D&D 5E Mike Mearls 5E 2014 Monster Mods?

not-so-newguy · Saturday at 7:11 PM

I posted this query in a thread that is buried under hundreds of other posts. I'm creating this new thread in hopes of getting a response.

In several recent interviews, possibly more, Mr Mearls stated that he had a simple fix for monster stat blocks in 5e 2014 that makes combat more exciting; decrease their Hit Points but increase their Damage.

I was wondering if he had a formula for editing these stat blocks. E.g. halve their Hit Points and double their Damage. Is it posted in reddit or a blogpost somewhere? Perhaps a pdf?

I’m going to throw in an @mearls in the off chance that I can get him to respond.
Thanks!

Maxperson · Saturday at 7:15 PM

I'm curious about this as well.

Stormonu · Saturday at 7:59 PM

I could see halving hit points and increasing damage between 1.5x to 2x. I'd only do it for creatures of, say CR 1 or higher - maybe even just CR 3 or higher (whatever 5th level+ characters fight commonly).

Morrus · Saturday at 8:28 PM

This was the standard advice in the 4E era in which combats tended to go on for far too long. It was very common for DMs to do exactly this; it may have been one of the most common 4E ‘houserules’. I did it with pretty much every encounter.

I guess it works for 5E too, though it’s not as badly needed as it was in 4E.

SlyFlourish · Saturday at 9:32 PM

There's probably no magic forumla but you can make your own. Here's the one I recommend:

AC / DC = 12 + 1/2 CR
HP = 15 to 20 x CR
Attack / Primary Ability Bonus: 4 + 1/2 CR
Damage = 7 x CR

I can keep it in my head and build just about any monster I can think of almost as easily as building a monster in Cypher system (my favorite improvisational monster building system).

I also promote the Dials of Monster Difficulty which gives GMs the ability to tweak monsters on the fly by changing

the number of monsters in a fight.
the remaining hit points of those monsters.
the amount of damage those monsters do.
the number of attacks those monsters have.

It's ok to wing things for the pacing and fun of the game. You have all the permission you need. Take it!

If you happen to be a publisher, I've released these guidelines and a lot more under a CC license to help you build awesome 5e projects of your own.

mearls · Monday at 2:04 AM

I'm tackling this over on my Patreon! The key files are all free. First batch of stat blocks is available here:

Mearls Patreon Monster Test

As I've worked, I've found that a 4e style approach works best for getting monster stats into a good place. With stat blocks as written, I'd recommend:

Drop the XP multiplier from encounter building
Aim for to outnumber the party 2:1
Build encounters within that limit

The way monsters scale in 5e creates a weird effect where using few monsters leaves you with low hit points and low damage compared to a larger group, but going with too many monsters leaves your power budget spread too thin.

Here's an example stat block for an orc that is meant to go 4:1 against the party for a tough encounter, 2:1 for a challenging but not lethal one:

mellored · Monday at 2:10 AM

That makes it more swingy, but I don't think it would be more interesting.

Fighters are still going to walk into a room and just roll dice to see if they kill or die.

not-so-newguy · Monday at 2:14 AM

mellored said:
That makes it more swingy, but I don't think it would be more interesting.

Fighters are still going to walk into a room and just roll dice to see if they kill or die.

I like swingy

mellored · Monday at 2:24 AM

not-so-newguy said:
I like swingy

Then PCs get +5 to all d20 rolls, DC, and AC.
Everyone has 1 HP and all hits deal 1 damage.
THP is capped at 1 (rage also absorbs 1 hit).

Monsters won't hit often, but it's serious when they do.

mearls · Monday at 2:25 AM

I think that modern D&D is too non-swingy on the DM's side, or at least doesn't make enough use of high variability. Based on my own experiences of the past few years:

Players like reliability. They have a thing they can do, and they do it. If a player wants a swingy character, they can opt into that but I think it's unsatisfying as the default.
DMs are better served by swingy results for creatures that appear in numbers. That puts less pressure on trying to design specific abilities for monsters you encounter in bulk. Swingy results + a big mob, each getting a chance to produce a bad outlier result for the PCs = tension.
Boss and elite style monsters need less swinginess. IME, auto damage and save for half works great for these guys.

As an example, in my Tuesday campaign I ran a psionic boss monsters that emitted an auto damage blast in a 5-foot radius the first time it took damage each turn. The damage was low, like 3 points each time it triggered against a 5th level party, but it added up. It also had psionic ranged attacks that were very accurate and pulled victims - I mean, the PCs - closer to it.

Meanwhile, it also spawn psionic slimes that had low accuracy, high damage attacks. The encounter went very well, with the players having to balance ignoring the slimes versus focus firing a creature that was whittling down the paladin and barbarian's hit points.

A bad run of luck for the PCs saw the slimes drop two characters, but the paladin pulled off a crit on a smite to end the boss. The last bit of clean up was still tense, as the players had to be mindful of playing defense and keeping the slimes' attacks to a minimum.

TL;DR: I think that monsters need to be designed along 4e lines (solo, elite, normal, minion) to make a DM's life easier and to make the best encounters.

D&D 5E Mike Mearls 5E 2014 Monster Mods?

not-so-newguy

I'm the Straw Man in your argument

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

Stormonu

NeoGrognard

Morrus

Well, that was fun

SlyFlourish

SlyFlourish.com

mearls

Legend

mellored

Legend

not-so-newguy

I'm the Straw Man in your argument

mellored

Legend

mearls

Legend

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