Rebalancing HD

[Fouredged Sword]

I had an odd thought. What would 3.5 look like if all creatures got re-balanced so that ECL=HD=CR just like pure class level creatures?

Basically I am talking about introducing the concept of balancing creatures so that every HD is worth about one class level. If a creature has 7HD, it is about as powerful as a level 7 fighter (with NPC equipment) if it is a melee creature or a level 7 wizard if it is a casting creature. Creatures that are tough for their threat level have high con, not fluff HD.

How would this change the game experience?

Playing monsters would be easy as all monsters would just be a pile of fairly relevant RHD about the same power as a class of the same level. Templates would all add HD to a creature, rather than adjusting their LA or ECL.

Thoughts?

[Mr Adventurer]

Do you mean "...INTRODUCING the concept..."?

[ben-zayb]

Are you planning to remove LA entirely too, such that we'll have CR1 Ghosts, Paragon Creatures (actually, aside from lycan/entomanothrope, template stack all you want!), or Pixies? Whoops, didnt see that LA thing.

[Fouredged Sword]

Do you mean "...INTRODUCING the concept..."?

Yes, introducing the concept of removing LA and CR from the game. 1HD = 1ECL = 1CR. I am curious what this would look like in a game. It would take some balancing and reimagining how some things work.

For example I am considering adjusting some creatures to naturally have an enhancement bonus to a stat. This would make creatures with high str or int more playable by characters without unbalancing the game.

For example, a minotaur. What is it was a 4HD creature with stats of +4 str, +4 con and -4in -2 cha. On top of these racial mods it also has a natural magic +4 Str and +4 con enhancement bonus.

Is this that unbalanced compared to playing a 4HD water orc barbarian? Upping the total con accounts for the fewer HD and changing some of the high stats to an enhancement bonus prevents player from stacking unreasonably high attributes. A belt of Giant strength actually copies some of the magic giants have naturally.

Just a wandering train of thought.

[Telonius]

It would do away with Level Adjustment entirely. The most powerful spellcasters would come from the 0-RHD creatures. That's not too different than it is now, but unless the HD also advanced spellcasting or buyoff were somehow included, things like Drow Wizards and Aasimar Clerics would lose a bit of their edge.

Gaining an acquired template (like Vampire or Lycanthrope) would have to be severely altered, since it would affect all of the HD-dependent things (like skill points, saves, BAB, feats, resistance to things like Dictum, and so on).

[ExLibrisMortis]

It could be done, and I think it'd work pretty well. It would remove some complexity, as the difference between HD-based, CR-based, and ECL-based abilities would change, but I think that's reasonable. It would make a lot of HD-bloated creatures more interesting by adding extra abilities.

I could see some problems with very high HD zombies, like advanced zombie giants. Just what abilities are you going to give them to make them equivalent to a fighter 20? Add +20 enhancement to strength, fast healing 50? That's a big stack of numbers you're adding. Then again, maybe fast healing 50 and DR 50/slashing makes for a more interesting monster than a 40 HD zombie in the current system.

Yeah, I'm all for it, I just don't want to write it all up :P.


Edit: Telonius: Vampires get +8 to seven skills, and a bunch of feats and SLAs. The vampire template is essentially 8 class levels, just without any HD. I don't think there are many creatures that become too strong if you add plain HD equal to their LA, or remove their LA. A lot of the higher-power outsiders would be balanced as clerics, of course, so they're still t1.

[Fouredged Sword]

It would do away with Level Adjustment entirely. The most powerful spellcasters would come from the 0-RHD creatures. That's not too different than it is now, but unless the HD also advanced spellcasting or buyoff were somehow included, things like Drow Wizards and Aasimar Clerics would lose a bit of their edge.

Gaining an acquired template (like Vampire or Lycanthrope) would have to be severely altered, since it would affect all of the HD-dependent things (like skill points, saves, BAB, feats, resistance to things like Dictum, and so on).

Yeah, but there are lots of races that have inherent racial casting that would be much more playable without unbalancing the game. In general any creature with natural spellcasting would have HD= to at least their spellcaster levels. A creature that casts as a level 14 wizard and has a natural +6 enhancement bonus to int and a +4 racial bonus to int isn't that much more powerful than a level 14 wizard, assuming that the monster has sufficient drawbacks like a -4 con to balance the natural +4 racial int.

Some things that use HD bloat as a source of power would have to be completely re-balanced. I think zombies would be HD neutral to the base form and instead add, say, 6 extra hp per HD. Call it False Constitution or some such racial modifier to HD. Mix in a HD balanced enhancement bonus to str, natural armor, and DR, and I think you are halfway there. The ability to only take a standard or move action each round would be balanced by the super meaty HP and good str/dr. You would actually see a place for zombie villagers in a undead army.

[johnbragg]

You'd severely gimp the DM's ability to create an unfamiliar creature by slapping templates on an existing creature.

CR 7 Hill Giant? YAwn. Instead of bookdiving, how about we take a CR3 Ogre, give him a level of Barbarian for Rage (+1), Advanced (+1), Half-Fiendish(+1) and, oh let's say fire-infused (+1, 3PP from PFSRD). Now we have a bat-winged flying beastie surrounded by small flames with DR 5/magic, SR 18, fire, cold, acid and electricity resistance 10, who can throw an unholy blight, taking Multiattack as his first-level Barbarian feat, so he's rocking an attack routine of claw/claw/bite +13/+13/+11, d6+9(+d6 fire), d6+9(+d6 fire), d8+4 (+d6 fire). Actually that doesn't even count Barbarian Rage, so you might as well swap that out for Fighter 1 and pick another feat. Two if you swap out the base Ogre's weapon focus: greatclub which isn't going to do this thing any good.

Describe it as having the wings of a bat, the head of a huge wolf and humanoid looking legs that end in talons and your players will spend half the combat trying to figure out what the heck it is.

[GreatDane]

HD = CR is a weird space. Monsters are, by design, stronger than PCs whose level is equal to the monster's CR. This is because a monster needs to a) withstand the attacks of (roughly) four PCs while b) putting out enough damage to be a threat to (roughly) four PCs and c) showcasing it's strengths in 2-5 rounds (which is about how long combat lasts). For example, blink dogs, hippogriffs, and worgs all have 4 HD, but are all only CR 2. Their extra HD give them the hit points and saves to stay in combat, the extra feats to have some options, and the BAB to actually land an attack or two.

By comparison, PCS generally need to a) withstand the attacks of only one big monster (or several weak ones) and b) put out only around 1/4 of the damage/debuffs/effort needed to to take down the enemy (or enemies), while c) having many combats to display and use their various strengths and abilities. For example, a level 6 PC doesn't need to (and generally shouldn't) deal enough damage to severely wound 4 monsters of CR 6 more than once or twice per day. (I do realize that T1/T2 spellcasters often break this guideline, but they do that to everything, so I stand by it.) That PC also doesn't need to show off all of her spells and skills in this one combat, and they don't need to be especially memorable, since we'll see them again in the next encounter.

In other words, if you keep the definition of CR the same (that a CR X opponent is a somewhat challenging encounter for ECL X PCs, and the PCs can run through about four of them in a day), CR = HD doesn't work. Monsters need those extra HD to compete with the PCs, or disproportionately powerful abilities foe their HD.

However: since CR is a pretty arbitrary designation, you could just adjust the expectations of CR such that a party should expect to face creatures (or combinations of creatures) whose CR is equal to 1.5x the party's ECL, or the party's ECL + 3, or however that math comes out. But why bother? Changing the CR to match HD makes it easier to remember CR, but the CR has much less meaning as a tool to evaluate the monster's ability to challenge the PCs.

This is all from the desk of a DM, though. It sounds like a great idea for PCs looking to play/level up as monsters, but from the other side of the screen, it mostly sounds like an unnecessary change that weakens a useful encounter-making tool.

[Fouredged Sword]

Let me take a swing at this, as far as the SRD is concerned.

Aboleth - Bump to CR 8. Change 6 of str bonus to enhancement bonus, 4 of con bonus to enhancement bonus.
Achaierai - Change to 5HD. 4 points of strength to enhancement bonus. 2 points of con and cha to enhancement bonus. Good stats balanced by lack of hands.
Allip - is now CR 4.
Angel, Astral Deva - Change HD and CR to 16. +6 of all stats are enhancement bonus. +4 of str bonus is not a sacred bonus.
Angel, Planetar - HD and CR changed to 20. +6 of all stats are enhancement bonus.+4 str changed to sacred bonus. +2 of all other stats changed to sacred bonus.
Angel, Solar - epic creature, not bothering

[Fouredged Sword]

You'd severely gimp the DM's ability to create an unfamiliar creature by slapping templates on an existing creature.

CR 7 Hill Giant? YAwn. Instead of bookdiving, how about we take a CR3 Ogre, give him a level of Barbarian for Rage (+1), Advanced (+1), Half-Fiendish(+1) and, oh let's say fire-infused (+1, 3PP from PFSRD). Now we have a bat-winged flying beastie surrounded by small flames with DR 5/magic, SR 18, fire, cold, acid and electricity resistance 10, who can throw an unholy blight, taking Multiattack as his first-level Barbarian feat, so he's rocking an attack routine of claw/claw/bite +13/+13/+11, d6+9(+d6 fire), d6+9(+d6 fire), d8+4 (+d6 fire). Actually that doesn't even count Barbarian Rage, so you might as well swap that out for Fighter 1 and pick another feat. Two if you swap out the base Ogre's weapon focus: greatclub which isn't going to do this thing any good.

Describe it as having the wings of a bat, the head of a huge wolf and humanoid looking legs that end in talons and your players will spend half the combat trying to figure out what the heck it is.

See, that CR 7 template monstrosity wouldn't just die in a single hit because templates are basically now very short classes. They add HD on top of abilities. Basically this is designed to balance out creatures so that all creatures with a set HD are roughly the same power level. Low HD creatures should have low Con. High skill creatures should have high int. There is strangeness added into the rules where a giant makes a better trapsmith than a human rogue for it's CR because it has higher HD and thus higher max skill ranks.

[OldTrees1]

Something to remember:

Since you wouldn't be removing abilities, you would be adding HD(and CR) until HD=CR. This leads to 2 consequences to note:
1) Some kinds of encounters will be pushed back to higher levels. If a CR 6 3HD Flying monster increases to CR 9 9HD, then the PCs will encounter flying opponents 3 levels later than their abilities/gear expect. Adjustments would need to be made accordingly.
2) (A+BX)HD=(C+DX)CR can be unsolvable for any positive X, any positive A+BX, or even for any X.

[Necroticplague]

Something to remember:

Since you wouldn't be removing abilities, you would be adding HD(and CR) until HD=CR. This leads to 2 consequences to note:
1) Some kinds of encounters will be pushed back to higher levels. If a CR 6 3HD Flying monster increases to CR 9 9HD, then the PCs will encounter flying opponents 3 levels later than their abilities/gear expect. Adjustments would need to be made accordingly.

Most creatures had HD>CR, so that's not much of a problem.

That being said, to the main topic: I like the idea (having some something relatively similar with CR as LA), but it sounds like a headache to go and rewrite every single monster under this paradigm.

[Grod_The_Giant]

HD = CR is a weird space. Monsters are, by design, stronger than PCs whose level is equal to the monster's CR.
Isn't the theory already that CR X = level X, which should cause a party of four level X characters to expend about one-fourth of their resources each? In any case, all you'd have to do is change one chart.

As for the idea, the biggest hurdle I can see is the inherent unbalance in 3.5's classes. "Balanced against a fighter" isn't the same thing as "balanced against a warblade" isn't the same thing as "balanced against a druid."

[johnbragg]

See, that CR 7 template monstrosity wouldn't just die in a single hit because templates are basically now very short classes. They add HD on top of abilities. Basically this is designed to balance out creatures so that all creatures with a set HD are roughly the same power level. Low HD creatures should have low Con. High skill creatures should have high int. There is strangeness added into the rules where a giant makes a better trapsmith than a human rogue for it's CR because it has higher HD and thus higher max skill ranks.

IS it easier to solve that problem by not giving brute-squad types what should logically be cross-class skills?

Are we sure that creatures of the same HD should be the same CR? Isn't it an advantage of 3X over earlier editions that you can throw a CR 7 Hill Giant at the party at 7th level, and then later on at 9th level throw a Hill Giant at the party who can't miss with those thrown boulders because he's a CR 10 HIll Giant Sorcerer 3?

Isn't it good that DMs can counter the fact that a lot of players are much more experienced than their characters, in that they know the Monster Manuals front and back in a way that their 7th level PC probably shouldn't?

[johnbragg]

Isn't the theory already that CR X = level X, which should cause a party of four level X characters to expend about one-fourth of their resources each? In any case, all you'd have to do is change one chart.

As for the idea, the biggest hurdle I can see is the inherent unbalance in 3.5's classes. "Balanced against a fighter" isn't the same thing as "balanced against a warblade" isn't the same thing as "balanced against a druid."

And there's a built in knowledge-base for CR'd creatures, much like the QWERTY keyboard. Even if you come up with a better system, is it worth the transition cost?

[ace rooster]

I had an odd thought. What would 3.5 look like if all creatures got re-balanced so that ECL=HD=CR just like pure class level creatures?

Basically I am talking about introducing the concept of balancing creatures so that every HD is worth about one class level. If a creature has 7HD, it is about as powerful as a level 7 fighter (with NPC equipment) if it is a melee creature or a level 7 wizard if it is a casting creature. Creatures that are tough for their threat level have high con, not fluff HD.

How would this change the game experience?

Playing monsters would be easy as all monsters would just be a pile of fairly relevant RHD about the same power as a class of the same level. Templates would all add HD to a creature, rather than adjusting their LA or ECL.

Thoughts?

I would think it would make things blander, especially at low levels. Something like a pixie would need to be very different, requiring many extra HD to balance their abilities, and as mentioned zombies would need a massive nerf. Squishies would be less squishy and tanks would be less tanky. Every enemy would need a similar level of special abilites to work, which puts an upper limit on how much they can get (see the pixie).

Part of the issue is that the notion that in pure class level creatures CR = HD is simply wrong; despite what the book claims. Trying to extend the equality further is doomed to failure without fixing* this first, which there are countless threads attempting, without success.

I am certainly in favour of scrapping the use of HD to represent bulk. I have started thinking of HD as hero dice, rather than hit dice, but how 'heroic' an enemy is is not a good measure of their CR either. A basic human has to be pretty heroic to take on even a basic minotaur, so it would make sense for the human to have more HD in this system. You can throw in bonus HP based on size, and suddenly a 3HD (set as standard for adult creatures, default to commoner) elephant makes sense. Decent attack because of STR, high damage because str and size, decent HP and fort save from high con and size, does not have a reflex save of +6 (the ninja elephants irk me currently). Probably not a CR 3, because it is still very dangerous despite not being particularly heroic.

Is one of the goals to make it easier to play arbitrary monsters? The difficulty with this is that PCs have to be balanced against each other cooperatively, while encounters are balanced as opposition. Often these two align, but sometimes they do not. LA is done badly, but I agree with the idea that some creatures are more valuable as PCs than their CR would suggest. Scrapping it without replacement would be a dangerous oversimplification IMHO.

* I actually think we are better abandoning this in favour of CR=ECL =/= HD, and decoupling HD from ECL entirely. but that is a subject for another thread.

[OldTrees1]

Most creatures had HD>CR, so that's not much of a problem.

That being said, to the main topic: I like the idea (having some something relatively similar with CR as LA), but it sounds like a headache to go and rewrite every single monster under this paradigm.

Same problem as HD<CR it just goes the other direction (Flying Monsters show up sooner so PCs need to have options sooner).

[Quertus]

Different people are taking this concept in different directions. I'm guessing the original idea was to keep monsters at the same CR, make their HD = their CR, and see what you need to modify.

The comments on simplicity and max skill ranks were among the biggest changes this system would entail. It would also modify save DCs, turning undead, and other HD dependant features.

EDIT: the premise appears to be HD=CR=ECL.

[OldTrees1]

Different people are taking this concept in different directions. I'm guessing the original idea was to keep monsters at the same CR, make their HD = their CR, and see what you need to modify.

The comments on simplicity and max skill ranks were among the biggest changes this system would entail. It would also modify save DCs, turning undead, and other HD dependant features.

When you increase/decrease HD you increase/decrease Challenge, to get Challenge back to the original Challenge Rating you then would need to remove/add numbers/features. Since removing features might qualitative change the encounter in a manner that invalidates the exercise, in cases where you are increasing HD to match CR you would need to reduce numbers rather than reduce features.

[Fouredged Sword]

This exercise in no way solves the class balance / tier system problem inherent within the system. It cannot as it is not touching the class system.

The intent is to wonder what the game would look like if all monsters where balanced as if they existed as class levels. There is still a massive range between wizard and fighter. What if a 7HD monster was designed to fall within a reasonable range of somewhere between tier 1-4? The idea is to alter the HD of creatures to bring them into the same range of power a player would have at their HD. Some creatures will gain HD. Other creatures will lose HD and or gain abilities.

For example, many creatures have more spellcaster levels than they have HD. This is a cludge in my mind, to model a creature who is magically powerful but physically frail. These creatures should have int and con bonuses and penalties to represent that, not strange HD/ability mismatches.

[ace rooster]

This exercise in no way solves the class balance / tier system problem inherent within the system. It cannot as it is not touching the class system.

The intent is to wonder what the game would look like if all monsters where balanced as if they existed as class levels. There is still a massive range between wizard and fighter. What if a 7HD monster was designed to fall within a reasonable range of somewhere between tier 1-4? The idea is to alter the HD of creatures to bring them into the same range of power a player would have at their HD. Some creatures will gain HD. Other creatures will lose HD and or gain abilities.

For example, many creatures have more spellcaster levels than they have HD. This is a cludge in my mind, to model a creature who is magically powerful but physically frail. These creatures should have int and con bonuses and penalties to represent that, not strange HD/ability mismatches.

OK...Why? As in what are you trying to achieve?

The biggest differences I can see are narrower HP ranges, narrower save ranges, and narrower attack ranges for given damage levels. I can't immediately see anything positive from this change. Even with this change some monster abilities will be problematic in PC hands, so you will still need DM calls on PC creatures. If DMs want to design encounters with many or few foes you will still get the HD mismatch too.

I definitely agree that HD should have a more concrete meaning*, but attempting to force it to agree with CR strikes me as needlessly limiting.

* So that DMs have better guidance on whether a change is better reflected by changed HD or changed stats. They do seem to be somewhat arbitrary in that.

[Fouredged Sword]

OK...Why? As in what are you trying to achieve?


It always seems to be that 3.5 was built with the intent that NPC's and players all had been intended to play by the same base rules. In practice, while monsters share some much of the same mechanics as players, the design of monsters was... inconsistent, to what appeared to be the much more granular class design.

I agree though, this would have negatives. That is why I brought it up to begin with. I'm not going out and claiming it's a better option. A thought occurred to me and I wondered the ramifications.

[ace rooster]

It always seems to be that 3.5 was built with the intent that NPC's and players all had been intended to play by the same base rules. In practice, while monsters share some much of the same mechanics as players, the design of monsters was... inconsistent, to what appeared to be the much more granular class design.

I agree though, this would have negatives. That is why I brought it up to begin with. I'm not going out and claiming it's a better option. A thought occurred to me and I wondered the ramifications.

Ah, ok. The design is definitely inconsistent, but I don't think PC character generation is the model to look at. The assumption of PC generation is that players will not reign themselves in, and that the system has to limit them. This is it's primary consideration, and it has to be fairly simple (read linear) to do this. Monster generation can be much more fuzzy, because DMs are free to throw whatever at the party anyway, hence CR can be guidelines. I don't see this as a weakness, though it could do with better guidelines (what does one HD mean? Is it just bigger?). If anything I would move PC generation more towards monster generation, with more degrees of freedom, but then balance gets even more difficult.

[Prime32]

I had an odd thought. What would 3.5 look like if all creatures got re-balanced so that ECL=HD=CR just like pure class level creatures?

Basically I am talking about introducing the concept of balancing creatures so that every HD is worth about one class level. If a creature has 7HD, it is about as powerful as a level 7 fighter (with NPC equipment) if it is a melee creature or a level 7 wizard if it is a casting creature. Creatures that are tough for their threat level have high con, not fluff HD.

How would this change the game experience?

Playing monsters would be easy as all monsters would just be a pile of fairly relevant RHD about the same power as a class of the same level. Templates would all add HD to a creature, rather than adjusting their LA or ECL.

Thoughts?Remove the concept of HD being tied to creature type, and go the 4e route of tying it to roles like "brute". That way you don't have to struggle to correct the stats if you need a Fey warrior or a Dragon caster. Generic classes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm) with race-unique bonus feat options might work, though I'd recommend combining this with a houserule that your caster level is always equal to your character level.

[Fouredged Sword]

I like the idea of general result based monster HD. I could see monster traits being handled as packets of abilities that fall under a header. There is no reason the peaceful angel of love and non-violence has full bab and proficiency in all martial weapons.

One advantage to such a change would be it becomes easier to create novel monsters. With less guesswork involved in creating a set challenge, it becomes less trouble to go off book and homebrew as a DM.