AbdulAlhazred
Legend
To me these just read like any game rules. If you expect people to 'just know' exactly how the mechanics of the game they're playing work without actually making even a rudimentary effort to know the most basic terminology, then of course they won't figure anything out! How does 5e 'fix' this? It doesn't!
OK, so this is a simple poison description from 5e, just a random thing I picked from the DMG. Lets skip over the obvious question of how you would get 'subjected' to a poison, that clearly ties back to who knows which rules about using them in combat, or out of combat, etc. It just as well might be a defined game term, even if it technically isn't. Then we get the reference to a save vs poison, so you need to know how that works, and any rules tied to that, like how dwarves get a bonus, etc. and then finally it references something, a condition I guess, called 'poisoned'.
I'm not saying its complex, its not even a 'power' or 'spell' or a complicated item or something, but it still ties into several different rules systems. This is fine, its how it should be. I don't even have a beef with this particular example, the 4e equivalent is pretty similar.
I think this is unfair. I did outline the math in my post. It isn't even so much 'math' as just if you sample the monsters from an AD&D product you'll see what everyone knows, that higher level monsters have progressively lower ACs! How is this controversial? Do you dispute the accuracy of my claims or not? I'm pretty sure there's about 500 guys reading this thread who know AD&D like the back of their hands, I'm happy to hear from them if they think I misstated in the least!
But that is enough! A change of 17 in AC over the course of 20 levels, and of course these are only 'typical' examples. In any case your level something fighter, lets call him level 15 since things basically top out past that point, is going to have SOMETHING like a 25 better chance to hit than at level 1 (say 7 from STR 15 from level and 3 from a weapon). As I said, it usually gets a bit easier. Even so, my recollection is that hitting the really 'name' creatures, even when you're 20th level, is not that easy! Demon Lords and such tend to have ACs south of -8.
Yes, by a fairly modest amount. You are still going to think you're in good shape if you hit on an 8 at those levels. I stated you're chances might improve by 30%.
The point is, the world doesn't change. YOU change and you engage in different activities, which engage different mechanics (slightly). What seems WEIRD to me is how nothing seems to get harder in 5e! Its bizarre, and sometimes problematical. Most of all it doesn't fit with the paradigm of play that 4e uses, which is tuned to its rules structure, so the two work in concert. That's the best test of things, does it work in the way intended? It does!
Yes and no. Orcus is a decent challenge, yes, when thematically treated LIKE ORCUS. If you put the Orcus stat block in sphere world and play a theorycrafted combat then nope, it won't work. If you even follow the advice in the DMG on building encounters, and logically extrapolate it to epic encounters, which aren't really the focus of DMG1's advice, then it does work.
In the case of Orcus, that means you are NASTY! Go take a look at the descriptions of 4e battles @pemerton has posted, nothing sounds like it was problematic there! So, can I make a nasty Orcus encounter that follows the 'rules' of DMG1? Yup! It will be a level 35 encounter, with level 35 terrain of the nastiest sort.
I have 235,000 XP for my encounter budget, and Orcus (level 33 Solo Brute) takes 155,000. So I have 80,000 XP left in my budget. Lets suppose I choose to utilize 3 level 30 standard monsters, that's 57,000, so I have 23,000 left, which will get me 5 level 30 minions give or take 1000 XP.
Now, I can have WHATEVER terrain and terrain powers and etc. I wish, there's no XP budget for those (yeah, you can maybe overdo it, but this is a CAPSTONE encounter of a whole campaign, so not really). I can fill the place with necrotic energy. Lets be nice and use an inverted Pillar of Life, at epic tier this will suck 15 hit points out of any character within say 3 squares (and we can put a bunch of them around). Then we can position the main combat area such that there are places where PCs can easily be forced out of the fight for a while, like slopes and drops. We're nasty so these lead to areas which trap and inhibit PCs (grasping slime and such). Note that all this stuff is actually FRIENDLY to our nice Demon Prince, and his boys.
We can add some more nastiness, like some terrain powers which Orcus can use from locations which are difficult to access so he can make attacks with relative impunity, allowing him to soften up and debuff his opponents before choosing to appear at close range.
I would also add some sort of gimmick to the encounter. A static situation is silly for this sort of a crazy ultimate fight. The PCs have to defeat Orcus in short order, or they must abide by some sort of specific conditions, perform some kind of ritual, etc. all while ALSO taking on the rest of the encounter. Don't like it? Hey, its a CAPSTONE, that's how it is! Old Stinky don't fight fair, and the rules don't say nuttin' about it.
So, now, lets put our nice monsters in place, they'll heavily favor a lurking tactic, with some sort of nice way to hide (IE there's bones everywhere, some of them are less dead than others).
EDIT: Lest we forget, forget HS at this point, you just walked through something worse than HELL. Maybe some PCs still have an action point. We'll be nice and assume they all have a daily left. Getting here is NOT a calk walk.
I don't agree that the rules 'broke down'. I think that people failed to be reasonable about what the rules are intending this sort of epic battle to be like. They simply extrapolated a level 1 orc fight and thought that using the exact same techniques for a level 35 capstone encounter would produce perfect results, and it probably won't. But if you read the encounter design rules carefully, and build these encounters in the light of the experience of a couple years worth of running your campaign up to that level, then yeah, most DMs were able to take the elements given and make fun stuff from it.
I think a lot of them went on to do more various stuff, partly because it gives you even more flexibility, and partly because players figured out how to beat the 'stock' baddies. Frankly they are SUPPOSED to be beatable, just not easily. It wasn't the intention that Orcus would be likely to TPK worthy opponents. He's just supposed to push them to the limit. It is possible to do, even with the designs provided in the MM. Honestly Orcus is not even the best example really. Demogorgon from MM2 is more fun!
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