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ninja_penguin
2009-06-12, 11:52 PM
So, curious thing popped up today: We had an extra player for our weekly dungeon delve, and in the final encounter two of us (myself, Eladrin swordmage, and a barbarian got perma-dead to a pair of grells. Now, in the post-game spiel when I was looking things up, the DM told me that on the fly, he'd split the Grell into two; halving the HP, but giving both an action point and a turn.

Now, I'm mostly curious as to how people think this stacks out. Initially, I was a bit irritated because I felt it pushed an already intended to be tough encounter to nigh-TPK status; but then I felt like I might be biased because I'd been killed off in said encounter. So I'm mostly interested in knowing what people think about spitting a monster in half for balance purposes. If it works out, I want to write it down in my book of DM tricks, because it's faster then my method of recalculating the EXP budget, and then adding in a new squad/members to fit that budget. If not, I want to say 'I don't think that's a good/fair idea, and here's why, and it's not because I'm complaining.

Tl;dr version: Splitting an elite monster into two elites with half HP for balancing for extra people; how's the math stack up?

Edge of Dreams
2009-06-13, 12:22 AM
I'd say 2 copies of an elite, each with half HP, is only slightly less dangerous than 2 copies of that same elite with full HP. The issue is their ability to focus fire, and with half of elite hp (which is double normal hp to begin with) they'll still take time to eliminate.

I recommend against this method, as it's too wonky to decide exactly how much xp it's worth. Instead, I would drop the elite 2-4 levels and copy it straight. Droping levels is stupidly easy, and it means you can deal with the xp tables as intended instead of eyeballing it.

Gralamin
2009-06-13, 01:08 AM
So, curious thing popped up today: We had an extra player for our weekly dungeon delve, and in the final encounter two of us (myself, Eladrin swordmage, and a barbarian got perma-dead to a pair of grells. Now, in the post-game spiel when I was looking things up, the DM told me that on the fly, he'd split the Grell into two; halving the HP, but giving both an action point and a turn.

Now, I'm mostly curious as to how people think this stacks out. Initially, I was a bit irritated because I felt it pushed an already intended to be tough encounter to nigh-TPK status; but then I felt like I might be biased because I'd been killed off in said encounter. So I'm mostly interested in knowing what people think about spitting a monster in half for balance purposes. If it works out, I want to write it down in my book of DM tricks, because it's faster then my method of recalculating the EXP budget, and then adding in a new squad/members to fit that budget. If not, I want to say 'I don't think that's a good/fair idea, and here's why, and it's not because I'm complaining.

Tl;dr version: Splitting an elite monster into two elites with half HP for balancing for extra people; how's the math stack up?

An Elite is worth 2 PCs.
Elites specifically get the following benefits:
Double normal HP, +2 to three defenses, +2 Saving throws, +1 Action point, and an extra power or two.
These 5 benefits are enough to make them worth two PCs, the most important ones are going to be the HP, Action Point, and Extra Power.

Halving HP alone leaves enough benefits that it still should be considered an elite. In order to make it equivalent to a normal creature, the following should be applied to the Grell:

Half HP
-2 AC, Fort, and Reflex
-2 Saving Throws
-1 AP
And remove the Venomous Bite Power.

So consider the following Scenarios:
Case a) Two Grell's at half hp, no changes.
Case b) One full elite Grell, one with the changes listed above.

In Case a) Total HP is 156, but each attack hits 10% less often(Except against will). In addition you have two full turns, its difficult to disable them, and they both have the ability to take an extra turn, as well as having an ability that lets get an extra attack on something grabbed.

In Case b) Total HP is 234. In addition, you have two full turns, its difficult to disable one, but easy to disable the other, only one of them has the ability to gain an extra turn, and only one has that extra attack on a grab.

I'm not sure how the math exactly works out (Where's Yakk when you need him?), but my guess is the drop in defensive power in case a) is not enough to make up for the extra actions.

Fishy
2009-06-13, 01:33 AM
The Swordmage is a Defender. The reason for his existence is to draw enemy fire: that's what he does, that's what his powers do. Suppose he wins initiative and does what he's designed to do- there are now two angry grells attacking him. He rapidly starts taking damage equal to exactly twice the amount he is expected to be able to take, and then he dies. And then they hit the barbarian.

Doubling the number of Elite enemies doesn't make it an even 2 on 2 fight, it's two 2 on 1 fights in rapid succession.

ninja_penguin
2009-06-13, 12:14 PM
Fishy, that's pretty much exactly what happened; thankfully after I had marked everything, the rest of the group managed to nova enough damage so that after my swordmage and the barbarian died they managed to clean up (although the bard ran away; I was less then amused).

I guess I'll just suggest adding minions or something as a fix from now on. Thanks for the opinions all; I wnated to make sure that my thought process wasn't being affected by me being one of the people that died.