modifier among other cool things it does), your main weapon fighter gets a legendary weapon (also +3), and your spell casters get cool legendary weapon/armor based on what you think that player might enjoy. Then you supplement with other fun magical stuff.

    Why else would you be playing a campaign to those levels anyways?

    Right. And all those +2 and +3 bonuses allow them to keep pace with the upscaled monsters at those levels, which is my point. The system expects players to have those bonuses by that level.

    Or it expects those fights to be harder

    No. It does not. Because that is, literally, what CR means. It’s a way to determine a relatively consistent difficulty in fights over the levels.

    wbBv3fj.png
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Yes there's a table that says a monster with these exact statistics would be cr x. That's not in issue. Yes a monster with those stats can be cr x. However that table is in no way definitive on what stats a monster with that cr will have, or at what level the party could be facing that monster (that's handled in a totally separate section).

    So you can end up with cr 11 monsters with +10 to hit and an ac of 18 even though that's the statistics of a cr 17 monster

    Yes but monster level correlates with the strength of their stats

    On average, as monster level goes up, their ac and attack bonus goes up too

    Not necessarily, could just be a glut of hit points or hefty damage on inconsistent hits

    I didn't say it necessarily went up, I said on average that it does. That those correlate with each other. That means that most monsters of a given level will have roughly a given range of attack bonus and ac, and that rough range increases with level.

    And again, that's not necessarily true.

    That cr 11 monster in talking about with the 18 ac and +10 to hit is a horned devil. That falls so far off the cr 11 line as to make the linear reading of that table useless.

    Yes I'll admit higher level monsters are harder to kill than lower level monsters. That's fairly straightforward.

    The thing in contention is that their ac and accuracy absolutely scales in a predictable linear format that the players are expected to keep pace with.

    That is not true because final cr is dependent on multiple factors, and the ac and attack bonus of a cr 19 creature is not necessarily predictable.

    The average of those factors is.

    Because among other things that's how you measure monster difficulty, which is what CR is supposed to be doing.

    A CR 19 creature might have an above-average attack bonus and a below average AC to offset it, or it might have higher-than-average AB and AC but low damage and hp. But the average value that those things are high or low compared to is absolutely predictable, and is definitely based on assumptions about player AC, hp, AB, and damage, and clearly scales in a linear way as you increase in CR.

    The average AC for a CR 10 monster is 17. It is 17 because a CR 10 monster is intended to be a reasonable challenge for a level 10 party, and a level 10 character is expected to have a +9 to attacks, and so will hit an AC of 17 60% of the time. When player attack bonuses are only +5 - at level 3 - a CR 3 monster has an average AC of 13 because that's the AC that gives a level 3 player a 60% chance to hit it.

    You can give your CR 10 monster (or the CR 3 one!) a higher than average AC and lower the hitrate if you want, but that doesn't change what the average is, and that increase will be offset somewhere else (like a lower attack bonus on the monster, or some other feature like low HP or shitty saves), because if it isn't what you have created will cease to be a CR 10 monster.

    The horned devil you're talking about has CR 18 and +10 to hit (a whopping +1 AC and +2 to hit over the average of 17 and +8 for a CR 11 monster) as well as high saves and damage resistance/immunities to boot because it has shitty damage (average of 40 per round, on par with the very low end of CR 6) and low HP (148, again on par with the low end of CR 6) offsetting those bonuses. If you use the CR calculation method explained on the very page we're discussing, it gets an offensive CR of 8 and a defensive CR of 13, which you average to 10.5 and round up for CR 11. It is entirely on-curve for the chart.

    So the accuracy jump is inconsequential then? Cr 11, and therefore level 11, doesn't actually indicate a specific ac expectation because a cr 11 creature isn't necessarily always swinging a specific attack bonus.

    They didn’t in 4e either but you’re not going to convince me that 4e didn’t have the exact same progression.

    wbBv3fj.png
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    because a cr 11 creature isn't necessarily always swinging a specific attack bonus.

    You keep saying this, but but presence of exceptions does not change the aggregate math.

    Like, I mostly agree with you that the AC stuff is probably fine because if you have 19 AC I still have a 40% miss chance against you as the horned devil, who we have established has a high hit chance and is level 18. That says to me that even though monster stats are getting better, AC doesn't necessarily need to because at the endpoint you are still appropriately difficult to hit, even without the aid of magic and even if you never actually got full plate.

    But the argument you've established here can be boiled down to "there is no expectation of increasing attack bonus because the increase is not uniform" and that is a very brittle argument

    It's brittle but it isn't wrong.

    See in 4e there was required ac progression because monster accuracy did increase in a uniform mannner.

    Without a guaranteed uniform increase in accuracy there's no expected or guaranteed increase in ac. It becomes an option to include or exclude magical armors on a whim because while the system has the expectation of danger increasing over level, it does not explicitly expect any one statistic of the monsters to necessarily increase over the levels. If you rolled up your own monsters you could very well keep accuracy flat over the course of most of the game with damage being the increasing number. You could keep all monsters at +5 to hit with ever increasing damage pools and numbers of attacks. 3 attacks at +5 that do 10d10+mod damage each are still cr 17 offensively.

    While danger definitely increases over level. Ac and accuracy don't necessarily have to. The system does not prescribe it or necessitate it.

    You could deviate from the expected attack bonus/AC in 4e in exactly the same manner you have been describing for 5e, both in regard to creatures of a given level having a high/low attack bonus or defenses for their level and in the sense of you being able to throw higher or lower level monsters at your party.

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Denada wrote: »
    When you guys are done I'll make a little comment about how 5E is designed for a grid. That should keep things going for another dozen pages.

    Listen, this one is easy. It IS designed a with a grid in mind. You just don't have to use one and things will work out OK.

    Whereas if you tried to not use a grid in 4e, you were nuts.

    Steelhawk on
  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    So I spent some time with my players getting them ready for my upcoming campaign, and did three big things to make it interesting.
    1. I asked each of them a different question about their character; nothing that would give too much away but ones that would help me get a sense f who they are; things like "what is the first thing you do in the morning" or "Describe your perfect evening".
    2. We broke out xanathar's and three of the players wound up rolling on the life story random dealy, and boy howdy did things get bizzare; one of my players wound up married to a doppelganger monk, another one made a frivolous wish, another one was forced to flee some place due to assault and someone else got 56 gold from a previous adventure.
    3. I gave out some feat options for players that I thought were appropriate to give them just a little extra pep.

    At present my party is made up of:
    An arcane trickster
    An eldritch knight
    A winter druid who worships Auril.
    A Ranger ravelling around with their pet sheep.
    An inquisitive.

    Should be fun seeing them in acion, because aside from the beastmaster I've never gotten to see the other classes in action.

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