TOPIC: Nightmare Stats for Advanced Party Challenge?

I'm curious what people think Nightmare stats should be to give advanced parties a challenge?

Right now Nightmare monster stats seem to be around:

• Monster to-hit: +12-18
• Monster Save Threat DC: 22
• Monster AC: 20-28
• Attacks: Generally 2, sometimes retribution or AOE
• Damage per attack: Usually 12-20, occasional heavy hitters in the 40 range or "save or die" range

Monsters often also have special defenses, ways to waste player turns, etc..



Here are stats I'd suggest for Nightmare, or perhaps a new Nighmare-but-worse level:

• Monster to-hit: +25
• Monster Save Threat DC: 27
• Monster AC: 28-34
• Attacks: Generally 2, sometimes retribution or AOE (this could be scaled up, but we don't want the monster turn to take too long)
• Damage per attack: 30-35, occasional heavy hitters in the 40 range or "save or die" range

I'd also suggest that there be around 1d3-1 saves each dungeon for which evasion/imroved evasion matters.


How I come to those levels, is this goal:

For parties at the relic level:

• Monsters should hit the heavy armor classes around 50% of the time.
• Monks should fail their saves around 50% of the time.
• Players should need to slide around a 10+ to hit.
• Monster hits should not one-shot people who've made some investment in bumping up HP, but should put almost everyone into 2 hits and you're dead territory.

I'm curious whether other people think Nightmare should be ramped up, or a 4th difficulty added?


I admit it could be a pretty big mistake to make it this hard - as at the 1-2 UR and good rare parties would probably get massacred.

I think you're headed in the right direction. I don't know if your recommendations are in the right range or not, I'd have to think about it. But I would rather ramp up nightmare than create another level of difficulty. People who want max xp, but aren't equipped for Nightmare have Hardcore. If they think they're up to Nightmare and die, so be it. Lesson learned. Nightmare should be something to fear. I honestly have no sympathy for people who pay to run nightmare and then are disappointed when they don't survive.

Another option to add challenge would be to fiddle with the dice.

If monsters attacked with a d30 instead of a d20, and players saved with a d12 (and a 12 isn't auto success) it would have similar effects to the increased monster to-hit and threat DC, and wouldn't involve changing the module - just changing the dice used for "Epic" groups or whatever.

Back when the party size was six, you stood a better chance of being attacked. Now with 10 players and single attack monsters, that chance is much lower.

So more AOE attacks or multiple attacks per round could be part of the solution. Just keep it simple enough for the 12 minute per room limit.

In a reasonably equipped party with good teamwork I would expect to routinely reach room 7. And die there around half the time. I'm fine with dying in room 7.

With that big of an increase, it should definitely be a new difficulty level. The problem is that many people currently playing nightmare have stats that are 10 points below the top stats (or 20 below on AC). When you adjust the monsters for the top stats, those others will probably feel useless, but hardcore is still way too easy for them.

Actually EPIC level at Gencon (and nightmare for that matter) had a creative solution, heavy charms, a turncoat and blocking monsters. For simpler approaches multiple monsters and better stats work.

The dice idea is a cool idea for for the Insane tokenholics

There were some discussions on this about 2.5 years ago.

For reference:

www.truedungeon.com/forum?view=topic&catid=580&id=207251&start=24#207358

kurtreznor wrote: With that big of an increase, it should definitely be a new difficulty level. The problem is that many people currently playing nightmare have stats that are 10 points below the top stats (or 20 below on AC). When you adjust the monsters for the top stats, those others will probably feel useless, but hardcore is still way too easy for them.

My group has definitely hit that point. Hardcore is not a challenge at all but we are unlikely to kill a nightmare lvl boss. We don't tpk just run out of time. But I think we are just going to stick to nightmare puzzle and harcore combat for awhile and try again in a couple years.

jedibcg wrote:

kurtreznor wrote: With that big of an increase, it should definitely be a new difficulty level. The problem is that many people currently playing nightmare have stats that are 10 points below the top stats (or 20 below on AC). When you adjust the monsters for the top stats, those others will probably feel useless, but hardcore is still way too easy for them.

My group has definitely hit that point. Hardcore is not a challenge at all but we are unlikely to kill a nightmare lvl boss. We don't tpk just run out of time. But I think we are just going to stick to nightmare puzzle and harcore combat for awhile and try again in a couple years.

Thats where I am with my son's group. I have 3 and probably soon to be 4 Nightmare capable builds. But the other 4 are clearly hardcore level.

I think there are issues for the levels of token ownership(hereinafter firepower) that make this difficult

First, a good party with a couple of urs each should be able to win nightmare at least 50% of the time as skill and play ability should be greatly rewarded

Second if that same level is hit by BIS equipped parties who each have thousands of dollars of tokens each, if they have any skill on combat side, they will have 1-2 rounds of combat each and be able to talk with DMs and npcs for 6 plus minutes

I like an epic level or self imposed limits as the fix as if tokenholics can only hit it on 12+ and it can hit BIS armored types on a 12 + on an upgraded nightmare level, the first type of party will have a lot of problems (hitting only on 19-20s due to lack of modifiers is not good and being hit on anything but a 1-2 is not fun)

FIrepower should be a good and fun goal but not the only way to win nightmare

kurtreznor wrote: With that big of an increase, it should definitely be a new difficulty level. The problem is that many people currently playing nightmare have stats that are 10 points below the top stats (or 20 below on AC). When you adjust the monsters for the top stats, those others will probably feel useless, but hardcore is still way too easy for them.

I guess I hadn't considered that the overall range of power in builds has also grown. And while I think we need to keep things as simple as possible for TD, a new level of difficulty may be the best route to go.

I just feel like whatever the top level is, the target should be a 50% survival rate for those properly equipped. I would probably keep the first few rooms at the current level as a tpk early in the adventure would probably sour even the unprepared. But I think having characters start to die in rooms 5 or 6 is not unreasonable. If everyone makes it to room 7, I just don't think it will feel like an epic struggle.

I think if you are looking for more of a challenge, and the discussion is solely around the combat side of things, then perhaps Grind is the place for you to get it rather than the main Dungeon.

Eric and his gang routinely kill off large swaths of Relic and Legendary equipped players.