D&D 4E 4e Monster Design

[fjw70]

I have been looking at 4e monster design lately for a couple reasons. First for the first time I am DMing a mid-level paragon campaign that we expect to take into epic tier and combats have been getting very long. This wasn’t that big an issue at lower levels but it is getting worse at the higher levels.

Second, I have always felt there was a gap between minion and standard monsters that needed to be filled (i.e. a monster class that can challenge the players more than minions but resolve in combat quicker than standards). I have tried a few things to fill this gap and have seen some posts over time that have attempted to fill this gap.

Here is my solution to (hopefully) help with both of these issues. The common monster I call a Trooper. Here are the details:

-They are worth 2 or 3 standard monsters (I need some testing to see what works).
-They have an HP threshold of 10 + level. Damage equal to or greater than the threshold kills them outright. Damage less than the threshold bloodies them. Any damage to a bloodied trooper kills it.
-They do level + 8 damage (the average for a standard) and add 50% of the damage on a crit (about what a standard would do on a crit).

Other than that they follow the same monster building rules as standard monsters (roles would be optional).

Groups of these monsters could be supplemented by leaders and champions that are standards or elites.

I also want to simplify the presentation of monster blocks when possible. Here is an example of a level 17 trooper stat block.

Quaggoth (HPT 27, AC31, F31, R29, W27, ATT +22, DAM 25 [37], SP 6).

Unless otherwise specified all attacks are against AC.

If something else is needed then it can be winged. Need a skill bonus? If trained 10+1/2 level, if not then 0 to 4 +1/2 level.

This trooper monster and simplified stat block should help me run old school adventures for 4e. For example, if running U2 (invading a lizardman lair) the typical lizardmen could be troopers, the officers could be standards, and the other leaders could be elites (and of course the dragon would be a solo).


Another idea I plan to implement immediately in my 4e games is just using average damage for monsters with a 50% bump for a crit.

I have also been looking at Frothsof’s blog (http://frothsof4e.blogspot.com/). He has some good ideas for speeding up combat and bringing in some old school flavor to 4e.

 

[Zustiur]

I was pondering a similar solution, with the exception that mine replaces minions, rather than being an additional category.
My minions (or Mooks as I like to think of them) have the same stats as minions, but with the following changes:
* 1 hit no longer auto kills
* their HP is equal to Con + 1/2 level
* misses affect them as per normal creatures. i.e. they take damage as normal.

That way, I believe it will generally take 2 hits to kill them, without invoking some glaring rule, whilst still allowing for ways to kill them in 1 hit, or 3 hits.

Example: a kobold minion has 12 Con. So, being a level 1 monster, it would have 12 HP.
A typical fighter is going to do 1d8+4 damage, for an average of 9.5. He can roll max damage and kill a minion in one hit, or he can kill it in 2 hits with average rolls. At worst he'll need 3 hits.

I am not familiar enough with high level damage output to be certain, but I think the formula holds true from levels 1-30.

 

[Ferghis]

I am not familiar enough with high level damage output to be certain, but I think the formula holds true from levels 1-30.

Looks like it will hold true, even though max damage might not drop the "minion," because monsters' ability scores scale dramatically with level. A 30th level enemy can easily have Con 30, leading to 45 HP under your formula.

A basic level 30 character might have a 2W at-will (why should they waste extra resources on this kind of target?) say 2d6, +10 (ability bonus) +6 (enhancement or inherent bonus) +6 (bracers or sibeys shard) = 29 average, but 34 maximum (before crit dice). A striker might be able to one-shot it, but the strikers should be focusing on other targets.

 

[D'karr]

IMO attempts to "unminionize" minions miss the point of why minions exist in the first place.

Minions are designed for ease of use. Tracking HP on a minion is a waste of effort and goes against their design intent. The entire point of minions is that they require no tracking.

On the DM side they are designed to be easily expendable, and not add any work to the function of running them. Tracking HP is a pain in the ass if you put 20 standard enemies on the board. It is trivially easy if you put 20 minions on the board because you don't worry about HP.

If the purpose is to make minions more "deadly" then go ahead and roll damage for their attacks instead of using average damage. This does, however, add quite a bit of overhead if you have 20 minions on the board.

Instead of meticulously tracking HP use 2 hit minions. First hit bloodies them, which ends up "triggering" some special abilities with PCs that do effects on bloodied enemies. Second hit kills them. Or use one of the existing minion capabilities where they roll a save on a hit and stay alive if they make the save.

Before deciding to alter a specific mechanic it is important to understand why it exists in the first place. Minions exist specifically to be easy to kill, still provide a challenge at any level, and require no overhead.

The only major change I have made to the minion mechanics is in their numbers. I use 6 minions per standard monster instead of 4 at heroic tier, 8 minions at Paragon, and 10 at Epic.

Creating an "intermediate" creature between minion and standard might serve a purpose but that particular purpose should be defined before going to the trouble of creating another "role". Wouldn't it simply be easier to downgrade a standard so that it still has interesting things to do in a combat but dies in 1-2 hits?

One of the many "good" things about 4e Monster Design is that each monster, "racially", has interesting things that make it different from another monster of the same level. For example kobolds are shifty, and goblins make you chase them when you miss. In previous editions a goblin and a kobold were mechanically the same except in how the DM decided to run them. Kobolds might have been trapmakers and goblins might have been born liars. Mechanically there really was no difference. 4e went ahead and made sure that different monsters, mechanically, and thematically ARE different.

I would highly recommend that an "intermediate" monster role also have interesting things to it. If all it will do is attack with a basic attack, then it's not interesting. Any creature can do that.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Second, I have always felt there was a gap between minion and standard monsters that needed to be filled (i.e. a monster class that can challenge the players more than minions but resolve in combat quicker than standards). I have tried a few things to fill this gap and have seen some posts over time that have attempted to fill this gap.

It's strange, isn't it? We've got this nice ladder of monster power; an elite is half of a solo (...almost); a standard is half of an elite; and then a minion is...one quarter of a standard?! There really is a missing link there...

Here is my solution to (hopefully) help with both of these issues. The common monster I call a Trooper. Here are the details:

-They are worth 2 or 3 standard monsters (I need some testing to see what works).
-They have an HP threshold of 10 + level. Damage equal to or greater than the threshold kills them outright. Damage less than the threshold bloodies them. Any damage to a bloodied trooper kills it.
-They do level + 8 damage (the average for a standard) and add 50% of the damage on a crit (about what a standard would do on a crit).

Other than that they follow the same monster building rules as standard monsters (roles would be optional).

...And it looks like you and I arrived at the same solution! In my Marvelous Monster guide, I detail 'goons,' which are my link between minions and standards. Goon damage thresholds don't rise as quickly as trooper thresholds, because I like to roughly maintain the KOable-with-one-high-damage-encounter-attack dynamic thru all levels of play. And goons don't deal quite as much damage as troopers, because I like the One Goon = 2 Minions = 1/2 Standard math. (Eyeballing your math, I'd peg your troopers as being equivalent to 2/3 to 4/5 of a standard, depending on level.)

The basics are the same though. If you're curious about my goons, check out the attachment at the bottom of this thread's OP.

 

[jodyjohnson]

We're currently starting E2 after 24 levels of adjusted monster math.


1. Let your players optimize. At 22 my party does about 50-150 each in the first round with encounters and at-wills and no AP.

2. For math I follow the DM Cheat sheet (DMG 2 math) for Attack, Damage, and Defenses. For HP I changed it to 4/5/6 per level just like PCs and then add 6/7/9 based on role (this is actually the class bonus minus the per level amount). No Con.

3. For centerpiece fights use the printed HP for named opponents.

Now that we're in Epic I just use average damage instead of rolling 5d8+8 for NPCs. It's 30 for a Level 22 (+50% on a crit or double for high crit mobs).


We do 4-7 encounters in 3 hours and have been doing the HPE modules in 4-6 sessions. A standard fight lasts 2-3 rounds. For prep, I do encounter cards with HP, Defenses, Attacks, Damage and encounter notes - plus pre-roll their initiatives. I also combine encounters.



In the spirit of 5e you can pretty much do what you want. For us, we like higher damage but less hp fights.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, this is one of those "there are many ways to skin a cat" things. Personally I like using level - 2 creatures in this kind of situation. They're not totally ineffective, but they usually go down quick, and they're cheap.

 

[Joshua Randall]

An alternative to tracking minion hits points that I have used:

Minions have resist X all, where X is an appropriate number.

Appropriate to what? To how robust you want the minions to be. I usually set X to let the minions them survive PC auto-damage (e.g. fighter's Rain of Blows) or below average at-will hits.

You don't have to track hit points. You just keep one number in mind.

 

[keterys]

13th Age uses an idea I'd seen used before it - mooks have a certain # of hit points each, and all of the minions together have a hp pool. So if there are 4 10hp minions, you have 40 hp of minions and you drop one for every 10 damage dealt.

Even if very occasionally that means that a PC beheads one, sending its head flying into another one (knocking it out), at which point 2 others shriek in fear, drop their weapons, and flee.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Rather than toughening up minions, I made them weaker. I like throwing buttloads of minions at the party, requiring them to hack and slash through swarms of them, but I find the actual swarm rules unsatisfying for hordes of humanoid-ish critters (although I find them fine for swarms of rats or insects).

But this bogs down play, of course. So I made it a minor action to kill a minion. All you have to do is narrate it: "I run after the fleeing necromancer, chop this zombie's head off and kick this one down into the pit."