Comments/suggestions on Jester's rules (5e)

[Skyrock]

Thinking again about Redhead, maybe random tables could be the way to go to represent the wild und uncontrolled natural knack for magic.
Have separate lists for beneficial and harmful effects, decide if you want to harm or help someone, settle on a target, and then roll on the table to see what comes out of it. That way we could even integrate the more powerful original Redhead effects of Lvl 1 spells by making them rare results (preferably by using a random table with a bell curve (e.g. 3d6) with the extreme results at the two ends of the table).

It would rhyme better with an "old-school" approach like mine that embraces randomness, than for a "modern" approach that leaves it up to the DM to handpick suitable results, but even for the latter it would make the Dark Shadow more attractive compared to other Dark Shadows.

[alhoon]

About the monsters: Could we add specific monsters there, like the Darklords, Toben the Many, Montari, Blackroot, the serpent of the lake, etc etc etc?
Or I should create a thread for that and leave the doc for the generic monsters?

[Jester of the FoS]

About the monsters: Could we add specific monsters there, like the Darklords, Toben the Many, Montari, Blackroot, the serpent of the lake, etc etc etc?
Or I should create a thread for that and leave the doc for the generic monsters?

Sure. I was thinking of slipping unique monsters and darklords in there eventually.

[alhoon]

question: Can you double check the Zombie Lord? I was about to write the Toben Zombies when I noticed the ZL has 82 hp (corrected the typo ) , with 14AC. OK, his hit roll is pathetic, but it's still 4 attacks/round, or 2 attacks and an aura attack*.
Yes, by my calculations too, he lands at CR3 but I doubt a 3rd lvl party can take him as "moderate" challenge.
His blows are not good, but he can take a lot of rounds to die... rounds that his aura would take care of enemies by itself. Con DC 12 means that by the 5th round of combat, and it will probably take 6+ rounds, a character or two would be at exhaustion 3. That will be disadvantage on attacks, vs AC 14.

Now, if the party has 1 dwarf warrior with 18 con and 3 ranged people that know to stay over 30' from the ZLord, yes, he will go down nicely. But which 3rd lvl character knows to stay away?

Effectively, whatever the numbers say, I believe ZLord should have less hp than 82. I suggest dropping his con to 14 and his HD to 9 for 58 hp.


*The aura attack deals just 1d6 with a DC 12 at 30' around the ZL. Sure, it's max hp reduction but as far as combat goes, it still just 1d6. The ZLord is way better served making attacks because they have as much chance to hit and deal about double damage.
I would suggest increasing the damage the aura does to 1d10 or 2d4.

[Jester of the FoS]

question: Can you double check the Zombie Lord? I was about to write the Toben Zombies when I noticed the ZL has 82 hp (corrected the typo ) , with 14AC. OK, his hit roll is pathetic, but it's still 4 attacks/round, or 2 attacks and an aura attack*.
Yes, by my calculations too, he lands at CR3 but I doubt a 3rd lvl party can take him as "moderate" challenge.
His blows are not good, but he can take a lot of rounds to die... rounds that his aura would take care of enemies by itself. Con DC 12 means that by the 5th round of combat, and it will probably take 6+ rounds, a character or two would be at exhaustion 3. That will be disadvantage on attacks, vs AC 14.

Now, if the party has 1 dwarf warrior with 18 con and 3 ranged people that know to stay over 30' from the ZLord, yes, he will go down nicely. But which 3rd lvl character knows to stay away?

Effectively, whatever the numbers say, I believe ZLord should have less hp than 82. I suggest dropping his con to 14 and his HD to 9 for 58 hp.


*The aura attack deals just 1d6 with a DC 12 at 30' around the ZL. Sure, it's max hp reduction but as far as combat goes, it still just 1d6. The ZLord is way better served making attacks because they have as much chance to hit and deal about double damage.
I would suggest increasing the damage the aura does to 1d10 or 2d4.

Someone else slipped in the zombie lord. I gave it a 30-second look (mostly for formatting) but not much.

Keep in mind, a single monster of your challenge is not "moderate". It's usually Hard and by the border to Deadly. The Zombie Lord, at Challenge 3, is 100xp beyond Medium for four level 3 PCs and 200xp away from Deadly.

[alhoon]

Well, 200 XP from hard and 900 XP from deadly actually... So that's medium encounter, supposedly, he's not even a hard encounter. Hence, I believe that he should either be bumped to CR4 making him a hard-but-not-deadly encounter for 3 PCs of 3rd lvl or his hp should be reduced accordingly to make him as dangerous as a mummy.
By the rules, the 82hp\14 AC\exhaustion aura Zombie Lord is just considered a hard encounter for 3 PCs of 3rd lvl.
In my opinion, the way he's written he should be CR4 whatever the numbers say. Or dropped to 58 hp to become an actual "just hard" encounter for 3 PCs of 3rd lvl.

[Zilfer]

Well if 3 PC's are attacking a single target.... say Fighter 1d8+4 = 8.5 Average damage

Plus a wizard spell at level 3 throws out what kinda damage? I know the game i played a Warlock was throwing out a 1d10 = 5.5 average

Plus a rogue attacking throwing out a 1d6+3-4ish + 1d6 sneak = 9-10 average

Assuming no misses because AC 14 is low....

Adding them all together = 22-23ish damage per turn (If the wizard doesn't do more damage than that i've only played 2 games of 5.0 so i don't know what 2nd level spells look like...)

82 hp thus drops in an average of 4 turns in.... this is of course if the battle starts "In melee range" and they get no early range damage from the creature.

I thought the CR system was based off 4 vs Monster not 3 vs Monster.... which would increase the damage per turn even more.....

Not saying it wouldn't be a tough fight but the battle probably won't last past 6 turns.... if that.

I'm also assuming Zombie lord doesn't suffer from being a Zombie where it is staggered (IE only gets half his turn, a move or an attack)

[Skyrock]

I thought the CR system was based off 4 vs Monster not 3 vs Monster.... which would increase the damage per turn even more.....

The 4 PCs per group assumption was hardwired into 3.x and is gone now.

5e computes by individual PC. CR determines the minimum level for all PCs to have a "fair" fight against a particular monster, XP value vs the sum of XP values of all PCs determines how hard the encounter will be.

[alhoon]

With all due respect... your calculations are wrong.

Assuming no misses because AC 14 is low....

Adding them all together = 22-23ish damage per turn (If the wizard doesn't do more damage than that i've only played 2 games of 5.0 so i don't know what 2nd level spells look like...)

82 hp thus drops in an average of 4 turns in.... this is of course if the battle starts "In melee range" and they get no early range damage from the creature.

Well, AC 14 is not low. Someone would roll a 6.
4 rounds x 3 attacks is 12 attacks that need a good 8-9 to hit. There's a 35%-40% miss chance there.
Hence the 4 rounds go up to 6 rounds... With a zombie lord that could drop the rogue in 2 rounds since he's in melee. 8 attacks with a +3 is about 3 attacks on the rogue (assuming AC 16-17) which is 3d8+9 damage.
And after the rogue falls, we're with just the fighter fighting a monster with 4 attacks per round, while getting more and more exhausted. The rogue's incapacitation would increase the length of the fight even more.

Actually, the ONLY way I can see to avoid TPK is for the characters you mentioned to keep the Zombie lord at bay while wizard and rogue attack with ranged attacks to be away from the exhaustion aura.
melee Rogue, melee Fighter and wizard is a bad party to fight undead with.

I thought the CR system was based off 4 vs Monster not 3 vs Monster.... which would increase the damage per turn even more.....

It's based on "3 to 5" PCs, and there are rules on how to adjust the encounter difficulty for fewer/more PCs. Easy is 75XP per 3rd lvl char, medium is 150XP per 3rd lvl char and hard is 225XP per 3rd lvl char. Deadly is 400 XP per 3rd lvl char.
So an encounter worth 450 XP is medium for 3 3rd lvl characters, while an encounter of 675XP is tough.
A zombie lord is worth 700 XP according to the rules. That's just a bit over hard for a party of 3 and between medium and hard for a party of 4. Well, he's about deadly for a party of 3 and hard for a party of 4.

[Jester of the FoS]

In my opinion, the way he's written he should be CR4 whatever the numbers say. Or dropped to 58 hp to become an actual "just hard" encounter for 3 PCs of 3rd lvl.

I'm mostly focused on getting monsters down at the moment, and doing their mechanics and numbers. After doing several dozen monsters, I should have a better idea for how they work and the nuances of 5e monster design.
Then I can fine tune the document, using the newly learned design skills.

[alhoon]

Sounds fair.
I didn't want to drag you in a 15-post-discussion about a certain monster that I have a hunch the rules as written shouldn't apply to. It's not the end of a world, it's a hiccup that could be rectified in a year without any harm done.

[Zilfer]

Yeah no worries Alhoon. Again I've played maybe twice, and the rules at my table may have been different and again i was playing level 1.... i don't know the power spike to get up to level 3 and how far equipment would push your plus' but I starting off had a +6 to hit as my rogue with a shortsword. We also used that flanking granted advantage which would shave off that 30-40% miss chance you said that would be, and I haven't looked at the monster I admit past the HP. I was just stating Low AC but High HP monster's aren't always that scary... A surprise round can easily meat grinder such creatures.

[alhoon]

Hehehe... if you see the monsters, especially at higher levels, they assume little or no magical weapons and starting array characters. At 10th lvl a character according to the rules-as-written may or may not have a magical weapon!

IMC, my characters have started with rolled scores and I have given them good magical weapons and rings of protection. All in all, at 12th lvl they usually count as 14th lvl for encounters.
Keep in mind it's not that bad. I just figured the PCs equivalent level (14) and make encounters for that level.

[TheSalemlord]

Someone else slipped in the zombie lord. I gave it a 30-second look (mostly for formatting) but not much.

That someone was me .
I believe the ZL should be in the "Hard" range boss type monster. (thinking of Marcel d'Tarascon, mostly). So I wanted to make him deadly, just like in the old 2nd edition; but that is more of a personal taste.

[Jester of the FoS]

Someone else slipped in the zombie lord. I gave it a 30-second look (mostly for formatting) but not much.

That someone was me .
I believe the ZL should be in the "Hard" range boss type monster. (thinking of Marcel d'Tarascon, mostly). So I wanted to make him deadly, just like in the old 2nd edition; but that is more of a personal taste.

That philosophy permeated the 3rd Party monster book Fifth Edition Foes. They rounded down to the nearest CR. I've been doing that as well. If the challenge falls between two numbers I'll round down.

Players are smart and can be durable if they want, and can take down far superior foes with a mix of cunning and good tactics (or sneakiness).