D&D 5E last encounter was totally one-sided

Helldritch · Dec 8, 2016

@Celtavian

I am well aware of the power of sharp shooter feat. It ignores all covers save full.
We have a 31 page thread. 5ed has its draw back. It is clear throughout the thread that I believe that this edition fails around level 15 (sooner if the DM does nothing). But the 5ed works a lot more than previous ones.

And feats are not the only options you can take to give more powers to the players. Inspiration, Hero points, Flanking, Diagonal movement, Facing, Fire arms and Hitting cover. All these are used at my table. Some give a lot of punch to the heroes. Hitting covers makes the Sharp Shooter and Spell Sniper feats mandatory as you can really hit your friends. (yes I have a feat tax)

If you want to play a game out of the box and hope it will go smoothly without any glitches, go back to WoW and other videogames because no table RPG will give you that.

A DM must prepare.
A DM Has to know his players, the system, the rules and everything that goes into the game.
A DM must prepare
A DM must make simulations to see if what he chose could be working as intended. Of course he can't make a simulation out of every combat, but only a few critical ones.
A DM must prepare
Yes that takes time, dedication and a certain mindset. Guess what? I like it that way. Do I have 10 hours of prep per games? Not always, my years of experience give me an edge over a young DM here. But even with all these years I take about 2 to 3 hours per sessions in preperation. That preparation can go up to (but is not limited to) customizing monsters, treasures, vilains and much more to the tastes and powers of my players.

A DM must adapt.
A DM must adapt to his players, their characters and the interactions they have between them and their environment.

RPGs have an edge over vid games in that they are flexible. You can do absolutely anything and it will work, or not. But you can at least try to do it. In vid games, when you are at the edge of the world, you are litteraly at the edge of the world. You can not do what is not programmed. In RPG you have consequences to your actions. You just can't load your last save.

All that flexibility has a cost. A DM must prepare, adapt and give of his time. It is a very demanding job that only mature players and other DM will understand.

Why do you think SSs feats and the GWM feat do work in my games? Simply because I have modified some of the monsters to better against group of 6 players. Even a group of 5 starts to throw the maths off. How do I know? In my young years I had a group of 12 in 1ed. I quickly learned that a group of 6 players is the absolute limit on fun and efficiency. But in all editions, a group of 6 has always been hard to manage.

It is by doing simulations that I saw the flaws of the 5ed. Was I shocked? Was I disapointed? Nope. I was expecting it simply because all systems break down at some point. Without feats the break point of 5ed is around level 15. Not because of the system itself but because of the sheer number of options the players will have anyways. Add in feats and some or all other possible options in the DM and you get a power swing never seen before in D&D. You have to make modifications to some monsters. And guess what? That is where symmetry comes in. What you give the players, you give the monsters. Guess what? It works great! At least at my table.

Is 5ed a bad edition? Nope again. It is probably the best one ever. Goblins and orcs and all low level monsters stay relevant even at high level. We can now have a scene at la "Lord of the ring" where high level characters will flee before a horde of them. In other edition the character would simply stay there and slaughter the humanoids. 5ed is really good.

300 orcs and 6 15th level players... pre 5ed. We kill 'hem all! ROYAL RUMBLE!
5ed... We get the message boss. Let's get out of here now!
Yep, 5ed is really good.

Celtavian · Dec 8, 2016

Helldritch said:
@Celtavian

I am well aware of the power of sharp shooter feat. It ignores all covers save full.
We have a 31 page thread. 5ed has its draw back. It is clear throughout the thread that I believe that this edition fails around level 15 (sooner if the DM does nothing). But the 5ed works a lot more than previous ones.

And feats are not the only options you can take to give more powers to the players. Inspiration, Hero points, Flanking, Diagonal movement, Facing, Fire arms and Hitting cover. All these are used at my table. Some give a lot of punch to the heroes. Hitting covers makes the Sharp Shooter and Spell Sniper feats mandatory as you can really hit your friends. (yes I have a feat tax)

If you want to play a game out of the box and hope it will go smoothly without any glitches, go back to WoW and other videogames because no table RPG will give you that.

A DM must prepare.
A DM Has to know his players, the system, the rules and everything that goes into the game.
A DM must prepare
A DM must make simulations to see if what he chose could be working as intended. Of course he can't make a simulation out of every combat, but only a few critical ones.
A DM must prepare
Yes that takes time, dedication and a certain mindset. Guess what? I like it that way. Do I have 10 hours of prep per games? Not always, my years of experience give me an edge over a young DM here. But even with all these years I take about 2 to 3 hours per sessions in preperation. That preparation can go up to (but is not limited to) customizing monsters, treasures, vilains and much more to the tastes and powers of my players.

A DM must adapt.
A DM must adapt to his players, their characters and the interactions they have between them and their environment.

RPGs have an edge over vid games in that they are flexible. You can do absolutely anything and it will work, or not. But you can at least try to do it. In vid games, when you are at the edge of the world, you are litteraly at the edge of the world. You can not do what is not programmed. In RPG you have consequences to your actions. You just can't load your last save.

All that flexibility has a cost. A DM must prepare, adapt and give of his time. It is a very demanding job that only mature players and other DM will understand.

Why do you think SSs feats and the GWM feat do work in my games? Simply because I have modified some of the monsters to better against group of 6 players. Even a group of 5 starts to throw the maths off. How do I know? In my young years I had a group of 12 in 1ed. I quickly learned that a group of 6 players is the absolute limit on fun and efficiency. But in all editions, a group of 6 has always been hard to manage.

It is by doing simulations that I saw the flaws of the 5ed. Was I shocked? Was I disapointed? Nope. I was expecting it simply because all systems break down at some point. Without feats the break point of 5ed is around level 15. Not because of the system itself but because of the sheer number of options the players will have anyways. Add in feats and some or all other possible options in the DM and you get a power swing never seen before in D&D. You have to make modifications to some monsters. And guess what? That is where symmetry comes in. What you give the players, you give the monsters. Guess what? It works great! At least at my table.

Is 5ed a bad edition? Nope again. It is probably the best one ever. Goblins and orcs and all low level monsters stay relevant even at high level. We can now have a scene at la "Lord of the ring" where high level characters will flee before a horde of them. In other edition the character would simply stay there and slaughter the humanoids. 5ed is really good.

300 orcs and 6 15th level players... pre 5ed. We kill 'hem all! ROYAL RUMBLE!
5ed... We get the message boss. Let's get out of here now!
Yep, 5ed is really good.

300 orcs against 6 15th level players and your player would run? Not mine. They would kill 300 orcs. Not sure it would be that hard. Not sure why you think it would be. 15th level characters are really, really powerful. 300 standard orcs are not much of a match them unless you have somehow set up the encounter where all three hundred can surround and attack the party every round with 300 attacks. If they're loosely spread out in a horde the PCs are tracking, six 15th level characters will kill them all with minimum trouble, though it would be a long, monotonous, and uninteresting exercise in dice rolling.

As far as your other statemetns, already know all of it. You're telling me absolutely nothing I don't already know and already do.

Sacrosanct · Dec 8, 2016

Helldritch said:
300 orcs and 6 15th level players... pre 5ed. We kill 'hem all! ROYAL RUMBLE!
5ed... We get the message boss. Let's get out of here now!
Yep, 5ed is really good.

Celtavian said:
300 orcs against 6 15th level players and your player would run? Not mine. They would kill 300 orcs. Not sure it would be that hard..

I'm guessing there is a huge difference in play style here. A battalion of low level mobs in 5e is much more dangerous than in older editions, that's for sure. I am pretty sure that our table would do whatever they could to avoid a rampaging horde of 300 orcs, even with our group that finished RoT (we were 15th level).

It's like the very first post in this thread. If I was running those NPCs against a party of that composition, the NPCs would probably wax the PCs fairly easy. In fact, just give me the diviner and a bunch of mooks to qualify for a "deadly" encounter, and I would still make it extremely hard on the PCs as described. A DM who preps and knows his or her NPCs is a great counter to players who think they are all that

Helldritch · Dec 8, 2016

@Celtavian
I am pretty sure that our playstyle is very different. Who said anything about 300 "standard" orcs?
A war party will have standard orcs yes. But it will also have Eyes of Gruumsh, War Leaders, Claws of Luthic, Zombies and Skeletons from priest and many other special orcs. Even if 80% of the horde is standard, that leaves us with 60 non standard orcs. More than enough to kill your 15th level characters. Believe me, whatever your character have in reserve, I could manage them.

Once I was asked by a DM to help him out with his group. They were level 24th and they were about to slay all gods in the Legend and lore book. A typical Montyhaul campaing that went wrong. With the group, I bet with them that I could kill them with a hundred ogres and one mage level 12. They all laughed at me. 1 hour later. The group was dead. The funny thing is that my group would never have fallen for that simple trap.

All this to say that if your group isn't afraid of a 300 orc rampaging group. They should be. Maybe that is why you consider that 5ed is failing...

hawkeyefan · Dec 8, 2016

I honestly wonder when some folks will start to question their players' role in all this.

It sounds to me like instances of players who are actively trying to "win" the game by creating the character builds with the most damage output and not much else, hence the multiclassing simply to grab class abilities at low levels, and combining that with feats to create maximum power combos, and then also optimizing across the party so that their group is simply an effective killing force.

I don't typically think there's anything wrong with players optimizing to some extent. But when that's all that they do, maybe that's a problem.

Maybe the game just isn't as rewarding when that's all the players care about. Clearly, that seems to be the case.

My group and I went through this phase to a lesser extent. We had a discussion about it....we talked about how ludicrous it was from the fictional standpoint, and also the impact it had on the game and everyone's enjoyment of it. We agreed that it was ultimately a negative impact...it was the equivalent of setting the difficulty to "Easy". If the campaign was a story, it would be the most boring one they'd ever read...the characters just waltzing through every danger, and not even acknowledging anything as a viable threat. Hordes of enemies are not a threat? Something is wrong.

I would think that abandoning a game wouldn't really solve the problem, since any game will face this problem at some point. It's just a matter of time until the players get familiar enough with the system mechanics to come up with these "game-breaking" combinations. I think the only thing to do is adjust the players' view of the game, and the point of it all, and then change how I ran the game to reinforce a view that would be more rewarding.

Remove some of the options that they rely on in order to maximize their characters....feats and multi-classing being removed and see how good they are as actual players who need to think instead of simply switching their kill button to "ON" and then slaughtering everything in sight. Put them up against enemies that they CANNOT defeat physically. I mean don't even create stats for the thing....make them come up with another solution than killing. Maybe try some pregenerated characters that have goals and motives beyond simply killing everything, and maybe have abilities that are focused on areas other than combat (gasp!!). Maybe come up with encounters that challenge the characters outside of combat. I mean, the way some of these games are described, I would say that drastic measures are in order....I can't see how they are fun for the DM, and how they'd be fun for the players for very long.
[MENTION=6855114]Helldritch[/MENTION] listed a bunch of options that were more mechanically based....more functions of the game. If those options don't fix the problem, then I think the problem is actually far deeper than the game system. I think adjustments in play style and DM style are in order.

Sacrosanct · Dec 8, 2016

hawkeyefan said:
I honestly wonder when some folks will start to question their players' role in all this.

It sounds to me like instances of players who are actively trying to "win" the game by creating the character builds with the most damage output and not much else, hence the multiclassing simply to grab class abilities at low levels, and combining that with feats to create maximum power combos, and then also optimizing across the party so that their group is simply an effective killing force.

I don't typically think there's anything wrong with players optimizing to some extent. But when that's all that they do, maybe that's a problem.
.

The game is built on the assumption of all three pillars of game play will occur with about same weighting. In a typical game, a PC that is hyperspecialized for a certain type of combat will not fare as well in exploration or interaction, or other types of combat, so it all sort of balances out. However, if you have a game table where pretty much all they do is combat after combat, focusing in DPR and specialization, then I can see why some people may think the rules are weak. There's nothing wrong with that style of course, but people need to realize that if they aren't playing the assumed type of game, then it will require modification on the DM's end to make it work the way they want.

hawkeyefan · Dec 8, 2016

Sacrosanct said:
The game is built on the assumption of all three pillars of game play will occur with about same weighting. In a typical game, a PC that is hyperspecialized for a certain type of combat will not fare as well in exploration or interaction, or other types of combat, so it all sort of balances out. However, if you have a game table where pretty much all they do is combat after combat, focusing in DPR and specialization, then I can see why some people may think the rules are weak. There's nothing wrong with that style of course, but people need to realize that if they aren't playing the assumed type of game, then it will require modification on the DM's end to make it work the way they want.

Yeah, there isn't anything wrong with that playstyle, generally speaking. My own games place a good deal of focus on conflict and combat, but it's far from the sole focus.

However, when folks express dissatisfaction with their game, and explain that is how they play....I have to ask if maybe that's part of the problem. Obviously, we don't have a total picture of teh game in question, but from the info we do know, a connection seems to be apparent.

I mean, to use a basic analogy, I would find it more fun to play and to DM in a game where Batman was the character, rather than Superman. These games seem to be made up of a bunch of Superman type characters who probably also lack the human connections that typically serve as Superman's vulnerability.

That game sounds really boring. It's like playing a video game with an invincibility cheat code enabled.

Cap'n Kobold · Dec 8, 2016

Celtavian said:
300 orcs against 6 15th level players and your player would run? Not mine. They would kill 300 orcs. Not sure it would be that hard. Not sure why you think it would be. 15th level characters are really, really powerful. 300 standard orcs are not much of a match them unless you have somehow set up the encounter where all three hundred can surround and attack the party every round with 300 attacks. If they're loosely spread out in a horde the PCs are tracking, six 15th level characters will kill them all with minimum trouble, though it would be a long, monotonous, and uninteresting exercise in dice rolling.

Interesting. Even assuming that on average each orc only gets one attack on the party before dying, 5e's bounded accuracy was intended to make that orc horde coming for them a threat. Its not like 3.5 ed where they'd need 20s to even hit the party members.

How do you think the intentions of the system would break down in the case of that horde?

CapnZapp · Dec 8, 2016

Sacrosanct said:
The game is built on the assumption of all three pillars of game play will occur with about same weighting.

In 99% of all games I've ever run, seen or read about; including published modules, combat and combat stats account for at least half the effort, focus and work.

Nearly every rule in the rulebook involves combat to some degree. The "combat subsystem" is massive, much larger than the "skill subsystem", the "social subsystem" and the "travel/explore subsystems" put together.

Sacrosanct · Dec 8, 2016

CapnZapp said:
In 99% of all games I've ever run, seen or read about; including published modules, combat and combat stats account for at least half the effort, focus and work.

Nearly every rule in the rulebook involves combat to some degree. The "combat subsystem" is massive, much larger than the "skill subsystem", the "social subsystem" and the "travel/explore subsystems" put together.

Because it has to be. We've been over this dozens of times, over dozens of years. You don't need an equal amount of page count for things like roleplaying and exploration because it's easier to mitigate. But that does not mean that combat takes up more of the actual game play. By that flawed logic, there would be 10x as many casters as fighter PCs because spells take up a lot more page count. It simply isn't true.

Also, I'd caution you using your personal experience as some sort of declaration about how much combat is assumed. For one, table preferences vary. Heck, the last time I ran ToEE, we went an entire 10 hour session with no combat at all. Rather the session was a big political manipulation fest between the PCs trying to get the temple factions to fight against each other. The owner of my local FLGS has only about 1 combat per session, which is less than 25% of the time spent, and that's a typical session for them. But more importantly (taking your and my anecdotal experiences out), the book tells you that there are three pillars, and they are of equal importance.