Monsters Review

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Yellena
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Monsters Review

Post by Yellena » Mon Aug 10, 2015 2:41 am

Hi there!
I have been noticing many, MANY monsters usually follow a "balance" pattern that seems to be:
-CON and/or HD boost to adjust to their HP.
-HD boost to adjust their AB.

I am not sure if this is intentional, but this pattern generates monsters with incredible high saves or way too high HD to be affected by some spells and abilities (anyone who tryed a MAX cha turning cleric can attest to that). This hinders a lot of fun character concepts.

So, this suggestion would be to review monsters and, if they need to have high HP, to change it manually rather than just boosting CON or HD to uber ranges.
And instead of boosting HD to control AB, to consider using feats like Weapon Focus, Epic Focus, Prowess and the like.

I know it may give a lot of work and I offer aid in this, if it's interest of the devs.

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Mithreas
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Re: Monsters Review

Post by Mithreas » Mon Aug 10, 2015 2:55 am

Most monsters have higher HD than CR, yes. But the reason isn't quite as simple as you've identified.

A level 15 (say) cleric has a bunch of skills, spell and abilities... but also has a lot of equipment that significantly improves their combat ability. If we were to spec up a CR 15 NPC cleric, we should give them a decent amount of gear.

That doesn't work very well. When the engine creates a creature, it spawns an instance of that creature from the palette. If that creature has equipment, it also spawns an instance of each of its items. Say you give every NPC cleric two rings, an amulet,. a belt, a cloak, a helmet and so on, and then spawn 4 of them in an encounter, suddenly you're creating 50+ objects at once. And if you then add potions... well, you see where I'm going.

The result is that for performance reasons pretty much every humanoid creature in the game needs to be badly under-equipped compared to what it would carry in PnP. There are lots of possible workarounds to this - making single custom items that have all the bonuses that set of equipment would have is one possibility, though limits the ability to reuse items across NPCs. Stat adjustments help (e.g. raising STR to account for the lack of STR gear, adding feats). But often, you'll find you just end up fighting nearly naked opponents of a higher HD than you, just to balance out the CL without using lots of gear.
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Yellena
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Re: Monsters Review

Post by Yellena » Mon Aug 10, 2015 3:05 am

Would virtual bonuses (like Fighter's) on their hides and weapons, and temporary HP bonuses based on a formula using the desired CR work?

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Mithreas
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Re: Monsters Review

Post by Mithreas » Mon Aug 10, 2015 3:31 am

Maybe, but it would make for a pretty boring progression, and would make it harder for builders to create appropriate creatures if "hidden" bonuses were getting applied after creation.
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Yellena
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Re: Monsters Review

Post by Yellena » Mon Aug 10, 2015 4:37 am

True.

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