Key Our Cars

Okay let’s go into some mechanics to flatten the curve in 4th edition.  Our goals are fairly simple, a village of peasants should be able to hurt a high level character. Â  They may not kill him unless there’s a lot of them and most certainly would under normal circumstances flee after X number of them were killed BUT the high level shouldn’t be able to just ignore them.  Granted one could say that this is true now.  1000 peasants could given that a natural 20 always hits eventually kill a PC.  So one blow in 20 is going to hit, they’re likely going to do 1[w]+x damage so they could concievably wear the PC down.  Providing they gave him time to go eat, bathroom breaks and such.

But we also want high level monsters to be heroic in nature to take down.  A village should really PREFER to call a Hero to take care of their pesky dragon problem.

So what’s standing in our way?  The way Defenses and Attack Bonii go up primarily. Â  You need a +20 to hit an epic creature even after rolling a 20.

So let’s just yank that whole level based increase in defenses and to hits.  To avoid changing the base percentages we subtract the same value, in this case Level / 2 from everything.

BUT, this still leaves creatures, both PC and NPC getting tougher as they go up.  Their hit points go up, their surges go up, their repertoire in the form of increased power output in both quantity and quality go up. In addition for the PC’s gear will add up to +6 to defenses and attacks based on bonuses (another option would be to tie these bonuses to their level and remove +x from all magic items but that’s a modification for another day).

So let’s ‘do the math’ with a sample -

20th Level Soldier Ice Devil -

• Pre-Mod – AC 36; Fort 33; Reflex 31; Will 29. Â  Attacks: +23 – +27
• Post-Mod – AC 26; Fort 26; Reflex 26; Will 19.  Attacks: +3 – +7

20th Level Defender (auto build dragonborn avenging paladin) -

• Pre-Mod – AC 34; Fort 32; Reflex 29; Will 29.  Attacks: +12 – +31
• Post Mod – AC 24; Fort 22; Reflex 19; Will 19.  Attacks +2 – +21

Direct Comparison Player Versus Monster -

Paladin VS Ice Devil -

Pre-Mod -

• Valiant Strike – +27 vs 36AC  = roll 9 to hit = 60%
• Certain Justice – +31 vs 36AC  = roll 5 to hit = 80%
• Entangling Smite – +22 vs 29Will = roll 7 to hit = 70%
• Rule of Order – +27 vs 33Fort = roll 6 to hit = 75%
• Righteous Inferno – +12 vs 31Reflex = roll 19 to hit = 10%

Post-Mod (-10 20/2)-

• Valiant Strike – +17 vs 26AC = roll 9 to hit = 60%
• Certain Justice – +21 vs 26AC = roll 5 to hit = 80%
• Entangling Smite – +12 vs 29 Will = roll 7 to hit =70%
• Rule of Order – +17 vs 23 Fort = roll 6 to hit 75%
• Righteous Inferno – +2 vs 21 Reflex = roll 19 to hit = 10%

As you can see the percentages are identical.

10th Level Soldier Genasi Stoneshield

• Pre-Mod – AC 26; Fort 24; Reflex 21; Will 20.  Attacks: +14 – +17
• Post-Mod – AC 21; Fort 19; Reflex 16; Will 10.  Attacks: +9 – +12

10th Level Dragonborne Avenging Paladin

• Pre-Mod – AC 27; Fort 24; Reflex 20; Will 21.  Attacks: +6 – +18
• Post Mod – AC 22; Fort 19; Reflex 15; Will 16.  Attacks +1 – +13

Pre-Mod Player Versus NPC-

• Valiant Strike – +18 vs 26 AC  = roll 8 to hit = 65%
• One Stands Alone – +6 vs 16 = roll 10 to hit = 55%

Post-Mod (-5 10/2) -

• Valiant Strike – +13 vs 21 AC  = roll 8 to hit = 65%
• One Stands Alone – +1 vs 11 = roll 10 to hit = 55%

Again the percentages are identical for obvious reasons.

But by subtracting level/2 from everything we end up with an epic boss fight something like this that doesn’t require a level 30 just to be able to hit it with anything approaching regularity.

Ancient Gold Dragon Level 30 Solo (Monster Manual 2)

Post Mod – AC 29; Fort 27; Reflex 29; Will 27.  Attacks +17 – +20

A level 0 commoner only hits on a 20. Nothing changed there.  But if this was a level 15 dragon (or a level 15 player trying to kill the level 3 town guards) then the commoners would certain have a decent shot at it.

A level 10 Paladin at +13 vs 29 AC hits on a 16 or better and has a 25% chance.

So now we have heroic tier Heroes that could conceivably take on a level 30 solo creature.

They’re going to spend all day hacking at it given that it has 1088 hit points but in theory a ‘doable’ amount of level 10′s could defeat this thing.   And that’s what we’re looking for isn’t it?

I think by using one very simple change to the numbers we extensively broaden the range that any one creature is ‘viable’ and keep things balanced and allow for creatures to get tougher as they level by the very fact that they can take more damage and do more damage.

Obviously this would need to be played out but at first glance I’m not seeing anything that screams “Don’t bother testing, you’re just wasting your time.”

One thing to be aware of is that powers that grant bonuses are increased in value now, but I can live with that.

And just to get rid of my own beef with Skills in 4th Edition let’s get rid of the Level/2 bonus to skills.  If a character wants to get better at skills they can specialize in them through feats, increase the base stat of the skill, or use magic items. Â  This means that skill challenge difficulties are drastically reduced in complexity and are viable for the life of the character.  The same goes with traps and anything else that requires any kind of skill based rolling.

The Proposed Change –

Subtract Level / 2 from all Attack Bonuses, all Defenses and all Skill Bonuses for both NPC and PC.

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