D&D 5E My tweak to make (Champion) Fighters decent

[Flamestrike]

We're not really seeing the 6-8 encounters either and we're running PotA.

Thats your DMs fault.

PotA does have long periods of empty days and single encounter days (as you wander around the place) though, with several 'zoomed in' dungeon areas (the various elemental cult headquarters) with those areas featuring several encounters with little or no chance of rest.

You cant exactly assault the Temple of Elemental Fire, nova a few rooms, then fall back overnight to rest.

I found the problem with PotA was players were able to too easily metagame when an encounter was a random 'solo encounter' adventuring day, and then employ nova tactics.

I countered this by re-structuring the occasional 'random' encounter, breaking it up into several smaller linked encounters. For example a random encounter of Bandits would be re-structured to be 2-3 waves of Bandits. The first encounter is the PCs locating a small Bandit scouting party [medium difficulty encounter]... and then this encounter is immediately followed by a larger force of Bandits a few minutes after the 1st combat ends [a hard encounter].

After those two encounters are dealt with, one of the bandits drops a map to the nearby bandit camp and a ransom note indicating that the bandits have several children who they are ransoming off, that they intend to kill by midnight if the ransom isnt paid (a hook to lead the party to encounter 3).

Encounter 3 is the bandit lair, a [deadly] encounter with multiple bandits, some thugs, a bandit spellcaster [mage], and a tough bandit leader [gladiator].

If the players dumped all their long rest resources into encounter 1 (thinking it was the only encounter that day) they're in for a rude shock when encounter 2 happens (and its a more dangerous encounter than encounter 1), and then after that, they then have to overcome a 3rd encounter before long resting; and that final encounter is even more difficult than the first two.

You do this (or similar encounters) once or twice, and your players instinctively self regulate resource usage and avoid nova tactics and the 5 minute adventuring day.

 

[Flamestrike]

I'll tell you why I'm hostile. I don't want your help. I didn't ask for your help. I asked for help on tweaking the Fighter the way I wanted (now done, thanks again everyone who helped), and instead you think it's fine to fill up my thread with the same crap you post everywhere else, treating me like I'm functionally retarded and can't appreciate the great wisdom you're trying to impart.

You asked for help or advice re tweaking the fighter so its better balanced, and class balance in 5E is directly connected to the resting rules. Some classes (like the fighter, and the warlock) are based on frequent short rests and multiple encounters in order to maintain balance alongside long rest classes like the Paladin, Barbairan and full casters.

The intent of this mechanic is that if you want to buff fighters, warlocks or monks, all you need to do is have more encounters and more short rests between long rests and stay away from the 5 minute adventuring day. If you want to buff spell-casters, paladins or barbarians you have less encounters between long rests and permit the 5 minute adventuring day.

I don't like your style. That's just my subjective view. You are not wrong to prefer your style. Where you are wrong is in claiming it's the only viable or legitimate style for 5e D&D.

Im not claiming that, Ive never claimed that (go find a quote of mine to prove me wrong if you want) so basically mate, youre full of it and jumping at shadows.

When I say classes and encounters in 5E are balanced around longer adventuring days, and go out of kilter when the DM sits back and allows the 5 minute or single encounter adventuring days, thats not me having a go at your subjective DMing style, thats me telling you the mechanics of 5E.

If you have a problem with 5E's classes and encounters being balanced around half a dozen encounters between long rests, and 2 short rests per long rest being the norm, take it up with the Deveopers and WOTC and dont have a go at me. I didnt write the bloody system, and I didnt decide that this was the 'sweet spot' for class and encounter balance.

Im just pointing out to you that this is the mechanical balance point, and that it is your decision to ignore the games expectation of half a dozen or so encounters per adventuring day being the norm that is what is throwing the Fighter out of whack.

5e, like 4e and 0e-2e, can accommodate a wide range of encounter frequencies, from frequent trivial fights 6-8 times/day to occasional massive Spike encounters.

For the love of Odin man, I agree with you.

IM NOT SAYING THAT YOU RAM 6-8 ENCOUNTERS PER DAY DOWN YOUR PLAYERS THROATS EVERY DAY.

I am saying that the game is designed around the longer (6-8 encounter) adventuring day being the default for around 50 percent or so of your adventuring days. Many other days will feature less encounters, and/or more frequent short rest opportunities. Some days will feature several or even a dozen encounters, with little or no chance to short rest.

Do you understand what I'm saying mate? Im not saying that 'You must ram 6-8 encounters per day at your party all the time.' I'm only pointing out that the game (classes and encounters) is mechanically balanced around the expectation of a longer average adventuring day, and that when a DM frequently permits the 5 minute Adventuring day, that decision by the DM directly impacts class balance and encounter difficulty.

I dont give a toss personally if you dont police the AD in your home campaign, and your players nova the crap out every encounter, and the barbarian never runs out of rages, and warlocks, fighters and monks appear weak by comparison, and you have to dial up encounter difficulty to Deadly+. Thats your decision to make, and if you enjoy that kind of play style, go for it.

Its not an argument about which style between (a DM that permits the 5 minute adventuring day) vs (a DM that polices the adventuring day more stringently) is 'better.' Its a statement that the game itself is based around the latter expectation, and if you dont follow it, it has mechanical impacts on other aspects of the game (like class balance and encounter difficulty).

Im not having a go at you mate, so please cease the hostility.

 

[Corwin]

The town the PCs are in get attacked by Orcs and Demons. After which an Orc is interrogated and the PCs find out several NPCs have been captured and the leader of the Orcs plans on a ritual to release demonic horde into the area.

What if the PCs (either intentionally or accidentally) kill all the orcs? Do you have an alternate plan to get them the info they need to proceed with the planned story arc?

 

[Flamestrike]

What if the PCs (either intentionally or accidentally) kill all the orcs? Do you have an alternate plan to get them the info they need to proceed with the planned story arc?

There is an army of Orcs. The Town mayor (Thuldrin Creed) and his Half Orc henchman (Payday Teetums) capture several Orcs.

Payday then tortures one to get the information out of him.

Missing are Laurel the towns herbalist (and good friends with the PCs) and Brikinsnurd the gnome owner/ proprietor of the local general supplies store, and cousin to a now deceased PC.

If the names sound familiar its because the adventure was set in Falcons Hollow in Golarion (the setting for Pazios D0 and D1 modules - Hollows last hope, and Crown of the Kobold king).

Im running an Age of Worms adventure path, set in Golarion and converted to 5E. Im also inserting several 'side adventures' in there (so far its included several of my own design, plus modules D0 and D1 converted to 5E, and 2 AD&D modules - Lost Island of Castanamir and White Plume mountain - White Plume Mountain was moved to the local volcano - Droscars Crag).

The climax is my own converted Tomb of Horrors retooled for 20th level PCs, and the epic battle with Kyuss.

 

[Zardnaar]

Thats your DMs fault.

PotA does have long periods of empty days and single encounter days (as you wander around the place) though, with several 'zoomed in' dungeon areas (the various elemental cult headquarters) with those areas featuring several encounters with little or no chance of rest.

You cant exactly assault the Temple of Elemental Fire, nova a few rooms, then fall back overnight to rest.

I found the problem with PotA was players were able to too easily metagame when an encounter was a random 'solo encounter' adventuring day, and then employ nova tactics.

I countered this by re-structuring the occasional 'random' encounter, breaking it up into several smaller linked encounters. For example a random encounter of Bandits would be re-structured to be 2-3 waves of Bandits. The first encounter is the PCs locating a small Bandit scouting party [medium difficulty encounter]... and then this encounter is immediately followed by a larger force of Bandits a few minutes after the 1st combat ends [a hard encounter].

After those two encounters are dealt with, one of the bandits drops a map to the nearby bandit camp and a ransom note indicating that the bandits have several children who they are ransoming off, that they intend to kill by midnight if the ransom isnt paid (a hook to lead the party to encounter 3).

Encounter 3 is the bandit lair, a [deadly] encounter with multiple bandits, some thugs, a bandit spellcaster [mage], and a tough bandit leader [gladiator].

If the players dumped all their long rest resources into encounter 1 (thinking it was the only encounter that day) they're in for a rude shock when encounter 2 happens (and its a more dangerous encounter than encounter 1), and then after that, they then have to overcome a 3rd encounter before long resting; and that final encounter is even more difficult than the first two.

You do this (or similar encounters) once or twice, and your players instinctively self regulate resource usage and avoid nova tactics and the 5 minute adventuring day.

I am the DM, I'm seeing how some of the APs run RAW before adjusting them as I don't want to screw it up.

If even the designers are not using their own suggestions though....

 

[Lanliss]

Im not claiming that, Ive never claimed that (go find a quote of mine to prove me wrong if you want) so basically mate, youre full of it and jumping at shadows.

Well, there are all the times you have said that a DM not enforcing the 6-8 encounters at least 50% of the time is "Failing as a DM". Sounds a lot like shutting down other playstyles to me.

 

[Flamestrike]

I am the DM, I'm seeing how some of the APs run RAW before adjusting them as I don't want to screw it up.

If even the designers are not using their own suggestions though....

Managing the adventuring day is not a question of 'RAW' or 'the designers not using their own suggestions'.

The RAW is not 'you must use 6-8 encounter adventuring days with 2-3 short rests.' Thats just the point at which the game mechanically balances. There is no 'RAW' that makes the game play that way (unlike 4th edition, which forced the [Encounter/ Daily] paradigm on you).

Really mate, its up to individual DMs (you in this case) to police the Adventuring day as you see fit. You (the DM) have your hands on both the 'encounters per long rest' and 'short rests per encounter' dials. If you want more (or less) encounters, dial them in. If you want more (or fewer) rests, dial them in.

Same deal with the designers. They leave it up to the DM. I mean; you could be using the rest variants from the DMG for all they know, or you might not want multiple encounters per adventuring day (or you could want more).

Note that all the published adventures feature large 'zoomed out' areas of the underdark, or overland travel, where the PCs are basically wandering about to get to actual adventure locales; most of tht 'travel time' is fastworded via montage, and any encounters that do happen, are around the 0-2 encounter mark.

Those AP's also feature several smaller 'zoomed in' areas (lairs, flaying castles, keeps, ruins, cult HQ's, dungeons, forests with several trails and clearings etc) which feature several encounters, designed to be done in a single adventuring day.

Youre not supposed to tackle 1-3 rooms of Tiamats flying castle, or the Fire Elemental Cult HQ, fall back to long rest, and then assault it again the next morning. That only happens if the DM lets it happen (he's cool with the 5 minute AD). The game however doesnt mandate this behaviour because (for some DMs) the 5 minute adventuring day is how they want to run their game.

S'mon for example has stated (in this thread) that he prefers the 5 minute adventuring day, and runs his campaign that way (he's claimed more than a few times that he only ever has around 1 encounter per day, and he prefers it this way).

Mandating 6-8 encounters every day in the RAW means he couldnt play the game that way.

TL;DR - its up to individual DMs how they choose to police the adventuring day, and how they handle resource replenishment be their players (healing rate and spell slot /class feature recovery). Its the first thing most DMs houserule and the the most common rules variants (slower healing, gritty realism, or more heroic 5 minute short resting). If you're happy with them hitting every encounter at full strength, then have fun. Just bear in mind the mechanical effect it has on class balance, encounter difficulty and swingyness (chance of a TPK).

 

[Flamestrike]

Well, there are all the times you have said that a DM not enforcing the 6-8 encounters at least 50% of the time is "Failing as a DM". Sounds a lot like shutting down other playstyles to me.

If I said that I apologise. A DM is only failing as a DM if they dont understand that the longer adventuring day is the mechanical sweet spot that the games classes and encounter difficulty balance around, and acknowledge the problems that surface by straying away from it.

And to be fair to those DMs, 5E doesnt expresly tell the new DM. Its kind of obliquely referred to in several places, and hidden away in the background structure of the game, and requires a solid understanding of the mechanics of the game, and an overview of all the classes and rules to clearly see.

(Also I personally loathe games where the players routinely use the 5MWD. It ruins my immersion and the game loses any narrative drive and becomes rocket tag. Although I conceed that some DMs may actually prefer to run their games this way, and I cant judge them unfairly if this is what they prefer).

5E designers in their infinite wisdom decided not to force an [encounter/daily] structure on us like they did with 4E, where everyone largely has the same number of resources that recharge at the same rate, and an express expectation of a fixed number of encounters per day. Its still present in 5E to an extent, but in a different format, and much more in the background.

There is nothing 'wrong' with only having one encounter between long rests (the 5 minute adventuring day) - but you need to be mindful of the balance issues this causes. Classes get thrown totally out of whack, and encounters become trivially easy.

Honestly, if S'mon wants to balance Fighters in his campaign (which only featuers a single encounter per day as a baseline) he should just implement the following rule (across the board):

Multiply the uses of any class feature that functions on a Short rest by three, and such class features now recharge on a Long rest.

Fighters gain 3 x action surges each long rest, and 3 x second winds per long rest. 3rd level Fighter Battlemasters gain 12 x superiority dice per long rest. Multiply Warlock spell slots per short rest by 3. Ki points are tripled for Monks, but dont come back until a long rest. The Healer feat can be used 3 x long rest (or 1/ long rest, but it heals triple the amount of HP). Triple the Temporary HP granted by the Inspiring Leader feat. And so forth.

Champion fighters are a bit harder to rule, but increasing the Crit range improvement to 18-20 at 3rd level, and then again to 15-20 at higher level (roughly tripling its current frequency) is where I would start.

That will bring those short rest dependent classes up to par with long rest dependent classes in a campaign that features the 5 minute adventuring day as default.

 

[Zardnaar]

If I said that I apologise. A DM is only failing as a DM if they dont understand that the longer adventuring day is the mechanical sweet spot that the games classes and encounter difficulty balance around, and acknowledge the problems that surface by straying away from it.

And to be fair to those DMs, 5E doesnt expresly tell the new DM. Its kind of obliquely referred to in several places, and hidden away in the background structure of the game, and requires a solid understanding of the mechanics of the game, and an overview of all the classes and rules to clearly see.

(Also I personally loathe games where the players routinely use the 5MWD. It ruins my immersion and the game loses any narrative drive and becomes rocket tag. Although I conceed that some DMs may actually prefer to run their games this way, and I cant judge them unfairly if this is what they prefer).

5E designers in their infinite wisdom decided not to force an [encounter/daily] structure on us like they did with 4E, where everyone largely has the same number of resources that recharge at the same rate, and an express expectation of a fixed number of encounters per day. Its still present in 5E to an extent, but in a different format, and much more in the background.

There is nothing 'wrong' with only having one encounter between long rests (the 5 minute adventuring day) - but you need to be mindful of the balance issues this causes. Classes get thrown totally out of whack, and encounters become trivially easy.

Honestly, if S'mon wants to balance Fighters in his campaign (which only featuers a single encounter per day as a baseline) he should just implement the following rule (across the board):

Multiply the uses of any class feature that functions on a Short rest by three, and such class features now recharge on a Long rest.

Fighters gain 3 x action surges each long rest, and 3 x second winds per long rest. 3rd level Fighter Battlemasters gain 12 x superiority dice per long rest. Multiply Warlock spell slots per short rest by 3. Ki points are tripled for Monks, but dont come back until a long rest. The Healer feat can be used 3 x long rest (or 1/ long rest, but it heals triple the amount of HP). Triple the Temporary HP granted by the Inspiring Leader feat. And so forth.

Champion fighters are a bit harder to rule, but increasing the Crit range improvement to 18-20 at 3rd level, and then again to 15-20 at higher level (roughly tripling its current frequency) is where I would start.

That will bring those short rest dependent classes up to par with long rest dependent classes in a campaign that features the 5 minute adventuring day as default.

Its not an absolute but you might only have 1-2 encounters in a hex crawl for example. 5E is not good at hex crawls as it turns out due to the encounters and class design. They either get trivially easy encounters or immersion breaking +6 or +7 CR type encounters.

Anything else 5E does well like skill checks perhaps is not really any significantly better than say AD&D wisdom checks to avoid becoming lost or whatever.

The 5E expectations work alright for something like a Dungeon hack, fairly badly for most other adventure types and it might actually be worse than Basic/1E for exploration.

 

[Flamestrike]

Its not an absolute but you might only have 1-2 encounters in a hex crawl for example. 5E is not good at hex crawls as it turns out due to the encounters and class design. They either get trivially easy encounters or immersion breaking +6 or +7 CR type encounters.

For Hexcrawls, you are much better served with the 'Gritty realism' rest variant, that turns Short rests into overnight affairs and Long rests into week long R+R breaks in town.

This perfectly meshes with a campaign that features 0-2 encounters per day, and roughly 3-4 days featuring encounters between the party resting in town. It plays like this:

Day 1: Party finish long rest and exploration prep and leave town.
Days 2-5: Party travel with no encounters
Day 6: Party deal with single combat encounter (bandits)
Day 7: Party travel to bandit camp, no encounters
Day 8: Party deal with bandit camp, 3 encounters
Days 9-11: Party travel and explore several hexes; no encounters
Day 12: Party has random combat encounter while they sleep.
Days 13-15: No encounters, exploration
Day 16: Party has encounter in morning as they wake, and a second one later that afternoon
Day 17-21: Party wearily trudge back to town, down on HP, HD and resources.
Day 22-28: Party arrive back in town, and rest for a week to heal injuries, recover their energy (and spell slots) and spend gold

In the above four weeks, the party has had [long rest] - 7 encounters broken up by 3 short rests - [long rest] - a single 'adventuring day'.

The 5E expectations work alright for something like a Dungeon hack, fairly badly for most other adventure types and it might actually be worse than Basic/1E for exploration.

They're designed around dungeon hacks for sure (6-8 encounters is around your standard number for 1 level of a dungeon).

Personally I think the numbers are too high. A default of 3-5 encounters would have been better pacing for mine (with short rest abilities recharging automatically per encounter). Most game sessions only feature around 3-5 encounters, and many groups prefer to arrange or contrive a 'long rest' to happen at the end of the game session (makes book-keeping easier, and is a natural break in play to reset abilities).

To have the game mechanically match that pacing, you would need to reduce long rest resources (particularly spell slots and sorcery points, but also luck points) by around 20-30 percent, and reduce Barbarian rages per day by 1.

In my own 'rules tweak' document, I make the following changes for my own home campaign:

Short rest: A short rest takes 5 minutes, and you cant benefit from more than one every 4 hours (your average dungeon raid). You can spend up to half your HD when you short rest.

Long rest: A long rest takes 8 hours, and you cant benefit from more than one every 24 hours. You recover no HP when you long rest, but you recover 1/2 your level in HD. At the end of the Long rest, you can spend as many HD as you want to heal. You also recover 1 expended spell slot of each of levels 1-5, plus 1 expended spell slot (or arcanum) of levels 6+.

Barbarian 'rages per day' are reduced by 1 (but they get a fighting style to compensate). The Lucky feat is 1/short rest and not 3/ long rest.

Basically it forces spellcasters and barbarians (and paladins) to reign in smiting/ casting/ raging due to having less resources to use, or due to the risk of it taking several days to get those resources back. Short rest classes get one short rest with no jarring 1 hour breaks during dungeoneering.

Its geared for a 4-5 encounter adventuring day, and to increase overall difficulty to my liking.