4e math fixes

[Ban]

Okay, just a little note on fixing the math in 4e for those who are interested in 4e's HP bloat and other monster issues (Jason, this means you).  For those who are not, look away. 


Copy & paste from somethingawful:
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What's all this talk about math fixes? I thought 4E was the best D&D out there?

Well, no game is perfect. There are two major fixes to the game. It is important to note that, however much we may talk about these fixes, the game works out of the box. Don't feel obliged to give your characters anything, and don't be mad at a DM who says nope, we're playing rules as written (RAW).

The first is what we call "MM3 Monster Math." For the third (and subsequent) monster manuals, Wizards decided to revamp how they were constructing monsters. Solos in the first and second monster manual are slow, boring slogs, and damned near everything has too many hit points. Now, monsters hit harder and go down quicker, making the game faster and more fun. This fix is officially supported by Wizards, and all new monsters (including the monster vaults) use this math. Basically, all monsters should roughly follow this rubric:



I use the Monster Math Cruncher to build or balance old monsters to the new math. It's actually kinda fun. There are other changes (primarily to solos), but we could go on about that for days.

The second fix is unofficial, but nearly universally accepted: Feat Taxes. After a while, Wizards realized that monster defenses climb faster than PC attack bonuses, and so they released the so-called "expertise" feats that give +1 to attack per tier. This fixes the attack bonus problem (mostly), but raises another: everyone who wants to be a competitive character will take these feats, making them essentially a wasted slot. The common fix is to give out the Expertise feat at level 5.

Other feats that are sometimes given out for free to avoid taxes (depending upon group and playstyle): Improved Defenses, Weapon/Implement Focus, and Melee Training.
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Link to the Monster Math Cruncher:
http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eMonsterMathCruncher/index.php

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In the same flavour, there's also an article on the math for skill DCs have been adjusted (but I'm not sure if its easier or harder) with the september 2010 update at http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drdd/2010September

C&P:

DIFFICULTY CLASS BY LEVEL
Level	Easy	Moderate	Hard		Level	Easy	Moderate	Hard
1	8	12	19		16	16	22	31
2	9	13	20		17	16	23	31
3	9	13	21		18	17	23	32
4	10	14	21		19	17	24	33
5	10	15	22		20	18	25	34
6	11	15	23		21	19	26	35
7	11	16	23		22	20	27	36
8	12	16	24		23	20	27	37
9	12	17	25		24	21	28	37
10	13	18	26		25	21	29	38
11	13	19	27		26	22	29	39
12	14	20	28		27	22	30	39
13	14	20	29		28	23	30	40
14	15	21	29		29	23	31	41
15	15	22	30		30	24	32	42

[Poh Tun Kai]

I'm aware of both the fixes. The DC update is in the Essentials books, while the MM3 math fix is useful for upgrading monsters from levels 5 and up. Generally, if I'm using monsters from Draconomicon 2, Open Grave and MM1 and MM2, I will apply increased damage for higher-level stuff. For level 1-4 the differences are small enough to not really be worth worrying about, so in the Icewind Dale sessions I didn't bother with the math fixes. Anyway, I used Dark Sun and Essentials monsters liberally, so most of the time my monsters were already using the math fix.

The Essentials Monster Vault is a great source of math-fixed monsters for Heroic and Paragon.

[Ban]

We've got quite a few newish 4e GMs recently, so thought this would be useful for them. :)

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[Shift244]

Very interesting. Thank you.

[Ban]

I've previously shared the improved 4E monster manual 3 math some time ago in this thread. Recently I was doing a stupid amount of math craft to examine 4E DND's improved math and compare it to 13th age to help me understand how the fights are balanced (so I can build better encounters when i GM myself). 

Unsuprisingly, results indicated that 13th age moves much faster even with the improved 4E monster math from Monster Manual 3.  This is pretty desirable, to say the least, and i was considering how to hack 4E's monster math to make battles even faster.

In the mean time, I found resources online which made suggestions very close to what I wanted. Blog's suggestions were very consistent with my own conclusions, so I'd probably try something like these if I run a 4E game. Here's the website:

http://blogofholding.com/?p=3625

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Summary:

Monster Hit Points: Monsters' hit points now use the following reduced formulas:

• Brutes: 30 + 5/level
• Leaders, Skirmishers, Soldiers: 25 + 4/level
• Artillery, Lurkers: 20 + 3/level

(Daniel: I was thinking Brutes 30+6, leaders etc 25+5, artiller/lurkers 20+4, very similar to player HP gain)

Monster Damage: Monsters now do 8 + 1.5 damage per level instead of 8 + 1 damage per level.

(25-50% extra for encounter powers + recharge powers, 25% extra for brutes, -25% for multiple attacks)

Optional PC Damage Progression: 

1. All PCs gain a bonus to damage equal to half their level. Thus, their damage progresses at a similar rate to attacks, skills, and defenses.

2. All PCs gain a +1 bonus to attacks at level 1. This bonus increases to +2 at level 11 and +3 at level 21.

3. Remove Weapon Focus, Implement Focus, and all related feats from the game.

4. Remove Weapon Expertise, Implement Expertise, and all related feats from the game

5. Remove all feat bonus to attacks from the game. All feats that give a feat bonus to attacks now have that property removed.

6. Remove all item bonuses to damage from the game. All items that give item bonuses to damage now have that property removed.

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You can check out the blog for more details.

On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 5:38 PM, Shift244 <phang....@gmail.com> wrote:

Very interesting. Thank you.

[Poh Tun Kai]

The modified math is a nice idea, if we get around to playing 4e again. Right now my 4e books are mostly just idea generating material for 13th Age. I may haul out some of the planar books if the players ever go plane-hopping.

[Ban]

A number of us tried to run 4E games, and we quickly found that we were having difficulty making balanced encounters. I hoped folks who are thinking of running 4E games would notice and be aware of some of the issues as well as possible fixes available. 

I kind of recall there was a group of new players in GOKL who were waiting for a someone willing to run a 4E game for them. Are they still waiting?

On Sun, Jul 20, 2014 at 9:21 AM, Poh Tun Kai <ptik...@gmail.com> wrote:

The modified math is a nice idea, if we get around to playing 4e again. Right now my 4e books are mostly just idea generating material for 13th Age. I may haul out some of the planar books if the players ever go plane-hopping.

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[Poh Tun Kai]

I'll ask.

By the way, are you running your game tonight?

[Ban]

No, the players haven't confirmed when they are free.

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 9:36 AM, Poh Tun Kai <ptik...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'll ask.

By the way, are you running your game tonight?

--

[Ban]

I'm also considering removing attack and defence scaling altogether, ala this guy's post. So essentially player and monster attack and defences do not increase with levels.

http://blogofholding.com/?p=1861

It's what 5th edition DnD decided to do in the end, really. This way, the entire issue of fixing the math can be sidestepped.