Re: mechanics of surprise

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007, Erol K. Bayburt wrote:
> Another problem is the tendency, in many games, for a party of PCs to
> *be* a party, outnumbering one or two "big" foes in an encounter. In a
> D&D like system, a single big foe with 160 hit points can shrug off a
> 40 point surprise round attack much better than a typical PC party of
> 4 with an average of 40 hit points per character. A single surprise
> attack by the big foe will likely put down one PC, putting the party
> as a whole into a death spiral.

Bear in mind that D&D sets the CR of a creature to match the level of the 
party such that the party should only expend 25% of its resources 
defeating the creature.  That means that D&D is more likly to put a party 
of 4 with an average of 40 HP per character up against a creature that 
also only has 40 points on average when the CR of the monster matches the 
party, not 160.  Putting a party of 4 with an average of 40 HP up against 
a monster with 160 HP is usually a recipe for dead characters without 
fudging, even in a fair fight, not a surprise situation.

That said, I think that your point shows that using HP alone, as a guage 
of combat effectiveness, isn't very accurate.  You also need to look at 
maximum damage dished out each round.  In fact, that's normally what I 
look at the most.  "Can this monster kill people in one round?"

> If a party of 4 PCs gets suprised by a dozen weaker foes, it's more
> plausable that the surprise attacks will be spread out among the PCs,
> which helps wrt the party being able to put up a good fight
> afterwards.

This becomes more true in systems where armor reduces damage.  Thus 10 
hits that do 10 points of damage do a lot less damage than 1 hit that does

100 points of damage if armor is taking 5 points of damage off per hit.

John Morrow