Topic: Monsters too strong for low level PC's?

[Raf Blutaxt]

Alright, so I've been running Harp for some time now and really like it but there are some things I'm wondering about...
 The main problem I currently have is the strength of monsters. There are almost no low level monsters in the Harp core rules or Monsters - A field guide. So I'm wondering if I misread something completely or if there is just not much a 1st level PC can attack with any hope of surviving let alone killing it. Especially OB DB and HP seem to be a lot higher for the classic monsters like goblins than for most PC's.
So should I lead my players through three of or four levels of intense badger slaughtering or am I just plain wrong?

Thanks for any help!

[WoeRie]

I can't see the problem. There are for example Goblins and Kobolds which are both VERY weak and shouldn't be a problem for an average first level fighter. See the average goblin (as described in the core rules), has an OB of 50, DB of 60 (Shield!), 15 Init (which will be 10 if you use the INI mod of  shields) and 70 hits. Comparing this with an average human 1st level fighter:

Stats:
+9 ST, +9 Co, +9 AG, +8 QU, +4 SD, 0 Re, +4 In, 0 Pr

Skills:

Type	Total	Stat	Ranks	Other
OB	+63	+18	+30	+15 (Skill Spec. + Fighter -Armorpenalty)
DB	+71	+16	---	+55 (Rigid Leather + Full Shield -Armorpenalty)
INI	+12	+12	---	+0 (L-Reflexes - Shield Penalty)
Hits	+73	+13	+30	+30 (Race)

shows that the fighter is better in ALL area's and in addition he has Fatepoints and a lot of other skills. I have considered 6 ranks in the skills Armor, Weapon and Endurance, which could be bought by using the Professional Ranks only, the rest is filled with the cultural ranks, leaving you ALL DP left to buy other skills and talents. You could also pimp your DB with the Instinctive Defense (+30DB) talent or by buying an Improved Rigid Leather (+10DB, +5OB, no Armor Penalty left).

Of course in a fight against a group of goblins, he will dramatically loose the combat. But hey... isn't that the reason we play HARP not D&D 

[Right Wing Wacko]

Um... are your characters attempting to parry at all?
As DM, one is free to modify the monsters.

Wasn't this just recently discussed?

[Thos]

Tactics are also very important, and espescially so at low levels. Using cover and the opportunity for ranged weapons is sometimes critical. As RWW pointed out, parrying can mean the difference between life and death. If the monsters still aren't to your liking, you can modify them any way you like using MaFG. The beauty of HARP is the ease with which you can create a brand new (or just different level) monster that fits your campaign's needs!

BTW, I personally never make a character that doesn't have instinctive defense. It's relatively cheap for the benefit it provides IMO. I always stess that to my players as well. If you have light armor wearing characters, add the swashbuckler talent too!
All the best!

[Karizma]

Rasyr pointed out that all the monsters that are listed are supposed to be "The ones that survive", or the ones that WILL put up a challenge.  So there are TONS of creatures and goblins and kobolds that are weaker than listed.

But they don't really have their own listing.  What I might do, is make an outline for "Weaklings".  Weaklings won't fight hard.  An easy way for me to do them is to just take the monsters as-are, and make them flee for their lives once they get lower than half their Endurance points.

So a gang of ten kobolds will have seven that will run away once they get knocked down below 50%, and 3 that will try to fight 'till the near-death.

... That's not a bad idea, I'll try this next battle!

[Marc R]

If you take any population, and remove those too weak to survive to adulthood, the resulting population will indeed be "stronger" than the assumed population of those born. . .but that is the average. . . (That's essentially the definition of one of the core principles of evolution).

The average will only fall on the border of the 3rd and 4th quartiles when a population is under extreme stress, and therefore the species is in transition to a new average. . .technically, the average stats within any population should be 40-60 due to normal deviation from average 50, with all other variation being rolled into stat bonuses. If at any time the average stats of a group were to actually reach 75, then they would be a new population or sub species and their racial stat bonuses would rise until the average stats dropped back to 50 (40-60). . .the same would happen if anything caused average stats to drop to 25, just with the racial mods going down until the average went back to. . . average. (That's one of the other central concepts of evolution, in game stats)

Reading the books, among sentient species, the logic, apparently, is that:

A) Shopkeepers, farmers and the like have stats from 40-60 or 400 points (50 average). . .they are, indeed, average.

B) NPCs should be generated almost as if PCs with 550 points (68.75 average). . .assumed, like PCs to be above average exceptional beings, the cream of their population.

C) Purely combat oriented encounters with statistic blocks use 600 points (75 average). . .these are fairly elite representatives of their species.

Most animal/monster encounters are type C. . .personally, as a GM the biggest justification for that would likely come from the fact that they're mobs run by the GM, that they have no skill variation to speak of, merely a couple of tactical numbers, and they're jacked up a bit to weight things a bit in their favor in exchange for not going into a level of detail to create a generic character sheet for them with a realistic spread of skills, akin to type Bs. . .They do appear to be over-weighted and more powerful than the average bear (or goblin) should be. Of course, as is, all those type Cs can do is move and fight.

If you ever wanted to actually go to the work of it, you could easily re-create all the monsters as Bs using the racial stat mods and one of the spread sheet. . .but that would still give you fairly aggressive, "cream of the crop" representatives of that race. . .Goblin warleaders, The Alpha Wolf of the pack, etc.

You could, presumptively also do the same thing to create "average" members of that species using the 40-60 stat generation method for non adventuring people, which would give you the non adventuring stats for that race. . .the Goblin shopkeeper, the pet dog, the average horse in a stable, that kind of thing. . .

Does seem like a lot of work though, it's tempting to be lazy and use the stats in the stat block.

[Raf Blutaxt]

Thanks for your replies!
However, I still see some problems.

1. An average fighter might be as strong or even stronger than a goblin but the Harp books state that goblins live in nests up to 200 and the typical encounter is of a group of about 10. This means that PC's will run into groups of goblins that they can't defeat and which could be very dangerous to them on a regular basis.

2. If goblins are as strong as they are and come in the numbers the books say, they should pose a big and permanent threat to most countries in a typical fantasy world. Even a small nest of goblins with say 50 warriors could destroy a whole province before the heavy cavalry comes to deal with them.
This makes me wonder why orcs arent't ruling the world.

3. Parrying against goblins works only against one goblin as 1st and 2nd level characters can only parry one foe per round (at least if I read the rules for multiple parry right).

4. If the PC's have to use a large part of their  OB for parrying which they'd better do, they will have quite some work before them to kill a goblin with 70 EP. Their attacks will be quite ineffective, only cutting away at the endurance points most of the time and rarely dealing stun or bleeding.

5. Of course I can modify any monster in the books and I certainly do it on a regular basis.
But if I always have to subtract the shield, lower OB and EP and so forth I wonder if it was the best idea to put the toughest goblin in the book and not say, an average goblin with a comment saying they can also be found with shields, better weapon training and so forth...

6. Especially for new and inexperienced players and gm's it can be quite disappointing. If for example someone bought the Harp rules and say the character book to play the game for the first time. He'll print out four characters for his friends and run them through a short adventure. The adventurers are hired to find out what happened to a caravan that is late. They travel to the site where a few goblin raiders ambushed the caravan and follow their tracks to the goblin's camp.
Now let there be 10 goblins at the camp and well total party kill looms on the horizon.

If such where my first experiences with Harp, I doubt I'd want to try it again.

These are just more or less random thoughts about the matter and are not intended to offend anyone. About further comments I would however be very happy.


Raf

[Right Wing Wacko]

If it bothers you so much, as apparently it does, simply make the goblins weaker... or fewer encountered.
Just because it says there are a hundred goblins in the nest, doesn't mean the PC's should be able to wade in slaying left and right! Actually, my PC would probably run!

Just modify the creatures until you are satisfied, or start the PC's off a level higher, or....

And if you are still unhappy/ unable to reconcile your issues with the game, well... theres always 4e

[Raf Blutaxt]

Well, I'm very happy with Harp as a game although I think that the combat system in the core book is not deadly enough

The point I'm trying to make is rather that modifying creatures until they fit your game is something experienced gm's are used to but inexperienced gm's aren't.
Now Harp by Rasyr's own admission in the foreword is aimed at new players. If those players or possible converts from a certain game that are used to encounters you can run out of the book try out Harp, they run a great risk to be put of by the fact that they have to change the most basic monsters in order to give their party a chance.
In my view this is an issue that can really put of potential new customers.

Concerning 4e: I played an introductory scenario last year at the release day in my local gaming store and it ended in a total party kill during the first combat. Now will I ever pick up the game?
I think it very unlikely.

[Right Wing Wacko]

I was only joking about 4e... I was trying to be cute... 

Yes, but in the core rules it also points out that PC's are suppose to use some OB to parry, that all creatures where designed with 75's in all stats, and that encounters that outnumber PC's will , indeed, be deadly.
Also, I believe it also says to feel free to alter the creatures for differing ability...

I see where you are coming from, I just don't see a problem...

[Marc R]

Raf.. . .having made a stab at creating type A and B goblins. . .I have a tribe of 75 goblins that are key to my current game, consiting of 25 hunters/fishermen, and 50 gatherer/non combat oriented goblins.

I tried out my own advice above, to build "average" type A goblins.

Ran into a problem in my first attempt.

My 50 in all stats goblin had zero DP to spend. . .so they had just their adolecence and professional skill ranks, could never get any more, and had no DP to spend to improve stats, so even if they reached 100th level, they'd still get no more ranks, and they'd only improve via their professional level based skill bonus.

Looking at what 2d10+40 would make likely. . .a spread of 8 stats: 54, 53, 52, 51, 50, 49, 48, 47. . . .offers only 12 DP.

Only 6 ranks in favored skills per level equivalency, and they can't afford much in the way of talents. . .if I were given an averaged character like this, I'd likely spend much if not all of my DP on raising my stats as an investment toward getting more DP in the future.

Building as if stat gains were not an option, this would definitely give a far weaker combatant. . .even sticking the highest stats into the racially favored one, the highest bonus is +3. . . .and not a lot of ranks to spread around. If you were building a non-combat focused being, a way weaker combatant.

shrug

[Thos]

I can certainly see where you are coming from, in that an inexperienced party being run by an inexperienced GM can end in disaster. In order to gauge the difficulty, and generally get the feel of combat in HARP when I was new to it, I ran a few sample encounters. Indeed, my sample characters parished! lol So, yes if one has no experience with the game... death is easy to achieve. This could indeed turn off new players. Am I basically getting what you're saying?

[Karizma]

I was in that spot: Sent the party to kill kobolds on their first day.  I fudged more numbers than Willy Wonka.

I believe there might be some misconstrued information somewhere between the thinking, the writing, the publishing, and the reading.

I think LordMiller has the right idea: Fill the majority of those "75 goblins" with weaklings that should put up no real struggle.

Furthermore, a group of 10 goblins might not be ten goblins as in the book.  My belief is that there's a "Gygaxian Naturalist" intent behind the encounter descriptions, but a minimalist approach to implementing them into the rules.  Putting weaklings in the rules would take up more space and would "feel" like a waste.

Unfortunately, things just get mixed up.  But luckily, you have the internet to talk to us and share ideas!

Now I actually want to bounce off LordMiller's idea and think it'd be good to have a Vault entry for stats for "weaklings" of each Monster, so that a GM can just mix 'em up with the Monsters.

[Marc R]

I just realised, Goblins are a playable race. . .so. . .

If one were to create Monster line items ala "Human" "Dwarf". . .they'd look rather impressive too.

I do agree with the logic of not bundling in loads of assumptions into monster entries. . .as far back as Creatures & Treasures there was an irritating tendancy to put dwarves in full chain, so they had lowered default movement and restricted pace stats. . .though at least CT did note where DB included shields and where it didn't and how to remove it. . .looking at some of these HARP entries, it's sometimes hard to figure out how much DB reflects armor or a shield. . .or what type was used to calculate the bonuses. (and if it was then calculated into penalties.).

As to "weaklings". . .what I was talking about above was "Average". . .if you're creating stats for goblin children, wolf pups, toothless orc crones or the like. . .they'd be signifigantly worse.

[Mormegil]

.though at least CT did note where DB included shields and where it didn't and how to remove it. . .looking at some of these HARP entries, it's sometimes hard to figure out how much DB reflects armor or a shield. . .or what type was used to calculate the bonuses. (and if it was then calculated into penalties.).

Indeed. One of the issues with HARP monsters is that some stats seem to have been adjusted according to equipment (shield DB bonus in the case of the goblins) and other numbers haven't (initiative).

Monsters always seem to have massive initiative bonuses by default - we had a running joke that initiative was purely to determine the order that characters acted in because monsters always acted first. On rare occasions the fighter would beat them but not terribly often. This was with a party of a couple of fairly casual players and three power gamers.

And no making fun of 4e. One thing DnD 4th edition does extremely well is classify what role it's expected a monster will play in combat and stat it accordingly. Contrast this with the HARP approach of supplying you with elite stats for everything and hoping the gm will adjust when necessary. Not saying one system is better than the other - just that you should look at what other systems do well.

I can see the desire to not have pages of variants for every creature but I'd be inclined to supply a stat block for an "average" monster with the understanding that I can just adjust things 10 or 20 points upwards for the tougher members of the race - ultimately not that different an approach but it means I don't have to shake in fear when the gm just grabs a couple of greeblies out of the book for a random encounter.

[jasonbrisbane]

Hi,

Monsters always have 75 stats = +5 to Qu and +5 to In = +10 to Initiative.
Monsters are always fighters: Lightning reflexes Talent = +5 to initiative
Racial bonues to qu and IN apply (Humans get +1 to all stats) = +2.

Total = +17 without rolling dice as base initiative.
I think you'll find most creatuires get a bonus to either Qu or In, thus getting a bigger bonus.

If you get M:AFG, you can see the way they create monsters in the final chapter. It shows the base stat bonuses for creatures of said Type.
In the HARP Core book in the description of the monsters it does list DB and the breakdown of the DB.
I find the DB of monsters (low level and high level) too low and always look at beefing up the monsters: my favourite is to give a combat style to intelligent monsters (goblins, orcs, etc) to increase their damage when they attack.
Other options are to get them to powerattack, boosting the max level of damage....

Heaps of options really, but it does all work out...

Give us an example of your issue and we can help breakdown where the details are listed and hopefully elay any fears you have....

(I think that it IS important to assist GM's so they have a good idea of how monsters OB and DB breakdowns work!  )

[jolt]

I think LordMiller has covered it pretty well.  Out of that group of 10 goblins the party encounters, probably only one is elite enough to use the stats in the book.  The rest will be weaker.  Remove the fighter class and drop the stats to 50 nad you've probably got a closer approximation of what an average goblin is like.

However, anything you put into your gameworld should be modified based on that world.  If Goblins in your world aren't as prolific, then the 200/10 numbers should be dumped.  This is one of the reasons I always prefered creating my own homebrew worlds; I don't have to factor in anyone's assumptions but my own.

jolt

[jasonbrisbane]

jolt,

Exactly.

Normal goblins  (women, children, etc) wont be fighting and goblins that PC's would fight, would by neccessity, be fighters!

So it is well understandable to adjust down as you have describved for the "normal" population...

The same way that any Human soldier NPC in a city would be a 75 stat character - they would have had to meet the "Basic requirements of entry".
-- 'fighters' in a hamlet with less than 100 people on the other hand would be a different story...

[Marc R]

I think that logic is a bit skewed. . . .it presumes that your average town militiaman is not just superbly above average, but more radically above the average than a PC or fully created NPC is. . .a goodly part of that "All 75s". . . .perhaps more likely would be "75s in the 4 stats that directly impact combat, and 25s in the 4 stats that don't" making them average, physically superior, but stupid. . .or "75s in 4 stats, 62-63 in 4 stats" which would make them NPC quality level. . .in my experience, if a bar has 100 people in it, the 5 people most likely to start brawling are not often the cream of the crop, superior in all aspects individuals.

Even that latter would assume that the "cream of the crop" of every group are tasked to combat. . .and the law of averages would put hordes of non combatants per combatant (Depends on the deviation curve from average, but even if it's flat it's 4 to the 8th power or 1 per 65,536 non combatants.)

And it starts to derail more when you shift off sentient to where a genocidal response is less unreasonable. . . . slaughtering Goblin children feels a trifle unsavory to me, decades past my "Keep on the Borderland" days. . .but when eradicating the giant rats that have infested the town granary, I'd assume the PCs would attack to kill every giant rat they encountered, from the largest buck rat of the population, down to the smallest of the young. . .now you might consider baby rats to be total noncombatants, but the spread of rats constituting the whole population of the infestation would logically include very few "super" or weakling giant rats, and a lot of average giant rats.

I can accept the "This is handy for the sake of not having to actually work up individualized stats for every encounter" but not the "superior examples are the only individuals that PCs will encounter in combat". . .it's not like any PC would respond with "Nah, let it go, that's just an average giant spider, we're here to find the biggest hairiest one and fight it, the rest we can casually kill since they're non combatants."

[jolt]

. . slaughtering Goblin children feels a trifle unsavory to me, decades past my "Keep on the Borderland" days. . .

Heh.  I had forgotten that about "Keep on the Borderlands".  The thing is though, you're only going to view killing goblin children as unsavory if the world assumes a "goblins are people too" attitude.  If goblins in your world are just another monster, you're not going to have any more compunction about killing their young as you would about stamping on wyvern eggs.

but when eradicating the giant rats that have infested the town granary, I'd assume the PCs would attack to kill every giant rat they encountered, from the largest buck rat of the population, down to the smallest of the young. . .now you might consider baby rats to be total noncombatants, but the spread of rats constituting the whole population of the infestation would logically include very few "super" or weakling giant rats, and a lot of average giant rats.

That's because rats are considered monsters.  But goblins could be considered that way too.  If goblins are considered irredeemably evil from birth, it might be expected that you're going to kill goblin young if you encounter them.  These, too me, are more world distinctions than game distinctions.

I can accept the "This is handy for the sake of not having to actually work up individualized stats for every encounter" but not the "superior examples are the only individuals that PCs will encounter in combat". . .it's not like any PC would respond with "Nah, let it go, that's just an average giant spider, we're here to find the biggest hairiest one and fight it, the rest we can casually kill since they're non combatants."

I would argue that that is how most gaming groups play.  How many adventuring groups are really going to stop and kill some spider if they don't think they're going to get any XP or treasure out of it?  Not many, IMO.

I think it's best to show a high-end example of a monster and adjust downwards as necessary rather than show Joe Average monster and have the GM and players wondering, "Well, just how tough can a goblin be?"  Better to show a tough goblin right from the start.

There's little need, IMO, to even stat out non-combatants.  Even if they get in a fight you're probably just going to roleplay what happens to them rather than spending an inordinate amount of time rolling dice for 20 people who's outcome is a foregone conclusion.

I've just realised: I've completely lost track of who's advocating what.  I guess my position is that the way HARP has done it works fine for me.

jolt