Recently I found a comment by *andrew ferris* on a Google+ post by Urizen Shaitan I’d like to share.
a Google+ post by Urizen Shaitan
What works best for fun is not really realistic and sometimes when attempting to implement something “realistic”, you get something even less realistic than if you hadn’t tried.
Okay, first to deal with armor and hit points. Now if one wants monsters to scale up the same way PCs scale up, you are going to have an issue. PCs gain 1 hit dice per a level and generally speaking armor and damage increase. With some classes the armor and damage increases considerably less than with others, but generally speaking it increases. The thing is that... well... there isn’t a good formula for what level of monster ought to be able to handle 4-5 PCs by themselves.
For instance, generally speaking if you have a level 5 PC fight 5 level 1 PCs, the level 5 PC has 5× the hit points as well as having better damage potential and being harder to hit. They will generally mop the floor with the 5 level 1s.
However, a level 25 PC would almost undoubtedly be demolished by 5 level 5s, particularly if those 5 level 5s have among them a thief, cleric, and particularly magic-user. This is particularly true given how in old D&D where PCs cap out at level 9.
Now, if something is going to be a challenge for 5 PCs it can only do one of the following
Have 5× the health it normally does or have some method to avoid ⅘ of the attacks (such as a high AC). This can either be all in one go or it can be be recovered over the battle (regen or healing magic) and the average health of the creature would be 5× by the end of the average length of a battle.Deal out 5× the damage a PC could. It could have 5× the attacks, hit 5× as often or deal 5× the damage a normal enemy of that level would do.
If you do both, it will be 25× as strong as a normal enemy. It is also worthwhile considering the difference between a solo and a group. After all, if you are fighting a group of enemies and you can manage to deal ⅕ of the total hit points in damage to one of the enemies in the group then the group’s damage output is going to decrease by 20%. But if you deal ⅕ of the hit points to an enemy with 5× the health, then its damage output isn’t going to decrease unless there is a system for it to do so.
In addition, PCs generally fight in groups. This means that if the attacks simply do 5× the damage or there are 5× as many attacks that can (and narratively should) be aimed at a single target, then you deal with another issue. Generally speaking a single enemy attack against a PC ought to sap around ⅓–¼ of their life. But if the attack does 5× damage or there are 5× the amount of attacks, this will wipe out a PC with each successful hit. This will cause the group’s effectiveness to drop by 20%.
Because of this, it is probably best to increase both the hit points and the damage output by about double. You can improve the AC or the monster’s chances to hit, but I would do it by a point or two at the most. Increased hit points and an increased *number* of attacks is what I would advise in order to have an exciting encounter that is less likely to result in a TPK.
As for the narrative attacks.... one of the things I feel the OSR has been painfully lazy about is when it comes to monster attacks. Particularly the old set up “2 claws, 1 bite” no animal in the world fights like that. Ever. It is utterly unimaginable that within a 6 second span of time a beast is ever going to swing its paws at two separate targets and then bite a third. It just doesn’t work that way. Nor is an animal going to make one swipe with each claws and then pull them back before biting. Rather than ever having such a sequence, it would have been far more realistic to simply describe this whole attack as a single unarmed attack sequence which will either be successful or not as a whole and the number rolled on the damage dice would be evocative of how many of its natural weapons it hit with.
Instead of giving a solo monster multiple attacks, the far better thing to do would be to give the monster area-effecting attacks. For instance, it can charge in a straight line which means it can run over a PC, knock another aside and then slam into a third target which would be a great way to get those mages into melee combat. Or it can make a sweep with a giant claw or weapon that has a chance of dealing damage to all enemies engaged in melee. Or it could release a cloud of toxic gas which could affect everyone in a given area or it could even be capable of picking up or knocking a PC off their feet (i.e. a successful melee attack), hurling them at another turning one PC’s body into a weapon against another (making a ranged attack).
With those sorts of attacks, suddenly it becomes very clear why it is foolish to attack the monster with a regiment of very weak soldiers and why a group of elite adventurers are needed to handle the monster.
So basically, my advice is when designing solo monsters... Double its normal hit points. Give it some sort of area attack (or several options!) that would allow it to hit 1–3 enemies a turn and particularly to be able to get at those more vulnerable ranged combatants. Increase AC, attack bonus and damage of the monster minimally—only 1–2 points.
And then you just have to accept that if this monster is, for instance, an Ogre or a Troll, that its numbers are not evocative of simply adding levels to the monster.
– andrew ferris
What can I say. These days my players kill red dragons in the surprise round and survive *cloud kill*... but area effects are clearly the way to go!
#RPG #Old School
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Good thoughts! Solo or boss monsters have been on my mind lately, especially since Beedo mentioned them in connection with his new megadungeon project. I think OSR games tend to avoid creating monsters that are explicit boss fights, unless they are quite high in level (like unique demon lords and such).
– Ynas Midgard 2014-03-17 18:15 UTC
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Also, dragons. 😄
I do wonder, however, whether classic D&D is well suited for boss fights. Is it just going to be a damage fest? Could be boring. Is going to involve special attacks? Could be *save or die* every round for at least one player character. My experience in recent sessions has been this:
Are these the “boss fights” we know from computer role-playing games? The key aspect of those is that you need to figure out a particular weakness (in D&D terms: immunities) and hit it a few times in a row while avoiding damage (in D&D terms: avoiding tons of damage or *save or die* effects). In a pen & paper game, smart players learn about immunities before starting a fight, so perhaps it doesn’t “feel” like a boss fight?
– Alex Schroeder 2014-03-17 18:40 UTC
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Boss fights are typically those which can be memorable for exploiting the mechanics. That is, if a game has plenty of different conditions (and ways of inflicting and removing them), bosses could be given different attack types that deal decent damage and/or inflict one more negative conditions on one or more targets. They could be accompanied by a large number of different creatures, as well; and the environment could be made more fantastical and easy to exploit.
Come to think of it, boss fights are typically those that need careful planning on the DM’s part. Not because of railroading purposes, but because their very nature require more attention; if boss fights are like fighting giants or dinosaurs in D&D (i.e. like normal encounters but with more damage and hit points), they are not really boss fights.
– Ynas Midgard 2014-03-19 18:28 UTC