D&D 5E Running D&D 5e for Levels 10+

[Stalker0]

I don't follow. Toughness, surely, is relative (eg the power of a red dragon can be measured, at least roughly, in terms of "paladins defeated per day") - the numbers in the statblock (to hit, damage, saves, etc) don't measure anything in absolute terms. So if the 5e dragons' "paladins per day" ratio is weaker than that of their AD&D counterparts, then they've got weaker, not tougher, even if their numbers are bigger.

Well that was what the quoted person was sayInt. If you took the 1e dragon and had it face a 5e dragon, the 5e dragon would win.

But because 5e characters are so much stronger than 1e characters, ultimately dragons have gotten weaker

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Moreover, many modules are specified as being for PCs of a certain level. The ones for higher level PCs contain more kobolds, or bugbears rather than kobolds, etc.

And such modules will contain the same number of kobolds or bugbears, regardless of whether your party is lower-level or higher-level than advertised on the cover. (Unless they also include your previous caveat, I suppose, of which I have only your word as to its existence; but how many of those modules are written with an eye toward wargaming, or Gygaxian skilled play, rather than role-playing or world-building?)

The effect of gaining levels is not to increase the number of kobolds in the next room. The effect of gaining levels is that the characters, confident in their own ability, may seek out other rooms. The contents of the Noob Cave do not change based on your level, but if you are much higher in level, then you should head to The Dire Warren since there's no reason to go to the Noob Cave.

RPGing is a game. And part of the game, especially in a mechnically complex system like D&D, is testing yourself against the system - in that respect it resembles something like solitaire. As you get better, the GM is expected to step things up, so you have to get even better. There's no prize for just steamrolling the game.

The prize is that you - the player, acting in the capacity of the character - gets to succeed at overcoming the challenges and saving the day. You have overcome opposition which is meaningful because it wasn't set up specifically for you to knock down; and you have succeeded on your own merits as a player and as a person living in that world, rather than through narrative contrivance because it was just some sort of story.

Or maybe your character dies, because they were ill-prepared and you made bad decisions. It's still infinitely better to die on your own merits than to live because it's just a game and nothing matters at all.

 

[5ekyu]

I don't follow. Toughness, surely, is relative (eg the power of a red dragon can be measured, at least roughly, in terms of "paladins defeated per day") - the numbers in the statblock (to hit, damage, saves, etc) don't measure anything in absolute terms. So if the 5e dragons' "paladins per day" ratio is weaker than that of their AD&D counterparts, then they've got weaker, not tougher, even if their numbers are bigger.

Yes and no.

Its about not just destination but the trip.

As observed, at times it was more like fail one save and die which led to far more a sense of fragility.

Quick deaths by turns of the dice lead to a much stronger sense of disempowerment than a long fight that you lose.

Even if its just that you can make an escape, outmatched but in the fight makes you feel your choices, the character abilities matter etc and less like dice rule.

Part of that thinking can be seen in the DMG caution about including creatures in an encounter whose individual CR is higher than PC level.

You can ratchet the numbers of foes up a lot, but the individual CR score they reference as benchmarking certain thresholds... Expecting the PCs facing the varmint to have certain baseline options... And going beyond that risks a skew to the difficulty if say characters get one shot early or cannot counter certain abilities.

So, yes, relative matters but also the do i get to use my stuff does too.

I am also in the camp of adjusting adversaries is preferable to downing pc.



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[hawkeyefan]

I don't follow. Toughness, surely, is relative (eg the power of a red dragon can be measured, at least roughly, in terms of "paladins defeated per day") - the numbers in the statblock (to hit, damage, saves, etc) don't measure anything in absolute terms. So if the 5e dragons' "paladins per day" ratio is weaker than that of their AD&D counterparts, then they've got weaker, not tougher, even if their numbers are bigger.

Well, I don’t think anything is sure when we’re comparing things across editions....but my conment about the 5E dragon seeming tougher was more about the numbers. It’s HP and damage numbers and so on are all generally higher than the 1E dragon. So it’s “tougher” in that sense.

However, it doesn’t kill as many paladins (nice metric!) because the 5E paladins are far less squishy than the 1E ones.

 

[pemerton]

Well that was what the quoted person was sayInt. If you took the 1e dragon and had it face a 5e dragon, the 5e dragon would win.

This doesn't make sense to me. It's like saying that if the Australian cricket team met the Chinese field hockey team on the field, the Chinese would win - it's positing a clash of incommensurables.

Before an AD&D dragon can face a 5e dragon, they need to be converted to a common system which properly expresses the fiction in respect of each of them. In numerical terms, the most obvious change is that a hit point in AD&D represents a greater degree of in-fiction toughness than a hit point in 5e; but other changes would also be necessary.

my conment about the 5E dragon seeming tougher was more about the numbers. It’s HP and damage numbers and so on are all generally higher than the 1E dragon. So it’s “tougher” in that sense.

To continue my (somewhat strained) simile: the numbers are higher in cricket than in hockey (hundreds of runs compared to single digits of goals), but that doesn't mean that cricket teams are (necessarily) tougher. To the extent that the numbers are measuring anything at all, they're certainly not measuring the same thing.

This is why I was trying to make the comparison on a fiction-to-fiction basis, which seems to get at relative toughness.

it doesn’t kill as many paladins (nice metric!) because the 5E paladins are far less squishy than the 1E ones.

I think I got the paladin metric from an old Dragon article by Roger E Moore!

Are 5e paladins less squishy than AD&D ones? Again, I would see this as being about the fiction. And I'm not sure what the answer is, because low level 5e PCs are fairly vulnerable, while judging upper levels seems pretty contentious - witness this thread. (In 4e, I'll confidently say they're less squishy at Heroic tier, more squishy at Paragon compared to a name-level AD&D paladin, but then less squishy at Epic than is possible for an AD&D paladin outside of some ultra-Monty Haul context.)

Yes and no.

Its about not just destination but the trip.

As observed, at times it was more like fail one save and die which led to far more a sense of fragility.

Quick deaths by turns of the dice lead to a much stronger sense of disempowerment than a long fight that you lose.

Even if its just that you can make an escape, outmatched but in the fight makes you feel your choices, the character abilities matter etc and less like dice rule.

I think I agree with all this - from my point of view, what you describe above is why I prefer 4e;s combat system to AD&D's. But it seems orthogonal to the question of whether 5e dragons are tougher or weaker than AD&D ones.

So, yes, relative matters but also the do i get to use my stuff does too.

I think this is more about how the PCs compare to their adversaries, in mechanical terms; rather than about how monsters from one edition compare (in terms of toughness) to monsters in another.

 

[pemerton]

And such modules will contain the same number of kobolds or bugbears, regardless of whether your party is lower-level or higher-level than advertised on the cover. (Unless they also include your previous caveat, I suppose, of which I have only your word as to its existence; but how many of those modules are written with an eye toward wargaming, or Gygaxian skilled play, rather than role-playing or world-building?)

Obviously changes that take place on character sheets in my living room have no effect on the contents of books written and published by people some time in the past, in a place far from me.

But the idea that the GM is expected to modulate the contents of the fiction so as to be challenging yet fair is a very standard one. For instance, on p2 of module X2 Castle Amber (by Tom Moldvay) - a module written for Gygaxian-type skilled play, but with a quirky flavour overlay - we get the following:

This module has been designed for a party of 6 to 10 characters, between the 3rd and 6th levels of experience. The total of the party's experience levels shoul be from 26 to 34, with a total of 30 being best. . . . If the party has a strength of less than 26 levels or more than 34, the DM may wish to adjust the strength of the monsters in this module - either making them smaller and less numerous or larger and more numerous.​

I could find similar verbiage in other modules, but X2 happens to be the one I have ready to hand.

The prize is that you - the player, acting in the capacity of the character - gets to succeed at overcoming the challenges and saving the day. You have overcome opposition which is meaningful because it wasn't set up specifically for you to knock down

Nearly every module ever written for D&D was written so that the players could tackle it with their PCs, and - perhaps - beat it. (See eg every tournament module ever, but not only them - eg the I series, the B/X modules, most APs as best I can tell, etc.)

(I say "nearly every" because some modules seem to have been written because the author wanted to show off some fiction-writing ability. I put many Planescape modules in this category; they are generally bad modules, for this reason.)

 

[Quartz]

But the idea that the GM is expected to modulate the contents of the fiction so as to be challenging yet fair is a very standard one.

Indeed modules in Dungeon magazine often had segments with how to scale the adventure.

 

[5ekyu]

I think this is more about how the PCs compare to their adversaries, in mechanical terms; rather than about how monsters from one edition compare (in terms of toughness) to monsters in another.

Actually, it is more about how the player's perceive the strength of their adversaries and such, rooted in my experience which says that anything short of "i dont get to do stuff" is usually seen as "less bad" than "i don't get to do stuff" is.

But since the post i was responding to was this one about the relativity of the difference between creatures from different editions, the relative impacts seemed to be relevant.


"I don't follow. Toughness, surely, is relative (eg the power of a red dragon can be measured, at least roughly, in terms of "paladins defeated per day") - the numbers in the statblock (to hit, damage, saves, etc) don't measure anything in absolute terms. So if the 5e dragons' "paladins per day" ratio is weaker than that of their AD&D counterparts, then they've got weaker, not tougher, even if their numbers are bigger."

 

[yakuba]

When I DM'd during the Elemental Evil and Rage of Demons, the modules I ran had detailed modifications based on party strength. There was a party strength metric given at the front in terms of numbers and levels which defined 5 levels along a 'Weak Party-Strong Party' axis. Individual encounter had suggested changes in creature type and number based on the party strength metric. You don't see this in the hardbacks, but my assumption is that the reason is for page count and production cost. From that I've always assumed it's meant to adjust, at least the official WOTC materials, based on party size and level.

 

[5ekyu]

When I DM'd during the Elemental Evil and Rage of Demons, the modules I ran had detailed modifications based on party strength. There was a party strength metric given at the front in terms of numbers and levels which defined 5 levels along a 'Weak Party-Strong Party' axis. Individual encounter had suggested changes in creature type and number based on the party strength metric. You don't see this in the hardbacks, but my assumption is that the reason is for page count and production cost. From that I've always assumed it's meant to adjust, at least the official WOTC materials, based on party size and level.

i have never seen outside of say forum-debaters any question over whether the GM's role includes balancing for his particular party in any game system i have seen.

this seems to me to be more a case of "how many dragons can sit on the head of a pin" forum-wars than an actual question in actual games being played. a case of some abstract theory than any actual reality of games being played.

but hey, folks have time to fill at work when the boss isn't looking so... no biggie.