D&D 5E Differing opinions about 5e

[Engstrom]

I think it could be an interesting thread. "How would you make this encounter more difficult?"

Have some examples of combats then discuss tactical options, enhancements for the monsters, effects of terrain and environment. Just not today because I need to go to work.

I'd be very interested in such a thread. Not DMed for years ('84/'85) and back then we just followed the books and modules. Now with the claimed flexibility of 5e I see I may have more work this time around. I've been trying to follow this thread, so I guess my first port of call is to really bone up on the DM guide and the encounter guidelines bearing in mind that there *may* be an issue of being underpowered depending on the team.

Are there any guides that people can recommend for optimising PCs (again back in the day it was just "Whoah! That spell/armour/weapon sounds awesome. i'm getting that." with no real regard to optimisation) and also responding to optimised PCs from a DM's POV?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'd be very interested in such a thread. Not DMed for years ('84/'85) and back then we just followed the books and modules. Now with the claimed flexibility of 5e I see I may have more work this time around. I've been trying to follow this thread, so I guess my first port of call is to really bone up on the DM guide and the encounter guidelines bearing in mind that there *may* be an issue of being underpowered depending on the team.

Are there any guides that people can recommend for optimising PCs (again back in the day it was just "Whoah! That spell/armour/weapon sounds awesome. i'm getting that." with no real regard to optimisation) and also responding to optimised PCs from a DM's POV?

If the players you are going to play with are either entirely new to the game, or if they haven't played for as long as you, then my recommendation would be to simply let them make characters without consulting optimization guides or anything like that, and then playing the published adventures as is. That should work pretty well. If you find they are struggling, you can dial it down a bit; if you find that they steamroll through fights, you can dial it up a bit. The easiest way to do this is to remove or add a monster or two, or lower/raise the monsters HP. The only way to figure out what you'll need to do is to play and see how it goes.

The best way for players to optimize is to play and then recognize certain options or combinations of options as being particularly strong. However, if you really did want to let them research it, here's a good thread that can help:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ction-of-Guides-A-Library-of-Character-Builds

If your players grasp optimization and use those guides and similar resources to create highly effective characters, then you will likely need to adjust the encounters to be harder, and likely in a way that's more significant than just adding another monster or raising their HP a bit. I don't think there's an equivalent guide for DMs to adjust for optimized characters....I'd also be interested in a thread along the liens of what [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION] recommended. I use my judgment to do so, but I've been DMing for a long time with (mostly) the same group of players....it may prove a lot harder for someone who is getting used to the basics of DMing again.

So like I said, I wouldn't really push optimization for the players until you are comfortable enough with the game and with DMing to use your judgment to adjust for player proficiency and character optimization.

 

[iserith]

I'd be very interested in such a thread. Not DMed for years ('84/'85) and back then we just followed the books and modules. Now with the claimed flexibility of 5e I see I may have more work this time around. I've been trying to follow this thread, so I guess my first port of call is to really bone up on the DM guide and the encounter guidelines bearing in mind that there *may* be an issue of being underpowered depending on the team.

Are there any guides that people can recommend for optimising PCs (again back in the day it was just "Whoah! That spell/armour/weapon sounds awesome. i'm getting that." with no real regard to optimisation) and also responding to optimised PCs from a DM's POV?

I'm very much of the mindset of "teach a man to fish." To that end, here is some very basic but useful advice that I think is critical to dealing with issues like the ones you mention:

Learn the difference between Challenge and Difficulty. They are not the same thing in a game design context. Challenge is just a situation you can win or lose via the application of skill. Difficulty is how hard or easy it is to win.

With that in mind, now understand that for a player's decisions to be meaningful, a Challenge must allow for the players to impact Difficulty. By their choices, they can make a Challenge easier or harder to win. This is desirable because we want players to have an actual impact on the game.

So when you see complaints that D&D 5e is "too easy," the issue (generally speaking) is that the players are making good choices both in their character builds and/or their actions during play relative to the guidelines in the DMG. Optional rules like feats and UA classes, subclasses, or other features beyond the core rules may further push the Difficulty lower. I would also recommend familiarizing yourself with what each of the Difficulty categories (Easy, Medium, Hard, Deadly) actually mean so you can set your expectations accordingly. They are defined in the DMG.

Finally, if you've got players making solid builds and choices and you want to make sure they can't trivialize Challenges all the time, don't forget that you are the DM and you have infinite dragons to throw at the party. If you want more Difficult encounters, then all you need to do is add or modify monsters, utilize interesting terrain, and implement alternative goals accordingly. There are plenty of tools out there to help you do that.

Some people clearly think that this effort should be done for us. I don't even know where to begin with that since it has never been the case with D&D of any edition. D&D is a game system from which DMs are tasked to build a specific game. It's something we have to do for our individual groups.

 

[hejtmane]

I'm very much of the mindset of "teach a man to fish." To that end, here is some very basic but useful advice that I think is critical to dealing with issues like the ones you mention:

Learn the difference between Challenge and Difficulty. They are not the same thing in a game design context. Challenge is just a situation you can win or lose via the application of skill. Difficulty is how hard or easy it is to win.

With that in mind, now understand that for a player's decisions to be meaningful, a Challenge must allow for the players to impact Difficulty. By their choices, they can make a Challenge easier or harder to win. This is desirable because we want players to have an actual impact on the game.

So when you see complaints that D&D 5e is "too easy," the issue (generally speaking) is that the players are making good choices both in their character builds and/or their actions during play relative to the guidelines in the DMG. Optional rules like feats and UA classes, subclasses, or other features beyond the core rules may further push the Difficulty lower. I would also recommend familiarizing yourself with what each of the Difficulty categories (Easy, Medium, Hard, Deadly) actually mean so you can set your expectations accordingly. They are defined in the DMG.

Finally, if you've got players making solid builds and choices and you want to make sure they can't trivialize Challenges all the time, don't forget that you are the DM and you have infinite dragons to throw at the party. If you want more Difficult encounters, then all you need to do is add or modify monsters, utilize interesting terrain, and implement alternative goals accordingly. There are plenty of tools out there to help you do that.

Some people clearly think that this effort should be done for us. I don't even know where to begin with that since it has never been the case with D&D of any edition. D&D is a game system from which DMs are tasked to build a specific game. It's something we have to do for our individual groups.

Play the monsters smarter as while not every monster in the book is going to focus on the melee type. Also the easiest thing I seen to change the diffculuty of any monster is raise the AC even just a little bit can change the encounter dynamics and you nailed it on the head more monsters means more attacks which mean more chances to hit.

 

[innerdude]

D&D is a game system from which DMs are tasked to build a specific game. It's something we have to do for our individual groups.

This is such a simple yet profound statement to me. It's one of the best expressions of what a GM's job actually is at a creative level.

It's similar to being the director of a play, particularly something like Shakespeare --- yes, the words on the page give you some basic information about what is happening on stage, but the real life, the "animus" of the play, comes from the choices you as the director/GM make.

You can create a traditional Hamlet set in medieval castles in Denmark. Or you can create a modern Hamlet, set in the byzantine layers of modern corporate America in 2000s Chicago.

But ultimately the text---aka, the rules---is only there to give you an initial view of possibilities.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Some people clearly think that this effort should be done for us. I don't even know where to begin with that since it has never been the case with D&D of any edition.

Yet every edition of the game has presented modules (adventures/APs/whatever) pre-built for DMs to pick up and run. And some editions have had more/better/more-dependable guidelines for the DM to work with than others. 5e, with the classic game having no such guidelines, and 3e's not being any better, is on the better side, that way, much complaint as we may hear about it.

D&D is a game system from which DMs are tasked to build a specific game. It's something we have to do for our individual groups.

It's really not a build-your-own-game engine. (That's really a lot harder than it sounds and there have been very few of them that remotely worked in the history of the hobby: FATE aspires to be one, the comparatively obscure Fuzion sorta was one.) D&D is a game, with a few sub-systems marked as optional and a number of variants in the DMG, and an expectation that you'll add to and modify it at whim.

 

[iserith]

Yet every edition of the game has presented modules (adventures/APs/whatever) pre-built for DMs to pick up and run. And some editions have had more/better/more-dependable guidelines for the DM to work with than others. 5e, with the classic game having no such guidelines, and 3e's not being any better, is on the better side, that way, much complaint as we may hear about it.

It's really not a build-your-own-game engine. (That's really a lot harder than it sounds and there have been very few of them that remotely worked in the history of the hobby: FATE aspires to be one, the comparatively obscure Fuzion sorta was one.) D&D is a game, with a few sub-systems marked as optional and a number of variants in the DMG, and an expectation that you'll add to and modify it at whim.

If you say so.

I'm going to choose to be a Dungeon Master, using what they give us to craft an excellent game, rather than be a Dungeon Complainer.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you say so.

Was there an edition for which no published adventures were produced? No. Fact. IDK what it is with folks around here having a hard mental block against acknowledging simple, easily verified, facts.
Not everything is a subjective opinion.

I'm going to choose to be a Dungeon Master, using what they give us to craft an excellent game, rather than be a Dungeon Complainer.

Good for you, using the game presented as 'just a starting point' as a starting point.

When folks go on about the game 'not working as presented,' just remember that it's not presented as something that works, but as something you can make work the way you want it to.
The 6-8 encounter day is just one conveniently-presented example of making it work.

 

[iserith]

Was there an edition for which no published adventures were produced? No. Fact. IDK what it is with folks around here having a hard mental block against acknowledging simple, easily verified, facts.
Not everything is a subjective opinion.

Good for you, using the game presented as 'just a starting point' as a starting point.

When folks go on about the game 'not working as presented,' just remember that it's not presented as something that works, but as something you can make work. The 6-8 encounter day is just one conveniently-presented example of making it work.

Whatever. Keep making digs at the game system, however subtle and sometimes amusing, in your many posts. It's just not very helpful. I choose to do otherwise.

 

[Corwin]

I'm going to choose to be a Dungeon Master, using what they give us to craft an excellent game, rather than be a Dungeon Complainer.

Even setting the complainer issue aside, and look at what is expected of the role, I'll choose to be a Dungeon Master rather than a Dungeon Interpreter.