Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Are monsters with legendary and or lair actions supposed to be boss monsters/
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 7519700" data-attributes="member: 6677017"><p>I'm not sure we have as much disagreement here as it looks like you're seeing.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I generally approve of getting actual specific examples, but in this case I just don't have them because D&D is designed differently than other games I have actual play experience in. I would love it if I had had an chance to actually play some of the other games I've owned or looked into that came with large bestiaries, but I haven't had that experience, so I can't provide comparisons from those sources. Since most D&D editions have more in common with each other than with other systems, and since the specific design flaw I'm talking about is in my experience more evident in 5e D&D than in other D&D editions, I would hope we could consider those comparisons sufficient.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No experience I have is going to be objective, because I haven't (maybe someone else has) done any sort of scientific experiment. It probably wouldn't be terribly hard to devise one if someone wanted to, but it would also likely engender massive arguments about methodological problems and flaws, and so only be useful for those for whom whatever the results were tended to agree with their own experiences.</p><p></p><p>Just like anyone else, all I can say is, "I've played different editions. This thing is harder for me to do in 5e than in the other ones." I've been following the forums for the entire life cycle of 5e, and I've seen other people saying essentially the same thing. No, I can't provide a list of names, partly because I often don't even remember who made what post. If you want to start a list, you can start with my name. That, at least, is data that could be acquired, though I don't think it is necessary.</p><p></p><p>The "this thing" is getting encounters (and <em>especially</em> encounters with a solitary monster) using the standard stat blocks that fit between extremes of costing few to no party resources and likely to kill a party member.</p><p></p><p>My initial statement was that solo's don't work (and I meant because of this problem, which is most evident with them). The line between "don't work" and "don't work as well" is arbitrary. In this case, it stands out enough to merit "don't work". I thing you might be correct that 1e also shared this problem with solos (and therefore didn't work), even if the dynamics were a bit different.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I also think minions, lieutenants, terrain, etc, make more interesting fights, regardless of edition. I think it was easier to make a boring fight that lacked these elements fit into an intended challenge level in other editions.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I may not have been clear, but this is not a claim that I have been making. Of course you can't just pull an encounter out of the blue that says is such and such challenge and have that challenge be the same for all parties everywhere. You couldn't do that in any edition. To attempt to clarify, I'm referring to the need to adjust actual stat blocks to make encounters fit that middle challenge zone we have been discussing when up against a typical party. You can consider that to be a fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard, or anything else that creates a similar effect. 5e offers encounter challenge guidelines. I'm claiming that using them doesn't generally work as well in my experience as using the ones in 3e, or even as just going by feel due to the complete lack of ones in prior editions. In 5e, even going by feel is difficult for me to make work.</p><p></p><p>Would you be interested (assuming it's a good investment of your time, which is an unwarranted assumption in our busy world) in sharing some encounters you have run, without modifying stat blocks (for these purposes, not even modifying hit points), that work really well for a standard dwarf fighter, human cleric, halfling rogue, and elf wizard, and whose danger and resource drain matches the predictions of the 5e CR system? Solos would be particularly useful, as would encounters at various tiers of play. I'm not asking this as a challenge. You seem to not be having the same problem, and if you could provide some good examples, that might help the rest of us figure out what we are doing wrong.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I consider this within the realm of using the stat block normally. Published adventures sometimes give max hit points to one goblin out of several to represent their elite status, for instance. For me, it's important that this makes sense in the fiction, in that elite versions are going to be rarer than the ones straight out of the manual (which is true in published adventures).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 7519700, member: 6677017"] I'm not sure we have as much disagreement here as it looks like you're seeing. I generally approve of getting actual specific examples, but in this case I just don't have them because D&D is designed differently than other games I have actual play experience in. I would love it if I had had an chance to actually play some of the other games I've owned or looked into that came with large bestiaries, but I haven't had that experience, so I can't provide comparisons from those sources. Since most D&D editions have more in common with each other than with other systems, and since the specific design flaw I'm talking about is in my experience more evident in 5e D&D than in other D&D editions, I would hope we could consider those comparisons sufficient. No experience I have is going to be objective, because I haven't (maybe someone else has) done any sort of scientific experiment. It probably wouldn't be terribly hard to devise one if someone wanted to, but it would also likely engender massive arguments about methodological problems and flaws, and so only be useful for those for whom whatever the results were tended to agree with their own experiences. Just like anyone else, all I can say is, "I've played different editions. This thing is harder for me to do in 5e than in the other ones." I've been following the forums for the entire life cycle of 5e, and I've seen other people saying essentially the same thing. No, I can't provide a list of names, partly because I often don't even remember who made what post. If you want to start a list, you can start with my name. That, at least, is data that could be acquired, though I don't think it is necessary. The "this thing" is getting encounters (and [I]especially[/I] encounters with a solitary monster) using the standard stat blocks that fit between extremes of costing few to no party resources and likely to kill a party member. My initial statement was that solo's don't work (and I meant because of this problem, which is most evident with them). The line between "don't work" and "don't work as well" is arbitrary. In this case, it stands out enough to merit "don't work". I thing you might be correct that 1e also shared this problem with solos (and therefore didn't work), even if the dynamics were a bit different. I also think minions, lieutenants, terrain, etc, make more interesting fights, regardless of edition. I think it was easier to make a boring fight that lacked these elements fit into an intended challenge level in other editions. I may not have been clear, but this is not a claim that I have been making. Of course you can't just pull an encounter out of the blue that says is such and such challenge and have that challenge be the same for all parties everywhere. You couldn't do that in any edition. To attempt to clarify, I'm referring to the need to adjust actual stat blocks to make encounters fit that middle challenge zone we have been discussing when up against a typical party. You can consider that to be a fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard, or anything else that creates a similar effect. 5e offers encounter challenge guidelines. I'm claiming that using them doesn't generally work as well in my experience as using the ones in 3e, or even as just going by feel due to the complete lack of ones in prior editions. In 5e, even going by feel is difficult for me to make work. Would you be interested (assuming it's a good investment of your time, which is an unwarranted assumption in our busy world) in sharing some encounters you have run, without modifying stat blocks (for these purposes, not even modifying hit points), that work really well for a standard dwarf fighter, human cleric, halfling rogue, and elf wizard, and whose danger and resource drain matches the predictions of the 5e CR system? Solos would be particularly useful, as would encounters at various tiers of play. I'm not asking this as a challenge. You seem to not be having the same problem, and if you could provide some good examples, that might help the rest of us figure out what we are doing wrong. I consider this within the realm of using the stat block normally. Published adventures sometimes give max hit points to one goblin out of several to represent their elite status, for instance. For me, it's important that this makes sense in the fiction, in that elite versions are going to be rarer than the ones straight out of the manual (which is true in published adventures). [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Are monsters with legendary and or lair actions supposed to be boss monsters/
Top