Dead Reckoning Monster Stats

LordRumfish

As a thought experiment, I looked at the rules in my 2nd edition books to see if I could reverse-engineer a BG sword spider (since they are different from normal 2nd edition sword spiders) and figure out how close I got to what is in the game.

I decided it has at least 4 attacks per round, good for being worth +1 HD in terms of experience given.
I decided it has AC 0, also good for +1 HD of experience.
I decided it would have about 10 Hit Dice, providing it with about 45 HP and a THAC0 of 11. It might instead have 8 HD, 13 THAC0 and have artificially inflated HP, good for +1 HD of experience adjustment.
I'm not sure about its weapon damage, maybe 1d8+4?
This would total at either 11 or 12 HD in terms of experience, worth 2000 XP.

I built the above model using 2nd edition book resources. Now, if one of you could tell me what its actual in-game statistics look like I'm curious how close I got by my educated guesswork. Also, does anyone else find this sort of thought experiment interesting?

ajwz

You forgot it's innate ability to shout "KISSSSHHHHHSHHHHHSHHHHH" and scare the crap out of me

LordRumfish

Hehehe.

So, guess I'm alone in the reverse-engineering department? Oh well. The weird life and times of a veteran DM, you reach a point where the underlying rules all make sense in their own weird way. I bet programming is the same way.

JLee

I don't know how accurate EEKeeper is about these things (I assume NI is more detailed), but here is what it has to say about Sword Spiders:

Str: 14 (all other stats = 9)

HP: 45
AC: 3
THACO: 12
EXP for Kill: 2000
APR: 4

Oh and CE for alignment.

I'd say you were pretty close!

Lord_Tansheron

This is a curiosity for people familiar with PnP rules, particularly 2E. For everyone else, coherence and balance within the video game is likely the only thing that matters. Its mechanics are based on PnP to be sure, but they differ enough to warrant a detached perspective. Personally, I can't speak much to any PnP experience but regardless of the AI, I find that enemies in BG tend to be too weak. Their HP in particular seem very low for the amount of damage you can dish out, especially in BG2...

nano

Lord_Tansheron said:

Their HP in particular seem very low for the amount of damage you can dish out, especially in BG2...

My guess is that this is a byproduct of using PnP rules as a foundation. In PnP you need to roll dice every single time so it would make sense not to give enemies too much HP because you'll be there all night. BG automates all that making combat rolls go by a lot faster. I'd imagine the difference is particularly pronounced if you're coming from MMOs where you have to hit everything at least a couple of times and bosses hundreds of times.

Fardragon

Yeah, PnP combat takes ages to resolve. A low level party vs a Sword Spider could be half an hour in real time.