Help understanding a rule?

[Someguywithahat]

Hi! First post, hope everything is fine.

So I have a quick question about the rules. I use D&D Beyond for my monsters and searching spells, items and other stuff really quickly. On to the actual question though: I'm having difficulty understanding the actions of monsters. "Scimitar. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) slashing damage.". What I understand is: roll a strength/dexterity (its a finesse weapon) check and add +3 to it to see if it hits. The reach is 5ft. It only hits one creature at a time. The last bit is the most difficult for me, does "Hit: 4" mean its a minimum of 4 damage? Really confused. Finally: you roll 1d6 + 1 + strength/dexterity modifier for damage.

Thanks in advance for clarifying!

[KnotaGuru]

Hi! First post, hope everything is fine.

So I have a quick question about the rules. I use D&D Beyond for my monsters and searching spells, items and other stuff really quickly. On to the actual question though: I'm having difficulty understanding the actions of monsters. "Scimitar. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) slashing damage.". What I understand is: roll a strength/dexterity (its a finesse weapon) check and add +3 to it to see if it hits. The reach is 5ft. It only hits one creature at a time. The last bit is the most difficult for me, does "Hit: 4" mean its a minimum of 4 damage? Really confused. Finally: you roll 1d6 + 1 + strength/dexterity modifier for damage.

Thanks in advance for clarifying!

The "Hit:4" is the average damage of 1d6+1. This saves time if you don't want to roll for damage.

[nickl_2000]

Hi! First post, hope everything is fine.

So I have a quick question about the rules. I use D&D Beyond for my monsters and searching spells, items and other stuff really quickly. On to the actual question though: I'm having difficulty understanding the actions of monsters. "Scimitar. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) slashing damage.". What I understand is: roll a strength/dexterity (its a finesse weapon) check and add +3 to it to see if it hits. The reach is 5ft. It only hits one creature at a time. The last bit is the most difficult for me, does "Hit: 4" mean its a minimum of 4 damage? Really confused. Finally: you roll 1d6 + 1 + strength/dexterity modifier for damage.

Thanks in advance for clarifying!

The Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) slashing damage means that when you hit with this weapon it does 1d6+1 slashing damage. You don't need to worry about the Dex/strength, it is already figured into it to get the correct Challenge Rating for this critter. The 4 part is the average roll for 1d6+1 (the average is actual 4.5, but they round down in this case). Many DMs to keep things going quickly will just take the average damage when a monster hits.

So, you either roll 1d6+1 or just automatically do 4 damage when you hit.

[Man_Over_Game]

"+3 to hit": This is your final attack bonus for this attack, period. You do not add proficiency, stats, modifiers or anything else when using this attack. This number is intended to already include all relevant modifiers and proficiencies, and only shows the final product, the summed attack bonus. If a player had Proficiency +2 and a +1 modifier bonus, their equivalent "hit" would be "+3 to hit". In other words, roll your d20 and add this number.

"Hit: 4 (1d6+1) slashing damage": On a hit, do this much damage and effects. The 4 represents the average damage, in case you want to keep pacing to be fun and want to minimize how much rolling you do. Just like with the to-hit, all relevant bonuses are already included in this; do not add any modifiers or other stats without some kind of special ability stating otherwise (like Hex on the enemy, a special ability of this creature, or something along those lines).

The creatures are designed to be quickly understood and to allow them to fit into a game pretty easily without slowing anything down. With a quick look through of this creature's stat block, a DM can just make a d20 + 3 to hit, and it deals 4 slashing damage if it hits, which is fairly simple and quick.

[Someguywithahat]

The "Hit:4" is the average damage of 1d6+1. This saves time if you don't want to roll for damage.

Oh ok thank you! Also: just to make sure, everything else was good?

[Madfellow]

The last bit is the most difficult for me, does "Hit: 4" mean its a minimum of 4 damage? Really confused. Finally: you roll 1d6 + 1 + strength/dexterity modifier for damage.

Thanks in advance for clarifying!

4 is the average damage, not the minimum. As the DM, you have the option of rolling damage or, if you need to speed things up a bit, just deal the average damage without rolling and move on to the next turn. This is really useful for more powerful attacks, like a dragon's breath weapon, where you might not have enough dice to roll or you don't want to spend a minute adding them all up.

[nickl_2000]

Oh ok thank you! Also: just to make sure, everything else was good?

Technically it's not a strength/dexterity check, it's an attack roll. So, you roll 1d20 +3 to see if the PC is hit.

The only reason the difference between an attack roll and a check matters is for effects. For example, the spell hex can give disadvantage on skill checks for dex. It would not give disadvantage on an attack roll.

[terodil]

Hi, welcome to the forums!

In addition to the time-saving aspect of using the average expected value instead of rolling for monster damage, it might also be worth noting that this method increases a lowbie party's survivability. Incoming damage can already pose a problem at very early levels, but crits can be outright lethal. An unlucky crit from a mere goblin might send your level 1 wizard straight to death without save. While the overall damage taken should be more or less the same, the predictability massively increases your party's chance of survival. At higher levels, with more hp and more abilities/spells to manage damage, crits are not so much of an issue any more.

[Man_Over_Game]

Hi, welcome to the forums!

In addition to the time-saving aspect of using the average expected value instead of rolling for monster damage, it might also be worth noting that this method increases a lowbie party's survivability. Incoming damage can already pose a problem at very early levels, but crits can be outright lethal. An unlucky crit from a mere goblin might send your level 1 wizard straight to death without save. While the overall damage taken should be more or less the same, the predictability massively increases your party's chance of survival. At higher levels, with more hp and more abilities/spells to manage damage, crits are not so much of an issue any more.

Great point here. An important factor is that the average the game uses for players is always rounded up.

So a 1d8 Hit Die uses a proposed 5 HP for the average when the actual average is 4.5 (+0.5 in favor of the player)

However, the attack from the monster deals a real average of 4.5 damage and has the proposed average be 4 (-0.5 in favor of the player).

So using the proposed averages actually work in favor of the player.

[terodil]

[...] So using the proposed averages actually work in favor of the player.
That's certainly true.

However, the real boon of the rule is not the rounding issue, but the predictability issue. Assuming that the party has at least some resources available (e.g., word of healing, heal potions, whatever low-level other stuff), sustained damage is manageable even if it's 1 dpr higher on average. It's the damage spike that kills characters because it robs them of any way to counteract it. Also, when we talk averages, the law of great numbers is always lurking behind the corner trying to whack you over the head with its Vorpal Greatclub of Bad Luck :smalleek:

[Tanarii]

Incoming damage can already pose a problem at very early levels, but crits can be outright lethal.
Using the average damage doesn't mean you shouldn't increase it in a crit to 8 damage (in the example creature given).

Or do you mean something like "you have a 1 in 36 chance of rolling 13 on 2d6+1, instead of the average of 8 damage from a crit"?

[terodil]

Using the average damage doesn't mean you shouldn't increase it in a crit to 8 damage (in the example creature given).

Or do you mean something like "you have a 1 in 36 chance of rolling 13 on 2d6+1, instead of the average of 8 damage from a crit"?
Well, a crit on an average is still significantly less than a crit on a max damage roll. *whistles*

(This was me trying to sneakily cover up the fact that I must have blacked out there to completely forget about doubling the average damage in the case of a crit. Totally didn't happen. No sir. *hangs head in shame*)