D&D 5E Let's make PCs more powerful

[FrogReaver]

I play 5e in a campaign that is run by the book by a kind DM with WOTC modules/adventure paths. And yes, I think it is somewhat easy. However, my group's capacity to do sub optimal things means that a TPK is always a just a cascading series of bad decisions away.

By biggest issue with 5e is not actually making PC more powerful, or making the game tougher but just making things more unpredictable, by adding a few more decisions and wrinkles to combat. I do think the 5e I have experienced is a touch too predictable. Aside from dialing up the threats, if I were every to DM I think I would like to tweak a few things because I do like more tactical depth than what I have seen in vanilla 5e. Most importantly I would like to see more in combat options for the martial classes but this would need to be balanced by giving the monsters a few more toys and surprises.

I find I'm happy with the amount of tactical options rogues get. Maybe you are just playing the wrong class

A wizard should have a pretty tactical feel to it as well (or at least you can make one to be that way).

 

[ClaytonCross]

Let me stress, I'm not saying 5e is easy. I'm saying 5e makes it easy for inexperienced or lazy GM's to make the game boring, if a challenging game is what you're looking to play.

I can agree with that but its actually more a complement to the build of 5e than a problem with it since its a product of flexibility for play style. There is no accounting for a "bad" GM in any table top game. I think making it harder to one shot player characters is a product of protecting them from the same GMs so that players and GMs get to play long enough to improve before a "total party kill" restarts every thing or the players leave in irritation. This is an natural and good step forward because different NPCs dyeing each session is not an issue but player characters dying every session is problem. This is the same reason we don't use mortal wound rules at our table. We found that since NPCs die off they the next batch is fine every fight but a player character that looses a leg is a big deal until they gain access to the Regenerate spell with in the party. Because even if they have the funds to buy it from an NPC it doesn't help them until they exit a large dungeon and make it to a large town where such things would be available. This just causes your players to look like monsters from all there missing parts until they reach level 13 or until the end of the game if they don't have cleric, bard, or druid.

So while your game may be on easy mode because of your GM, as long as your GM is trying to grow I suspect your games will become harder and/or more entertaining. I find "lazy" GM is not usually the right assessment since most GMs enjoy the process of the story and/or the theory crafting of combat but its not unusual to have a GM that really likes one but doesn't care much for the other. Which is why you will often here there are story GMs and tactical GMs, both do both as a requirement its just where they spend there effort.

 

[Horwath]

One thing that always baffles me is when I see house rules ideas pop up regularly that essentially just make PCs more powerful.

The problem with this is that 5e is already on easy mode.

...these two things do not work well together.

1. D&D is not a board game that has hard component limit that would cause problems for balancing.

2. If the players are too good, throw more stuff at them. Never have a solo "boss", hirelings wreck havoc among party tactics.

3. Do not hand out higher than +1 items. They can brake the game and cause even more need for balancing. Better add +1d6 damage rather than extra +1 attack.

 

[Harzel]

... different NPCs dyeing each session is not an issue ...

I disagree; I just hate it when my NPCs turn green suddenly.


(Sorry, not meaning to pick on you. I just thought it was an amusing image.)

 

[Li Shenron]

One thing that baffles me is that people say 5e is easy mode when the DM can always throw more beholders, more dragons, more mind flayers and more Vecnas to make stuff harder for them. And on top of that, DM can still ban resurrection magic, ban feats, ban multiclassing, ban spell casting, and ban magic weapons.

I dare those people to play at my table.

You still have to house rule the game one way or another. Throwing more monsters using higher-CR ones is not houseruling, but without further changes you then get a very fast level advancement. The OP's point is that the default of the game is easy.

 

[pemerton]

Well, some players (and DMs) like everything to be EPIC. I refer to this as Dragonball Z syndrome, and the best example of this was a guy who would rather have +100 to hit against AC: 110 than +0 against AC: 10, even though the math is exactly the same. He says it just feels more awesome.

At least in some approaches to D&D, that maths is associated with particular fictional elements: so if you want your PC to confront Demogorgon then it is going to be bigger numbers all around than if your PC is fighting a kobold.

The 4e Neverwinter supplement actually changed the scaling of maths relative to fiction, by statting out some of the more powerful creatures (in the fiction) - such as mind flayers - at a mathematical level where lower-level PCs could meaningfully engage with them. But this sort of rescaling of the maths relative to the fiction doesn't seem to be that popular among D&D players.

 

[Christopher Olson]

I've always found that the true challenge in 0E is just reading the damned thing....

Ive been wanting to start a 0E/AD&D game but reading them has been a big turn off

 

[CatholicFan]

Ive been wanting to start a 0E/AD&D game but reading them has been a big turn off

I humbly suggest Swords & Wizardry Complete. It does a great job of restating 0e. Complete contains the information from the three little brown books, plus the supplements.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

One thing that always baffles me is when I see house rules ideas pop up regularly that essentially just make PCs more powerful.

The problem with this is that 5e is already on easy mode.

...these two things do not work well together.

I agree that 5e is easy mode D&D but it seems that is what a lot of players want, and if they want to make it more so and it makes things at their table more fun, cool. I'm not playing a their table so more power to them...and their PC.

 

[Hussar]

You still have to house rule the game one way or another. Throwing more monsters using higher-CR ones is not houseruling, but without further changes you then get a very fast level advancement. The OP's point is that the default of the game is easy.

This is what the gaming public demanded though. The whole Rulings not Rules mantra and Empowering the DM line as well.

You can't empower the DM to set the game difficulty and then start at very difficult. It's much harder to reduce difficulty than to add to it. 3e proves that nicely. You have a system where groups were pretty much limited to 3 (ish) encounters per day because of the swinginess of the system. When a 1/2 CR orc can get a lucky crit (and armed with a falchion in 3.5, he crits 10% of the time) and bring your low level party to a halt because they need to heal the fighter.

5e doesn't generally have that kind of thing. A CR=to Character level in 5e can't really kill a 5e PC (after about 2nd level anyway) in a single round. In 3e, monsters generally did 10XCR/round (maximum damage), which made the game really really swingy. The DM gets on a hot streak and PC's are dying all the way around.

In 5e, the numbers are smaller, so, a DM hot streak hurts but usually won't kill PC's.

Which makes for a more granular system. Which means if you want to up difficulty, it's up to the DM to do it. The game isn't going to do it for you. I mean, curb stomping a 3e party was easy. Go EL+4 and you should be whacking PC's. 5e doesn't really do that so well, because even at EL+4, the PC's are likely going to win that encounter.

5e in this sense is really channeling AD&D where PC's were much, much stronger than any single encounter, typically. Adding difficulty means going in different directions than simply more monsters - tactics, battlefield effects, adding class abilities, that sort of thing.