Right after the Beta came out, we ran a 20th level playtest against a great wyrm black dragon, and I allowed the players to stat themselves as dragonslayers, which skewed the survivability aspect, but that's neither here nor there.
One thing that I noticed in that playtest is that at that level, there were tons and tons of dice flying around, with players trying to keep track of several dice, and then when criticals rolled around.
While this became manageable after a few rounds (after all, these characters were made that night, not played for months with the players being used to them already), it still took a good amount of time to figure up all of the dice used.
While we all love dice and radomization, I'm wondering for high level games, especially for games that are going to dwell on higher level play, if it wouldn't make sense to "officially" promote the "average damage" suggestions that both the Epic Level Handbook and Green Ronin's Advanced Game Master's Guide promote.
I think at lower levels maintaining randomized outcomes is part of the fun of the game, but I think that there are concessions that might have to be made in order to run a high level game effectively with the same degree of ease as low level games.
To facilitate this, monsters with a higher CR might have their average damage per attack listed along with the normal dice damage on their attacks, just as the average hit points of a monster are listed for them currently.
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While we all love dice and radomization, I'm wondering for high level games, especially for games that are going to dwell on higher level play, if it wouldn't make sense to "officially" promote the "average damage" suggestions that both the Epic Level Handbook and Green Ronin's Advanced Game Master's Guide promote.
My question would be: how are things like criticals accounted for? This is especially concern-worthy if a particular build is focused on widening crit ranges enhancing crit effects (like the ol' dual-scimitar-wielding-improved-criting rogue). Averaging would tend to marginalize characters that try to gain extra utility from randomized effects.
And average damage makes things more bland.
-Skeld
Well, if your average damage for your scimitar is, say, 23, your crit is 46 . . .
I understand that its less climatic than seeing all of the damage randomized, but even playing at 11th level, but especially in the 20th level playtest, counting up dozens of dice multiple times, especially for the ranger and the fighter that had multiple attacks, became even more tedious, and brought us out of the feel of the fight a lot more than not rolling dice did.
Well, if your average damage for your scimitar is, say, 23, your crit is 46 . . .
I understand that its less climatic than seeing all of the damage randomized, but even playing at 11th level, but especially in the 20th level playtest, counting up dozens of dice multiple times, especially for the ranger and the fighter that had multiple attacks, became even more tedious, and brought us out of the feel of the fight a lot more than not rolling dice did.
I second this motion. Five dice is just about the maximum I like to see flying around at once. :-)
And the point is that the equation to get the average still follows the normal way of doing this, its just that, say, for high CR monsters, having the average damage already listed might speed play up a bit. You would still list the dice and modifiers that are used to get that average, so if you really want to roll all of them, you could.
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And the point is that the equation to get the average still follows the normal way of doing this, its just that, say, for high CR monsters, having the average damage already listed might speed play up a bit. You would still list the dice and modifiers that are used to get that average, so if you really want to roll all of them, you could.
When WotC did their Dragon Delve a few years ago at GenCon(?) they rolled 1/3rd of the dice and averaged the other 2/3rd's so you could still get some of the luck in there.
So a dragons 18d6 breath weapon would be 6d6 + 31. I think mixing it up a bit would keep the random fun of some dice rolling... I mean there's a reason we have giant towers of d6's!!!
--Vrock n' roll the bones!
KnightErrantJR,
I sometimes do this for the monsters in our high level games as DM, just to speed things up a bit (I don't tell my players). It may be good to at least suggest it in the rules. In my experience, the players end up getting pretty close to the average damage anyway when rolling so many dice. As well, often the dice are a trivial part of the result at high level, where the bonus to the roll is often very high.
Lately, I've also been finding myself just closing out average encounters (with a descriptive conclusion) without taking it to completion (in rounds) when the PCs get the upper hand and it's a foregone conclusion that they are victorious. I've had several encounters at high level that reach a point where we are just going through the motions over several rounds before its finally over. I don't do this for important encounters of course.
Average damage at high level is a good idea... but it's still fun to roll dice. Maybe there are some conventions to keep the fun and variety of rolling at high level?
For instance:
Instead of rolling 10d6, roll 2d6 and multiply by 5.
Instead of rolling 13d6, roll 2d6 and multiply by 6, then add 1d6.
Instead of rolling 20d6, roll 2d6 and multiply by 10.
Instead of rolling 17d10, roll 2d10, multiply by 8, then add 1d10.
The "odd" die can be a different color.
You do get a bell curve when rolling 2 dice, and it may speed up play. You'd need to be quick with algebra though to keep it fast.
...say, for high CR monsters, having the average damage already listed might speed play up a bit.
This could be good on the DM side of combat and still have the players roll with a simplified system.