D&D 5E What is Over-Powered?

[DaveDash]

That's the interesting thing: I'm finding that in 5E, my intuition is off, and many encounters that I would expect to be "run away!" adventures actually turn out to be 50/50 situations when I actually game them out. Monsters are weaker than I expect, relative to the official guidelines.

The only way I know to make monsters strong enough to challenge PCs is to turn it into a war game, about using smart tactics and something better than "the allosaur pack charges you at full speed"--turn it into "the allosaur-riding enkidus charge you, hollering warcries and firing arrows from their longbows". Raw stats don't seem to cut it in 5E. The problem with that approach is that I'm still a pretty new DM, and I'm not sure yet when it is appropriate to roleplay enemies with tactical smarts. So far I've been erring on the side of dumb monsters but I think I'm about to unleash the allosaur cavalry next game...

The game can also be quite swingy based on a few factors. Luck, party composition vs foes, etc.

My findings are in general things that just attack are mostly ineffective for their CRs. Things that cast spells or have spell like abilities are a good challenge for their CRs. Also custom monsters I have created using the DMG guidelines feel like they hit a lot harder than a lot of the standard monsters in the MM.

The way my group operates however is they generally conserve resources as much as possible until they get to a big fight. They've struggled with "medium" encounters at times, and they have totally dominated deadly x 5 encounters at other times.

What can make a big difference as well is controlling when they short rest. This can sometimes be hard without railroading them, or having some sort of timeline that forces them to hurry. Characters can fight well above their CR when they can 'nova' with short rest resources.

All in all it's a by-product of bounded accuracy. Bounded accuracy can be great in some ways, but it also can mean that your players (with careful resource planning) can totally dominate things well above their CR. Of course this works both ways, throw 20 well fortified Orcs with bows at a high level group and see what happens.

 

[Herr der Qual]

This can work but it feels contrived if every encounter just happens to target a party weakness. Good in small doses in my experience.

By no means am I suggesting it should be every encounter, I mean when you want to have a critical battle in story line moments, that's how I do it, I make sure that the enemies are tailored to the parties strengths, in a campaign I was a player in the DM got tired of us dominating all the battles so he put us up against ourselves, I was the only party member to fight my own avatar and that was because I was the tank and honestly none of the other party members would have survived the encounter with my dwarf, I was the only one to survive. Two of them got blown up in a kamakaze fireball (small room), one died from killing his own avatar with a weapon strike, (I had already pushed mine into the lava, which happened to be the right way). Though it killed 3/4 of the party I feel it was because he did nothing to let us know there were conditions on the battle, one top of that honestly the fireball was a cheap shot. The point I have done a poor job of illustrating is that it was a great battle, having to fight your own character is a challenge, you know his strengths and weaknesses but because they are identical it's very challenging. In the end it was a great battle to end the campaign with but it was done in poor taste.

 

[Sunseeker]

Whatever you'd feel a need to change if you were DM. I was going to mention a few examples, but I'd rather not single anything out with my limited knowledge of the new edition.

Yeah but, "whatever I don't like" isn't a good measure of what is, or isn't overpowered. It's just a subjective definition of appropriateness.

 

[Herr der Qual]

I agree that it isn't a good measure of overpowered, but as a DM it is important to recognize game features that you and the players dislike and homebrew the hell out of it until you get the most enjoyable game possible, and I think that is what SirAntoine was trying to express. It's a really tricky thing to balance, but also "overpowered" is a very subjective thing, one person might feel that a bunch of things are overpowered but in practice they might have a small limitation that brings it down to par, it depends how the character/npc/ability/skill/feat is played, used and ruled on by the DM so every single group will have a completely different experience playing out of the same book, hence all the homebrewing to make sure that every group is having fun, because some things just aren't going to jive with everybody.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

What can make a big difference as well is controlling when they short rest. This can sometimes be hard without railroading them, or having some sort of timeline that forces them to hurry. Characters can fight well above their CR when they can 'nova' with short rest resources.

All in all it's a by-product of bounded accuracy. Bounded accuracy can be great in some ways, but it also can mean that your players (with careful resource planning) can totally dominate things well above their CR. Of course this works both ways, throw 20 well fortified Orcs with bows at a high level group and see what happens.

Do you have any advice on controlling rest tempo, especially in a sandbox style game? I'm okay with them resting as much as they want while exploring dungeons sometimes, but I think I'd like a short arc where there is time pressure (partly to let PCs who do conserve resources shine), and I'm brainstorming ideas to make it work.

 

[Sunseeker]

I have been playing just the basic game and it works great. Nothing OP that I have seen.

I tend to agree. I do feel that melee players need to use more smarts than casters though. A good utility wizard can drop some utility spells on the battlefield and be effective. A rogue needs to ensure that they have allies on the field near their foes who can take a hit and are willing to stay close to the rogue's target in order to allow the rogue to be effective. The rogue must then (if not a bow rogue) must also take care to position themselves as to avoid a hit, but still be able to dish out damage. Repeat this for all melee characters.

Casters by and large, who are capable of staying FAR FAR from the battlefield, and usually well beyond the range of most of their enemies.

I don't think this is so much an imbalance on the part of casters, this ranged capability, but an imbalance on the part of the playing field. In open areas, casters are distinctly more powerful due to their utility and their range. In closed rooms, they are substantially more vulnerable.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Casters by and large, who are capable of staying FAR FAR from the battlefield, and usually well beyond the range of most of their enemies.

I don't think this is so much an imbalance on the part of casters, this ranged capability, but an imbalance on the part of the playing field. In open areas, casters are distinctly more powerful due to their utility and their range. In closed rooms, they are substantially more vulnerable.

It's funny you say this, because I view 5E casters as medium-range combatants (barring special enhancements like Spell Sniper/Eldritch Spear/Extended Spell). The ability of weapons to function at long-range is a key advantage of weapons over spells. In open areas, fighters can gun down casters. In forested/hilly areas, it's a little bit more even.

Melee combatants are definitely at a relative disadvantage in 5E though. IMHO, melee should never be anyone's primary strategy in 5E, only a secondary "as needed" strategy for house clearing operations and such (i.e. exploring dungeons). Never bring a knife to a gunfight.

 

[SirAntoine]

Yeah but, "whatever I don't like" isn't a good measure of what is, or isn't overpowered. It's just a subjective definition of appropriateness.

Well, I don't know where you're getting this. The context clearly establishes what I mean. If you feel something is over-powered, so much so that you feel you need to change it, that's not the same as saying you just didn't like it. Perhaps you feel the DM shouldn't change anything?

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

The only thing I've seen that is potentially overpowered is giving out a lot of magic items.

Then again, I'm also someone who is theorycrafting a wizard that can play the role of a tank nearly as well as the fighter can.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Then again, I'm also someone who is theorycrafting a wizard that can play the role of a tank nearly as well as the fighter can.

I have one of these in my game: a heavy-infantry wizard. A high-DX Necromancer who relies on Vampiric Touch/Fire Shield in combat, and a bunch of zombie bodyguards. The player plays him almost exactly like a Fighter, much to my amusement.