D&D 5E Design Debate: 13th-level PCs vs. 6- to 8-Encounter Adventuring Day

[hawkeyefan]

I'm really surprised at how many people use the XP budgets to design encounters.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not criticizing anyone for doing so, just surprised to see it brought up so much because it's something I have almost never worried about.

I didn't realize that an XP budget was being used for this exercise beyond establishing individual encounters as being medium or hard.

 

[iserith]

I'm really surprised at how many people use the XP budgets to design encounters.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not criticizing anyone for doing so, just surprised to see it brought up so much because it's something I have almost never worried about.

I didn't realize that an XP budget was being used for this exercise beyond establishing individual encounters as being medium or hard.

I'm not certain the adjusted XP budget chart squares with the statement of "6 to 8 medium to hard encounters per day." If we take the 67,500 XP and divide it by 8 encounters, we come up with 8437 XP which is somewhere between Easy and Medium on average. If you ignore the chart and just design according to the statement, then it works fine in my experience.

 

[Celtavian]

If you can have Passive Insight as an always-on, can I have Passive Intimidation as an always on? Can my character with a PI of 18 swagger around scaring away every monster with a Wis less than 18, on the grounds that he looks the part? We have a result! This adventure is a cake-walk.

No. Intimidation is nothing like Perception. Not even in the same ballpark.

Or we could respect [MENTION=6788736]Flamestrike[/MENTION] as the DM and just confine ourselves to talking about how we would play as players and maybe discover whether or not our play styles would be successful in that context.

If you were paying attention, you would know this has nothing to do with Flamestrike. This is a discussion between Iserith and myself. It is a difference in how we DM. I allow Passive Investigation, Perception, and Insight. I believe adventurers are always looking for information that improves their survival. So no, you would not get a Passive Intimidation. You would get Passive Perception, Investigation, and Insight. Though I would likely hand-wave Intimidation for low level or weak NPCs and make it work. I only waste time rolling when I think a roll would be necessary. Otherwise, I just assume success. I do the same with knowledge skills and just about any skill in low pressure situations.

 

[Celtavian]

Passive Perception isn't "always on" either in my view. It applies to uncertain outcomes related to when the PCs are keeping watch for threats and aren't doing something distracting. In the case of the PCs entering a dangerous situation, it's safe to assume the PCs are keeping watch for threats. Determining the true intentions of a creature, however, requires observation of mannerisms and behavior, something that takes time.

No. It doesn't take time. People do it and are trained to do it immediately. That is why it requires skill to lie or deceive effectively in the real world. Because people are always reading verbal cues from another person as to their mental state. Humans have a natural ability to do this. Train it and it becomes even more acute. I'm surprised someone would state this given the natural human ability to read lies, emotional states, body language, and the like. It is an extremely natural and always on ability except if a person has a mental disorder that impairs the reading of physical and verbal cues.

With action heroes, it operates at a much higher level.

I would say your rulings make these two proficiencies too powerful and remove the meaningful decision-making to character creation rather than something to decide during play. But it also sounds like your players ask to make skill checks which is another difference in our games. Mine cannot. (Though, again, if we were talking D&D 4e, I'd be singing a different tune.)

Perception and Insight should be automatic choices. If you're going to adventure, you need to have these skills at a high level in your group. If "meaningful decision-making" means not taking these skills in favor of others, you deserve to die, just like any one that ever attempted to do what adventurers did without developing highly acute Perception, Insight, and Investigation would do or the same for modern combatants. Advantage on perceiving problems first is an absolute must or you're dead.

I would say you're choices create a false idea of what it would be like to adventure. The level of danger is so high that being unaware is a death sentence. That is why I assume adventures are about as paranoid a group as ever existed always looking for danger, deceptive behavior, and the like.

Then let's talk about the situation. You're on a mission to stop the world from being destroyed. Why would you not be on edge all the time? Meaning all skills capable of detecting issues always on and looking for trouble. Your ruling makes your players seem incompetent and makes them state actions to you that should be considered automatic.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I leave it to @Flamestrike to answer that. I verified XP on individual encounters, not the overall budget.

It's the DM's call to say whether the wolves count toward adjusted XP. Flamestrike's call is that they do not. If you want to make a different case for your own table, you can mention that in Part 1 of the debate format and let the readers decide who made the better call. Given the scant resources that @Celtavian reports as being expended by the party, I think this bolsters the claim that the wolves don't count. Someone else mentioned the tongues spell as well which might have also reduced the difficulty of this encounter a great deal.

That's called "begging the question" or "assuming your conclusion." You can't manipulate the test to suit your desired conclusion and then claim that as evidence in favor of your conclusion.

If you want to take this issue off the table, replace the four Winter Wolves with a third Frost Giant to give the regular x3 multiplier. I guarantee you that will not significantly increase the resources Celtavian expends.

 

[Celtavian]

Encounter 2 Play Discussion

This is a much more difficult encounter than the Frost Giants.

First, entry into the portal. You have a strange portal that you’re not sure about. You’re not sure you’ll even live going through it. You’re not sure if it changes as each person passes through sending people to different areas. You’re not sure if you end up in some deadly place. You’re likely to send the low value wizard bat familiar into the location to see if you can gain any information. The slaad kill the familiar when they detect each other at roughly the same time given the bat’s blindsight. You’ll also use rituals like detect magic and whatever knowledge skills you have to determine the nature of the portal. At the end of all this, you just have to go in. And this is one of those moments when adventurers look at each other and say, “What the hell. Live or die, we’re all going in at the same time. We can’t risk being separated and we can’t risk dying one at a time. Here we go.”

Likely we would join hands and walk in. Marching Order: Paladin, cleric, bard, wizard, eldritch knight. Group as tight as possible to gain paladin save bonus if the environment is damaging. You’re going to stay as near the portal as possible spreading out along the wall until you get an idea of what is there.

We enter the area. The bard likely detects the slaad with her high perception. The slaad hear the adventurers given paladins and clerics aren’t stealthy. The only one with visibility would be the bard. The wizard would immediately learn his familiar is dead by the lack of a connection. This would be initiative for a surprise round more than likely with only the bard and slaad being able to react normally.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm not certain the adjusted XP budget chart squares with the statement of "6 to 8 medium to hard encounters per day." If we take the 67,500 XP and divide it by 8 encounters, we come up with 8437 XP which is somewhere between Easy and Medium on average. If you ignore the chart and just design according to the statement, then it works fine in my experience.

Yeah, I eyeballed it, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Part of the reason I never bother worrying about a daily budget. I focus more on encounters, and even with those I go more on instinct than using the budget rules.

I understand that this exercise requires using an encounter budget. Surprised to see the daily budget come up in discussion.

 

[iserith]

No. It doesn't take time. People do it and are trained to do it immediately. That is why it requires skill to lie or deceive effectively in the real world. Because people are always reading verbal cues from another person as to their mental state. Humans have a natural ability to do this. Train it and it becomes even more acute. I'm surprised someone would state this given the natural human ability to read lies, emotional states, body language, and the like. It is an extremely natural and always on ability except if a person has a mental disorder that impairs the reading of physical and verbal cues.

I disagree and it's the trade-off (time for a chance at discerning the truth) during the game that makes this a meaningful choice for the player. A player is free to roleplay his or her character as incredulous as he or she wants, but if he or she wants to have a chance to accurately confirm his or her suspicions, I'm going to demand time as a cost.

I think I'm detecting a trend here, too. It seems that time-as-a-resource is not a strong consideration in some campaigns given the pushback on time constraints and the like. Suggesting that certain tasks take time as well is getting similar pushback.

Perception and Insight should be automatic choices. If you're going to adventure, you need to have these skills at a high level in your group. If "meaningful decision-making" means not taking these skills in favor of others, you deserve to die, just like any one that ever attempted to do what adventurers did without developing highly acute Perception, Insight, and Investigation would do or the same for modern combatants. Advantage on perceiving problems first is an absolute must or you're dead.

I would say you're choices create a false idea of what it would be like to adventure. The level of danger is so high that being unaware is a death sentence. That is why I assume adventures are about as paranoid a group as ever existed always looking for danger, deceptive behavior, and the like.

Then let's talk about the situation. You're on a mission to stop the world from being destroyed. Why would you not be on edge all the time? Meaning all skills capable of detecting issues always on and looking for trouble. Your ruling makes your players seem incompetent and makes them state actions to you that should be considered automatic.

Meaningful decisions in the context I am using it means making decisions during the game that impacts play. As I see it, you have to decide to keep alert for danger or do something else that may distract from that. You can't do both (unless you're a ranger in favored terrain). If you want to suss out a creature's true intentions, it's going to take you time to have a shot at success. Sometimes the situation makes that choice very dramatic.

The only trade-off your ruling produces is how to build the character and in your game there is only one good choice - pump Perception and Insight. My ruling deals with both the way you build your character and the decisions you make during play.

 

[iserith]

That's called "begging the question" or "assuming your conclusion." You can't manipulate the test to suit your desired conclusion and then claim that as evidence in favor of your conclusion.

If you want to take this issue off the table, replace the four Winter Wolves with a third Frost Giant to give the regular x3 multiplier. I guarantee you that will not significantly increase the resources Celtavian expends.

You are free to take this up with the designer of the encounters or to describe how you would run and play this encounter per the debate format. I'm not going to debate this issue with you further.

 

[Lord Twig]

No one was more shocked than I that Iserith and Flamestrike consider Winter Wolves with pack tactics, an AoE attack, a trip attack, and 75 hit points not a powerful addition to this group. In 3E they would have been trivial. In 5E they are a major boost to nearly any encounter at nearly any level and should have been counted at least half for the creature multiple beyond the base xp added. Wolves in general have high value special abilities. Winter Wolves are particularly vicious. If you were to throw 10 or 12 winter wolves at a lvl 20 fighter in 5E, they might kill him. The only class that could survive fairly easily is one that could fly and AoE. Any class stuck on the ground that was in combat with the Winter Wolves would may die even at lvl 20.

My group took out the wolves in 3 rounds and they were able to attack twice. The breath weapons do an average 18 damage, half on a save. A couple characters managed to evade the damage entirely and all but the animal companion took half damage. The following round they did 25 damage (and only hit because of pack tactics) to one character and failed to trip him. Even if they did it would have been totally irrelevant, he would just stand backup. Most of the characters would have simply stood up before the giants were able to take advantage of the prone condition.

Honestly prone is a pretty hit or miss condition. If you can prone someone and have someone else attack before they get a turn you get advantage. If not they only lose half their movement.

For example, if the initiative is character 1, giants, character 2, wolves, character 3, then only character 2 will actually be prone for the giants to hit. Character 1 and 3 will simply stand up on their turn and the condition is essentially wasted.

So it took about 2 and a half rounds to take out the wolves and they spread around about 75 damage. So is that the same as having a third giant? I don't know, I think it could go either way.