TOPIC: Build characters for Saving or for To Hit bonuses?

Eldar wrote: I literally never get attacked on my rogue. I feel like DMs look at my AC chuckle inside and decide to attack someone else lol.

DMs should not be making their decisions on whom to attack by looking at the party card. It is usually described in the module whom they will attack (closest player, most recent to do damage, paladin/cleric, etc.)

Its a mixed bag. I find that some DMs follow what they are told, others want their monsters to "be effective" and attack the character they know they can hit.


Eldar, if you want to get attacked, stand near the DM and taunt the monster.


The best DM evasion I've seen is when the cleric actually hid in the room.

I really liked Room 6 sable, as the Drow was calling out her own targets and never saw the party card. I taunted her very well playing a druid and she attacked me instead of the mage that had nuked all her children (egg sacs) and hit her pretty hard. Was fun watching the DM tell her no you attacked the druid not the mage that has been really hurting you....

bpsymington wrote:

Eldar wrote: I literally never get attacked on my rogue. I feel like DMs look at my AC chuckle inside and decide to attack someone else lol.

DMs should not be making their decisions on whom to attack by looking at the party card. It is usually described in the module whom they will attack (closest player, most recent to do damage, paladin/cleric, etc.)

When there aren't specific guidelines:

Monsters should be able to see relatively how well armored a character is. It should be able to differentiate between a heavily armored tank and a skimpily clad Barbarian or Wizard. Just like how players can look at the monster board and determine how easy/hard it is to hit before deciding which monster to attack. They might get an estimate of how nimble a player is and whether or not they are a spellcaster.

(Also in Grind, the later monsters may be "observing" earlier combats or communicating, so they may be aware of the failures of earlier monsters in hitting heavily armored players).

Incognito wrote:

bpsymington wrote:

Eldar wrote: I literally never get attacked on my rogue. I feel like DMs look at my AC chuckle inside and decide to attack someone else lol.

DMs should not be making their decisions on whom to attack by looking at the party card. It is usually described in the module whom they will attack (closest player, most recent to do damage, paladin/cleric, etc.)

When there aren't specific guidelines:

Monsters should be able to see relatively how well armored a character is. It should be able to differentiate between a heavily armored tank and a skimpily clad Barbarian or Wizard. Just like how players can look at the monster board and determine how easy/hard it is to hit before deciding which monster to attack. They might get an estimate of how nimble a player is and whether or not they are a spellcaster.

(Also in Grind, the later monsters may be "observing" earlier combats or communicating, so they may be aware of the failures of earlier monsters in hitting heavily armored players).

The secrets come out!

I like when DMs and NPCs work together. The DMs in the rooms with the salamanders and mushroom man often asked the NPC who they wanted to attack.

One of the funniest TD moments I've had was when we were in the room with the never-ending supply of skeletons. The wizard cast a spell, the DM said to show him a plane for the skill check, and both skeletons went to the plane chart and picked two different random planes to distract the wizard.

Incognito wrote:

bpsymington wrote:

Eldar wrote: I literally never get attacked on my rogue. I feel like DMs look at my AC chuckle inside and decide to attack someone else lol.

DMs should not be making their decisions on whom to attack by looking at the party card. It is usually described in the module whom they will attack (closest player, most recent to do damage, paladin/cleric, etc.)

When there aren't specific guidelines:

Monsters should be able to see relatively how well armored a character is. It should be able to differentiate between a heavily armored tank and a skimpily clad Barbarian or Wizard. Just like how players can look at the monster board and determine how easy/hard it is to hit before deciding which monster to attack. They might get an estimate of how nimble a player is and whether or not they are a spellcaster.

(Also in Grind, the later monsters may be "observing" earlier combats or communicating, so they may be aware of the failures of earlier monsters in hitting heavily armored players).

My concerns are outside of Grind (since I think that is a special case, and I think you handle things pretty well there, Eric).

I agree that some monsters should be able to determine who they would like to attack, but outside of a few cases where say a spider has a grudge against Clerics, it usually feels like every monster in the dungeon is a master tactician about attacking the people with the lowest AC, or if they cast spells, they attack the people with the lowest saves.

One of the issues with this is that "how" someone has AC never seems to be taken into account. If all we had was physical armor, just looking at AC numbers would feel a little more fair. But with things like the ring of protection or mithril bracers, it doesn't feel like those are things most monsters should be able to observe until they've tried at least one attack. If the DM blindly said they attacked the Wizard without looking at his AC, that would be one thing, but it usually seems like they are looking at the actual AC values before deciding who to attack. Similarly, blindly attacking a Wizard with something that requires a fortitude save is one thing, but looking at the list of saving throws first is what it feels like is often being done.

Of course, that could be bad observation on our part. But that is how it often appears (you can see whether the DM is looking at the left-hand side of the party card to see the names of which classes are in the party, versus you see their eyes going down the column of saving throws to decide on who to attack).

And outside of cases where the party is surprised, why is it that the monster can magically be right next to the Wizard? Why can it walk right past the front line Fighters, and why can't the Wizard even attempt to stay at a distance?

Fiddy wrote:

Incognito wrote:

bpsymington wrote:

Eldar wrote: I literally never get attacked on my rogue. I feel like DMs look at my AC chuckle inside and decide to attack someone else lol.

DMs should not be making their decisions on whom to attack by looking at the party card. It is usually described in the module whom they will attack (closest player, most recent to do damage, paladin/cleric, etc.)

When there aren't specific guidelines:

Monsters should be able to see relatively how well armored a character is. It should be able to differentiate between a heavily armored tank and a skimpily clad Barbarian or Wizard. Just like how players can look at the monster board and determine how easy/hard it is to hit before deciding which monster to attack. They might get an estimate of how nimble a player is and whether or not they are a spellcaster.

(Also in Grind, the later monsters may be "observing" earlier combats or communicating, so they may be aware of the failures of earlier monsters in hitting heavily armored players).

My concerns are outside of Grind (since I think that is a special case, and I think you handle things pretty well there, Eric).

I agree that some monsters should be able to determine who they would like to attack, but outside of a few cases where say a spider has a grudge against Clerics, it usually feels like every monster in the dungeon is a master tactician about attacking the people with the lowest AC, or if they cast spells, they attack the people with the lowest saves.

One of the issues with this is that "how" someone has AC never seems to be taken into account. If all we had was physical armor, just looking at AC numbers would feel a little more fair. But with things like the ring of protection or mithril bracers, it doesn't feel like those are things most monsters should be able to observe until they've tried at least one attack. If the DM blindly said they attacked the Wizard without looking at his AC, that would be one thing, but it usually seems like they are looking at the actual AC values before deciding who to attack. Similarly, blindly attacking a Wizard with something that requires a fortitude save is one thing, but looking at the list of saving throws first is what it feels like is often being done.

Of course, that could be bad observation on our part. But that is how it often appears (you can see whether the DM is looking at the left-hand side of the party card to see the names of which classes are in the party, versus you see their eyes going down the column of saving throws to decide on who to attack).

And outside of cases where the party is surprised, why is it that the monster can magically be right next to the Wizard? Why can it walk right past the front line Fighters, and why can't the Wizard even attempt to stay at a distance?

I now want to fight an NPC who immediately casts detect magic and attacks the shiniest glowing party member

I find I try to balance as much as possible, but lean towards damage for the melee classes, and protection (AC, saves) for the non-front line characters. I outfit our entire group, and we have no URs that effect combat except the bard's instrument. I want combats done as quickly as possible, so I want damage output maxed...none of our combats on normal lasted more than 2 rounds, and most were very close to dead after round one. We only run both puzzle runs, so only 6 combats total. Using only rares/a few special tokens (necklace of the oak), our fighters/barb are doing +14-16 damage per hit and their to hit bonus is 8/9. Not really sure how I would get to hit much higher than that with rares only, so I'm not sure if hardcore would be too hard or not with our current setup, though I had multiple combat DMs say we should be doing hardcore for what it's worth.

I did not find DMs abusing who they were attacking at all this year. I had multille DMs attack characters then kind of do a double take when they checked their AC (especially the cleric).

Fiddy wrote: My concerns are outside of Grind (since I think that is a special case, and I think you handle things pretty well there, Eric).

I agree that some monsters should be able to determine who they would like to attack, but outside of a few cases where say a spider has a grudge against Clerics, it usually feels like every monster in the dungeon is a master tactician about attacking the people with the lowest AC, or if they cast spells, they attack the people with the lowest saves.

You know, in the past, I have considered giving monsters various probing attacks:

Spellcaster uses a spell that deals 1 point of fire damage, 1 point of cold damage, 1 point of shock damage, 1 point of sonic damage, etc. to evaluate weaknesses.

Or a fighty monster has an attack that targets every single player but only deals 1 point of damage. And he uses this as his first attack in order to test relative defenses.

Don't be surprised if you see such strategies in the future!

And outside of cases where the party is surprised, why is it that the monster can magically be right next to the Wizard? Why can it walk right past the front line Fighters, and why can't the Wizard even attempt to stay at a distance?

Eh, that's just the way TD has decided to handle distance and range.

Every is in the same room and anyone can be reached (by monsters or players) via attacks.

If you want, you could add complexity with range - with the chance of accidentally hitting players (especially with ranged attacks and ranged spells). About players in melee providing cover bonuses for monsters. Etc.