An alternate way of handling large monster hp, has anyone tried this?

[zlefin]

from a game design perspective:
In the 3.P stuff; large monsters/animals are handled just by giving them tons of HD, which causes all sorts of weirdness due to the things like BAB and saves that scale off HD, plus the feats+ `. and the size scaling also hands out extra CON for large creatures to up their hp more and try to get it somewhere near it's meant to be.

So I was thinking that instead, to model the bulk and hp of huge things, we could treat HD more like Monster level; and have the hp per level scale with monster size in the same way the weapon table does.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#weaponSize
e.g. a creature of monster level 8 that is of huge size and would have 1d8 per level at normal size would get 3d6 hp per level.

obviously a lot of values would have to be reworked for the monsters, and some other system changed; but it feels like it would be better overall if done this way.
At any rate, I was wondering if anyone has tried building a system like this, and if so, how well it worked and any lessons they learned while doing so?

[liquidformat]

so your proposal would be to drop hd such that current huge monster with xd8+x*con=z would now be (y*3)d6+y*con=~z? AI understanding that right?

This would cause a lot of problems with cr since this would also be changing bab, skill points, saves, spells for caster creatures, and possibly other things like sr and saves for sa. It is interesting in theory but would take a dramatic overhaul of every single monster and you would need to make extra changes such as possibly increasing str to compensate for the loss of bab and that would get super complicated because of different creature types having different bab...

This is similar to the reasons most monsters get -0 la in the la adjustment threads because trying to quantify how to adjust these monsters to get rid of hd bloat and make them more reasonable is overly complicated and often differs case by case.

[Falontani]

Like the above said, it would take a lot of reevaluating. However. It could work. I would suggest taking 3 creatures of each type of roughly equivalent cr at 3-4 cr points and do some mock fights, possibly using IC builds. See how well your rescaling works. Post the revaluations, recalculations, and everything else here, and if your theory is correct and it does help, then we could possibly assist in reevaluating a large number of creatures.

Possible hang ups I see: dragons will be less powerful than they ought to be. Undead will need higher turn resistance or they will be vastly easier to turn (might be an upside), constructs might be more powerful than they ought to be.

[Deophaun]

4th edition did something similar, only with HP handled based on role rather than size, with brutes being the big bags of HP. Makes more sense, as based on just size you cannot have large but delicate fliers.

[zlefin]

so your proposal would be to drop hd such that current huge monster with xd8+x*con=z would now be (y*3)d6+y*con=~z? AI understanding that right?

This would cause a lot of problems with cr since this would also be changing bab, skill points, saves, spells for caster creatures, and possibly other things like sr and saves for sa. It is interesting in theory but would take a dramatic overhaul of every single monster and you would need to make extra changes such as possibly increasing str to compensate for the loss of bab and that would get super complicated because of different creature types having different bab...

This is similar to the reasons most monsters get -0 la in the la adjustment threads because trying to quantify how to adjust these monsters to get rid of hd bloat and make them more reasonable is overly complicated and often differs case by case.

roughly speaking, yes that is my proposal. I hadn't adequately considered how to handle con though. My assumption was that rather than handing out Con bonuses for the larger sizes, there would be no need for such due to them already getting more hp due to the size effect; but even without size mods to Con there would still be high con creatures anyway.

It would indeed be quite an overhaul; it's something that might have merit if one were making a new edition based off of 3.P but would otherwise be too much trouble. which is why my focus here is more on whether it'sa good design and what potential it would have.

[exelsisxax]

It isn't inherently a bad idea. Too much for a houserule, as you could spend slightly more time and effort and just make a whole new game. But I don't really get why, in that case, you would want to choose this as the particular solution.

The problem you have identified is the huge HD bloat necessary for monsters to be appropriate as encounters at a certain level. This is caused by the huge number increases in PCs at every level.

So why not skip to the end and just not do any of those things, rather than try to patch the back end? Because when PCs end up with 30 times the HP they started with, monsters need that too. All those other things are tied to HD because they are necessary to keep up with providing a party any challenge.

[King of Nowhere]

also, even with all those extra hit dice to buff saves and BAB, still the monster hits rarely and fails most saving throws. I say monsters do not need their saving throws lowered.

Now, if you wanted to scale hit dice by size to give bigger monsters even more hit points than they are supposed to have, that would be reasonable. it would make blasters less powerful, and control-based wizards more powerful, though.

[liquidformat]

one of the important questions would be if it only affects rhd or all hd, and how spells and things like powerful build would interact with it.

Just taking a quick look Ogre would be dropped one rhd 4*4+11 =27= 2*x*3+2*x+3 x=3
Cloud giant 17*4+102= 170 = x*3*3+x*6 x=11 and 1/3 round down to 11 loss of 4 bab
Large wyvern 7*6+14=56=3*x*3+2*x x=5.6 round up to 6 loss of 1 bab
huge wyvern 8*6+4*8=80=4*x*3+4* x=5 loss of 3 bab
elephant 11*4+55=99=3*x*3+5*x x=7 loss of 3 bab
Balor 20*4+200=280=2*x*3+10*x x=17.5 round up to 18 loss of 2 bab
Retriever 10*5+80=130=3*x*3+80 x=5.5 round to 6 loss of 2 bab
nightcrawler 25*6+50=200=6*x*3+50 =8 1/3 round down to 8 loss of 8 bab

So interestingly it seems like for mundane monsters of large and huge this change seems to give hd=cr, however as shown with the huge wyvern going up a size category would drop the wyvern by an hd which might be an issue though not sure. As I said before loosing a couple of points of bab might screw with cr.

[PraxisVetli]

Wait, are you implying that they should get 3xHD, or that their HD is now 3d6, but treated as a singular die?
The difference being a creature with 21 HD and full BAB, like a Magical Beast, having BAB +7 and 21d6+(21*Con), or having BAB+21 63d6+(21*Con).
Does it roll 3d6 every time it gains one HD?
Isn't there mild precedent with, I want to say, the Petitioner template? Doesn't that make your HD 2d6?
EDIT:
It's MotP, pg 199, Petitioner
HD: Change to 2d8. Retain any bonus hit points from the base creatures original HD total.

[Eldonauran]

If I would find myself trying to model something like this, I'd probably take a page out of many of the video game RPGs I enjoy playing, and make the creature a multi-part target. While effectively the same thing as adding more HP, it allows the players to target different areas of the creature with different degrees of effectiveness. Hitting all of the areas in a round, or combining elemental vulnerabilities on enough parts, would induce an "armor break" effect, allowing for all attacks to be fully effective (bypassing DR, resistances, etc).

So, one part that takes normal damage (a Core) but has higher overall armor class and concealment while the other parts are still intact. Arms that serve to protect the Core and are easier to hit, but have higher physical resistance (DR) and can be harmed more effectively with area of effect spells. Things like that.

[liquidformat]

Wait, are you implying that they should get 3xHD, or that their HD is now 3d6, but treated as a singular die?
The difference being a creature with 21 HD and full BAB, like a Magical Beast, having BAB +7 and 21d6+(21*Con), or having BAB+21 63d6+(21*Con).
Does it roll 3d6 every time it gains one HD?
Isn't there mild precedent with, I want to say, the Petitioner template? Doesn't that make your HD 2d6?
EDIT:
It's MotP, pg 199, Petitioner
HD: Change to 2d8. Retain any bonus hit points from the base creatures original HD total.

each hd would be 3d6. I think the place where we are probably going to find the biggest issue is dragons, though I haven't had enough time to look. My guess is we are going to end up with ancient dragons potentially having less hd than adult dragons...

[Bronk]

If I would find myself trying to model something like this, I'd probably take a page out of many of the video game RPGs I enjoy playing, and make the creature a multi-part target. While effectively the same thing as adding more HP, it allows the players to target different areas of the creature with different degrees of effectiveness.

The rules for damaging parts of buildings, and some of the rules for ships (I think in Stormwrack) are like this, damage done by section.

I think if I were to do something like this, I'd model it off of megadamage from the Rifts RPG. Regular damage would be applied against one section at a time, but megadamage would affect the whole thing at once, or something like that.

I think BESM did that in the opposite direction as well, with Big Ears Small Mouse, with mice dealing scratch damage that rarely added up to anything that would hurt something human sized.

[PraxisVetli]

each hd would be 3d6. I think the place where we are probably going to find the biggest issue is dragons, though I haven't had enough time to look. My guess is we are going to end up with ancient dragons potentially having less hd than adult dragons...

Well Dragons get d12's, transferring to 3d6 should be an increase overall.
That said, Dragons have mighty Con modifiers, and are probably the least needing of this change. If anything, don't have a constant base, that is, don't say all Medium creatures get d8 HD, but rather use the creature's type's as a base. So all Medium Magical Beasts get d10's, and Large get 2d6, but Medium Dragons get d12's and Large Dragons get 2d8. That said, Collosal Dragons will get 4d6, depending on which chart you use-there's a couple- and that's a LOT of HP. If a Great Wyrm Gold has 164d6+451 HP, for an average of just over 1000 HP, that's nuts.
But it does allow for big dramatic scenes with armies and ballistas being necessary to kill it. If that's what you're going for, then rock on.
But if it's 4 players vs the Wyrm, you might run into issues.

[liquidformat]

Well Dragons get d12's, transferring to 3d6 should be an increase overall.
That said, Dragons have mighty Con modifiers, and are probably the least needing of this change. If anything, don't have a constant base, that is, don't say all Medium creatures get d8 HD, but rather use the creature's type's as a base. So all Medium Magical Beasts get d10's, and Large get 2d6, but Medium Dragons get d12's and Large Dragons get 2d8. That said, Collosal Dragons will get 4d6, depending on which chart you use-there's a couple- and that's a LOT of HP. If a Great Wyrm Gold has 164d6+451 HP, for an average of just over 1000 HP, that's nuts.
But it does allow for big dramatic scenes with armies and ballistas being necessary to kill it. If that's what you're going for, then rock on.
But if it's 4 players vs the Wyrm, you might run into issues.

the issue is the way dragons age take red dragons for instance you would end up with the following:

M 7d12+14 (+2 con) = 56
L 10d12+30 (+3 con) = 90 =x3*3+x*3 x=7.5
L 13d12+39 (+3 con) = 117 =12x x=9.75
L 16d12+64 (+4 con) = 160 =9x+4x x=12.3
H 19d12+95 (+5 con) = 209 =4x*3+5x x=12.29
H 22d12+110 (+5 con) = 242 =17x x=14.24
H 25d12+150 (+6 con) = 300 =12x+6x x= 16 2/3
G 28d12+196 (+7 con) = 364 =6x3+7x x=14.56
G 31d12+248 (+8 con) = 434 =18x+8x x=16.69
G 34d12+306 (+9 Con) = 510 =18x+9x x=18.889
G 37d12+370 (+10 Con) = 592 =18x+10x x=21.14
C 40d12+400 (+10 Con) = 640 =8x3+10x x=18.82

Every time you increase to a new size category you drop down in hd due to the inflate each size category gives you to hp, so a young adult dragon has the same hd than a juvenile, an old red dragon has one hd more than an adult red dragon and a great wyrm has equivalent hd to an ancient red dragon. this change would specifically cause issues with dragons and any other monster that has different monster entries for different ages...

[PraxisVetli]

I was looking at it differently. When you said 3d6, I was treating it as a singular Hit Die. A Huge Dragon might have a 3d6 HD, and have 10 HD, but since each is 3d6, it gets 30d6. But all other factors would still run off of 10, BAB, saves, number of feats.
It would be the same amount, just a bigger die size.
Am I making sense?

[liquidformat]

I was looking at it differently. When you said 3d6, I was treating it as a singular Hit Die. A Huge Dragon might have a 3d6 HD, and have 10 HD, but since each is 3d6, it gets 30d6. But all other factors would still run off of 10, BAB, saves, number of feats.
It would be the same amount, just a bigger die size.
Am I making sense?

While I agree with you the whole premise is that the change in hp/hd is being used to reduce hd bloat which causes issues with certain monster entries like dragons. The interesting thing is for a lot of mundane beatstick monsters this does end up making their hd=cr, though some of things might need to be adjusted like you mentioned above.

[zlefin]

I was looking at it differently. When you said 3d6, I was treating it as a singular Hit Die. A Huge Dragon might have a 3d6 HD, and have 10 HD, but since each is 3d6, it gets 30d6. But all other factors would still run off of 10, BAB, saves, number of feats.
It would be the same amount, just a bigger die size.
Am I making sense?

aye, it's a singular hit die kind of thing. so the 3d6 would be just one hit die.
alot of the detail of how it would work out otherwise haven't been figured it out; it just addresses one problem: hp bloat leading to silly BAB on monsters that perhaps shouldn't have that much BAB, since it was only done via adding HD.
it also may allow some changes which let us normalize str and con more, rather than those stats also getting bloated to handle huge monsters. instead it may allow something more like 10-15 being an actual average, and size would apply other modifiers to as well to make everything work out correctly.


the interaction with dragon's numerous age categories will indeed be tricky. It'd have to be part of a large rework that would fix other issues that this "solution" would cause; but that was kinda the case already.

[Seerow]

instead it may allow something more like 10-15 being an actual average, and size would apply other modifiers to as well to make everything work out correctly.


I tried something like this once and felt it worked pretty well. I did size mod applying directly to damage, and giving the option to trade 3 points of flat damage from strength or size for another damage die roll.

So a fighter with 16 str might hit for 2d6+3 which converts to 4d6. A huge giant with the same 16 str and appropriately sized greatsword would get 4d6+11 which could convert to 12d6+2.

[Unavenger]

This is exactly how it works in 5e: monsters get 1d8 medium, 1d10 large, 1d12 huge and 1d20 gargantuan (colossal no longer exists), as well as 1d6 small and 1d4 tiny (diminutive and fine no longer exist either). It doesn't stop monsters from needing inflated numbers of hit dice, though.

[PraxisVetli]

aye, it's a singular hit die kind of thing. so the 3d6 would be just one hit die.
alot of the detail of how it would work out otherwise haven't been figured it out; it just addresses one problem: hp bloat leading to silly BAB on monsters that perhaps shouldn't have that much BAB, since it was only done via adding HD.
it also may allow some changes which let us normalize str and con more, rather than those stats also getting bloated to handle huge monsters. instead it may allow something more like 10-15 being an actual average, and size would apply other modifiers to as well to make everything work out correctly.


the interaction with dragon's numerous age categories will indeed be tricky. It'd have to be part of a large rework that would fix other issues that this "solution" would cause; but that was kinda the case already.

I'm very interested in your final answer to this, because I'm soon to assist in DM'ing a campaign in which HD bloat is going to be a very real problem.
It's trying to justify a creature having 400 HP without their lowest save being +30.
I get exactly where you're coming from here.

[liquidformat]

This is exactly how it works in 5e: monsters get 1d8 medium, 1d10 large, 1d12 huge and 1d20 gargantuan (colossal no longer exists), as well as 1d6 small and 1d4 tiny (diminutive and fine no longer exist either). It doesn't stop monsters from needing inflated numbers of hit dice, though.

I believe just the perspective of most large creatures have more hp than smaller ones going with 1d8 medium, 2d6 large, 3d6 huge and 4d6 gargantuan makes more sense than 1d8 medium, 1d10 large, 1d12 huge and 1d20 gargantuan as it keeps your min health higher for larger monsters which seems like a reasonable expectation.

[zlefin]

I'm very interested in your final answer to this, because I'm soon to assist in DM'ing a campaign in which HD bloat is going to be a very real problem.
It's trying to justify a creature having 400 HP without their lowest save being +30.
I get exactly where you're coming from here.

I doubt there'll be a "final" answer to this. It was mostly just an interesting question and an idea; I have lots of ideas I've kicked around for if I were to make a new version out of 3rd ed; but actually making such a version is a big undertaking (and I don't have the community cred for people to adopt/look at it much). I just kicn aroun dthe ideas some cuz they're interesting.

and ofc no idea could be finalized without quite a bit of testing as well.

all I could do is give you some seeds to work with/try out.

on your specific need; getting to 400 hp can easily still have the lowest save at +10-ish iirc if you use high Con; but the high one would be around 30; and ofc you'd have to avoid certain feat choices for the creature (the con to will one)