D&D 5E Differing opinions about 5e

[ExploderWizard]

I have enjoyed playing and running 5E thus far. That is a win. There are some tweaks I want to make before running the next campaign in order to have the game provide a certain feel but this is no different than any other edition. If the game doesn't have the feel that you want as written then changes are in order. Overall though 5E hits a good middle of the road line and is flexible enough to allow groups to tweak to taste. A few things that I want to tweak for my next game include:

- Long & short rests. I'm not partial to a night's sleep healing all damage.

- DEX as the ultimate stat. I feel that the ability to add DEX to melee damage via finesse weapons renders STR merely a stat for the party pack mule.

- Tubthumping adventurers. Last night our barbarian went down 3 times in one fight......but he got up again! He never let them keep him down! It just feels silly.

Those are the main items. Once I get all the ideas collected and written down in a coherent format I intend to post them for critique & comments.

 

[robus]

I'm starting to play with Monster HP during an encounter so that the "feel" of the encounter ends up being what was intended. If the encounter was supposed to feel hard and a couple of lucky rolls by the players (high initiative and hard hits - not critical, just heavy damage dealing) would knock my monster(s) on its arse then I'm starting to give it a bit longer life. I've found my players get disappointed by a big build up to a fight that ends up being a cakewalk (of course they're unhappy the other way too).

The problem is though that fights can get boring if it's just a matter of whittling down HP. So the monster has to have some tricks up its sleeve to make the extended combat rounds interesting.

 

[innerdude]

Opinions are like ...noses... everyone has one.

 

[Caliban]

There's been a few times where I've decided a fight has gone on long enough (and isn't particularly important, or the boss has already been taken out) and the remaining monsters suddenly only have 1 HP left.

 

[Oofta]

As others have said, it's a matter of preference. Some people like playing on "easy" others like "OMG we're all going to die!"

It's been the same for every edition, although the general challenge guidelines do seem to be slanted towards non-optimizers with a 4-person party. I think this is in part a misunderstanding of CR. A CR 4 is a reasonable challenge for a party of 4 casual/novice players.

In addition, it seems like they put too much emphasis on the numbers multiplier. I use an alternate system that just adds up encounter level (for both sides) and ignores the number of opponents.

As always, it's really up to the DM and it's easy for a DM to adjust difficulty. Throw more opponents, set up environments that favor the opponents and not the PCs, limit short and long rests, focus fire on the squishy PCs and so on.

Ultimately of course, the trick is to set the difficulty level at a level that will be fun for everyone.

 

[Warpiglet]

As others have said, it's a matter of preference. Some people like playing on "easy" others like "OMG we're all going to die!"

It's been the same for every edition, although the general challenge guidelines do seem to be slanted towards non-optimizers with a 4-person party. I think this is in part a misunderstanding of CR. A CR 4 is a reasonable challenge for a party of 4 casual/novice players.

In addition, it seems like they put too much emphasis on the numbers multiplier. I use an alternate system that just adds up encounter level (for both sides) and ignores the number of opponents.

As always, it's really up to the DM and it's easy for a DM to adjust difficulty. Throw more opponents, set up environments that favor the opponents and not the PCs, limit short and long rests, focus fire on the squishy PCs and so on.

Ultimately of course, the trick is to set the difficulty level at a level that will be fun for everyone.

I think that is the trick...

I like it in the middle. We played in the dark ages and our DM had us in negatives all the time. It was a challenge, but also not very heroic. Hey, look! I am spiting up blood and losing consciousness...again!

I like the threat. I want to believe if I just rush through everything I will have a good chance of losing. Hence, we sneak, lay traps and try to take a group piecemeal if we can. I am not against retreat and return at all.

 

[hejtmane]

I have seen complaints about 5e being too easy. I have also seen many threads about the need to optimize and many about the lack of a need to optimize (since the game is forgiving).

I have to say I am forming my own opinion about the matter but wondered if these differing opinions might be a function of optimizing via multiclassing, feats and so forth.

I have usually felt challenged early on with an occasional party member being knocked to 0. I have less experience with higher level play as our games fold and start anew. I hope to change that.

So which is it? The game is too easy, too hard or just right? And if it is too easy, is it a function of optimizing (which would be a voluntary thing...).

Multi classing in this edition is not the power game of 3.5 in fact what I seen while it has a few combos that most the stuff people complain about being easy or broken are specific feats and certain feat combos put together from what i have seen

 

[The Crimson Binome]

So which is it? The game is too easy, too hard or just right? And if it is too easy, is it a function of optimizing (which would be a voluntary thing...).

I think the consensus of this board is that, all else being equal, an optimized character/party will allow you to succeed in some situations where a less-optimized character/party would fail, but whether those types of situations actually occur during the course of the game is going to depend mostly on the DM. If the DM is throwing you level-appropriate encounters, following the guidelines in the DMG and MM, then optimization isn't necessary since less-optimized characters will still be plenty powerful-enough to overcome those encounters. If the DM is intentionally throwing only deadly encounters at you, or if the DM is just building the world organically and not taking your level into account at all, then you're much more likely to find yourself in a situation where optimization is useful.

 

[Shiroiken]

According to WotC (Mearls?), the encounter design of 5E was set to be somewhat easy, meaning that the players are going to win most of the time. Deadly encounters are not lethal, per say, merely that there is a moderate chance that a character might actually die, whereas hard and lower have only a slight chance (usually from critical hits or very bad decisions by the players). That should be taken with a grain of salt, however, since the guidelines are not perfect (they can be manipulated to make super easy high CR encounters or crazy hard low CR encounters with some work).

The real result is that the game is as difficult as the DM chooses to make it, and is strongly based on the skill/power-gaming of the players. I myself have a very smart group, so I make things as deadly as I can, with mixed results (6 character deaths over 17 levels, but only 1 was permanent). I've also heard of DMs that don't actually kill PCs, preferring to allow for a more continuous story. The majority of players do not try to optimize (or at least, that's not their focus), but a handful feel that they MUST optimize, regardless of the difficulty of the game (to "win" the game). The good thing about this is that 5E allows for a variety of difficulties, from super-easy to insanity, depending on the desires of the group.

 

[Caliban]

Sometimes it's not purely optimizing, but taking a weird concept and making it as optimized as you possibly can in the rule set.

I play in a game that meets once a month, the DM just rebooted the campaign at first level. All the characters are supposed to be descended from one of the gods in the FR pantheon (giving us an extra feat at first level, but nothing else).

My character is a descendant of both Tymora (goddess of good fortune) and Beshaba (goddess of misfortune) - He's a halfling noble (was lucky enough to be born into the right family), his bonus feat is "Lucky" and he's a Sorceror (Wild mage) and soon will have 2 levels of Wizard (Divination). Basically he controls fate - re-rolls 1's automatically (halfling luck), can roll an extra D20 when he needs to (luck feat), can grant himself advantage when he needs to (Tides of Chaos), and can alter fate for himself or others at higher levels (Bend Fate from lvl 6 wild mage and Portent from lvl 2 wizard diviner).

He gets his spells two levels later due to the two levels of wizard, but it gives him Portent and Ritual Casting for several 1st level wizard spells. Not super powerful, but he definitely has an impact on events.