D&D 5E Are solo monsters weaker in 5e?

[FormerlyHemlock]

A quick Google search suggests 60 feet is long range for an improvised weapon. Can a book holder confirm? If so... Even with disadvantage he's still likely to hit, so I think your wizard is still boned.

Okay, great. If the Tarrasque can kill a first-level wizard*, then it must be at least as powerful as a housecat.

* Unfortunately it can't catch up to him, because if it's spending its action on throwing rocks it wasn't spending it on Dash. So it has to hope the wizard doesn't notice it casually slouching into 60' range with a giant rock in its paw.... but at least it can theoretically kill the wizard, in a white-room scenario. ;-)

 

[MostlyDm]

Hah, oh, really? I didn't break down the movement. He can't get close enough with the legendary movement? Hilarious. I guess we're assuming the fight starts with the wizard exactly the optimal distance? How easy is it to get into that position and kick this off? Any chance Mittens the Tarrasque can get the rock out first turn?

Edit: Oh or were you saying all the wizard has to do is give up on the acid splash strategy and flee? That also makes sense.

Mostly unrelated, but as someone with a few cats, there have been times I've really examined their claws and teeth and seen the accidental/fear induced wounds they can casually inflict and thought... You know, I can see how these things can kill a commoner. It wouldn't be easy, but I really can see it.

 

[Dit464]

If I recall correctly the bounded accuracy system is meant to be able to keep virtually all the mobs in the MM relevant if you toss a large enough group at adventurers, a standard party of 5 can take on an army of Orcs but they won't trounce the Orcs without breaking a sweat like they used to, just because of the sheer numbers. Looking at the MM there are only a few enemies that are meant to fight alone, Tarrasque is the most famous, but in my own experience the only times I have faced a single "boss enemy" with my party was a custom enemy -DM gave it crazy stats and its own unique class so it could have its own hand picked skills and a larger action economy to challenge us- or a planned legendary mob -one from the MM such as Tarrasque- in it's lair. Even when finishing a big quest and fighting the head of a cult, an orcish war band, etc. there is usually a single high CR mob in a lair with several lower CR mobs following the orders of the former.

 

[Hussar]

Really, it's more a 3e thing to have single, lone monsters be a challenge for the party. Earlier editions, this certainly wasn't true. Very, very few monsters straight from the AD&D MM would be much of a challenge for a group, unless you went really far over the party's heads (bombing Ancient Huge Dragons on 1st level parties for example). Heck, the first Dragonlance Module had an Ancient Black dragon as a challenge for a 5th level party. And, even then, the party was expected to win that fight with minimal losses, after having traveled all the way through an enemy city.

3e changed that by having one creature be balanced against a party of 4, where CR=Level. It led to a system without a lot of granularity. As was mentioned, as soon as you went up into six plus baddies, the baddies had to be so weak individually that they stopped being a challenge. Then we have 4e which rejects 3e's baseline in favour of where a given baddie was equal to a single PC. The advantage of this is a lot more granularity. You could jump up a single monster into a Solo and have it be a fair challenge for the group, or use multiple elites, or normals or minions (which split out about 4 or 5:1)

5e has adopted a balance similar to AD&D and 4e where a single monster isn't really meant to challenge the entire group. Where 5e is a bit more fun, IMO, is that the combats are much, much faster than 4e. Four rounds or so usually catches most combats. A 5e monster by itself just can't do enough damage in 4 rounds to really be much of a threat. But, where the balancing factor comes in is in the number of encounters. You're supposed to have two or three encounters between short rests.

That first troll you meet when you're fully rested is going to be a pushover. It really is. But, that second one you meet twenty minutes later is a lot more challenging because now the fighter's can't Action Surge and it's possible that the casters have blown out some of their bigger spells. That third troll you meet shortly later though. Now that one's going to put the beating on the party. All the short rest recharge characters are out of gas and the casters may very well have blown all their big guns already. Now you have to deal with that challenge using nothing but normal attacks and at wills and then you get the real challenge.

I think that people are not pacing encounters often enough and that's why we're seeing this idea that lone monsters are so weak. Against a fully rested party that can blow all its resources? Sure, you can punch WAY over your weight class. Against a party that's gone through a couple of encounters first? Now the fight gets a lot more interesting.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hah, oh, really? I didn't break down the movement. He can't get close enough with the legendary movement? Hilarious. I guess we're assuming the fight starts with the wizard exactly the optimal distance? How easy is it to get into that position and kick this off? Any chance Mittens the Tarrasque can get the rock out first turn?

I give legendary monsters 3 legendary actions no matter who they're fighting, but technically by RAW, a mount shares the same turn as its rider, so the Tarrasque would get only one legendary Move action, giving it only 60' of movement and a 60' rock range, or 100' of movement on a Dash, whereas the wizard's mount can Dash for 140'... so it's not impossible in principle for him to find the right range to kite in and out again before the Tarrasque can throw its rock. The tricky thing is that the Tarrasque could Ready an action to throw the rock as soon as the wizard gets within 60', which he has to do 600 times...

The wizard has to end every turn at least 125' away from the Tarrasque in order to be safe, so whether or not he can win this fight or at least stalemate it depends on whether the Tarrasque can successfully surprise him with a Readied action when he hits the 60' range, and that in turn depends on how the DM runs Readied actions (can enemies see what action is being readied and what the triggers are?).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That first troll you meet when you're fully rested is going to be a pushover. It really is. But, that second one you meet twenty minutes later is a lot more challenging because now the fighter's can't Action Surge and it's possible that the casters have blown out some of their bigger spells. That third troll you meet shortly later though. Now that one's going to put the beating on the party. All the short rest recharge characters are out of gas and the casters may very well have blown all their big guns already. Now you have to deal with that challenge using nothing but normal attacks and at wills and then you get the real challenge.

I haven't found this to be true at all, because Action Economy is so far in the party's favor. That first troll will be e.g. pushed prone and grappled by the party tank, or else simply grappled while the tank Dodges on subsequent rounds; the troll will 12% of the time and inflict about three points of damage per round against an AC 21 tank. Meanwhile the rest of the party is efficiently beating the troll to death with strikes from the Mobile monk, Agonizing Eldritch Blast from the Warlock, Fire Bolt/Chill Touch, etc. After three trolls, the tank is probably down about 30 HP total (or three spell slots if he Shielded) and the rest of the party is at full resources except that the Warlock is probably still maintaining Hex (which both boosted DPR and helped with the original grapple). Not a serious problem, easily and cheaply fixed.

Attrition doesn't really work unless the baseline encounter is hard enough to force the PCs to expend real resources dealing with it.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

I give legendary monsters 3 legendary actions no matter who they're fighting, but technically by RAW, a mount shares the same turn as its rider, so the Tarrasque would get only one legendary Move action, giving it only 60' of movement and a 60' rock range, or 100' of movement on a Dash, whereas the wizard's mount can Dash for 140'... so it's not impossible in principle for him to find the right range to kite in and out again before the Tarrasque can throw its rock. The tricky thing is that the Tarrasque could Ready an action to throw the rock as soon as the wizard gets within 60', which he has to do 600 times...

The wizard has to end every turn at least 125' away from the Tarrasque in order to be safe, so whether or not he can win this fight or at least stalemate it depends on whether the Tarrasque can successfully surprise him with a Readied action when he hits the 60' range, and that in turn depends on how the DM runs Readied actions (can enemies see what action is being readied and what the triggers are?).

Hang on.

If the mount is Dashing, it takes some kind of action (normal, bonus, reaction, object interaction) and therefore a turn (independent mounts). Otherwise, the Wizard would need to take the Dash action for the mount (controlled mounts).

In the first case, the Tarrasque would have 2 legendaries, for 80 ft of movement total. Correct?

 

[Hussar]

I haven't found this to be true at all, because Action Economy is so far in the party's favor. That first troll will be e.g. pushed prone and grappled by the party tank, or else simply grappled while the tank Dodges on subsequent rounds; the troll will 12% of the time and inflict about three points of damage per round against an AC 21 tank. Meanwhile the rest of the party is efficiently beating the troll to death with strikes from the Mobile monk, Agonizing Eldritch Blast from the Warlock, Fire Bolt/Chill Touch, etc. After three trolls, the tank is probably down about 30 HP total (or three spell slots if he Shielded) and the rest of the party is at full resources except that the Warlock is probably still maintaining Hex (which both boosted DPR and helped with the original grapple). Not a serious problem, easily and cheaply fixed.

Attrition doesn't really work unless the baseline encounter is hard enough to force the PCs to expend real resources dealing with it.

If your 6th or 7th level fighter is capable of grappling a troll successfully, regularly, you're running a game that is VERY different from mine. Note, that while grappling, your fighter can't use his shield. Additionally, if the troll simply gives up a single attack to grapple back, your speed drops to zero and you lose your dodge benefit. Meanwhile, your fighter has a best AC of 18 (plate mail and no shield) and the troll has a +7 attack bonus. Even with disadvantage, how are you getting 12% hits? He's got three attacks per round, each dealing either 7 or 11 points of damage per hit. Again, how are you getting 3 hp/round of damage?

Never minding how did your fighter Shield? Again, he's grappling and probably has a weapon in his other hand. Shield is a Somatic spell and he can't cast with his hands full.

That's presuming, of course, that your fighter can successfully grapple every single round. One failed round, and I simply ignore the fighter because he's unarmed. Go kill the warlock. Even with disadvantage on Str checks, i simply switch to Dex checks (still +1) and it's hardly guaranteed that you will win those grapple checks. Never minding that I've got three grapple checks per round to your two.

IOW, I reject your reality and substitute my own.

 

[spectacle]

Hang on.

If the mount is Dashing, it takes some kind of action (normal, bonus, reaction, object interaction) and therefore a turn (independent mounts). Otherwise, the Wizard would need to take the Dash action for the mount (controlled mounts).

In the first case, the Tarrasque would have 2 legendaries, for 80 ft of movement total. Correct?

Controlled mounts still have their own actions, they just take them on the riders turn and have a limited set of actions to pick from. So the tarrasque would only have one opportunity to to take a legendary action.

(unless the DM rules there's a family of badgers around that are also taking turns... )

 

[spectacle]

If your 6th or 7th level fighter is capable of grappling a troll successfully, regularly, you're running a game that is VERY different from mine. Note, that while grappling, your fighter can't use his shield. Additionally, if the troll simply gives up a single attack to grapple back, your speed drops to zero and you lose your dodge benefit. Meanwhile, your fighter has a best AC of 18 (plate mail and no shield) and the troll has a +7 attack bonus. Even with disadvantage, how are you getting 12% hits? He's got three attacks per round, each dealing either 7 or 11 points of damage per hit. Again, how are you getting 3 hp/round of damage?

Never minding how did your fighter Shield? Again, he's grappling and probably has a weapon in his other hand. Shield is a Somatic spell and he can't cast with his hands full.

That's presuming, of course, that your fighter can successfully grapple every single round. One failed round, and I simply ignore the fighter because he's unarmed. Go kill the warlock. Even with disadvantage on Str checks, i simply switch to Dex checks (still +1) and it's hardly guaranteed that you will win those grapple checks. Never minding that I've got three grapple checks per round to your two.

IOW, I reject your reality and substitute my own.

A 6th level fighter will typically have 20 STR and proficiency in athletics, for a total of +8 to "grapple checks", while the troll has 18 STR and no proficiency, so it only has +4. That means the fighter has a 66% chance to win a grapple contest. But he has extra attack so he can try twice, giving him a 89,11% chance of sucessfully grappling the troll on his turn, and a 43,56 chance of both grappling and shoving the troll prone on his turn, rendering it nearly impotent.

By the rules Multiattack does not let you substitute attacks with grapple attempts, only Extra Attack allows that. So by the rules the troll can only make one grapple attempt, and it is very likely to lose if it tries. Even if you do rule that the troll can grapple multiple times it doesn't really matter if it successfully grapples the fighter, he mainly wants to keep the troll stationary so that it can't attack the squishier party members.

If the troll wants to break out of the grapple it has to spend its action to do so, so it can't attack any other party members the same turn. Before it can act again the fighter has another turn and another 89% chance to grapple it, while the rest of the party gets another round of attacks off.

Grappling really is amazingly strong vs single monsters that are smaller than huge, since few monster have any athletics proficiency. You can of course houserule to nerf grappling if you think it's too powerful, or just find it silly that humans can easily wrestle big monsters like trolls and ogres. I'm pretty sure it is intentional that Multiattack does not allow for multiple grapple attemtps, since it would make swarms of weak monsters with Multiattack a much bigger threat than if they use their listed attacks.