So, 5e assumes a typical combat is 3 rounds, and presumably should be Medium to Hard (following the rules in XGTE, for example). What does that actually require?
A rough rule of thumb I use for PC damage per round is (level+1)*4 damage on a successful attack (or failed save, or w/e), and 2/3 of attacks hit. This is fairly typical for a decent but not super optimized build such as an eldritch blast spam warlock. Assuming 4 PCs, that means 12 attacks, 8 hits, total damage (level+1)*32. This is approximately twice the typical hit points for a creature with CR=level, which is the standard medium-to-hard encounter.
Now, for the creature's damage output, at low levels (PCs are mostly using hit dice for healing) we want to do about 1/3 of the party's total hit points during a medium encounter. A reasonably typical party (fighter/cleric/thief/wizard, all with 14 con) has 40 hp at level 1, +28 hit point per extra level, so our target is (level*9)+1. At low level, again, monsters probably have a hit chance of 50% or lower, because there's a good chance of something like +4 to hit vs AC 18 and +5 to hit against AC 16 would be quite ordinary, so if we set damage per attack to (level+1)*6 we're going to come close. This is slightly above the typical damage of a monster with CR=level (maybe 20% higher), but averaging 28% instead of 33% seems fine. Higher CR monsters will do a higher percentage because they hit more often, but higher level PCs have more healing resources so it works out.
Now, in general monster damage and hit points follow the same curve, so if we bump monster damage by 50%, we'll also bump monster hit points by 50%. As that means the monster is fighting for 50% longer, it actually does +125% damage, or actually a bit more because it's going to be dropping PCs and thus reducing party damage output. It's probably fair to say that +25% to monster damage and hp will give us a 4 round combat doing ~50% of health, +50% will give us a 5 round combat doing ~75%, +75% will give us a 6+ round combat that the PCs are at a real risk of losing. With the way xp budgets work in 5e, xp value scales with the square of damage output, so if the base encounter is Medium, the +25% encounter is Hard, the +50% encounter is Deadly.
This is actually a surprisingly simple rule: if you want encounters that mean what they say and last as long as the game says they should, just double all monster hit points and leave everything else the same. Of course, this makes 'built like a PC' even more weird, since a PC has a HP to Damage ratio averaging 1.75 and the monster now has a ratio averaging 6.
I’ve been intuitively doubling (or tripling) monster HP to hit that 3.5 round sweet spot for years. It’s nice to see the math to back it up. Thanks.
Same, I tend to just double HP on most monsters, and if I need the combat to be dangerous, doubling monster damage as well, or adding a d6 necrotic to attacks.
As it happens, I haven't been doubling monster hp, I've just been using grossly excessive fights, but what that means is a 2-3 round fight that's super swingy.
Yeah, pushing the action economy too far in Team Monster's favor can be really swingy, although I think it's a bit more thrilling than just beefing enemies up. I also increase monster damage by around 50% unless it's already a heavy-hitter.
So, I realize that the modeling above probably fails to accurately reflect PC damage per round across a full adventuring day, because of running out of resources -- if we're looking at 6-8 rounds of combat per short rest and 18-24 rounds per day, people are going to spend an awful lot of rounds where they aren't spending any resources that return on a rest, which is a lot lower dpr than is assumed above, at least for the spellcasters.
Fortunately, people don't want to actually run 6-8 encounters per day, and really, doubling hp should mean each encounter takes twice as long and it takes half as many encounters per day to wear out the PCs. If you're using the DMG, halve the daily budget. If you're using XGTE, assume 3 encounters.
A lot of monsters have HP lower than the recomended in monster creation, and higher damage and attack bonuses in turn.
The monster hp in the DMG is skewed by about 3 CR, the numbers I'm using are based on what published monsters actually average, using the statistics someone did here.
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So, 5e assumes a typical combat is 3 rounds, and presumably should be Medium to Hard (following the rules in XGTE, for example). What does that actually require?
A rough rule of thumb I use for PC damage per round is (level+1)*4 damage on a successful attack (or failed save, or w/e), and 2/3 of attacks hit. This is fairly typical for a decent but not super optimized build such as an eldritch blast spam warlock. Assuming 4 PCs, that means 12 attacks, 8 hits, total damage (level+1)*32. This is approximately twice the typical hit points for a creature with CR=level, which is the standard medium-to-hard encounter.
Now, for the creature's damage output, at low levels (PCs are mostly using hit dice for healing) we want to do about 1/3 of the party's total hit points during a medium encounter. A reasonably typical party (fighter/cleric/thief/wizard, all with 14 con) has 40 hp at level 1, +28 hit point per extra level, so our target is (level*9)+1. At low level, again, monsters probably have a hit chance of 50% or lower, because there's a good chance of something like +4 to hit vs AC 18 and +5 to hit against AC 16 would be quite ordinary, so if we set damage per attack to (level+1)*6 we're going to come close. This is slightly above the typical damage of a monster with CR=level (maybe 20% higher), but averaging 28% instead of 33% seems fine. Higher CR monsters will do a higher percentage because they hit more often, but higher level PCs have more healing resources so it works out.
Now, in general monster damage and hit points follow the same curve, so if we bump monster damage by 50%, we'll also bump monster hit points by 50%. As that means the monster is fighting for 50% longer, it actually does +125% damage, or actually a bit more because it's going to be dropping PCs and thus reducing party damage output. It's probably fair to say that +25% to monster damage and hp will give us a 4 round combat doing ~50% of health, +50% will give us a 5 round combat doing ~75%, +75% will give us a 6+ round combat that the PCs are at a real risk of losing. With the way xp budgets work in 5e, xp value scales with the square of damage output, so if the base encounter is Medium, the +25% encounter is Hard, the +50% encounter is Deadly.
This is actually a surprisingly simple rule: if you want encounters that mean what they say and last as long as the game says they should, just double all monster hit points and leave everything else the same. Of course, this makes 'built like a PC' even more weird, since a PC has a HP to Damage ratio averaging 1.75 and the monster now has a ratio averaging 6.
I’ve been intuitively doubling (or tripling) monster HP to hit that 3.5 round sweet spot for years. It’s nice to see the math to back it up. Thanks.
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Same, I tend to just double HP on most monsters, and if I need the combat to be dangerous, doubling monster damage as well, or adding a d6 necrotic to attacks.
As it happens, I haven't been doubling monster hp, I've just been using grossly excessive fights, but what that means is a 2-3 round fight that's super swingy.
Yeah, pushing the action economy too far in Team Monster's favor can be really swingy, although I think it's a bit more thrilling than just beefing enemies up. I also increase monster damage by around 50% unless it's already a heavy-hitter.
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(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
It's not action economy, it's damage. The swingiest combats are ones with low numbers of extreme actions (for example, a Banshee).
So, I realize that the modeling above probably fails to accurately reflect PC damage per round across a full adventuring day, because of running out of resources -- if we're looking at 6-8 rounds of combat per short rest and 18-24 rounds per day, people are going to spend an awful lot of rounds where they aren't spending any resources that return on a rest, which is a lot lower dpr than is assumed above, at least for the spellcasters.
Fortunately, people don't want to actually run 6-8 encounters per day, and really, doubling hp should mean each encounter takes twice as long and it takes half as many encounters per day to wear out the PCs. If you're using the DMG, halve the daily budget. If you're using XGTE, assume 3 encounters.
A lot of monsters have HP lower than the recomended in monster creation, and higher damage and attack bonuses in turn.
This can skew combat a lot.
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HERE.The monster hp in the DMG is skewed by about 3 CR, the numbers I'm using are based on what published monsters actually average, using the statistics someone did here.