D&D 5E breaking the healing rules with goodberries

[Sacrosanct]

OR...ANY frickin' way in which you can put this without making an absolute statement.

Yep. In fact, the only objective "we can point to it in the rules" thing on this topic is that the DM should be an objective referee, not favoring PC death nor avoiding it. The only thing remotely close is in AD&D where it says that if the PCs die from their own poor decisions or bad rolls, too bad for them, but if they die from something completely out of their control and they didn't stand a chance through no fault of their own, then you can make a call.

But in general, saying that a DM's job is to avoid killing the party is objectively wrong from what we do see in the books, and at the very least is a subjective preference of the individual only. Speaking for myself, I would not want to play a game where the DM fudges rolls or changes things to where my PC has no real risk of death or disfigurement. Might as well just sit in a circle and share story time if that's the case.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

so while I wasn't going to talk to my normal group about this, one of the guys from our Saturday WoD game figured it out as well and was talking in front of my bard player... neither of them brought up the aura spell so I let that go. Now the bard player did say he wasn't going to do this cheese he did ask me about using it in a future game...

SO... now I ask those of you that have had players going into encounters at full hp. How do I adjust for it??


Also the WoD player that brought it up said a Druid/cleric is now better then an artificer because the artificer build of wizard you make potions but don't get the spell slot back....

 

[Dausuul]

Remember that Sage Advice goes by the rules as written. It is not saying how the rules should be, merely how they are.

I would house rule that the cleric's bonus applies once for the entire spell; you can spread it across all the berries or put it all in one berry, but you don't get to add it on a per-berry basis.

 

[Zardnaar]

so while I wasn't going to talk to my normal group about this, one of the guys from our Saturday WoD game figured it out as well and was talking in front of my bard player... neither of them brought up the aura spell so I let that go. Now the bard player did say he wasn't going to do this cheese he did ask me about using it in a future game...

SO... now I ask those of you that have had players going into encounters at full hp. How do I adjust for it??


Also the WoD player that brought it up said a Druid/cleric is now better then an artificer because the artificer build of wizard you make potions but don't get the spell slot back....

Either you let them have an easy ride of it or you use things like energy draining undead which lowers their maximum hit points so the healing is not as effective anyway. Apart from that you need to deal more damage to the PCs. Then again it might depend on how reclkless of careless the PCs are as well or how many other healers they have in the party. My current group has a Paladin, Rogue:thief with healer feat and the CLleric1/Druid 5 thing going on.

Cleric1/Lorebard 6 with goodberry and aura of vitality is also very good. THe Druid/Cleric gets more low level spells to blow on Goodberry though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There is no soft-balling going on. Once again, already done status-quo DMing

No need to get defensive. Not status quo doesn't mean soft-balling. It can mean going full bore killer DM. Or, as I assume you're going for in your case, creating a challenging encounter for the party.

It does not work for my group. If I just toss out some guys I dreamed up without taking into account the party's capabilities, the party will wipe them out.

That doesn't necessarily follow. If you dream up Asmodeus and his arch-devils having a tea party in the dungeon, and your 1st level party blunders into them, I doubt it'll go that way. ;P I don't know why the status quo would include dukes of hell hanging out under a ruined guard tower in an out-of-the-way township, but if it did, oh well, don't go in that dungeon again until your new characters are much higher level.

The disconnect is happening because Hemlock has interpreted "challenging the party without killing them" as "not trying to kill them." This is not correct. The idea behind challenging a party without killing them has to do with encounter creation and has nothing to do with intent. The enemies are always trying to kill the PCs unless they have some alternative goal like imprisonment or slavery.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that the DMs intent in creating an encounter, whether tailored or status quo, changed the intent of the creatures making up that encounter. For one thing, they're imaginary: strictly speaking, they have no intent. For another, a tailored encounter meant to be a roll-over for the party could consist of outmatched, but overconfident, monsters none-the-less determined to kill the party. Conversely, I suppose, you could have a lethal encounter with a bumbling young StormGiant who 'doesn't no his own strength' ("whoops, sorry 'bout crushing your buddy, little guy..."). Intent of the monsters has nothing to do with it, just intent of the DM.

Your intent is clearly to challenge your players and thus run a game session that doesn't suck for everyone at the table. Perfectly reasonable.

Hemlock's intent is probably to create an imagined world that is typical of a certain fantasy sub-genre, and, while the genre might typically revolve around a hero(es) who improbably win through deadly danger after deadly danger, the party is just going to have to deal with survival in such a world with nothing but dice luck and 'player skill' to see them through - no artistic license from the author is going to help or hinder them.

You can each adapt 5e to those purposes. I suppose you might have a little more work to do in that regard than he.

I'm pretty sure you've been doing this long enough to have had similar experiences where you are designing an encounter. You think the encounter is damn cool. You think the party can handle it. Then you run the encounter, they end up getting pasted. Then you have this group of pissed off players that feel you screwed them, especially if you designed the encounter in such a fashion they had zero chance of winning. You didn't realize this would happen until you killed the party.

Happens all the time - more the less well-balanced the game, and less dependable it's encounter guidelines. Classic D&D, for instance, not well balanced at all, and no encounter guidelines to speak of. Kinda a long learning curve, but a lot of us stuck with it.

I don't get how Hemlock doesn't get what I'm talking about. To me this is easy to understand. If some of the more experienced DMs told me the same concept, I'd understand immediately what they were talking about. I wouldn't refer to it as soft-ballling or "trying to protect the party." I'd say, "Oh experienced DM. He has probably killed the party a ton and dealt with the unhappy after effects."

Soft-balling or over-killing or challenging - it's all the same in the eyes of an old-school DM. You're basing the encounter on the party. You may be justly proud of doing so /well/ - which has rarely been easy in a game like D&D - and thus consistently producing challenging encounters, but Hemlock may well be indifferent to that distinction.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Soft-balling or over-killing or challenging - it's all the same in the eyes of an old-school DM. You're basing the encounter on the party. You may be justly proud of doing so /well/ - which has rarely been easy in a game like D&D - and thus consistently producing challenging encounters, but Hemlock may well be indifferent to that distinction.

I just want to re-iterate here that it's okay for people to have different play preferences than me. If you like something I find boring, or if I like something you find boring, play whatever way you find enjoyable. Have fun!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Remember that Sage Advice goes by the rules as written. It is not saying how the rules should be, merely how they are.

Furthermore, Sage Advice is explicitly not the final word. The DM's adjudication is a final word.

Dealing with those situations is where Sage Advice comes in. This column doesn’t replace a DM’s adjudication. Just as the rules do, the column is meant to give DMs, as well as players, tools for tuning the game according to their tastes. The column should also reveal some perspectives that help you see parts of the game in a new light and that aid you in fine-tuning your D&D experience.

 

[Hussar]

How would you counter the archers hammering with the bard using hypnotic pattern at a key time to counter the stone throwing hill giants once they set up with the flying paladin all working together? If you understood party synergies as you claim, then you would understand all of this being brought to bear at once. Not some piecemeal crap like you just tried to pull here.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ng-rules-with-goodberries/page8#ixzz3jgOpic70

Of course, now your paladin is flying, not Hasted, so, that problem is solved.

On a side note, when I said the party wasn't ready for groups of Stone Giants they were 5th level. By 7th level they'll be ready for stone giants. They're probably ready right now. They recently killed two Hill Giants, 10 orogs, and four dire wolves taking only 20 hit points of damage amongst the group. They fought a hydra that did next to nothing to them even though I gave it 300 hit points. Far too easy to use fire to disrupt regeneration. They killed two treants with four animated trees with only a handful of spells wasted and very little damage taken.


Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ng-rules-with-goodberries/page8#ixzz3jgPG1Dg7

Thing is, [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION], you have to realise that when you are the only one complaining about a problem, the problem just might not be with the system. I certainly haven't seen widespread complaints about 5e being too easy. Maybe there are, but, I haven't seen them. I haven't seen numbers of players/DM's complaining about how Hoard of the Dragon Queen was a pushover or Princes of the Apocalypse was a breeze.

And, to be frank, if your party is blowing through encounters like this, an no one else's is, then, perhaps, the issue isn't the system?

 

[Celtavian]

Thing is, [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION], you have to realise that when you are the only one complaining about a problem, the problem just might not be with the system. I certainly haven't seen widespread complaints about 5e being too easy. Maybe there are, but, I haven't seen them. I haven't seen numbers of players/DM's complaining about how Hoard of the Dragon Queen was a pushover or Princes of the Apocalypse was a breeze.

And, to be frank, if your party is blowing through encounters like this, an no one else's is, then, perhaps, the issue isn't the system?

Or perhaps there isn't a problem unless you don't like winning easily, which I don't.

 

[Celtavian]

I would begin by correcting the core statement into a way that can be comprehended...Let me give this a try for you...I like helping.

"The goal of the DM is to challenge a party without killing them...to me." OR

"I think<or believe or feel or understand> the goal of the DM is to challenge the party without killing them..." OR

"I prefer to run my games where the DM challenges a party without killing them..."

OR...ANY frickin' way in which you can put this without making an absolute statement.

You have made repeated statements that you don't feel the DM should kill a party. This leads one to the conclusion (and is supported by some examples) you hold your monsters back and/or create your "challenges"/gage your encounters so as to be -for lack of a better word- "suitable" for the party they are facing...purposely making them beatable, purposely not killing them.

"Challenging the party without killing them" does not apply to the monsters in play, it applies to the encounter design process. Why is that not naturally understood by people that DM?

No, I have not made repeated statements about holding my monsters back. I do not hold my monsters back. I have not stated this at all. Go look again. I stated that during encounter design...which is prior to the start of play...I try to make sure I don't make the encounter in such a way that I kill the party. You have misinterpreted what was said. I did not say one time that I hold the monsters back. Not once. The entire discussion was based on encounter design, which occurs prior to play. I think most DMs that have done this for a long time understand that part of the game. I'm genuinely surprised that every DM doesn't understand this concept.

When actual play occurs, I am quite ruthless and cruel. I execute the enemy's strategy as I planned it without any mercy. That is why I do my best not to create encounters that destroy the party because once I start the encounter, it will be executed ruthlessly with the intent to kill. If you play in this fashion and you design an encounter that is too strong, you will kill the party, quite possibly kill them without them being able to fight back very well. Have you really never done this? Is the concept so foreign as a DM that I'm alone in playing this way?

Do you find it entertaining when a DM takes your character, destroys it without you having a decent fighting chance, and you've put months of work into leveling the character? Answer that question, you'll understand why I do what I do.