D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[clearstream]

You can think that all you like.

But prior to you encountering that npc, not a single encounter was actually had by that npc. Not one that involved the mechanics anyway.

What DM would actually spend the dozens of hours playing through the encounters required for that high level npc to actually achieve those levels?

IOW that npc gained levels and abilities completely without any reference to encounter guidelines. Any backstory is 99% DM fiat.

We're repeating ourselves but okay. When that guy falls out of the sky, for me mechanics are involved. I don't need to roll any dice. Say he's a Wizard, I don't need to roll any dice to say he can cast Wizard spells and doesn't have Ki. The mechanics are engaged nonetheless.

If my definition of mechanics was that for them to be engaged dice must be thrown, then I would agree with your argument. So please understand my sincerity when I say that in my framing for world-building and events, dice do not need to be thrown in order for mechanics to be involved.

Put simply, we disagree on premises and therefore we cannot agree on conclusions.

[Edited to try and put my point in a more reasonable way.]

 

[Werebat]

The answer is simply this: A *CREATIVE* DM can always come up with ways to challenge the party. You're not an uncreative DM, are you?

 

[clearstream]

The answer is simply this: A *CREATIVE* DM can always come up with ways to challenge the party. You're not an uncreative DM, are you?

No true Scottish DM could fail to challenge the party.

 

[CapnZapp]

It tells you what the average should be if you are using medium and hard encounters. If you are using deadly or easy, the average is different.

Secondly, it tells you what the PCs can be expected to handle, not how the DM must design the adventure. This is a crucial distinction as it gives tremendous power to the DM in designing the world, while also giving tremendous agency to the players to interact with that world. In a system where recovery is based on a set number of encounters, the rules of the world restrict both PCs and DMs.

The problem with the theory that if you can handle three hard encounters you can handle six easy ones is when you're completely ignoring the game's failure to ensure the adventurers really do have all those six encounters in a single day.

"Tremendous agency" sounds awesome. But that conveniently ignores how the DM gets next to no mechanical support. All this agency means is the "power" to tell a story where the princess gets eaten in three days.

But when you think about it, that's true of every rpg ever made. The designers do NOT get to take credit for "empowering" DMs to do this.

In fact it rings completely hollow to bring that up as a "strength" of the system, when all it really means is a near-complete lack of mechanical support.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

The answer is simply this: A *CREATIVE* DM can always come up with ways to challenge the party. You're not an uncreative DM, are you?

Again the blame it on the DM.

Again, if the players plow through modules with little challenge, that absolutely cannot be the designers responsibility. It must be a bad DM.



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[Maxperson]

True, but if one doesn't move from the base then the base does kinda by default also become the default....

I agree, but default is still different from recommended. A recommendation has more influence behind it than a default.

 

[Maxperson]

You can think that all you like.

But prior to you encountering that npc, not a single encounter was actually had by that npc. Not one that involved the mechanics anyway.

That's not our argument, though. We're saying that mechanics informs world building, not that mechanics are used for it. Those encounters(mechanics informing world building) were had by the NPC in order for it to gain experience(mechanics informing world building) and therefore levels(mechanics informing world building). That the mechanics weren't used doesn't matter.

IOW that npc gained levels and abilities completely without any reference to encounter guidelines. Any backstory is 99% DM fiat.

And that fiat is based on mechanics that informed the DM and players of how the NPC got that way.

 

[Maxperson]

No true Scottish DM could fail to challenge the party.

What if the players are truly Scottish, too?

 

[hawkeyefan]

So, in regard to NPCs....they very clearly use different rules than PCs. The books do say that you can use PC creation rules for NPCs if you like, but recommends not doing that as it would require a lot of extra work. And in all of the published material, I can't think of any NPC who has been constructed like a PC. Not even such a major character as Strahd uses PC creation rules.

So instead of talking about the likes of Elminster and Drizzt when we talk about NPCs, wouldn't it make more sense to talk about the NPCs that PCs will encounter? For example, the elemental cultists from Prices of the Apocalypse. They have a variety of abilities designed around a theme, and they are designed to be a threat to the party. Must we assume that an NPC with a CR of 4 has adventured enough to gain such a "level"? I wouldn't think so....otherwise each cultist would have to be designed individually. Unless we want to assume that every Black Earth Guard the PCs encounter have had the exact same experience.

CR is reflective of threat level to PCs, and is not necessarily indicative of any kind of accumulated experience by the NPC. Certainly a wyrmling dragon has very little experience, but is likely a higher CR than a kobold chieftan.

It is very clear that NPCs do not function the way PCs do. Or at least, that is not the game's default expectation. So a high CR wizard in the town the PCs visit doesn't have to have an adventuring history at all. Perhaps he's just an old wizard who has become proficient in magic through study and daily non-combat casting.

I mean, if we insist that the mechanics MUST determine NPCs' histories, then the only NPCs of proficiency will be the ones that go out and kill things....no experts in any field unless they are just constantly killing things and getting XP.

Which seems pretty absurd.

 

[Krachek]

For what I have seen so far in 5ed, the day of work can be quite changing.
For the same xp budget, a party may be forced to step back half way, while another day, they reach the end of the day with half resources expended.
I don’t know which tools could help more a DM with this kind of variance. Unless to say “Do your best my friend!”

The only tool I see could be to write adventure with Plan B, C.
Basically, we have two situations: It go too good for PC (plan B),
or it go too good for the rest of world (Plan C).
Maybe add side notes to help DM react if things go not as planned.
It may be hints on how monster gets backup, or how and where the player can rest or recover.