D&D 5E last encounter was totally one-sided

[dave2008]

This is rather alarming as a new GM just starting a 5e campaign. Super-swingy combats are a bad thing to me and poor design. It feels like the game system telling me "Hey, roll this die. On a 1-5 your campaign ends".

Don't jump to conclusions based on CapnZapp's example here. D&D 5e is a very flexible game, and it is only noticeably swingy, IMO, if the PC's and DM are not in sync. For instances, my PCs do not attempt really any system mastery or synergistic tactics, they prefer straight damage spells, etc. and they progress very predictably with the monsters and encounter guidelines pretty much RAW.

However, if you throw in PCs with some system mastery and cross player synergies, then the balance swings heavily to the PCs. No threat of TPK, just difficulty in challenging them. If the DM then compensates poorly, this can lead to it being swingy for both sides.

If you are concerned about your ability to handle the options and flexibility of your PCs I suggest your restrict multi-classing and/or feats. Then as everyone gets a feel for it you can add those.

 

[Sacrosanct]

This is rather alarming as a new GM just starting a 5e campaign. Super-swingy combats are a bad thing to me and poor design. It feels like the game system telling me "Hey, roll this die. On a 1-5 your campaign ends".

I guess it's a matter of preference, because I'm the opposite. We like it when there's a strong element of unexpected. It makes the players more cautious in their approaches and encourages them to leverage every advantage they have (especially the environment*), rather that just assume every encounter will be like X, and Y resources will always be expended, bleh bleh bleh. Our group finds combat treated like nothing more than a math problem is boring quickly.

*compared to a CRPG, this is where TTRPGs shine, IMO. There are no limits other than your imagination. You can utilize the environment as much as you think to. Over the years, our groups have routinely overcome encounters that on paper should have beaten us, but clever use of the environment (like logs, cliff faces, etc) have won the day. Alternatively, we've also had monsters cleverly use the environment to their advantage if it fit with their INT/cunning/habits, and groups of kobolds made life very difficult for even high level PCs.

 

[robus]

I guess this is the reason why I want monsters to be built well to, so I don't have to play them "well" unless I want to.

This bit really puzzles me.

How can monsters function well at the table if the DM is not interested in playing to their abilities. How can a "well built" monster function without you making tactical decisions for it in the moment? And if you're not thinking about how your monsters work how do you choose actions for them?

I must be not understanding something pretty fundamental?

 

[Sacrosanct]

This bit really puzzles me.

How can monsters function well at the table if the DM is not interested in playing to their abilities. How can a "well built" monster function without you making tactical decisions for it in the moment? And if you're not thinking about how your monsters work how do you choose actions for them?

I must be not understanding something pretty fundamental?

I'm confused as well. It's the DM's job to play the monsters up to their abilities. If someone is going to play the monsters substandard, then they simply cannot complain if they perform substandard in combat. That's a no brainer. IMO, if a DM doesn't want to put in the effort to play his or her bad guys as good as they can but wants the statblock to make all the decisions for them, then why aren't they playing a boardgame instead of an RPG?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

CR will never be more than a loose guideline, especially for parties >4 players. The DM needs to know what his party's strengths and weaknesses are and tailor encounters to challenge them. Not that every encounter needs to be that way, but certainly 'boss fights' need attention to how you want to present them both in context to the story line as well as scaled to your players. Learning how to do this takes experience running and playing D&D.

 

[CapnZapp]

This is rather alarming as a new GM just starting a 5e campaign. Super-swingy combats are a bad thing to me and poor design. It feels like the game system telling me "Hey, roll this die. On a 1-5 your campaign ends".

Well this was a combat encounter of CapnZapp's devising. If you stick with published adventures and play the monsters gently the first couple of levels you'll find that the PCs are pretty capable of defending themselves.

in summary don't take this 1 encounter as representative of combat in D&D 5E

Robus is completely right.

This encounter is the equivalent of balancing on a tightrope between two skyscrapers. While being attacked by ninjas. During an earthqake.

I'm not saying that to brag. I just have the experience to know when I'm breaking all the guidelines, and still dare try it.

I'm saying that to encourage you to keep playing, to build up your experience and confidence.

After all, this thread is about how awesome things can be in D&D

PS. And by the way, the moderation had nothing to do with you, Knasser. The fact the red text appeared right after your post was a pure coincidence.

 

[CapnZapp]

DnD material is designed for cool casual play.
If you want a challenge similar to a PvP video game, you will need to adjust everything that way.
And if you wait for an official errata on GWP and SS, better homebrew your own nerf.

That might be true.

But as luck would have it, I can do two things

Fixing SS for my home game does not preclude me from also making an effort spreading the word. If I'm in luck, word eventually reaches the designers. Stranger things have happened in this interconnected world, Krachek

 

[Blue]

Sounds like a curb stomp. And I completely agree about non-proficient saves causing a problem at high levels, compounding that Monk stun-lock is

It sounds like your party synergies very well, especially SS/GWM with stunlock, plus using battlefield control to carve a combat into smaller pieces. This is cool, but not something every party does so I wouldn't expect foes to be balanced against high-functioning parties like this. I'd say it's above normal and you need to compensate, but considering the foes it sounds like you did compensate already and it still went off like this. Wow.

I do have some questions about a couple of mitigating factors.

1. How the heck did the "ranger" hit the targets? Hand Crossbow range is 30/120. So he'd have to get within 30' in order to have advantage, otherwise the disadvantage of long range would have negated it.

2. If the druid came in shifted (since it would last for a large number of hours), it would have had a lot more HPs and would have likely had a higher CON for making those stun saves. That doesn't seem to be any more unusual then a arcane caster having mage armor up already at the start of combat.

Also, you mentioned this was a single combat day. It sounds like the PCs used more then 1/6-1/8 of their daily resources in terms of spells and Ki points on it, so it's not that surprising that other resources (like HPs) weren't spent. This isn't criticizing how you're running, just commenting about how the balance points for long-rest resources are designed in 5e. If you threw this exact encounter at them twice more in the same day with a short rest between them how do you think it would have ended? Because that's what the system is designed around.

 

[CapnZapp]

D&D 5e is a very flexible game, and it is only noticeably swingy, IMO, if the PC's and DM are not in sync. For instances, my PCs do not attempt really any system mastery or synergistic tactics, they prefer straight damage spells, etc. and they progress very predictably with the monsters and encounter guidelines pretty much RAW.

However, if you throw in PCs with some system mastery and cross player synergies, then the balance swings heavily to the PCs. No threat of TPK, just difficulty in challenging them. If the DM then compensates poorly, this can lead to it being swingy for both sides.

I would say one important component you're not including here Dave is

High-level play.

Not only do instawin buttons start to appear (like forcecage), previously unreliable spells start to become very reliable.

High level monsters and player characters start getting the ability to oneshot each other. Of course that increases swinginess.

(Or perhaps I should say regain that ability. Because D&D has always been swingy at level 1.)

 

[Flamestrike]

I personally would have loved to dump at least three fireballs on the party on round 1 too Flamestrike

But all five foes were overconfident haughty BBEGs. And remember, none of them knew anything about the heroes, there were no reason to expect them to be frikkin' level fourteen.

A bunch of highly intelligent NPCs with 8th and 9th level casting, including an immortal lich equivalent, an Archdruid with a Wisdom of 20 and a 15th level genius Int 18 diviniation specialist Wizard, just... strolled into town with no spells up, no scrying of the party, no information on them, and were all too haughty to act intelligently?

I find that extremely hard to believe.

Personally I would have run them very differently.

Stuff about Monk teleporting

Awesome. Im not saying the Monk cant teleport. Im saying it chews up his bonus action to do so, leaving him with all of two attacks to stun the Archdruid on arrival.

For some reason the Archdruid hadnt cast stoneskin, foresight, and heroes feast on at least himself if not his companions, nor had he assumed elemental form (the latter of which it can do at will, retaining casting in that form, lasting for 9 hours AND granting a swathe of abilities and resistances).

My Archdruid would have been an Earth Elemental (with foresight running, lasts 8 hours) or better yet, a flying Air elemental, a ton of conjured animals surrounding him (7th level slot), with an AC of 17, making Con saves at +5 at advantage (with the help of the Diviners portent if needed).

Your monk teleports in as his bonus action (lets give the monk a chance and go with Earth elemental). He gets to make two attack rolls against the Druid at disadvantage at +8 vs AC 17, and if any of them hit, the Druid makes Con saves at +5 with advantage vs a DC of around 16 and with the Diviner there to re-roll them for him via portent.

He's pretty unlucky to get stunned even assuming earth elemental form.

On that note, how weird is it that elementals can get stunned?

There were no opportunities to catch more than a single hero in an area spell during round one. Perhaps a mistake, but the Diviner used an upleveled Scorched Ray since he didn't want to "waste" a Fireball. Once he realized he only hit with one out of five rays he #1 immediately told his allies these people are really dangerous, but at that time it was essentially too late.

Your diviner was an idiot unbefitting of his Int 18. Just glancing over his spells, I would have him ready an action to drop Maze on the Monk (who almost certainly has dumped Int) triggered to occur after the Warlock hits him with Hex (Int), and have him sneer and tell the lock to 'Wipe his mind'.

After the diviner goes the Lock, who hexes the Monks intelligence, then drops feeblemind on him, triggering the readied Maze.

Good luck making a DC20 Int check to escape the Maze at disadvantage with an Int of 1.

Goodby Monk, no save.

The Death Knight was scripted to "play human" until the game was up. That did not take long, but when it was his turn round #2 he sat in a Forcecage and could only hellball himself

He wasted an entire round running to his death. Its not my fault if this immortal tactical genius akin to Lord Soth was too stupid to conduct any recon on the party (via the 15th level Diviner next to him with Scry and Clairvoyance) and instead charged in like Lancelot from Monty Python instead of hellballing the three PCs that had just emerged from the Town hall. He got everything he deserved.

Before running towards the Diviner the Monk reapplied the stunlock on the Druid. I had the Druid at AC 19 so he actually had to spend his Action Surge to achieve this. (Yes, all three I ffighters in this party has a couple of Fighter levels, including the "ranger" and monk. Action Surge is that good)

Action surge is indeed very good. Its even better when your DM only ever gives you one encounter a day making it a 1/ encounter ability.

Of course, you cant shadow jaunt as an action. So he must have moved + used the dash action again in any event. I suppose he has an action either side of it, to attack both the Druid and the Diviner twice.

Not that it would have mattered if I was running the NPCs. By the time the Monks turn 2 comes around the Monk is a drooling idiot stumbling through an extraplanar maze. The three emerging PCs have been Hell balled, and are facing a wave of conjured animals, an angry earth elemental about to hit them with fire storm, a diviner about to toss an 8th level fireball at them, a warlock about to hit them with finger of death, and a Death knight and Blackguard warily pushing forward at them from opposite directions.

Look Flamestrike, we don't have to discuss tactics, and you certainly don't have to assume I played my NPCs poorly.

Im not assuming it. Im flat out telling you you did. If that was a deliberate choice by you to do so, then more power to you.

If the point of your exersize is 'a bunch of NPCs played poorly, using suboptimal tactics, and with bad spell choices, and not using their abilities got steamrolled by a fully rested party' then yeah, that happens.

I can assure you that If I was running the exact same encounter, your PCs would be dead by the end of round 2.

This encounter says nothing about the NPCs as written or the rules. It says an awful lot about how you play high level NPC threats, and manage the abilities of high level intelligent opponents.

Im not having a go here either. Its just I cant help but shake the feeling that you're having another swipe at the systems challenge ratings and resource management metagame.

In fact, I know you are.