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

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Posts

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    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.

    Not using a grid in 4E requires exactly the same concessions as in 5E.

    But hang on I think we're still hashing out whether an average is the same thing as an exception.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    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.

    I never used a physical grid in 4e. I used the Grid of the Mind.

  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    Rend wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    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.

    I never used a physical grid in 4e. I used the Grid of the Mind.

    Shouldn't there be some italics there?
    Grid of the Mind.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    see317 wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    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.

    I never used a physical grid in 4e. I used the Grid of the Mind.

    Shouldn't there be some italics there?
    Grid of the Mind.

    What is my mind grid not fancy enough for you?
    jfc i slave away all day over a cramped Google doc to write a fantastic adventure for you people and all I get is complain complain complain

  • Mongrel IdiotMongrel Idiot Registered User regular
    Stumbled across this article on the parallels between D&D and grad school and thought you guys might enjoy it. I know that having DMed a campaign throughout high school made learning to teach ever-so-slightly easier for me. Lotta overlap between your friends trying to derail a campaign and your students trying to derail a class.

  • JustTeeJustTee Registered User regular
    Stumbled across this article on the parallels between D&D and grad school and thought you guys might enjoy it. I know that having DMed a campaign throughout high school made learning to teach ever-so-slightly easier for me. Lotta overlap between your friends trying to derail a campaign and your students trying to derail a class.

    Also useful in figuring out how to explain a concept that you understand in your brain to people who do not have your brain.

    Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    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.

    You could not keep accuracy flat in 4e. At a certain point you had to increase the accuracy of your monsters or they straight wouldn't be able to hit because the player AC progressed as a function of both level, and the magic item treadmill.

    In 5e I could literally have every monster from level 1 to level 20 have a +5 to hit with an increasing number of attacks that do more damage.

  • Mongrel IdiotMongrel Idiot Registered User regular
    JustTee wrote: »
    Stumbled across this article on the parallels between D&D and grad school and thought you guys might enjoy it. I know that having DMed a campaign throughout high school made learning to teach ever-so-slightly easier for me. Lotta overlap between your friends trying to derail a campaign and your students trying to derail a class.

    Also useful in figuring out how to explain a concept that you understand in your brain to people who do not have your brain.
    And getting over the fear of looking a bit silly in front of people.

    I mean my Dwarvish accent alone! Can't possibly feel awkward with public speaking after inflicting that abomination on people for four years.

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    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.

    You could not keep accuracy flat in 4e. At a certain point you had to increase the accuracy of your monsters or they straight wouldn't be able to hit because the player AC progressed as a function of both level, and the magic item treadmill.

    In 5e I could literally have every monster from level 1 to level 20 have a +5 to hit with an increasing number of attacks that do more damage.

    Just because the hill is not as steep does not mean that the hill is flat

    Goumindong on
    wbBv3fj.png
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    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.

    You could not keep accuracy flat in 4e. At a certain point you had to increase the accuracy of your monsters or they straight wouldn't be able to hit because the player AC progressed as a function of both level, and the magic item treadmill.

    In 5e I could literally have every monster from level 1 to level 20 have a +5 to hit with an increasing number of attacks that do more damage.

    First of all, that would be a bad way to design a monster and if you kept the average DPR to expected levels your damage per hit would eventually outpace the amount of HP players actually have. Don't do that.

    Secondly, you could have done the same thing in 4e because the same treadmill exists in both editions. It just would have gotten dumb faster there, because the treadmill scales faster.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    I'd disagree with the word "same" there.

    4e absolutely had a treadmill but the slope of the line was basically 1 for monsters and not quite 1 for PCs because they fucked up the math and so we'll publish expertise feat taxes.

    5e's slope if there is one is much lower. Describing it as the "same" is just inviting confusion.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Stumbled across this article on the parallels between D&D and grad school and thought you guys might enjoy it. I know that having DMed a campaign throughout high school made learning to teach ever-so-slightly easier for me. Lotta overlap between your friends trying to derail a campaign and your students trying to derail a class.

    Great article, @Mongrel Idiot - thanks for bringing it up.

    I especially like ...
    The same approach can be applied to productive teaching. Even when someone around the table says something relatively inane (e.g., "but that’s not what the author intended!" or "but goblins would never have crossbows!"), shutting that person down only kills the energy of the discussion, only breaks apart the world you are collaboratively building. So roll with it. Compromise. Negotiate. Say "yes, and" — then reconfigure your world to the needs of the players.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    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.

    You could not keep accuracy flat in 4e. At a certain point you had to increase the accuracy of your monsters or they straight wouldn't be able to hit because the player AC progressed as a function of both level, and the magic item treadmill.

    In 5e I could literally have every monster from level 1 to level 20 have a +5 to hit with an increasing number of attacks that do more damage.

    Just because the hill is not as steep does not mean that the line is flat

    It means there is not necessarily a hill.

    There is no requirement that upper cr creatures have higher accuracy. Ill grant that many do, but not that they are required to. Nor is it required for players to "keep up" with those higher attack bonuses.

    In 4e it was predictable that 20th level character had a minimum 27 ac (10+10 from half level+4 from stat+3 from magic items). A monster wth a +5 to hit was effectively not a threat of any kind to that player no matter how much damage its attack did.

    The monsters absolutely assumed the ac progression within their base construction as on level threats.

    In 5e I can completely disregard the idea of ac progression and create a cr 20 monster with a +5 to hit.

    Sleep on
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    I'd disagree with the word "same" there.

    4e absolutely had a treadmill but the slope of the line was basically 1 for monsters and not quite 1 for PCs because they fucked up the math and so we'll publish expertise feat taxes.

    5e's slope if there is one is much lower. Describing it as the "same" is just inviting confusion.

    It's about 1/3 over the whole level range, but closer to 1/2 for the first half of it - you get a +1 to proficiency every 4 levels, and an additional +1 every 4 levels for the first 8 levels, plus whatever bonuses you accumulate from magic items.

    Like, 5e's proficiency bonus serves the same basic purpose as adding "+1/2 level" to everything in 4e - the most significant difference is just that it increments every 4 levels instead of every 2.

  • FryFry Registered User regular
    see317 wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    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.

    I never used a physical grid in 4e. I used the Grid of the Mind.

    Shouldn't there be some italics there?
    Grid of the Mind.

    That sounds like a sweet piece of gear, what equip slot does it go in?

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    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.

    You could not keep accuracy flat in 4e. At a certain point you had to increase the accuracy of your monsters or they straight wouldn't be able to hit because the player AC progressed as a function of both level, and the magic item treadmill.

    In 5e I could literally have every monster from level 1 to level 20 have a +5 to hit with an increasing number of attacks that do more damage.

    Just because the hill is not as steep does not mean that the line is flat

    It means there is not necessarily a hill.

    There is no requirement that upper cr creatures have higher accuracy. Ill grant that many do, but not that they are required to. Nor is it required for players to "keep up" with those higher attack bonuses.

    In 4e it was predictable that 20th level character had a minimum 27 ac (10+10 from half level+4 from stat+3 from magic items). A monster wth a +5 to hit was effectively not a threat of any kind to that player no matter how much damage its attack did.

    The monsters absolutely assumed the ac progression within their base construction as on level threats.

    In 5e I can completely disregard the idea of ac progression and create a cr 20 monster with a +5 to hit.

    Lets work through that exercise real quick.

    Baseline CR 20 stats are +10 to attack, 123-140 damage per round. Since we're scaling down, we basically need to work backwards and use the CR 23 damage expression and then 'penalize' our attack bonus by 3 levels of CR.

    So we're looking at a monster that has +5 to attacks, but deals at least 177-194 damage per round. A level 20 fighter will have around 160-180 HP, and at least 20 AC but probably more like 22-23.

    Your monster is only going to hit him 10-25% of the time, but when it does, it's going to gib him. You've created a monster with no middle ground - most of the time, it will flail uselessly against a player it cannot hit, but on the rare occasion that it gets a good roll - especially since it's very likely that any hit will also need to be a crit on a very large damage expression - it will deal extreme amounts of damage. That's the same effect that a similar monster would have in 4e. You can work backwards to create a more even damage distribution by splitting its damage output up into 5 or 6 attacks, but then the only difference between your low-accuracy monster and a standard one is that it takes longer for you to roll all your dice because you've deliberately built your monster in an obtuse way (and you'll still get a swingier damage output that is more prone to spikes and dead turns).

    This is a bad way to design a monster, which is why it is not recommended in either edition.

  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    In 5e I can completely disregard the idea of ac progression and create a cr 20 monster with a +5 to hit.

    You can do this in any ruleset. That doesn't mean that it isn't outside the norm and, more generally, a bad idea.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    its a dude with 10 arms that deals 4d10+4 with each hit, but is on a +5 to hit.

    Fuckin think different dude.

    I can design a cr 20 monster with a +5 to hit that doesn't just instakill everyone.

    Sleep on
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    its a dude with 10 arms that deals 4d10+4 with each hit, but is on a +5 to hit.

    Fuckin think different dude.

    I can design a cr 20 monster with a +5 to hit that doesn't just instakill everyone.

    That's going to be an immensely boring encounter, without spicing it up in a whole lot of ways.

    You're really going to roll all 10 attacks like that, with such low chances to actually do anything?

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    This also disregards it having any other powers. I could downgrade the damage a bit and upgrade its defenses, or give it teleportation and other spell like capabilities that increase its effectiveness beyond slavishly holding to a perceived acuracy treadmill that doesn't necessarily exist.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    its a dude with 10 arms that deals 4d10+4 with each hit, but is on a +5 to hit.

    Fuckin think different dude.

    I can design a cr 20 monster with a +5 to hit that doesn't just instakill everyone.

    That's going to be an immensely boring encounter, without spicing it up in a whole lot of ways.

    You're really going to roll all 10 attacks like that, with such low chances to actually do anything?

    Chances are that I'd rock it very much like a pumped up marilith

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Attacks take a second to roll if the party is facing 5 dudes in a group I'm likely rolling more than 10 attacks

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    its a dude with 10 arms that deals 4d10+4 with each hit, but is on a +5 to hit.

    Fuckin think different dude.

    I can design a cr 20 monster with a +5 to hit that doesn't just instakill everyone.
    You can work backwards to create a more even damage distribution by splitting its damage output up into 5 or 6 attacks, but then the only difference between your low-accuracy monster and a standard one is that it takes longer for you to roll all your dice because you've deliberately built your monster in an obtuse way (and you'll still get a swingier damage output that is more prone to spikes and dead turns).

    wbBv3fj.png
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    I am sure that you could, with enough other gimmicks, distract from its first gimmick enough to make it work if you put the effort in.

    I am equally sure that you could, with enough work, convert a submarine into a functional aircraft, but maybe it would be better to start with something that was already designed to fly.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    its a dude with 10 arms that deals 4d10+4 with each hit, but is on a +5 to hit.

    Fuckin think different dude.

    I can design a cr 20 monster with a +5 to hit that doesn't just instakill everyone.

    That's going to be an immensely boring encounter, without spicing it up in a whole lot of ways.

    You're really going to roll all 10 attacks like that, with such low chances to actually do anything?

    In fairness, it's d20 system. Encounters are boring by definition

    Rend on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Like that's the other thing too

    That level 20 fight could be 5 cr 8 dudes swinging twice each at +5 for 4d10+4 damage and that's still an on level fight.


  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Like that's the other thing too

    That level 20 fight could be 5 cr 8 dudes swinging twice each at +5 for 4d10+4 damage and that's still an on level fight.


    Probably not no. Unless you modified them.

    wbBv3fj.png
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    4d10+4 x 2 (about 52 damage) (cr 8)
    +5 to hit(cr 4)
    Downgrade offensive cr 8 to cr 6.


    220 hit points at ac 16 (cr 10)

    Makes a cr 8 monster (disregarding any interesting features given)

    Cr 8 is worth 3900

    5 is 19,500

    For a 4 man 20th level party 19500 exp falls between an easy and a medium difficulty fight.

    Sleep on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    And I can keep differentiating these monsters too. 220 hp isn't necessarily 220 hp I could tune those down to less hit points, but with resistances or immunities and keep em at about the same cr. I could tune down their ac but give them parrying style reactions or self heals. There's a bunch of ways to skin this cat, and not all of them include necessarily adhering to any kind of accuracy treadmill. I don't have to do that, nor do my players necessarily have to run on an ac treadmill. They can choose to do other shit instead.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    The cool part is that if we want to we totally can have that ac grind, but that no we don't necessarily have to.

    The table, you're trying to say is conclusive proof of an AC treadmill isn't. Its a tool used to create challenges for your players, which allows for creating monsters wth super high attack bonuses, but doesn't necessarily state that high level threats must have high attack bonuses.

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    4d10+4 x 2 (about 52 damage) (cr 8)
    +5 to hit(cr 4)
    Downgrade offensive cr 8 to cr 6.


    220 hit points at ac 16 (cr 10)

    Makes a cr 8 monster (disregarding any interesting features given)

    Cr 8 is worth 3900

    5 is 19,500

    For a 4 man 20th level party 19500 exp falls between an easy and a medium difficulty fight.

    For multiple monsters you scale the effective XP value. 3-6 monsters is a x2 multiplier. 5 CR 8 creatures is a CR 22 encounter for a 4-player party. (39,000 xp, compared to 41,000 for a CR 22 monster). It would fall between Hard and Deadly for a level 20 party.
    Sleep wrote: »
    The cool part is that if we want to we totally can have that ac grind, but that no we don't necessarily have to.

    The table, you're trying to say is conclusive proof of an AC treadmill isn't. Its a tool used to create challenges for your players, which allows for creating monsters wth super high attack bonuses, but doesn't necessarily state that high level threats must have high attack bonuses.

    You do not seem to understand the table, or the encounter math, or the system math, or what I am saying to you.

    The 'treadmill' is when increases in player power are offset by equal increases in monster power for zero net gain and only the illusion of greater ability. 5e has that phenomenon, conclusively and mathematically. I don't know how to make that clearer than it is.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Nah I'm just trying to explain this while also doing my job and shit.

    Sorry i lowballed the +5 to hit monsters as an easy fight rather than a nearly deadly one.

    Sleep on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    No the treadmill you referred to was one where level 20 threats (so those 5 cr 8s) required ac increases on the part of the party... which it does not, because the level 20 threats can still be swinging with the same accuracy as a cr4.

    Sleep on
  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    The main question here I feel is:
    Despite rules to generate monsters in 5e, is it possible to avoid the AC curve based on the monsters that come in the books?
    If so, how limited is the DM's selection in order to maintain flat to hit math?

    Because it's all well and good that Sleep can create such a curve based on either his intuition or the monster generation rules.
    But I'd expect the vast majority of DMs to pull stat blocks directly and at random from the books. Especially new DMs.
    And this will introduce them to and cause them to follow the AC curve.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    discrider wrote: »
    The main question here I feel is:
    Despite rules to generate monsters in 5e, is it possible to avoid the AC curve based on the monsters that come in the books?
    If so, how limited is the DM's selection in order to maintain flat to hit math?

    Because it's all well and good that Sleep can create such a curve based on either his intuition or the monster generation rules.
    But I'd expect the vast majority of DMs to pull stat blocks directly and at random from the books. Especially new DMs.
    And this will introduce them to and cause them to follow the AC curve.

    The thing is that level 20 threats isn't necessarily always cr20 monsters. Yeah the balor and shit like that have high to hit and damage, but level 20 threats also includes a pack of 4 to 5 chain demons which are still only on +8 to hit with a bunch of attacks each.

  • italianranmaitalianranma Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    The 'treadmill' is when increases in player power are offset by equal increases in monster power for zero net gain and only the illusion of greater ability. 5e has that phenomenon, conclusively and mathematically. I don't know how to make that clearer than it is.

    I don't disagree with your definition, but narritively I think it's a moot point. As my character becomes stronger he or she seeks stronger challenges, so that once where I was fighting orcs now I'm fighting dragons. Sure the chances of hitting and being hit are the same as they were before, but there is a sense of scale to my actions that gives a narrative progression. Additionally, if I did go back and let loose on some orcs (for old-times sake) I'd feel super powerful from all those same increases. It isn't different from most video games in that respect.

    fake edit: also, even with that treadmill I still become more powerful overall as I've got more class abilities to leverage. Things like extra attacks, increased threat range, more spellcasting options, etc.
    Rend wrote: »
    In fairness, it's d20 system. Encounters are boring by definition

    Pistols at dawn sir! I mean, that's if your DM allows pistols from the DMG pg. 268. Otherwise we'd have to get Javelins of lightning which may be the cheaper option depending...

    飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    The treadmill isn't necessarily a value judgment. It is the very system that allows your character to level up and feel more powerful. It's not a bad thing and it's not a criticism. Just a recognition of an extant system.

  • Ken OKen O Registered User regular
    I love the Xanthar's background charts. It reminds me of the old life events tables in Cyberpunk.

    http://www.fingmonkey.com/
    Comics, Games, Booze
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    No the treadmill you referred to was one where level 20 threats (so those 5 cr 8s) required ac increases on the part of the party... which it does not, because the level 20 threats can still be swinging with the same accuracy as a cr4.

    As I have repeatedly explained, the scaling occurs based on monsters with CR = character level. 5 CR 8 monsters is not a CR 20 monster. At this point I can't really tell if you genuinely aren't following this conversation or are intentionally misinterpreting what you are being told.

    Either way, you were the one who initially referred to a 'treadmill', when you insisted that 4e had one and 5e didn't. All I did was demonstrate that 5e scales in the same manner as 4e, but somewhat more slowly. Their scaling is not different in any fundamental way.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    No the treadmill you referred to was one where level 20 threats (so those 5 cr 8s) required ac increases on the part of the party... which it does not, because the level 20 threats can still be swinging with the same accuracy as a cr4.

    As I have repeatedly explained, the scaling occurs based on monsters with CR = character level. 5 CR 8 monsters is not a CR 20 monster. At this point I can't really tell if you genuinely aren't following this conversation or are intentionally misinterpreting what you are being told.

    Either way, you were the one who initially referred to a 'treadmill', when you insisted that 4e had one and 5e didn't. All I did was demonstrate that 5e scales in the same manner as 4e, but somewhat more slowly. Their scaling is not different in any fundamental way.

    Except for the lack of assumption of character ac growth.

    It isn't an assumed growth vector.

    Hit points? Assumed growth
    Attack bonuses? Assumed growth
    Number of attacks/attack damage? Assumed growth.

    Ac isn't assumed growth.

    20th level threats, Which is a function of the encounter building table not the monster cr table (a fact you seem to fail to grasp), don't necessarily assume any ac growth because all ac growth is optional.

    Sleep on
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