D&D 5E [Question] Medusa and Sight Based Spells (Magic Missile, Blight, etc.)

[AaronOfBarbaria]

<snipped to save space> ...and 5e monsters and encounters are often criticized as 'too easy.' So that's a plausible rationale.

Yeah, I unintentionally phrased my earlier post as if both goals didn't share the "for your specific party" - when really all I was meaning to speak to was the specificity of the goal at hand, and the vague "probably no one will die" goal is much easier to achieve than the "this encounter will reduce the party's resources by about 20%" of 3rd edition or the "appropriate challenge" of 4th edition.

But yes, I feel the "too easy" criticism is usually coming from the expectation that CR in 5th edition has the same goal as CR in 3rd edition or Level of monster in 4th edition, or failing to realize that the specific words chosen to name each difficulty of encounter in the encounter building guidelines haven't been used in their most intuitive way - since "Deadly" as used by the game means that the party might be defeated and some characters might die in the process, while the intuitive expectation of the word "deadly" is more along the lines of that the entire party is at significant risk of death.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yeah, I unintentionally phrased my earlier post as if both goals didn't share the "for your specific party" - when really all I was meaning to speak to was the specificity of the goal at hand, and the vague "probably no one will die" goal is much easier to achieve than the "this encounter will reduce the party's resources by about 20%" of 3rd edition

Though I suppose there's an implicit "reduce the party's resources by 12.5-16.7%" in 5e's 6-8 encounter guidelines, as well. I do like the phrasing you've come up with.

But yes, I feel the "too easy" criticism is usually coming from the expectation that CR in 5th edition has the same goal as CR in 3rd edition or Level of monster in 4th edition

Same goal or same result, I suppose. 3e could get into rocket tag and was meant to have ~5 encounters/day, and a 4e 'at level' encounter could still be fairly elaborate and you were meant also meant to have around 5 of them. A default 'at level' encounter in 5e is a lesser proportion of your 'day,' and meant to be faster to resolve. That's just aiming at a different target.

...or failing to realize that the specific words chosen to name each difficulty of encounter in the encounter building guidelines haven't been used in their most intuitive way - since "Deadly" as used by the game means that the party might be defeated and some characters might die in the process, while the intuitive expectation of the word "deadly" is more along the lines of that the entire party is at significant risk of death.

I don't think 'deadly' meaning "may likely result in 1 or more PC deaths" is too unintuitive.

In a way, a single character death is more dramatic than a TPK - at least there are mourners.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I don't think 'deadly' meaning "may likely result in 1 or more PC deaths" is too unintuitive.

Neither do I. I was speaking to what I have seen others commonly intuit from the word.

In a way, a single character death is more dramatic than a TPK - at least there are mourners.

I fully agree. I have painted memorial scenes for singular character deaths, and I have role-played funeral scenes for singular character deaths - but I have never seen a TPK play out as anything besides "Alright... so, let's move on," and either starting up a new campaign (even if it is a new set of characters in otherwise the same story), or effectively continuing as if no TPK happened (even if not on purpose, such as by the party all returning to life, becoming undead, or the story continuing in the afterlife, while the players don't really embrace the event as a significant element of their role-play from that point onward) .