Going to be running our first session soon and I’m unsure about monster damage levels. How much harm is a good amount for a monster to do? I know reaching 4 harm is nearing hospitalization, but I don’t know what to expect from hunter armor or other abilities. Is 3 harm too much for a single attack? What are some examples of attacks and their relative harm. Thanks!
Going to be running our first session soon and I’m unsure about monster damage levels.
Going to be running our first session soon and I’m unsure about monster damage levels.
If you look through the hunter playbooks, you can see getting 1 or 2 armour is pretty easy for them.
For the monster, my advice is (this is from the book): “Pick something in the range of 2 to 4 harm for each attack.”
Once you’ve played a bit you’ll get a feel for what’s appropriate to your hunters, but that range is enough to be a threat and not too much to cope with.
Fantastic, thanks a ton!
I’ve found that it is useful to have the monster or his minions ambush your hunters to give them a taste of fear, but in a way that leaves them a way out of the first couple encounters (as long as they are smart enough to take it). I’m betting that many people new to MotW see a monster and assume they are supposed to charge in, and you need to train them that there are no insurance companies going to take THAT bet. 🙂 After the first 3-4 harm hit and a quick glance at their harm track, doing the math realizing it is half gone and the monster is still standing there smiling at you (usually with far too many teeth to have a smile feel comfortable), they start to get the idea that a toe-to-toe fight may not necessarily be the safest or most feasible plan. If you give them monsters that do 0-1 harm hits, they will never learn fear! MotW seems to work best when leaning into the hunter’s fear, but 3-4 harm hits at least give them a chance to get a taste and get out alive, which makes a slightly better learning experience than 5-8 harm hits that may have them ending the fight as a pile of corpses… though once they know to be afraid (and to wear armor and defensive magic), hits that hard can be exciting too.
So for my money, 3-5 harm is probably the sweet spot for beginning hunters, with 5 being a BIT unforgiving, 3 if you want to baby them, and 4 being a good, painful balance.