D&D 5E 5th Edition has broken Bounded Accuracy

[Celtavian]

Furthermore, someone who claims that "my fun does come from effectively solving challenges" (I lean towards this view myself) has no grounds to claim that the mechanics of the game (concentration) is "limiting his fun", because solving the game within the constraints of the rules as written is the source of the fun! (My players are more the "glorious and reckless" sorts so I don't get to indulge this side of me very often unless I'm playing in someone else's game, which is why Celtavian's dragon challenge sounds like fun.)

So someone who claims that the game is limiting his fun by not enabling melee fighters to match ranged fighters must be speaking from an aesthetic standpoint, as in, "I think the game would be more fun if melee weapons were better." Which is fine. It's no different from the way I think the game is more fun with spell points than spell slots, so I've adopted the DMG variant--because it's nice when the physics of the game world reflect the reality you're interested in playing.

It's a pretty clear issue created by the game mechanics. A melee martial cannot bring his abilities to bear against a dragon without fly. It has reach. It moves at 80 feet a move. I'm not sure how you play dragons, so experience can differ. We play dragons taking opportunity attacks. The calculation is simple. One opportunity attack is far better than a full round of attacks. So it will fly in do a full attack, fly away to cover or darkness (80 feet brings it out of most creatures dark vision range). It will do this round after round using lair actions to further damage the party. It opens with the breath weapon and uses it every time it is available strafing the party as often as it can. It can usually kill a party faster than you can burn down its legendary resistance.

The claim you can burn down Legendary Resistance before the dragon kills a five person party seems strange to me as well. I've fought these things. A 100 hit points of damage in a round is not at all unusual. Often a large portion of that opening damage is AoE. It's nearly impossible to heal it up quickly on more than one character. You don't have a lot of time to test spells on the dragon. Even if its Dex save is low, it would still take three rounds to burn Legendary Resistance if it misses every save and chooses to use LR. If it makes any of those saves, you lost another round trying to burn down LR and doing perhaps no damage in the process while it is trying to kill you with full attacks and breath weapons. The only thing it is losing is the Legendary actions for attacks it might take if it stayed in melee. If one of you are close to dead, it may stay in melee to finish the job. If it is able to eliminate one or two party members while you are trying to burn down its LR, it wins, most likely an easy fight.

We used to deal with some of this with the ready action resetting initiative. Now the ready action doesn't change initiative and also takes a reaction. If you ready an action to attack the dragon when he closes on you or another character, you only get one attack and no AoO. Extra Attacks only applies to your action on your regular turn. So you only get one attack per turn whether you ready or take an AoO. If you ready an action to cast a spell, it takes your concentration slot. Thus you can't ready a spell or you take your concentration slot until you cast it. That makes using ready actions to cast attack spells if the dragon clears cover and comes into vision and spell range tricky.

A lot of little mechanics make dragons and powerful fliers extremely hard to fight, especially so if you are melee martial heavy and unwilling to use a fly spell. You could try all the tactics you list to try and solve the problem, then discover that the easiest and most sure method is cast fly on the melee martials. You're still back to square one. Your most effective option is fly. It's not fun after the fifth time you've solved the problem in exactly the same way because every other way is far and away less effective and efficient. That has nothing to do with "fun solving challenges". Fun solving challenges is coming with other tactics equally effective to casting fly, not casting the same spell to solve the same challenge time after time.

Let's say you do beat the dragon in one combat of five using an alternative to fly, but your party dies the other four times. Then let's say you cast fly and win the battle five of five times. Would you consider that fun solving the problem within the parameters of the rules? If the rules create a situation where there is only one highly effective way to solve the problem and all the other methods have a relatively high chance of failure, is that fun to a problem solver like yourself?

 

[pming]

Hiya!

@Celtavian, I think one of the difficulties some folks are having with your posted problem is that your gaming group is "out on the edge of regular". Not quite 'fringe' stuff, but within spittin' distance of it. You say that you are more or less expected to buff because it's (a) what your friends are assuming, and (b) so effective numbers wise. I think everyone gets that.

However, I think you have come to realize that that "group attitude" is not the normal. So that right there puts others at a disadvantage to either help you solve it, or have them understand your point of view.

Next, you also have to realize that how your games turn out is definitely not normal. You said:

Our adventuring day is fewer, harder combats meant to use all our resources in one big combat to the death. XP budgets usually exceed the recommended amount. We play very deadly with the DM using as optimal as possible tactics for the NPCs. We had a bunch of these in Tyranny of Dragons against you know what.

This right here is, IMHO, the primary reason for your pain and suffering. The fighter player is going to feel annoyed and left out if he's come over for a game, and basically does nothing for 2 hours (random guess here) out of the session because he can't even get into "the fight". Most games, IME, start off with a half hour or so of RP'ing, then maybe another hour or so of Exploration to find the Lost Ruins of Mogg. Then the next couple hours are taken up by a combination of RP'ing, Exploration and Combat. Combat is basically a multitude of battles...some small, some medium, some a bit large. After a session or three of this, everyone gets to confront the BBEG. This confrontation can then take the form of RP'ing, or Combat (and rarely Exploration...but those are really odd adventures, where the BBEG is 'the environment'). So, throughout each session the Fighter was allowed to show his stuff and shine. Constantly. Again and again. Hacking, bashing and slicing his way through dozens of foes of all types and in all situations; on the edge of a cravass, on the beach of an underground lakesea, in the dusty cramped halls of a long forgotten tomb, etc., etc., etc. He got to be 'better at everyone'. If he, the player, then b!tc#es and moans about suddenly "sucking" and "not being able to do anything", and then moves on to giving other player(s) grief about not helping his character "shine" again. Well, that player is just outirght being a selfish dick. Plain and simple.

But...in your game, you all basically have the RPing and Exploration be more or less "non-combat-oriented" completely, then BLAM! Right into the single "big fight" that will take hours of play using every available skill, tactic and asset you have as a group. This is not normal game play. It effectively turns an RPG into nothing more than a tactical combat simulator with a story/setting as backdrop.

Because of this, I don't think you will ever really be happy playing a spellcaster in 5e. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that your entire group would probably be better off playing Pathfinder (if you want to stick to a D&D'ish style game), where group synergy and cohesion can be upped to the n'th degree...and the DM can do likewise with the monsters with all the templates and whatnot he can toss on.

Now, all that said, the easiest 'fix' for you guys would be to just outright ignore all the Concentration stuff. Just pretend it doesn't exist and off you go. Will this change the way the game 'works'? Definitely. But if you guys aren't having fun now, may as well give it a shot...can't make it any less fun, could it?

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[cmad1977]

Well my opinion of a few posters has plummeted after reading this thread.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

No. That is the argument you were making. You don't want to acknowledge that game circumstances require a fly spell for a martial to engage a dragon effectively in combat. That they have a mobility issue. That concentration creates a situation where a caster must choose to play selfishly leaving the melee martial on the ground doing nothing or play as a team using a fly spell and using one of his many other options to attack that the melee martial doesn't have. You even posted that if he wants to palya melee martial that can fly, he should multilclass basically eliminating a bunch of classic fantasy archetypes from play. You did write that.

I doubt you comprehend my posts. Let's see all the contradictions you've posted in this thread:

1. You don't want to be forced to buff somebody...

Yet

2. You don't like someone being good at everything...which means they might need some help at things they're not good at meaning buffs.

Yet

3. encourage them to multiclass so they can fly and use their melee martial weapon in combat requiring the ability to cast at least a 3rd level spell meaning only making Eldritch Knights or multiclass caster/melee martials

Yet

4. "It's the players responsibility to make sure this happens himself"

while

5. Not being good at everything.

In a game that

6. Doesn't have default magic items as the standard.

Like I said, there was a reason you're on ignore. You don't make much sense. You're all over the place and don't realize how much of what you posted doesn't add up.

Ah. Now talking about Stockholm Syndrome and making an asinine response. Now you're attempting to make it seem like any of what you posted isn't true.

Are you saying the following isn't true?

1. If you set a selfish precedent, other players will reciprocate? Not true? Really? You believe that? You don't respond in kind when you are treated a certain way? Certainly seems like you do.

2. Stuck doing it for another player. Yes. I am stuck. Concentration mechanic is not optional if playing without house rules. If I want a large percentage of my party's damage to be brought to bear on my enemies, then yes, I am stuck casting the fly spell because of the game. Why you don't believe this is true, I don't know. You couldn't prove it in actual battle in the circumstances we were in. You would have wiped your party trying to kill a dragon by yourself why your melee buddy stood on the ground waiting.

3. I would rather have cast bigby's hand or animate objects in some of the fights, but you know, that concentration mechanic got in the way. I could have done hoping that either spell did as much as the melee martial. Likely that wouldn't have been the case.

Blame? Why are you thinking in terms of blame? I stated the factual rules of 5E and how they worked in the combats I was in. The melee martial fighter needed fly to get into combat against the dragon. The concentration mechanic left me stuck casting it on him as well as the paladin. I also will add that if your natural inclination is not to help the melee martial fighter get into combat and you're going call him "selfish" or tell him to play another class as you did in your previous post, you probably aren't playing with friends. You're playing with people you don't mind insulting. Generally people you don't mind insulting aren't friends.

And I believe we're done conversing as I don't believe you have anything to add to the conversation. You are illogical.

No, he's not, you're just a ing .

 

[Celtavian]

I would argue that it's primarily a matter of "The Tyranny of Dragons punishes that choice," since it is after all mostly about huge flying fire-breathing space hamsters. Er, I mean lizards.

For those who play Temple of Elemental Evil--does it have lots of flying foes with ranged attacks in it too?



Out of curiosity, what happened to the three/four other PCs who didn't have Protection From Energy cast on them?

That is an amusing answer as that made the fight different than anything we had dealt with in the past. So I'll give two answers.

Wizard:
In 5E, he hid in the Inn where were ambushed to make sure he didn't get his concentration broken by damage. He occasionally launched a spell running back and forth from a window. A wizard and some cultists went inside the building. We had to fight them to keep concentration on and stay alive.

In 3E, the wizard would have buffed the party with mass fly and other buffs to protect himself from energy damage and engaged the dragons in combat with the martials.

Cleric:
We used a 5th level slot to cast fly on the cleric, paladin, and fighter.

In 5E, the cleric tried to stay within one move of healing range but away from two martials so he wouldn't be hit by the breath weapon. He spent most of the battle trying to maneuver to heal. I believe cast protection from energy on himself just in case. If the cleric died and we had no healing, we probably going to die.

In 3E, the cleric would have buffed himself. He healed as needed and attacked. No worries about losing spells due to concentration and able to buff himself quite well.

Paladin:

In 5E, the paladin flew up and attacked unloading smites on the target. He had shield mastery, so he had a good chance of avoiding breath weapon damage. He fought the dragons while flying. Not sure if he buffed himself. I think he cast a spell that allowed smiting. They're all concentration spells, so he doesn't use any concentration buffs in case he wants to cast smiting spells in conjunction with using spell slots to divine smite.

In 3E, he would smite and buff himself. Paladin has been a badass in nearly every edition.

GWM fighter:

In 5E, he attacked the creature unloading everything he had. Battlemaster dice, Action Surge, and the like. He kept on swinging.

In 3E, fighter swings at creature.

Not a huge amount has changed for the fighter except he can nova with Action Surge.

Bard:

In 5E, he hid in the Inn to prevent from losing concentration. I don't think he even risked casting out a window. We did not want to lose the 5th level fly and the bless.

In 3E, buffed everyone up. Tried to stay in range to give his song bonuses.


That was how we all spent our time. Yay concentration.

 

[Celtavian]

Hiya!

@Celtavian, I think one of the difficulties some folks are having with your posted problem is that your gaming group is "out on the edge of regular". Not quite 'fringe' stuff, but within spittin' distance of it. You say that you are more or less expected to buff because it's (a) what your friends are assuming, and (b) so effective numbers wise. I think everyone gets that.

However, I think you have come to realize that that "group attitude" is not the normal. So that right there puts others at a disadvantage to either help you solve it, or have them understand your point of view.

Next, you also have to realize that how your games turn out is definitely not normal. You said:



This right here is, IMHO, the primary reason for your pain and suffering. The fighter player is going to feel annoyed and left out if he's come over for a game, and basically does nothing for 2 hours (random guess here) out of the session because he can't even get into "the fight". Most games, IME, start off with a half hour or so of RP'ing, then maybe another hour or so of Exploration to find the Lost Ruins of Mogg. Then the next couple hours are taken up by a combination of RP'ing, Exploration and Combat. Combat is basically a multitude of battles...some small, some medium, some a bit large. After a session or three of this, everyone gets to confront the BBEG. This confrontation can then take the form of RP'ing, or Combat (and rarely Exploration...but those are really odd adventures, where the BBEG is 'the environment'). So, throughout each session the Fighter was allowed to show his stuff and shine. Constantly. Again and again. Hacking, bashing and slicing his way through dozens of foes of all types and in all situations; on the edge of a cravass, on the beach of an underground lakesea, in the dusty cramped halls of a long forgotten tomb, etc., etc., etc. He got to be 'better at everyone'. If he, the player, then b!tc#es and moans about suddenly "sucking" and "not being able to do anything", and then moves on to giving other player(s) grief about not helping his character "shine" again. Well, that player is just outirght being a selfish dick. Plain and simple.

But...in your game, you all basically have the RPing and Exploration be more or less "non-combat-oriented" completely, then BLAM! Right into the single "big fight" that will take hours of play using every available skill, tactic and asset you have as a group. This is not normal game play. It effectively turns an RPG into nothing more than a tactical combat simulator with a story/setting as backdrop.

Because of this, I don't think you will ever really be happy playing a spellcaster in 5e. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that your entire group would probably be better off playing Pathfinder (if you want to stick to a D&D'ish style game), where group synergy and cohesion can be upped to the n'th degree...and the DM can do likewise with the monsters with all the templates and whatnot he can toss on.

Now, all that said, the easiest 'fix' for you guys would be to just outright ignore all the Concentration stuff. Just pretend it doesn't exist and off you go. Will this change the way the game 'works'? Definitely. But if you guys aren't having fun now, may as well give it a shot...can't make it any less fun, could it?

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Maybe we are outside the norm. We pretty much ran into all those problems running the standard WotC module series Tyranny of Dragons. There weren't a lot of fluff fights in that module.

As far as party size and composition, we are pretty standard. We were five players, point buy, run by the rules. From reading on here, I think we had less ranged firepower than most groups. That really changed things. Ranged firepower changes everything in this game including lessening the negative impact of concentration. I don't like the destruction of classic fantasy archetypes like melee martials. It is what it is in 5E.

We played Pathfinder for years. We tired of the complexity. We'll get 5E to where we want it. We already have a rule that keeps concentration limited, while expanding it enough to give casters some latitude.

 

[Celtavian]

So, what happens when fighting a monster that does not have both a) a high fly speed and b) Legendary Resistance, which negates a lot of the tactics that could be used to force it to the ground?

It usually dies within a few rounds. PCs are way tougher than monsters, at least those in the Monster Manual.

Everything we fought, including Legendary Creatures, besides dragons died super quickly. A GWM fighter and a paladin with buffs can do some impressive damage very fast in 5E.

 

[Celtavian]

I dont' think that's it either. What I think is happening is that Celt sacrificed his Concentration spell so that a friend wouldn't be left out of the game. He sacrificed a bit of his fun so that someone else could have fun as well. Its not about optimal play here, its about plugging a hole that prevented someone from enjoying a significant number of battles in the game.

Someone was going to be left out of the fun, and Celt bit the bullet.

Yep, My group has always done that for each other.

Bard player was doing the same thing. Then again the bard is built to buff. Not that he can't do other things, but he is great manipulating combat with buffs and counters like Cutting words.

It didn't help that I was buffing as an evoker. You don't play an evoker to be a buffer. If I had been playing a Diviner, I probably wouldn't have minded as much. I was really looking forward to trying bigby's hand. I don't why that spell looks fun in 5E.

Though part of it was friendship, part of it was effective tactical spell use, at least early on. At later levels when I felt I could do some good damage, it became more a matter of getting my buddies into battle. I don't want to be doing that at 18th level as an evoker. I want to be casting sunbeam and blasting. Or a Maximized bigby's hand with my maximized fire bolt for a 90 DPR per round if I hit, sometimes more if I blast away with an attack spell with Bigby's hand.

 

[Celtavian]

How many pages was this on the right way or wrong way to play with your friends?

I really have to laugh, because this is all so strange to me. The root problem here, in my opinion, isn't that a wizard is limited by casting fly on a STR-based warrior. I think the real problem is that STR warriors don't have a lot of good ranged options. If they did? Then they'd have something to do with flying dragons when they come around, and the wizard could be having fun with a different Concentration spell, and everyone would be happy.

After that, if a caster wanted to put fly on the STR warrior anyways to make him faster, than that's a tactical choice then, and nothing approaching the feeling of an obligation that some people may feel.

The design flaw at the root of this crazy thing has nothing to do with Concentration, it has to do with the warrior. So, not only have we gone way off track by arguing about the Right Way to Play D&D With Your Friends, but the entire problem was misidentified in the first. The situation where a caster felt that casting fly on their friend was a necessity should never have come up in the first place. Buffing utility spells, like magic equipment, should be pure gravy when it happens, never a necessity or obligation.

--------------------------------------


For the record, I firmly oppose the idea that 5e has roles for any class, or set of classes. There's no "divine classes must heal!" or "arcane classes must buff!" or anything like that. In fact, I don't think there are divine or arcane classes anymore. So, there's no required "healer" or "buffer," even if we have a cleric and wizard in the party - certainly, I wouldn't expect a Tempest Domain or a Necromancer to have to have heals or utility buffs.

I don't know about no set classes. I do agree the variance is wider. Clerics, druids, and bards are all very viable options for party healer.

Most classes can build for damage. I was surprised to find out the cleric is extremely powerful at hammering. Most of the party was down. The wizard was banished. Monk and archer were dropped. Warlock/Fighter and cleric were last men standing. Cleric activated spiritual guardians, spiritual weapon, and started carving her way through the enemies. I'm finally starting to get out of the healer mode of other editions and bring the hammer with the cleric. They are vicious. Now I see why people were mentioning the cleric as a power character.

Druids, wizards, and bards can do battlefield control quite well.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's a pretty clear issue created by the game mechanics. A melee martial cannot bring his abilities to bear against a dragon without fly. It has reach. It moves at 80 feet a move. I'm not sure how you play dragons, so experience can differ. We play dragons taking opportunity attacks. The calculation is simple. One opportunity attack is far better than a full round of attacks. So it will fly in do a full attack, fly away to cover or darkness (80 feet brings it out of most creatures dark vision range). It will do this round after round using lair actions to further damage the party. It opens with the breath weapon and uses it every time it is available strafing the party as often as it can. It can usually kill a party faster than you can burn down its legendary resistance.

That is somewhat similar to how I play dragons, except I also give them all levels in Dragon Sorcerer (so they can e.g. Shield or Blur themselves). Without sorcerer levels they are too easy to kill, although "easy" is still a relative term. Against a vanilla AC 19 adult Red Dragon, one simple strategy that my test party would use at level 11 is: spend some your Necromancer's spell slots (three 4th and one 5th, although I actually use SP) to get 26 skeletons and equip them with longbows and scale mail. Use another 5th level spell slot to cast Seeming to disguise everybody in the party and the skeletons so they all look like identical urds (I know you run blindsight differently, as a form of truesight against illusions, but I don't--and anyway dragons only have 60' of blindsight). Use a dispersed formation spread out over 150' or so, about twice the area of a traffic intersection. Have the wizard waiting under a backup hardpoint with Leomund's Tiny Hut up, as a point of retreat if things go south. (A lot of the details depend on whether you're seeking the dragon in his lair, or expecting him to attack you out in the open. Wall of Force would work approximately as well.) From inside the hut, he spends his concentration on an Air Elemental which he sends with the party. As soon as the dragon enters range (600'), all the skeletons will fire doing 19.13 DPR on each round at long range while the dragon is closing on the party, and another 67.5 DPR at short range once the fight starts in earnest. The dragon's breath weapon is a 60' cone so covers 25% of the area of the formation, so at least 19 skeletons are guaranteed to survive the first breath weapon. That's just the skeletons--the air elemental is adding 14.9 DPR per round, or 22.35 total including the opportunity attack if the dragon tries to evade it to go after PCs, and of course the bardlock's 16 conjured Giant Owls from Conjure Animals V (who also look like urds) are hitting it for 37.6 DPR (plus up to 37.6 more from opportunity attacks) and hits it with Eldritch Blast on top of that for 10.05 DPR while the monk... well, her job is mostly done at that point because she did the recon, but she'll pew-pew with her longbow for 8.95 DPR while the paladin provides healing/blessing/sanctuary/etc. as needed, or adds 17.32 DPR if the dragon gets within melee range.

Total party DPR: 139 to 191.5 plus was inflicted at long range. The dragon has 256 HP and cannot significantly degrade the threat within a single round, so it's basically toast in two rounds against an 11th level party. That's why I give dragons sorcerer levels (Shield alone reduces skeleton DPR to 15.0, or 0.75 at long range) and why I also play up their Stealth and other capabilities (which is why the monk's job is to scout ahead).