D&D 5E Challenging High-Level 5e Characters

[ECMO3]

This is not a problem with the healer being incapable. This is a problem where one player allowed themselves to be surrounded rather than leaning on things like battlefield control from allies. Since this is apparently 2014 wotc 5e it's safe to assume that the player who allowed themself to be surrounded felt that ignoring support classes while putting themselves in that situation was a scenario with minimal risk when it should be one of extreme risk.

The spiders dropped from the ceiling and this kind of thing happens all the time.

Don't split the party in the middle of a fight. Don't split the party to seek out a second fight while part of the party is already in a fight either. I'm pretty sure that Sun Tsu wrote about the risks of battling on multiple fronts. This is not a problem of difficulty getting to someone, it's a problem of poor choices. If the party was split because of adventure design forcing it, there still is not a need because the purpose of that sort of fork is to deliberately make the party need to be careful and think about things a bit more

So they should have all stayed together so the drqagon could breathe on them all at once?

Also they had to disable 4 pillar which required them to be separate.

Finally have you ever played with draogn fear or ever played with the frightened condition. A frightened charactger can't move towards the source of fright and this means if you want to keep the party together NONE of them can advance on the enemy.

Again. This is a bone headed choice to play action hero with assumed plot armor levels of safety rather than tackling the encounter with more caution and relying on support like battlefield control

So I guess they should have just let the monsters attack them from range?

They had to split the party to attack the bad guys in melee. It would have been stupid for the melee character to pull up short and just skip a turn and allow the guy at range to make ranged attacks at will or make a weaker ranged attack himseld

Self inflicted wounds caused by recklessly poor choices and a total absence of battlefield control seems to be a running theme

This was early in this particular combat and there is control in play, note one of the bad guys is restrained and the box on the north is an area that was turned rock to mud.

The PCs are arranged as they are to keep the Bull things off of the Gnome to the south.

How many games is the GM running here? Are there multiple GM's? The party should be working together and doing things like covering for each other father then whatever this chaos of main characters soloing at the same table was... See the running theme problem above .

These stills were from 4 separate games and 3 separate parties with the same professional DM who posts his games online, but pick ANY DM that posts their games online and watch the battles and you will find many, many, many examples of the same sort of situation where PCs are not all bunched together in movement range.

The videos I posted earlier were from this same DM's last 3 D&D games and when I posted the videos I also pointed out the one (out of six) battles in those games where the PCs could reach each other for most of the fight.

My original argument is that PCs would often be in position where they could not all get to each other. I don't know if that number is 25% of the time or 50% of the time or 75% of the time, but it is common and it is significant (and not meaningless). An analysis of every single combat from the last 3 D&D games posted by this particular professional DM shows that in about 25 of 40 rounds of combats the PCs can not all reach each other in combat. Any other real games you look at will show the same.

 

[tetrasodium]

Ok to be fair, they did make grid combat scenarios as requested.
But

1. The scenarios are incredibly unlikely unless the party has been so conditioned by ease of 60ft bonus action healing that they can just go action hero all over the place and not really function as a party, leaving the stressed out support character asking why did they do this.

2. Again, the intent with healing word as a touch spell is to make things more challenging. Because if parties are regularly putting themselves in the above situations... Well if they're having fun then more power to them. But clearly these players aren't looking for things to be a little less ... Faceroll-ey.

That bold bit is really the critical problem caused by 5e's bonus action ranged healing word as the default. Even if the gm changes it so they can push the party to work together it's just a hollow bluff. Should the players call that bluff and refuse to step up their tactics or teamwork in any way the gm is pretty much just driving their campaign off a cliff killing PCs with players who are absolutely certain that there was nothing that they could have done

@ECMO3 You keep mentioning that these were with a "professional DM" but each time ignore the responsibility that players have for protecting the necks of their own PCs & the good of the party, it doesn't matter if Gary Gygax Dave Arneson Ed Greenwood Keith Baker Monte Cook & so on are all co GMs of this game because the root cause of the breakdown you displayed is found in player choices. Exploring dark dungeons with unseen things that could fall from the ceiling is one of the risks the party needs to take into account. Clearly they were more worried about being caught in the same trap than being split up by a surprise encounter... perhaps the knowledge that they could act recklessly and still be safe thanks to healing word had significant weight in that choice. WRT the dragon, that has always been one of the risks in fighting dragons where the party needs to balance the risks of being too grouped up & all/most/many getting hit by a breath weapon vrs the risks of being over extended and unable to assist anyone who might suddenly need it, once again healing word saved them from needing to give it much concern. Using other PCs as meat shields for a squishy is a time honored tradition going back to the earliest editions, there is a fine line between too close for the squishy's safety and too far for support.... clearly that party saw the line & kept running because healing word allowed them to do it without needing to lean on support abilities like battlefield control.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Question, are we challenging high level PCs that optimize or not??

A group with people who can power game the system will be a lot tougher to challenge then people who don't read the rules.

And how comfortable with house rules are they? The books prioritize ease of use over challenging the PCs so changing the rules could adjust the challenge.

 

[ECMO3]

@ECMO3 You keep mentioning that these were with a "professional DM" but each time ignore the responsibility that players have for protecting the necks of their own PCs & the good of the party, it doesn't matter if Gary Gygax Dave Arneson Ed Greenwood Keith Baker Monte Cook & so on are all co GMs of this game because the root cause of the breakdown you displayed is found in player choices.

None of these were poor player choices and if you watch the videos you would realize this. They are common player choices and the players win every single one of these combats with no deaths (including at least 2 of them that were deadly encounters).

You claim this is poor, but not doing the things those players did would be MUCH poorer tactical choices in every one of those examples RAW. Spreading out or interposing enemies between themselves was "for the good of the party" every single time. Clumping together when you are facing AOEs froma Dragon is not smart and it was impossible for the frightened Ranger to get closer to the Dragonborn and the Drow even if he wanted to because he was frightened!

This is very much my point - smart play will make healing substantially less effective overall if you need to be in touch range to do it. If I need to stay in touch range I can't make the decisions I need to "for the good of the party"

Exploring dark dungeons with unseen things that could fall from the ceiling is one of the risks the party needs to take into account.
Clearly they were more worried about being caught in the same trap than being split up by a surprise encounter...

Actually they weren't They were pretty closely spaced. The reason they can not reach each other is once the spiders dropped moving through other PCs is difficult terrain. In a party of 4 in single file there will never be a time a PC with normal movement can move from the front to the back to cast a touch spell. NEVER and that is with a party of 4. It takes 10 move to move 5 feet, there is 15 feet and 30 move separating the front from the back and you can not stop in another players space. So regardless of how they were positioned they would not be able to do it once surrounded.

Also if that party is ever adventuring in a 5 foot corridor they can never do it.

perhaps the knowledge that they could act recklessly and still be safe thanks to healing word had significant weight in that choice.

It wasn't reckless it was smart VERY smart RAW. And this underscores my point if you change the rules so healing word is a touch spell and make that SMART behavior "reckless" then you have substantially changed the rules of the game in a meaningful way because it is not "reckless" right now RAW.

WRT the dragon, that has always been one of the risks in fighting dragons where the party needs to balance the risks of being too grouped up & all/most/many getting hit by a breath weapon vrs the risks of being over extended and unable to assist anyone who might suddenly need it, once again healing word saved them from needing to give it much concern.

There is little risk of being extended RAW because healing word has a 60 foot reach. There is only one viable choice RAW, you spread out. Now if you change the rules so it is dangerous to be spread out then that shows changing it to touch has a major effect on this battle and what the "right" choices are in this battle as far as positioning goes.

You said above this would "pretty much never happen" where you could not get in touch. Now are you saying it will not happen unless you are facing Dragons or other monsters with AOEs? Well fighting Dragons or other monsters with AOEs happens all the time!

Using other PCs as meat shields for a squishy is a time honored tradition going back to the earliest editions, there is a fine line between too close for the squishy's safety and too far for support.... clearly that party saw the line & kept running because healing word allowed them to do it without needing to lean on support abilities like battlefield control.

Ok I don't want to say this was in their calculus but assuming it was this proves my point - RAW this was the right choice. Making healing word a touch spell takes away this option which is the right choice to make in that situation. Ergo making healing word touch has a major impact on gameplay!