So, this idea came to me when thinking about the posts noting accuracy and such across levels, as well as the general notion of action economy in 1 monster vs ~4 party member fights: What if some monsters just were naturally Quick, i.e. had 4 (or more) actions per turn? Obviously, this is not a vastly applicable idea, but I'm thinking about foes that in the vast majority of cases you'll fight solo, or maybe with only a couple lower level allies on their side. So think Liches or Dragons or the like. Maybe also some lower level solo monsters as well.
I'm mostly spitballing, but maybe they'd have lower stats, in terms of attack or damage or what not, than enemies of their similar level, but they'd have more actions. Probably also lower AC (with probably an increased HP to compensate), because they'd be enemies a party would tend to fight at levels below the monster's level, as opposed to enemies a party might fight in groups which are a level or two below their own. And maybe for other enemies which are solo fights for a party, which otherwise might be reasonable for a higher level party to fight in a group, there could be a level adjustment template for applying this to monsters.
I don't really have much else to add to this question (as I said, I'm mostly spitballing), since I haven't yet GMed a playtest game, but for the people who have, do you think this would this be an interesting way to solve some of the age-old issues, given this new action system?
I believe you are referring to the fact that in P1E solo monsters would get wrecked by a party unless the Monsters were much higher level (and even then in some cases).
P2E does not have this problem, it seems. A Monster that is 1 or 2 levels higher than the party has a chance of TPKing them now thanks to the math system. Which I think is great. It makes encounter building so much easier.
For bosses: not needed
For monsters: Zombies are naturally slow, I see no reason monsters couldn't have 4, 5, even 6 actions, besides being more awkward to run.
I believe you are referring to the fact that in P1E solo monsters would get wrecked by a party unless the Monsters were much higher level (and even then in some cases).
P2E does not have this problem, it seems. A Monster that is 1 or 2 levels higher than the party has a chance of TPKing them now thanks to the math system. Which I think is great. It makes encounter building so much easier.
I may have phrased my initial idea poorly. My hope was to solve both issues, by essentially making the challenge of these monsters not in that they can only be hit on a 12 or 13 by an optimized fighter, but adjusting their base stats down to a level where a level X party can fight a level X+2 or X+3, which the encounter building classifies as severe-threat such as with a boss, but still have the math of the system work out as though they were even level or level+1 (except probably for HP, to keep from being focused down), and have that extra challenge, that makes them +2 levels or so above their base statistics, come from the fact that they get more actions.
Obviously, this doesn't work for every, or even most, cases as there are plenty monsters that can be a solo threat or a group threat, but in cases where the vast majority of fights are solo, such as with dragons or liches or the Level 21+ fights, I'm trying to see if there's a better way than just higher numbers than the party can keep up with to make them challenging, without returning to the 1e problems where solo enemies will just get murdered by the party, and since the magic side is largely taken care of by the 4 tiered success system, this is attempting to solve the other side of the equation, with action economy.
I think I understand. The problem is that just making them cooler, so to speak, and not raising their stats means it's easier for the players to hit them, and therefore kill them. So giving them any sort of ability won't really matter if they're dead in 2 rounds instead of 4. There's no threat.
Then you just run into the same problem as last edition, the rocket tag.