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

[FormerlyHemlock]

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?

I don't think I ever answered this question, so I will now: I think this situation would be significantly more fun if the rules give you zero ways to solve the problem effectively, i.e. if the Fly spell is not available. If I know Fly is going to work for sure then it's unrealistic from an RPG standpoint for the PCs to look for an alternate route instead of just doing what works well and killing it in the air. If there is no easy option then the PCs get creative: going on a hunt for Purple Worms to milk venom to put on your arrows a la Heracles and hydra venom; using illusions to bait a dragon into a 10' tunnel; feeding ingestive poison to a cow which you then contrive to feed to the dragon (the dragon might be less suspicious if you feed the poison to a PC instead ); casting Water Breathing and stealing an item from its treasure hoard so the white dragon will chase you into the depths of the ocean and then at the right moment, enlarging yourself or turning into a giant octopus and grappling it until it drowns; waiting until it leaves the lair and then hiding inside of its treasure hoard for an ambush when it gets back; etc.

If it works it will be epic. If not, well, you didn't have a better plan anyway! Dying is nothing to be ashamed of.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't think that's the DM's only option. Other options that come to mind include:

1.) Play Elemental Evil instead of Tyranny of Dragons,
2.) Revel in killing the PCs over and over; laugh maniacally each time they restart at level 1.
3.) Let the Evoker be a hermit whose Discovery is "I know the formula for Winged Boots!"
4.) Give the players some tactical advice between sessions, as one D&D player to another, about baiting dragons into enclosed spaces. (If you do it right, it even gives you advantage to attack them!) Or relay the advice through an NPC in-character.

#4 sounds fun actually. #2 sounds fun too, but in a completely different way reminiscent of 80s arcade games. When the players finally beat a dragon it will be such a rush!

P.S. Edge of Tomorrow trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw61gCe2oqI

Funny enough, HotDQ specifically tells you that the PCs have the best chance against the white dragon by luring it in a choke point.

 

[SkidAce]

Sorry not being clear.

It seems like some people have issue with Celtivans arguments because they're attached to the idea of a concept. They have a concept in mind and they're damn well sticking to it, even if its not the most optimal group structure around.

So even after a TPK, based on this "concept" mindset, if no one wanted to play a ranged DPR class these groups simply wouldn't use one.

That only leaves the DM the option of plot armour. I guess that's how some groups like to roll, living out their concepts in the game, and the DM accommodating to that.
That's not how I play nor anyone else I know. The first question always is "So whose playing what? What do we need?" to construct a group that doesn't require plot armour to survive.

So when my group plays an all thief campaign, and I tailor the campaign due to them not having a healer or a wizard....that's plot armor?

 

[Celtavian]

Hmm yeah I would not play 5e as a caster if it meant hiding in buildings to maintain concentration. Just not fun enough. If you play this way, the caster player has no fun for the whole combat. Instead if the melee guy just uses his bow, he is still effective enough, and everyone still contributes and has fun. Maybe warcaster feat and resilience feat might have solved this issue.

The bow isn't effective. We play agro a certain way. The monster attacks the PC doing the most damage which he views as the most dangerous. A GWM str-based fighter is an extremely low threat to the dragon. So he won't go after the fighter in general. If the paladin can't get into melee, he likely won't do much damage. He can't smite with the bow. His dex was even worse at 8. So our two main damage dealers are plinkiing away with the bow, the evoker is doing good damage and becomes the target.

Well the evoker has lame AC. In 5E caster AC is not very good unless you multiclass fighter and wear heavy or medium armor. A dragon can see through most illusion-type spells like mirror image or invisibility. So you're left to get slammed on unless you can position far, far away with the dragon in view launching long range spells while he can't see you. The terrain did not set up for this.

My evoker can't take being the number one target for a dragon. He'll die and die quick.

Though the fighter and paladin could do some damage with the bow, they couldn't do enough to prevent the dragon from quickly destroying the casters who generally aren't built to take damage. That would lead to party death as well. If you make a caster, I would suggest taking a level of a class that synergizes well and gives out medium armor and a shield. Then you can at least have a somewhat decent AC and use shield to give yourself a pretty good AC on occasion. You might be able to tank a bit, though still rough against breath weapons with no good dex save. Dragon eat you up pretty quick due to low hit points. Just better to play a ranged striker that can do melee on occasion.

 

[Celtavian]

So when my group plays an all thief campaign, and I tailor the campaign due to them not having a healer or a wizard....that's plot armor?

Encounter design armor that would probably involve some plot. You have to tailor the plot so they can survive. You don't want to insert a bunch of encounters that require straight up combat. That would definitely lead to that party having problems.

In D&D the types of encounters do make up the plot of an adventure because they create the conflict the PCs must defeat to achieve the goals of the story.

 

[Celtavian]

I don't think I ever answered this question, so I will now: I think this situation would be significantly more fun if the rules give you zero ways to solve the problem effectively, i.e. if the Fly spell is not available. If I know Fly is going to work for sure then it's unrealistic from an RPG standpoint for the PCs to look for an alternate route instead of just doing what works well and killing it in the air. If there is no easy option then the PCs get creative: going on a hunt for Purple Worms to milk venom to put on your arrows a la Heracles and hydra venom; using illusions to bait a dragon into a 10' tunnel; feeding ingestive poison to a cow which you then contrive to feed to the dragon (the dragon might be less suspicious if you feed the poison to a PC instead ); casting Water Breathing and stealing an item from its treasure hoard so the white dragon will chase you into the depths of the ocean and then at the right moment, enlarging yourself or turning into a giant octopus and grappling it until it drowns; waiting until it leaves the lair and then hiding inside of its treasure hoard for an ambush when it gets back; etc.

If it works it will be epic. If not, well, you didn't have a better plan anyway! Dying is nothing to be ashamed of.

These options were not available to us. Parties no longer have easy access to transportation magic or divination. We were on a tight timeline to defeat the dragons and stop the evil plot. We sailed out to an iceberg, learned the dragon live din an iceberg, tried to figure out how to lure it out, were unable to do so without resources, fought it in its lair, two died, another went down, we won because the bard rolled a lucky crit with a chromatic orb. After a few more levels, fights because much easier, though not more interesting because fly was the go to option.

I get it. You have a lot of creative ideas. I'm not sure what you would do if the DM told you, "You don't find any hydra. You don't have time to search. You don't have divination magic to conduct a quick search. How do you intend to accomplish finding a legendary creature you can milk for poison and travel there? That could take weeks to months that you don't have. You don't have overland flight to speed up travel. teleport is a 7th level spell. The teleport you get at 5th level require keys that not many hand out. And over a year and 5000 gold to create a usable portal to get back to the area you want to get to. So not only must you travel to an area that has a creature you can get to, but you must travel back. If there is no teleportation circle back, well, you're kind of screwed. Traveling and finding things isn't as easy as it used to be.

If you die, well, the world is overrun with dragons at least as far as your PCs are concerned. Which makes it in their best interests to win using the best options possible.

Now you're talking about encounter design. The encounters were set. Dragons fly. Our melee martials needed to get to them. We cast fly. It worked especially well at later levels when the martials were doing a ton of damage. We won. I didn't have much fun playing an evoker until around level 12, when some of my slots were freed up to do what I wanted to do.

 

[Celtavian]

So you'd rather a TPK then than buff your main damage dealer? With many fights I have ran if the Bard didn't cast fly on the Paladin, it would be a TPK.

Hiding is a bit extreme, but he'd rather the group succeeds than fails, and he's had plenty of moments to shine in other combats, or in the social/exploration pillar of the game.

It really makes me wonder though if DMs are pushing their players at all letting them get away with tactics like forcing their melees to use bows in Dragon fights. I'd gladly TPK a group that did that so hard with no remorse, mercy, or plot armour.
We're not playing Dungeons and Cuddle Time, after all.

The hiding was against five dragons. We don't usually hide either against a single dragon, though we do hang back until the martials get its attention. If the dragon has a choice at the start of battle, it will waste the easy looking robed or clothes wearing figures knowing it can disrupt casting power by doing so early. But five dragons meant a couple of them could go after the casters if they could see them, while the other three kept the melees occupied.

The DM did have one dragon go after us. I had to drop protection from energy and fight it with animate object. It was a fun fight. I did die because he had a wizard on his back. I killed the wizard with animate ojects and fireball. I fought the dragon as long as I could bring down some of its hit points. It finally recharged its breath weapon and finished me off. The bard did life. After I died, the fighter flew in and finished it, while the paladin finished up outside against the bigger dragon.

So mission accomplished with only one death: my wizard. I didn't mind that death because it was at least a fun fight. My wizard couldn't take dragon damage even with fire shield up to provide damage resistance. Those breath weapons are harsh.

 

[Celtavian]

And Darwin would smile. And a new group would be formed that had some ranged firepower.

Edit: or even just a group that was more willing to use their melee firepower intelligently. Taunt it (perhaps shooting arrows as part of the taunt) until it's so mad that it follows you into a constricted space where you can hit it. Not only does that sound like a fun adventure, it's also following in the time-honored tradition of mythical tricksters like Heracles and Theseus. In fact, didn't the dwarves in Desolation of Smaug​ try something like this?

What you just stated is plot armor. A DM providing alternate options to a group of PCs that are story-based rather than founded in the PCs listed capabilities. You are allowing them to defeat the dragon using a plot device rather than their capabilities.

The DM could also as part of the plot say, "The dragon is too smart to fall for that tactic. Find something else to do." Your party could spend hours trying to figure out ways to do something to beat the dragon, the DM could continue to say the dragon doesn't fall for it. So you end up wasting time.

Not every DM is going to allow the group to boil some gold, pour it into a statue mold, lure the dragon into a great hall, and release the molten gold on the dragon. That is the very essence of plot armor. Works great in a movie. Works great for some DMs like yourself that run that style. Not so reliable as a method for defeating dragons in a fairly straight-forward game where the DM is running it by the book and you don't have great options for finding alternate means of defeating the dragon.

I really tried to find a way to lure the dragon out. We had nothing. The dragon lairs we went to were deep inside their areas. You couldn't sneak barely inside and hope the dragon came. We tried camping the entrance to the dragon's lair, it left underwater. We didn't have the means to fight a large battle underwater. You can't create scrolls with the spells you needed. Fighting underwater against a dragon that breathes ice is not real smart. Overall, it was very bad circumstances. Luring a dragon out of its lair is not easy. It takes an enormous amount of planning and possibly time. Dragons don't even necessarily eat every day. They often have better intelligence about what is going on where they live than you do. The dragon is actively watching you do what you do, so you have to figure out not only how to lure it out, but how to do so without it noticing you.

 

[Celtavian]

The obvious answer that comes to mind for a dragon that won't leave its lair is "strafe it to death." I can set up a Leomund's Hut outside and send in the monk/bardlock/paladin + 16 Owls every ten minutes or so to deal fifty to a hundred points of damage to it, then when the owls are expended, retreat to the hut and heal any damage taken with Aura of Vitality, and repeat. Odds are good that after the first time I've done that it will emerge in a rage to attack us directly, and it's at that point that the skeletons clean its clock. It can't heal itself from the damage taken because unlike us, it doesn't know Aura of Vitality.

There may be better strategies but that's the first one off the top of my head for "how do you deal with someone who refuses to leave favorable terrain."

Edit: I just checked, and a red dragon's lair actions will kill a negligible number of skeletons anyway. The only one that matters is the magma, which won't even kill a single skeleton (34 HP vs. 21 damage on a failed save) and can only target maybe three skeletons at a time, and isn't usable two rounds in a row. The lair action is a complete non-factor.

How small do you think these lairs are that you can do this quickly? You think he was in some of kind of easily accessible cave where you walk in and find him quickly? We had to descend into icy caverns to fight the white dragon. It's main exit was an underwater cave on an iceberg (we found this out after we could use the information). It took us quite a while to locate the cavern the dragon lived in that was all difficult terrain and hundreds of feet across with ledges and other features we couldn't maneuver past without fly and places for it to hide. It was the harshest dragon lairs I've seen other than live volcanoes. Whoever designed the Tyranny of Dragons dragon lairs did a good job. I didn't love the plot and role-play elements of Tyranny of Dragons. The dragon lairs were impressive.

The tactics are stating seem to indicate you haven't fought an adult dragon in its lair. The lairs we experienced were vast. Thousands of feet of exploration required, practically a dungeon in itself, some stocked with monsters. The entire area counting as the dragon's lair. He could do a lair action while you're walking down a hallway looking for him, seal you off from your skeletons, hit them with the breath weapon, wander off a while, rinse and repeat.

Unless the lair is set up for it, you will not be sending owls and these characters in. They won't be one move from your Leomund's tiny hut. If the dragon has a means to seal them off, well, the reverse of your tactics will happen.

You don't have ten minutes. Why would you think you had that amount of time? How would you have 16 owls every ten minutes? How are you recovering the slot to cast that? There is no ritual that allows you to cast a conjuration spell endlessly.

 

[I'm A Banana]

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.

Yeah, that's not the reason I play D&D. If I want to conquer an insurmountable challenge I can play Super Meat Boy and have a lot of fun dying over an over again. D&D in any edition isn't well designed for that kind of experience, IMXP. Character creation is too minute, adventures require too much ramp-up time, death isn't a speedbump, the narrative matters....outside of a one-off at a convention or something, I wouldn't expect D&D to give me that experience.

I find it hard to believe that most people sitting around the table gaming with their buddies don't cast a buff spell on him to help him get into combat. You all must have some players in your group that like playing melee martials because they enjoy them. This particular edition of D&D punishes that choice more than past editions in terms of limiting buffs that allow the melee martial to get into combat. Given these people are your friends, you feel somewhat bad when you've fought five dragon battles in a row where they could do nearly nothing unless you cast fly on them. By the time we reached 10th or 12th level, I was happy the DM gave the bard a magic item that allowed a second concentration spell so he could cast fly while maintaining bless and I could do some other things. I figured people understood what I was talking about. I guess fewer people than I think have been in similar circumstances.

It sounds like your table has a pretty unique and particular playstyle. Like, those XP budgets exist for a reason, and you have to presume that by ignoring them and shooting for the moon that you're going to distort the intended experience. That's not a problem, it's just not like you can expect that everyone is distorting the experience like that. You're playing under some pretty special house conditions, and the fact that this tweaks your experience shouldn't be a surprise, and you shouldn't then presume that your experience is common, ESPECIALLY when it deviates from the RAW so significantly.

I have quite a few players that like playing melee martials be it a greatsword wielder, a barbarian, or a martial arts monk. We've always helped them get into battle against fliers. It never created this opportunity cost choice in 5E where casting fly prevents you from casting any other concentration spell. It was the first time I've ever dealt with a mechanic that made casting fly such an incredibly effective, yet limiting and boring option as a caster. I started to go out of my way to find spells without concentration at higher level because I knew if we ran into flying enemies, I needed to get fly on the melee martials (both of our main damage dealers) or we were screwed and probably going to die.

Here I was looking forward to trying out a fun looking spell like bigby's hand and I never really got to do it because I was casting fly. After I stopped having to cast fly, the DM threw a dragon flight of five young dragons at us. I had to cast protection form energy or we would have died. Five breath weapons even from young dragons was way too much to deal with even for a fighter. I can't remember if I ever did get to try bigby's hand. I did to get use wall of force finally. That was an effective spell. You can still do some nifty stuff with wall of force.

Yeah, under those circumstances, I'd just die. I mean, okay, TPK, mission accomplished DM, you killed everyone with your grossly out-of-whack encounter balance, hope that was what you were looking for, and enjoy your trophy. Now for this new campaign, I've got something I want to try...