D&D 5E My Hope for D&D 5/N

[Remathilis]

Today, I started working on my next adventure for my Pathfinder group. They are exploring some sahuagin ruins (thanks to a wand of water-breathing). So I started the usual path I do whenever I make an adventure: select a map from my archives (hello Stormwrack map archive!), and begin to seed it with monsters. Then it hits me.

Ok, I need to create an opening encounter. Lets see: sahuagins are CR 2, so four of them is CR 6. They have NPC treasure, so I need to subtract that from the 3,000 gp treasure the encounter awards...

Lather, rinse, repeat for another eight encounter areas. That's not counting the sahuagin priestesses with cleric levels (and NPC gear), the sahuagin animated skeletons, and the aquatic vampire malenti barbarian who is the bbeg. All hand-made npcs.

I love Pathfinder (and by extension, have warm fuzzies for 3e than 4e never gave me) but as I work on this adventure (and it could be any dungeon, mystery, sandbox, or railroad) I find the work needed to keep things "balanced" is tiring. Overshoot and you end up with TPKs. Undershoot and its no challenge. Watch your treasure totals so the PCs don't have too much/little wealth for their level. The NPCs which require as much work as a typical PC (and rarely last more than a few rounds anyway).

What ever happened to fighting half-a-dozen sahuagin and finding a +1 trident and not worrying about all that stuff? Seeding plots by idea, not CR appropriate monster?

Thus, I sincerely hope that D&D 5e bring me back to an era where I don't need spreadsheets, a dozen charts, and a character generator to realize an idea. Sure, their still be some math in making an adventure, but if D&D can ease it back to the days when I opened up the MM and rolled # Appearing, followed by a roll on the treasure table rather than constantly eyballing CRs, treasure budgets, and other elements like that, I will be happy.

 

[the Jester]

I am so with you on this.

Screw tiresome balancing acts. A system that lets me eyeball things, and better still, allows pcs to eyeball threats and choose whether they want to mess with them, will please me greatly. Nothing against 3e and 4e; I love both. But "quick and easy" is one of my very favorite things about early D&D, and I hope it will be one of my favorites about 5e, too. So far, it's lookin' good.

 

[lkj]

Amen. I loved 3rd edition. But it was exactly this that made 4e so appealing. Alas, several of my players have not shared my 4e enthusiasm. So far the playtest seems to have hit a sweet spot.

May the 'final' 5e bear this out completely.

AD

 

[am181d]

In my experience running Pathfinder/3e:

1) It's perfectly fine to eyeball encounters
2) NPCs don't need to be fully statted out (I routinely use characters that are a short list of modifiers, HP, and attacks)
3) If the PCs are a little more powerful, because you gave them "too much treasure" you can throw a few more bad guys at them and it will balance out
4) Similarly, if you find the PCs are having too easy or too hard of a time, you can adjust the numbers from encounter to encounter

While it's true that the MODIFIERS are larger in Pathfinder/3e than they appear they'll be in 5e, I haven't found any of the fundamentals have changed.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Must spread XP around to give Remathilis more!

 

[Jacob Marley]

Must spread XP around to give Remathilis more!

I'm experiencing the same problem. Good stuff, [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION].

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That's why I only like to PLAY 3.x / PF and not DM it. (And at heart, I'm more a DM than a Player).

I love every edition, but that's the one I don't enjoy that side of the table.

 

[Cybit]

Today, I started working on my next adventure for my Pathfinder group. They are exploring some sahuagin ruins (thanks to a wand of water-breathing). So I started the usual path I do whenever I make an adventure: select a map from my archives (hello Stormwrack map archive!), and begin to seed it with monsters. Then it hits me.

Ok, I need to create an opening encounter. Lets see: sahuagins are CR 2, so four of them is CR 6. They have NPC treasure, so I need to subtract that from the 3,000 gp treasure the encounter awards...

Lather, rinse, repeat for another eight encounter areas. That's not counting the sahuagin priestesses with cleric levels (and NPC gear), the sahuagin animated skeletons, and the aquatic vampire malenti barbarian who is the bbeg. All hand-made npcs.

I love Pathfinder (and by extension, have warm fuzzies for 3e than 4e never gave me) but as I work on this adventure (and it could be any dungeon, mystery, sandbox, or railroad) I find the work needed to keep things "balanced" is tiring. Overshoot and you end up with TPKs. Undershoot and its no challenge. Watch your treasure totals so the PCs don't have too much/little wealth for their level. The NPCs which require as much work as a typical PC (and rarely last more than a few rounds anyway).

What ever happened to fighting half-a-dozen sahuagin and finding a +1 trident and not worrying about all that stuff? Seeding plots by idea, not CR appropriate monster?

Thus, I sincerely hope that D&D 5e bring me back to an era where I don't need spreadsheets, a dozen charts, and a character generator to realize an idea. Sure, their still be some math in making an adventure, but if D&D can ease it back to the days when I opened up the MM and rolled # Appearing, followed by a roll on the treasure table rather than constantly eyballing CRs, treasure budgets, and other elements like that, I will be happy.

Anecdata

I ran two games on Saturday with no prep; a 6 hour session where the players were 12 year olds, and I had let them decide what level they wanted to be (had to be under 10) and made up multiple encounters on the fly with no reference to monster power available what so ever (didn't have levels or CR on me), and then another 5 hour session with adults who switched from 4E to 5E when I got there (They changed their minds) with no reference either. Both encounters were challenging and required no brain power to set up. Also, the lack of magic items in 5E makes treasure so much simpler.

Seeding plots by ideas work better in 5E (IMO) because weaker monsters are legitimate threats to higher level parties in numbers. All of the near TPKs have been from swarms of lower level monsters (significantly lower), rather than a duo of big threats.

 

[Klaus]

Today, I started working on my next adventure for my Pathfinder group. They are exploring some sahuagin ruins (thanks to a wand of water-breathing). So I started the usual path I do whenever I make an adventure: select a map from my archives (hello Stormwrack map archive!), and begin to seed it with monsters. Then it hits me.

Ok, I need to create an opening encounter. Lets see: sahuagins are CR 2, so four of them is CR 6. They have NPC treasure, so I need to subtract that from the 3,000 gp treasure the encounter awards...

Lather, rinse, repeat for another eight encounter areas. That's not counting the sahuagin priestesses with cleric levels (and NPC gear), the sahuagin animated skeletons, and the aquatic vampire malenti barbarian who is the bbeg. All hand-made npcs.

I love Pathfinder (and by extension, have warm fuzzies for 3e than 4e never gave me) but as I work on this adventure (and it could be any dungeon, mystery, sandbox, or railroad) I find the work needed to keep things "balanced" is tiring. Overshoot and you end up with TPKs. Undershoot and its no challenge. Watch your treasure totals so the PCs don't have too much/little wealth for their level. The NPCs which require as much work as a typical PC (and rarely last more than a few rounds anyway).

What ever happened to fighting half-a-dozen sahuagin and finding a +1 trident and not worrying about all that stuff? Seeding plots by idea, not CR appropriate monster?

Thus, I sincerely hope that D&D 5e bring me back to an era where I don't need spreadsheets, a dozen charts, and a character generator to realize an idea. Sure, their still be some math in making an adventure, but if D&D can ease it back to the days when I opened up the MM and rolled # Appearing, followed by a roll on the treasure table rather than constantly eyballing CRs, treasure budgets, and other elements like that, I will be happy.

That'd be neat, wouldn't it?

 

[pickin_grinnin]

In my campaigns, it's up to the PCs to make smart decisions on their own. Some of the things they encounter may technically be above their level, some below, and some at it. If they encounter something that is "above their level," they can avoid it, or find a way to kill it that doesn't require them to go running out, swords drawn. It's their choice. If they make the foolish choice to attack something that is obviously way above their abilities and they die, hopefully they just learned a lesson.