Hit Dice for high level monsters

[Yora]

I've been looking at some B/X and AD&D monsters for guidelines on judging the strength of homebrew monsters, and noticed that even the biggest baddest demons and devils have very few Hit Dice. Balors, pit fiends, and ultroloths have only 13 HD with all others even less. Which is a bit surprising, given that giants and dinosaurs regularly have a lot more than that.

Are all the special abilities meant to compensate for the low hit chances and hit points, or are demons and devils just not meant to be very threatening?

[Thrudd]

13 HD is pretty darn threatening. But yes, demons and devils all have immunities and magic resistance that makes up for it for sure. Requiring magic items of varying power just to touch them, ability to gate in other demons and Devils among other spell abilities, 25% of your spells just fail, etc.

[LibraryOgre]

13 HD is more than any PC except 1e Monks and Bards.

[Yora]

That is true, I had not considered that. I was just surprised that some really mundane creature have a lot more.

[Saladman]

Working off memory here, but I believe B/X still had the old hit die scheme for players, where fighters got d8 hit points, clerics got d6 and mages and thieves got d4. Monsters scaled pretty well against that.

AD&D boosted character class hit dice and left monsters mostly alone. I don't know about demons and devils with their resistances, but 1e was the edition where dragons could be oddly fragile against a leveled, magic-equipped party.

Also, 4d6 drop lowest and the other alternate methods first appeared in print in AD&D. So PC Con bonuses, and therefore total hit points compared to monsters', should theoretically have been lower in B/X. However I'm fuzzy on whether AD&D was only catching up to house rules here or whether it really introduced the idea.

[Yora]

It's not just hit points but also hit chances and saving throws. But looking at the numbers for some high HD monsters, the differences doesn't really seem that big and you're unlikely to have such a proliferation of AC and attack bonuses as in high level 3rd edition. On the other hand, immunity against weapons of insufficient enchantment or spell resistance of up to 70% are going to be a huge problem for parties, regardless of what level they have. What good is an almost certain chance to hit and having extremely powerful spells when they just bounce off?

[Telok]

Don't forget that most of the monsters with massive numbers of hit dice tend to be big dumb brutes while the demons were pretty smart and cunning.

I think that part of the intent was for PCs to try and fight intelligently. With the brutes the issue was tons of hit points, if you tried to face-tank them they outlasted the party so you needed to trick or avoid them. With the demons and such the trick was getting them to stop and fight on evenish terms in the first place, trapping them in melee where they couldn't use all thier powers was the hard part.

[Knaight]

Some of this is also just simulation. The mundane creatures with lots of HD tend to be absolutely massive, and it makes sense that they are tough to take down just because of their sheer size. The demons in question are still fairly large, but consistently smaller than most of those mundane creatures, giving them less sheer meat. They then make up for it with a plethora of defensive abilities.

[Yora]

I think that part of the intent was for PCs to try and fight intelligently. With the brutes the issue was tons of hit points, if you tried to face-tank them they outlasted the party so you needed to trick or avoid them. With the demons and such the trick was getting them to stop and fight on evenish terms in the first place, trapping them in melee where they couldn't use all thier powers was the hard part.

It doesn't stop amazing me how this really is such a much more interesting game than 3rd edition. :smallbiggrin:

[Telok]

Well the early editions of d&d were written as sort of fantasy adventure simulators. Later editions are more like game rule sets derived from previous games, usually with incomplete understanding of the previous games. So the early versions play like a simulation of people who go out and do dangerous things for fun and profit. Later versions are closer to a board game that emulates the earlier simulation.

Simulations are more difficult to get right because they tend to strive for accuracy. Board games usually strive for balance, equality, or ease of play.

Of course none of our d&ds are wart free, not even our favorites.

[Digitalelf]

none of our d&ds are wart free, not even our favorites.

This is so true.

I love 2nd edition, in fact, I quit playing 3rd edition/Pathfinder altogether in favor of returning to 2nd edition, but I fully admit that it has its share of warts; I am just willing to overlook and/or embrace those warts... :smallwink:

[ken-do-nim]

I make the ruling that demons in particular can see through their own darkness. In fact, anyone with infravision can. Since all demons in 1E can generate darkness, there's little reason for them to go around without it, and thus few humans have ever seen a demon. If they had 16-18 hit dice on top of such potent special abilities, they'd be unstoppable. Take your 8+8 hit die balrog. He's dropping symbols left and right, and he's got really good ones. Now add on the darkness bit. Fighter rushes up to attack him, he's probably crossing over 2 or 3 symbols that he never even saw.

[Straybow]

For most creatures, rolling hit dice as written incorporated the chances that some were bigger and tougher, some not, and some of them might still be injured from a previous fight. Especially if you're talking about a band of orcs, gobs, hobs, etc who might fight amongst themselves on occasions.

When it came to character hit points, I settled on rolling d6+4 instead of d10, d6+2 for d8, d4+2 for d6, d3+1 for d4. Nothing sucked worse than getting only 1 or 2 hp. You've already "sorted" the tougher characters into the fighters and the wimpier ones into wiz or thief. Remember, only the extremely tough got Con bonuses (15 representing the top 10%).

When it came to things like demons I always maximized half the hit dice. I think devils were actually written that way, as say 5+20 or something like that. They don't come out of the brood pit wimpy, or if they do, they ruthlessly recycle them. They have access to healing moreso than ragtag monsters. Trolls regenerate, so they don't have lingering injuries. Dragons already have points-per-die determined by age.

[Jay R]

In original Dungeons and Dragons, the assumption was that high-level characters would settle down, build a keep or a cathedral, recruit and army, and get back to miniatures gaming, which is what it grew out of.

And characters above 9th or 10th levels didn't get more hit dice.

[LibraryOgre]

In original Dungeons and Dragons, the assumption was that high-level characters would settle down, build a keep or a cathedral, recruit and army, and get back to miniatures gaming, which is what it grew out of.

And characters above 9th or 10th levels didn't get more hit dice.

In Guardians of the Flame, they actually mention this... they were all fairly advanced characters (the notional system they refer to goes by letter; A class was the lowest level, they started someone as C-class to give them a bit of resiliency, and most were hanging around G class), and noted that part of the reason they WERE so good is because most people of their level were settling down, not out busting slavery.

[Yora]

As a related question, I was thinking about giving several creatures magic resistance as in AD&D. But does that make any actual difference in play compared to giving them higher saving throws?

The only thing I can think of is spells that reduce damage by half on a successful save. Thosr would be completely negated by magic resistance.

But are there any cases where a monster would make a save in response to a player action that would not count as magic?
Saying a 6 HD monster saves as a 10th level fighter seems much easier than bothering with magic resistance rolls.

[Telok]

Yeah, that will change things. Saves cover poisons, diseases, breath weapons, gaze attacks, resistance to mutation and transformation, death effects, etc. etc.

The listed SR is the percent chance that the creature will ignore spells of power equal to a tenth level caster. Every caster level higher or lower than tenth gives a -5 or +5 to the roll. So a critter that is 6hd and saves as a 10hd will save as a 10hd against a Sleep spell from a first level wizard or a twentieth level wizard and save as a 10hd against poison or dragon breath. A 6hd critter with 50% magic resistance will be 95% resistant to a first level wizard's spell, 5% resistant to a twentieth level wizard's spell, and save as a 6hd against poison and breath weapons.

[Yora]

Saving throws independent of the casters level is something I didn't consider. Though I think that actually might be something that works better for me. Being at lower level already puts you at a disadvantage and having a higher chance for your spells to fail might be a higher challenge than I really want to.

While there are many saving throws against things that are not magic, I believe almost all of them are monster abilities the players can't use against their opponents.

I think I'll ditch magic resistance.

[Telok]

Saving throws independent of the casters level is something I didn't consider. Though I think that actually might be something that works better for me. Being at lower level already puts you at a disadvantage and having a higher chance for your spells to fail might be a higher challenge than I really want to.

While there are many saving throws against things that are not magic, I believe almost all of them are monster abilities the players can't use against their opponents.

I think I'll ditch magic resistance.

Your choice, the difference between fighter 6 and fighter 10 is three or four points on the die. Except spells, that's only two better (14 -> 11).

I agree that it's added complexity and more monsters have magic resistance than probably ought to. But MR is also a way to say "this thing is so innately powerful that magic just bounces off" without putting in a separate note on each such monster that it gets a +X vs. spells, wands, rods, staves, etc.