D&D 5E D&D Basic DM rules updated

[Scorpio616]

Very good to see an expected number of short rests called out.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Very good to see an expected number of short rests called out.

Unless you're planning to play a warlock.

 

[Joe Liker]

Step 4 of "Evaluating Encounter Difficulty" is still way off base IMO.

It's basically saying, "The risks for this encounter are significantly higher than you'd expect, but we don't see any reason to increase the rewards."

As an example in episode 3 of HotDQ (as related by my DM -- I haven't read it myself, so the details may be slightly off):

Spoiler

The stirges in the bat room are worth less than half the XP of the two guards just inside the entrance. But because of the large number of stirges, they can quickly and easily drain the party of far more hp than the two guards could ever hope to. The guards are a very easy fight; the stirges could cause a TPK if the players don't have luck on their side.

It's ridiculous that they made such a big deal about bounded accuracy and the increased threat from low-level monsters, and now they're basically saying that, while you should keep it in mind so you don't kill the whole party, it's not such a big deal that you should actually reward your players accordingly.

 

[Tormyr]

Nothing was changed as far as I see, they just added the last two sections about how to make combat more fun and how to adjust difficulty based on special circumstances.

Actually, no, I don't agree. It seems like it was formatted to be more concise, but the content appears pretty much the same to me.

That had been my thought. There's been a decent amount of editing, but at a glance (aside from the few previously mentioned additions) I didn't notice huge differences. I'm still really not sure how I feel about the encounter building guidelines. I'm not a huge fan of encounter guidelines in general, but I know some people really want them and I wonder if these will leave those people satisfied.

One huge change that was made is how the easy, medium, hard, and deadly xp thresholds are used in encounter building.

In v0.1, the guidelines said that anything under one of the thresholds was an encounter of that difficulty. In the example given in "Example: Encounter Difficulty" the Medium threshold is 550xp and the Hard threshold is 925 XP. The 4 hobgoblins are worth an encounter difficulty of 800 XP. The example says that since this crosses the Medium threshold but not the Hard threshold that this is a Hard encounter. In this system, it was possible to go beyond the Deadly threshold and create a Beyond Deadly encounter.

In v0.2, the guidelines say that if you cross an XP threshold, it is an encounter of that difficulty. In the "5. Compare XP" section, it gives an example of a party with a Hard threshold of 825 XP and a Deadly threshold of 1,400 XP. The monsters given have an adjusted XP value of 1,000 XP. The text says that this is a Hard encounter because it crossed the Hard threshold. There no longer is a Beyond Deadly encounter. Now it is possible to make a "Less than Easy" or "Trivial" encounter. The 4 Hobgoblins in the previous example would now be a Medium encounter instead of a Hard encounter.

The end result of this is that encounters built using one version and then the other of the guildelines will see a modest bump in difficulty (if a Medium difficulty encounter was built using both sets of rules).

 

[ExploderWizard]

It's ridiculous that they made such a big deal about bounded accuracy and the increased threat from low-level monsters, and now they're basically saying that, while you should keep it in mind so you don't kill the whole party, it's not such a big deal that you should actually reward your players accordingly.

This is one reason why I will be moving away from encounter based XP and more toward XP for treasure in my next campaign. I wanted to try the XP system as written just to try it out first.

 

[jrowland]

It's ridiculous that they made such a big deal about bounded accuracy and the increased threat from low-level monsters, and now they're basically saying that, while you should keep it in mind so you don't kill the whole party, it's not such a big deal that you should actually reward your players accordingly.

I think perhaps that this edition is focusing more on narration. While adding a bunch of low level monsters increases difficulty, they are still low level monsters. A few extra SP in an extra hobgoblins coin purse is about all you'd expect, and is far under-par for treasure for the added difficulty, yes, but it doesn't make narrative sense to throw in a bunch more rewards.

From a gamist perspective, certainly more risk = more reward. Feel free to bump your rewards as needed. The DM gestapo has been disbanded.

 

[Joe Liker]

From a gamist perspective, certainly more risk = more reward. Feel free to bump your rewards as needed. The DM gestapo has been disbanded.

I understand that, and I certainly will. I just think it sends the wrong message to have this written in the rules. (By the way, I'm only referring to XP rewards in my rant, not treasure.)

In many cases, XP is an illusion, anyway. DMs everywhere fudge here and there to make the party level up when the DM feels it's appropriate. But if you're going to go to all the trouble of making up charts and formulas for an XP budget and balanced encounters, it's extremely bad form to turn around and chuck the notion of risk and reward out the window.

 

[Tormyr]

Using the XP for just the creatures may be an effort to keep the party from levelling up to quickly.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

They also mentioned that the multiplier should not be increased for enemies that are not actually challenging enough to make a big difference in the fight. So say your level 7 and fighting a Mindflayer and it's Grimlock slaves. You would not increase the multiplier for the Grimlocks as they are not challenging enough to warrant the multiplier rising.

 

[TerraDave]

Step 4 of "Evaluating Encounter Difficulty" is still way off base IMO.

It's basically saying, "The risks for this encounter are significantly higher than you'd expect, but we don't see any reason to increase the rewards."

It might be to reward more strategic play...try to avoid getting monsters all in a group, somehow. Though, I am somewhat skeptical if that much adjustment was needed. I have always had PCs that can attack multiple targets. Through every edition (well, except maybe some low level 1E), and not just the wizard in the party, though especially them.

I do appreciate how they note that

don’t count any monsters whose challenge rating is significantly below the average challenge rating of the other monsters in the group unless you think the weak monsters significantly contribute to the difficulty of the encounter.

(Oops, just ninjaed on that. )

One huge change that was made is how the easy, medium, hard, and deadly xp thresholds are used in encounter building.

...

I missed that one. But I caught the clarification under multiple attackers note aboved. And discussion of CR is changed. It is not emphasized as much, and the danger of a high CR is now more an issue for low level characters.