D&D 5E Analyzing 5E: Overpowered by design

[Prism]

You completely missed the point of my post. I can't much respond to someone that misses the point.

To make it easier to comprehend, I'm saying what people considered overpowered is not overpowered because it is by design. As in the game was designed for the PCs to be quite powerful, in some ways more so than 3.5 or Pathfinder.

I think its your use of the term overpowered rather than simply powerful which is a bit misleading. Overpowered suggests more powerful than intended which you are not actually arguing - just more powerful than maybe older editions?

Personally we are finding it fast and furious like you say for the smaller incidental fights but when the DM wants to create a challenge for the big events he has no problem in doing do - mainly by using more creatures in combination with tougher creatures. By the time we get to the important stuff we are often severely lacking in spells, healing and resources like superiority dice

PS try fighting a pit fiend and his lackeys at 20th level - its not easy

 

[TreChriron]

in my short experience with the game,the math is wonderful! The PCs all contribute something, everyone has cool stuff to do. The game works fast. It's fun to play.

Personally, I would focus on what you can do to make adventures fun and challenging for the PCs brought to the table. Be a fan of the characters! let them be "powerful"! There's more to a character's story than the cool powers they obtain. What about the NPCs, relationships, reputations, deeds, legacies and plots? Aren't the PCs doing something? I mean besides running amok killing monsters and rolling dice?

Its our job as DMs to bring the rest of it. The rules have the numbers covered. It's your job to make sure the game is about more than numbers.

 

[Sunseeker]

Power-building and clever optimizing makes for overpowered characters?

Well yes, as that is generally the point of doing so.

I'm sorry, but this thread reeks of "If you build a really good character, it'll be really powerful! Therefore the edition is broken!"

I've never experienced any problems with any of this and perhaps 5th is designed to be played fast and violent, what's wrong with that? Wasn't one of people's major complaints about 4th that combat could drag on for hours? (I loved 4th and I agree that was a major issue with it) If your party is amped-up, amp up your enemies. An extra die+5dmg every turn will put those optimizers in their place.

 

[jgsugden]

Steps to address the perception that PCs are overpowered and that there is no challenge for them in the game:

#1: Make sure you're not handing out too much treasure or that the PCs themselves didn't beat the law of averages when they were rolled. If you follow the guidelines, a party of PCs should find a total of about 30 permanent magical items over 20 levels. Further, the stuff should not really start rolling in until ~5th level - a level where the PCs are intended to get a huge bump in power with more frequent real magic items, fireballs, second attacks, etc... If the party has too much good gear at any given point, it makes a big difference. It also makes a difference if PC stats are better than the point buy system would allow. Rolling stats is fine if you get fairly average stats, but when you have a few PCs strolling around with an 18 or 20 attribute at first level, it defies the expectations of the game. There are a number of parties out there with a few PCs with too much stuff and stats that are just higher than the designers intended. In many ways, having a 20 strength at first level is like starting the game with a +2 weapon.

#2: Easy and medium encounters should pose no real harm to a PC group. If you throw these at the group, there should be objectives other than killing the monsters to keep the PCs challenged. For example, can they kill the bandit orcs before the orcs slaughter the peasants? Can they cut through the bandits before their leader escapes with the loot? Can they fight their way past the pirates and get off the ship before it sinks? Kobolds die with one hit, but if the goal is to stop them from escaping and they have no wish to battle the PCs, it becomes an entirely different challenge.

#3: Hard and deadly encounters (just over the deadly threshold) tend to be reasonable challenges that the PCs should be expected to win unless they get unlucky. However, they are not all created equal. A 6th or 7th level party that encounters a giant with a tendency to roll critical on those thrown rocks can find themselves in surprisingly deep water before they get close. Sneaky monsters might be easy kills if the party gets the drop on them, but may fell a PC before they can react if the monster gets the drop on the PCs. Consider how you use these monsters to make sure they are an appropriate challenge. Remember that easy, medium and hard encounters are extremely unlikely to kill a PC. Only deadly encounters should have a chance of killing a PC.

#4: Don't be afraid to venture higher into the deadly range when building encounters. Just change the goal from beating the enemy to surviving the enemy attack and escaping. Make it clear to the PCs that they can't win and give them a route to escape. As an example, I recently tossed 5 6th level PCs against 40 zombies, 10 ghouls, 3 mummies, 2 vampire spawn, a vampire and 2 Immoliths (converted to be CR 9 each). This would have been a deadly encounter for a 20th level party. However, the goal was not for them to kill the enemies - it was for them to realize they could not win and flee in such a way that they only had to fight a small number of the enemies and survive long enough for the cavalry to arrive. The PCs definitely did not feel overpowered in this battle - but it set the stage for later battles against some of these foes in which the PCs will really feel their power growth.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

The weaknesses:

1. Two-weapon fighting and Dueling are not on par with Archery and Great Weapon Mastery. There is no way to spike damage for either style. No feats provide such potent inherent benefits as to make either style desirable over Great Weapon Fighter or Archery in a purely mathematical sense. I do not like this. I do not want a player choosing Dueling or Two-weapon style to feel they are taking an inferior option. I would rather they be as numerically effective dealing damage as a Great Weapon Fighter or Archer. I intend to give both fighting styles feats that allow them to spike damage.

2. Rogue damage: I understand rogue damage being weaker than fighters, barbarians, and other martial classes due to an inability to spike damage using a feat or spells and lack of multiple attacks, but I don't want the gap to become as wide as it appears right now. I'm going to be watching this closely to make sure Great Weapon Master fighters and Sharpshooter archers aren't making Sneak Attack a far too weak option.

Some things I do like about Sneak Attack is the single bit hit has a better chance of disrupting concentration and very powerful in combination with Stealthy attacking, especially sniping. I don't like that it may fall substantially behind in the typical way parties fight with everyone standing in the opening swinging at the creatures. I'll keep a close eye on this one.

What kind of trends are others seeing? What are you doing about them?

On (1) you can't base the 'power' of a martial class purely on their ability to do damage. Archers and Great Weapon wielders can only use their primary weapon on a standard attack action and don't have the option for an additional attack in a bonus action like dual-weapon wielders, barring special circumstances. Nor can they use a shield like duelists. There are many trade offs and there will never be absolute parity between the choices. However I feel that each class lends itself well to the players to whom those classes appeal to, which is the point anyway.

 

[Blackbrrd]

[offtopic]
What's up with arguing about what class is the best? It's going to be soooo circumstancial I don't know why you are even bothering.
[/offtopic]

Anyway, comparing to earlier editions, there are quite a lot of abilities that feels overpowered in 5e. This might feel like a problem initially to a previous edition DM, but after a while, I have noticed that hey, every class has some "OP" stuff compared to earlier editions, but since every class has it, and you don't have to optimize to create a "OP" character, 5e looks to be the best balanced edition yet.

In earlier editions, it was so hard to create a really good character mechanically. You would usually have to browse around a lot to find the right feats/powers/spells/classes/prestige classes and so on. In 5e you can build something that took either hours upon hours of reading through a hundred splat books in 30 minutes.

Mostly, they got rid of the tiered system, with the full casters on the top and the low base attack non-spellcasters on the bottom. At the same time, they maintained the huge difference there is (and in my opinion should be) between a full caster and a non-spellcaster.

I have played a couple of sessions with very varying party composition, and instead of falling apart, they just handle the encounters completely differently. With a Rogue and Sorcerer, they were sneaking around, backstabbing and casting silent spells. With a Barbarian and Druid, they went with a full frontal assault, because hey, the Barbarian takes half damage and the Druid can heal! In 3e (especially) and 4e, the party really crumbles mechanically if you don't have a certain composition.

Btw, I am running a 4e and 5e campaign in parallel and having a good time with both systems, but I have used quite a lot of optional rules/tweaks on my 4e game that doesn't look necessary for my 5e game.

 

[KarinsDad]

I find this entire "overpowered" idea to be potential "lazy DMing".

Monsters have many of the same synergies that PCs have. The difference is that each player is optimizing his PC for the long term. Game after game, encounter after encounter. The DM has disposable monsters, so he might not be optimizing his monsters or their tactics hardly at all. On top of this, many PC classes/subclasses have spells. Most monsters do not. Spells are like guns in the real world. They are great equalizers. Players can start pulling out spells that can seriously hinder their foes or help their allies. This is one of the reasons why PCs might seem overpowered. They have go to the well abilities like spells and can change the course of the entire battle in a single turn.


To give an example of how a DM can up the monster tactics a bit, in our next game, the 6 5th level PCs and 2 3rd level NPC henchmen (for lack of a better word) in our group are about to take on 11 normal Orcs, an Orc Warchief, and a female Orc Shaman (basically Druid from MM). They are outnumbered 13 to 8, but the Orcs are HD 2, the Chief 11, and the Shaman 5 (but only 4 in casting level). So, 2650 XP or a medium challenge rating (note: the adjusted XP rules in the MM would have a DM multiply this by 3, obviously, this is not a 7950 xp deadly encounter by any stretch of the imagination, those rules are awful). And, there are some extenuating circumstances at the moment:

1) The party was previously split up and lost their equipment via a magical trap, so the PCs do not have their equipment. They are using borrowed equipment from other PCs (i.e. the Cleric has mostly the Fighter's stuff, the Fighter has the Rogue's stuff and the Ranger's stuff, etc.). So, some PCs have better AC than normal, some have worse, some have magic weapons they never had before, some lost their magic weapons, etc. A few cannot cast some of their spells because they are lacking specific material components.

2) Some of the party found each other, so the party is now effectively split into three groups. One group is heading towards the Orcs from the west, one from the south, and one PC is invisible in the middle of the large Orc room.

3) The Orcs already encountered some of the PCs. Three Orcs chased after the PCs and got killed, one Orc went back and warned the others and woke up the Orcs that were sleeping. So not only are the Orcs alert and ready for danger, they have also knocked over some tables and beds and are using them for cover as they prepare for a fight with bows and javelins (note: some of the Orcs have longbows, I find it dumb that all monsters use wimpy ranged weapons).

The rooms adjacent to this big room are well lit, so no chance of surprise by either side.

According to the normal guidelines, this is a medium encounter. But, that does not mean that the DM has to play the monsters like idiots. The Orcs have been trapped in this location for some time. They know the surrounding rooms well. They would have set up some traps given the chance, but they just do not have the materials or expertise or terrain to do this. So their leader (who is crafty) has devised combat tactics for when they get attacked (and this has happened due to "wandering monsters", the PCs are in the Ruins of Undermountain).

Tactic 1: Several of the Orcs are ordered to become cannon fodder. One Orc rushes up to a one foe and Dodges instead of attacking. Another Orc does the same. Another, the same. One Orc per enemy. This greatly increases the defense of that Orc. If the target disengages, he lost an action. If the target attacks the Orc, he's at disadvantage. If the target uses a ranged attack against anyone else, he's at disadvantage. This does nothing against spell casting save spells, but it does weaken a lot of other options. The Orcs not dodging focus fire ranged attacks against one or two other enemies. This tactic limits the mobility of the PCs and blunts the effectiveness of many of their attacks.

Tactic 2: The Shaman will be ordered is to seal off a section of the room with the most foes with an Entangle spell so that the Orcs can use Tactic 1 on the remaining enemies. This tactic might be used again later on in the fight once the PCs start dropping Orcs and most PCs are out of the initial Entangle, but it could also be used against specific foes if the Chief considers certain PCs to be major threats.

Tactic 3: Heal the Orcs. The Monster Manual does not give the Druid NPC Healing Word, but I am. It's stupid for evil spell casting creatures to not have heal spells from their deities. This will mostly be used for the Shaman herself, but if a tactically well placed Orc is a little wounded, she might up his odds of holding.

Tactic 4: Fight the wimps. The Chief is going to attack PCs in lesser armor. The faster he can drop PCs, the faster his Orcs win the fight.

Tactic 5: Swarm. Orcs have the aggressive feature, so their mobility is much greater than PCs. The leader will order 4 or 5 of them to swarm a single PC and overwhelm him.

Tactic 6: Stay behind cover and use ranged attacks. Their ranged attacks do not do as much damage as their melee attacks, but the more the Orcs do not get hit, the more they outnumber the PCs in attacks per round (assuming tactic #1 is not in use). This tactic is probably a last ditch effort type of thing. Tactics 1 and 5 will find a lot more use.


The PCs are supposed to win most fights, or if too challenging, run away from them. A DM who takes time out crafting his encounters will find out that the PCs do not seem as overpowered as he first thought, instead, some of them might seem underpowered.

If the PCs seem to bust through encounters right and left too easily, it's really not that hard to either up the difficulty of the encounters, or add some decent monster tactics / terrain. But, it takes time and effort ahead of time for a DM to prepare his encounters with forethought. Encounters should not just be easy or medium. Throw some hard and deadly encounters in the mix.

I feel that too many easy encounters are a waste of time. It doesn't make the players feel empowered, it just blows through resources. Meh. Challenge your players and they will not seem overpowered.

 

[Nebulous]

.

When you start calling almost everything overpowered, take a deep breath, clear your head, and start checking your intuitions. Your intuition is what is telling you "No that cannot be right," but intuition doesn't hold up well when editions change. You have to go back to the drawing board and confirm your intuitions, correcting them where they no longer hold. Does Fighter damage scale well vs. enemy HP? Does it grow exponentially faster, or does it seem to not keep up? That's the kind of checking you need to do before you leap on something as "overpowered." It might actually slot just fine into the context of the new edition, filling exactly the position it should fill so that people don't fall behind.
.

I think you've touched upon an excellent point here. Although 5e does appear very similar to 3rd nuts and bolts -wise, it has some significant differences and the hit point limit of monsters is the new "toughness". I know that I'm enjoying 5e and so are the players, and we are not the kind of group that dissects the math to see how it works unless something seems broken. Which we haven't really seen yet up until 5th level.

 

[Staffan]

Dueling is (ironically) the sword-and-board style, since by RAW it doesn't prevent you from having a shield in the off hand. It's not meant for improving damage really. You're right about TWF though; early on it's strong because it's an extra attack, but it becomes progressively weaker as other extra attacks come in.

Dueling is the "balanced" combat style. If you want to be a damage sponge, take Defensive for the extra AC. If you want to be a damage dealer, take Great Weapon Master for the extra damage with twohanders, which already deal a lot of damage. If you want the middle ground of some extra damage while maintaining the AC bonus of a shield, take Dueling.

 

[Nebulous]

I'll tell you what though, and this is just my style of play, which is more "story" based and not gamist - last session the party returned to the Lost Mine of Phandelver with 24 NPCs, mostly fodder knights but also some beefier captains.

I did not calculate any XP because I don't use XP. I did not calculate Challenge Ratings from monsters or encounter budgets. I knew 2 things: a) stats for the NPCs and b) stats for the Monsters

I threw it into the blender with the heroes and hit "frappe". And it worked out absolutely fine.