There could be environmental hazards/traps which would do enough damage for instant death even at mid-high levels.
5e combat system too simple / boring?
- Thread starter Dom de Dom
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There could be environmental hazards/traps which would do enough damage for instant death even at mid-high levels.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
I'd say it falls between 30 and 45 minutes, yeah. Close enough to 5e that I haven't noticed a difference. I actually haven't played nearly as much 4e as I'd like--only about twice as many sessions of it as 5e, in fact. The longest fight I've had clocked in somewhere around an hour and a half, two hours--and that was because we (somewhat foolishly) alerted an entire fort's worth of small, separate combats so they got mashed together into a single huge beat-'em-up. It was tense and exciting; I almost went down a couple times, but our Bard kept my Paladin up, and we laid down the pain. The DM was actually quite pleased to not have to go through a bunch of disconnected trash fights, though he only told me that after the fact, of course!
Perhaps that's part of the problem. No fight I've been in has been less than five rounds in 5e. Oftentimes, this is because we lose at least one party member within the first round or two, which is why I feel I must focus so much on healing. Admittedly, we have only just hit level 3 and that is a breakpoint for many classes...but when we still have people dropped (or, in the Druid's case, thrown out of wild shape) in the first or second round after the DM openly tells us he's going to try to pitch us some softballs...well, it's hard to believe that one more level will make that much of a difference.
Well...I kind of am playing a full caster? The Bard is a full caster in 5e, isn't it...?
Background thus far has had zero influence on the campaign--though technically speaking it's about to have a huge one. Our target turns out to have been a fiend disguised in human form, and has made off to hell with a sacred object of the city's patron goddess (thus dooming the town to ruin until it is returned). Being only (freshly) 3rd level characters, getting to hell is normally out of our league...but my character's Academy contacts were explicitly called out as a good thing to pursue if we want to follow/track this guy down. So I guess it's going to matter in the future, but for now that's literally the only time Background will have mattered for our group.
Honestly, unless my character dies again (the frustratingly high chance of that continues to cast an unfortunate pall over my experience of 5e), I'll be sticking with the game until it ends, whether by wrapping up or falling apart. Due diligence--giving 5e a full, honest commitment, not just a token effort--is a part of it, but it's more just that I'm gaming with friends, and would rather not say "screw this, I'm done" unless something actually "bad" happens.
Fudging doesn't really work over Roll20 though--we can all see the dice. Our DM has "ignored" certain monster features (e.g. he checked a particular demon's spell, saw that one cast would put anyone who failed the save to 0, and decided "nope, not casting that"), but other than being exceedingly gracious about bringing my character back from the dead, has avoided any "screw the book, I make the rules" behavior as far as I can tell. Well, I guess he's also said that levelling up gave us some of the benefits of a long rest when we reached level 2, but I dunno if that counts?
Yeah...about that...the DM is not exactly stingy with long rests, but definitely expects us to play a "full day" even if we only get into one fight. And, as said above, a fight where nobody's down, or damn close to it, by the second round is a miracle, I don't believe I've seen that happen at all the whole campaign. I even missed a session where the same happened--some spiders apparently screwed the party all to hell, and my vicious mockeries, done by the DM on my behalf, apparently saved the day). Perhaps I just have a too-heavily "make sure everyone can participate"-focused mentality; taking such a..."mercenary" attitude (not the best word, but the only one that comes to mind) about my allies lying in the dirt doesn't sit well with me, even if it actually would be better for the party in the long run.
Though profoundly frustrating, when I went for 16 Str and have specifically built for being a grappler, which (Valor) Bards are supposed to be good at...
Spoilered for length and digressing from the main topic.
[sblock]5e, explicitly, prioritizes a "traditional" look and feel. In every edition except 4e, the approach to choice and variety for characters has been, "if you wanted choice, you should've played a caster! Why are you playing a Fighter if you like choices?!" and "if you don't like having lots of choices, why are you playing a Wizard?!" In other words, the traditional approach has been the extreme of giving casters most/all of the bells and whistles, and giving the non-casters nothing beyond their imaginations. (And, for everyone else: please don't bother bringing up how powerful the imagination can make you, it's not an argument that will result in anything useful added to the thread, and I'm 99.99% certain you won't change my opinions any more than the last two dozen attempts did.) 4e also took an extreme, non-traditional solution: "EVERYONE has lots of choices! What do you mean you don't like making choices?!" It tried to back away from that with the Essentials subclasses, but I'm not really sure how well that worked.
I truly wish that 5e had taken a much more middle-of-the-road approach, an approach like the ones talked up early in the playtest, where a Wizard could choose to be about as simple as the low-complexity Fighter, and a Fighter could choose to be close in complexity to a typical Wizard. Really, I would've liked "the range of complexity found in the whole of 4e, Original and Essentials both," but that definitely didn't happen. I suppose you could argue that 5e did take a bit of both sides, but IMO taking the worst of both rather than the best. It's still, to use your term, "choiceless non-casters" vs. choice-saturated casters, but now we have the oh-so-lovely "oh, you want choices? Here, YOU CAN BE A CASTER TOO" thing, almost doubling down on the "casting is for choices, non-casting is for if you abhor choices."
Heck, even the Warlock is like that--the choices are just ones you have to make at character creation/development rather than on the battlefield. (I still haven't gotten over the irony of the supposedly-"simpler" caster being dramatically more dependent on optimization than the supposedly-"complex" ones.)
My experience of 5e, such as it is, has been that it hews to whatever extremes were taken in prior editions. Occasionally it incorporates something more modern, e.g. at-will abilities, but always in a way that more closely resembles the old extreme rather than the new one (only casters have at-will abilities).[/sblock]
Moon Druid, Devotion Paladin, Tempest Cleric, soon-to-be-Beast Master Ranger, and myself (Valor Bard). Often, a self-debate about whether to use a spell slot comes up for every character but the Ranger, and that's mostly because the Ranger's player doesn't really like spells that much (but likes the "spell-less" Ranger even less). But then they end up just regular-attacking anyway, or in the Cleric's case, attack + that bonus action storm thingy.
Yeah, when I asked the DM about it, I pointed out basically that--more to learn, but we'll survive much better--and he more or less said "nah it'll be fine." I think he may be regretting that decision now. I've also noticed he tends to generously round XP now, whereas he didn't so much in the first few sessions, so he might be subtly trying to push us past this "hump" without an overt "I'mma do it my way" solution.
As for the RAW, my problem pretty much lies in your "almost." It may be intended for the book to be overtly and eternally second-place to the DM's preferences...but what about when the DM's preferences are "don't change what the book says"? I know for a fact that, even when he's found a particular effect unfortunate, he's gone with it unless I convince him that that's not what the book says. (Specific example: an enemy with Multiattack making an Opportunity Attack against one of my party-mates, where the second attack crit. I told him Multiattack doesn't apply to OAs, and he was adamant that it did until I provided a page reference and he checked the book himself, even though he openly lamented doing so much damage to the character in question.)
I cannot claim to know my DM's mind. He and I have...very different ways of thinking. But my experience has, as I've said, been "a fight without at least one character at 0 HP, and rolling death saves unless healed, almost never happens." It may be because of his other 5e group, which started a month or two before ours; apparently, they have repeatedly tackled above-level challenges and come out relatively unscathed, despite also beginning at level 1. Since this group was my DM's first 5e group, perhaps he got a mistaken first impression that low-level 5e characters are substantially more robust than they really are?
What's the point of having the early levels be so nail-bitingly dangerous if you, as DM, are "supposed" to walk on eggshells until things aren't dangerous? Kind of paints "DM empowerment" in a funny light, too--you can do whatever you want, but unless you're being perverse, you should want to do X.
Also, whoever said the lethality stops at 2nd level? That's the level we nearly TPK'd (and my character did actually die).
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werecorpse
Adventurer
Or if your max hit points are say 50 and you are down to 1 then 51hp damage kills you
And if you are unconscious on 0 and some scumbag rogue stabs you (autocrit) with his wyvern poison dagger you could die from the damage.
AaronOfBarbaria
Adventurer
The early levels, or any levels actually, are only "nail-bitingly dangerous" if the DM chooses to make them that way, and following the advice the DMG actually gives on encounter building should not be referred to as walking on eggshells. Really, I think you are thinking that I said something other than what I did, since your question has basically nothing to do with anything I was saying.
The only funny light I see is the one you are shining - I never said anything about wanting to do something besides the not-really-that-lethal advice provided by the game is "being perverse."
No one said the lethality stops at 2nd level, and whether it does or not is entirely irrelevant to the statements that I made to which you are responding. Lethality does have a noticeable decline at 2nd level, though, since PC hit points increase by a large percentage (as much as doubling) while the damage monsters are likely to be dealing increases by a significantly smaller percentage.
Not yet, but I'll get there.
Why would you make such an assumption? They're a failure for those wanting a gritty, realistic wound system. Many other games model such a thing much better than D&D. Hit points work well enough as far I'm concerned. I don't consider them 'plot armor' like you do. Just a choice made for by the designer of the game to keep it simple.
I have read absolutely nothing written by iserith to indicate he plans deaths. I think he designs encounters and lets the chips fall where they may. That means if he was playing a more lethal edition, he would have a higher body count given the nature of the effects of creatures due to poor rolls. A single missed saving throw in 1E or 2E and you were done. Even in 3E prior to 3.5 a single missed save meant you could be done as well. Coup De Gras or a bunch of creatures teeing off on you.
In 5E you could miss a hold person save against a bunch of weak creatures and all they'll get is advantage on the attacks and automatic crits much lower than they used to be. If you have an AC in the 22 plus range, even advantage on attacks may not help you much. You get held in 3E and you get an automatic critical hit and a death save.
And yet even at level 20 plus character had a 1 in 20 chance of outright dying to an effect or spell that caused death. Watched many a high level character die due to an unlucky 1. No Advantage. No hero points. Full health. Snuffed. Energy drain was especially brutal in 1E and 2E and more brutal in 3E than 5E. Ever watched a high level character in heavy plate with 250 hit points and no energy drain protection get swarmed by specters? No fun for them. No save, negative levels. Hammered.
1E, 2E, and even 3E much more brutal and dangerous than 5E by a good measure.
I still recall how unhappy my friend was in 2E when his level 10 paladin he really loved rolled a 1 against a banshee wail. Poor guy's character was done. Death saves really scared people even if they had a high save and tons of magic items. Roll that 1 and you're done.
The reality is this: there a bunch of people that want to hear no criticism of 5E. The criticisms are by design. Lower chance of death is by design. Easier monsters are by design. So arguing that it isn't true is basically arguing that the 5E designers failed to accomplish what they set out to accomplish: a less lethal, faster to play, simpler game with less highs and lows. Past editions of D&D were far more lethal by design. If you weren't killing more players, you must have been doing something very different with the available tools than the rest of us.
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I picture her bard abilities as a cross between an opera singer and female Celtic singer.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
I'm fine with criticisms of D&D 5e. But when it comes to the issue of threat and lethality, I just think some people aren't trying hard enough.
Huntsman57
First Post
The tools of the game are a framework of rules upon which to build a living, breathing world. They do not suggest that you should lean on them in unnatural ways to make the RP aspect of the world feel absurd. Roleplaying is more than what happens out of combat. Monsters don't do as we please for contrived reasons. We need to put ourselves in their shoes. If the characters are fighting the avatar of the Abrahamic god then yes, we need to ask the question "what would Jesus do?"
I may come off as judging, and I really do think that most players wouldn't put up with a DM who operates as you describe...but at the end of the day if you have a stable group and everyone is having gun then you do you. Most players would prefer a change to the rules that everyone understood upfront. It's fair, and doesn't break immersion.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
I disagree. I see the rules as tools I can use to resolve uncertainty. What my game setting looks like and how it operates in a fictional sense aren't necessarily based upon the rules.
Edit: So far as I can recall, there are also no rules that say whether or not a monster attacks a dying PC. That is solely up to the DM to decide.
If there is a reasonable fictional justification provided for a monster attacking a dying PC, then it's hardly absurd, right? It's trivial to come up with such a reason, at least for me, being a game of imagination and all.
He would do what any other fictional character would do - what the author says he does for any reason the author likes with whatever reasonable fictional justification the author chooses to offer.
What data do you have to assert that "most" players agree with you? What rules do you think I'm changing? And what definition of "immersion" are you using here?
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I'm fine with criticisms of D&D 5e. But when it comes to the issue of threat and lethality, I just think some people aren't trying hard enough.
In 1E and 2E, I had to try harder not to kill people. Every time you put one of those save or die effects in the game, you had to hope the players didn't miss their save or they were done.
3E/Pathfinder was similar. You had to worry a lot about critical hits and coup de gras attacks. The Helpless condition was extremely dangerous. You had to be careful to freeze people. Hold and save or suck spells are why so many people in my 3E/Pathfinder group stopped playing fighters, rogues, and just about anything with a low will save. You had to be very careful of overly ruthless tactics because pop-up healing didn't work. Low hit points was dangerous because one crit when you had low hit points and you were likely dead, even if you were super high level. If you were unconscious, you were dead if in one round no matter how many hit points you had or what death saves you made.
So there was issue of threat and lethality. 1E, 2E, and 3E were objectively more dangerous games due to the mechanical design of the game.
No one is saying you can't die in 5E. It's just harder because there are less lethal options and healing is very different. The only way to kill someone in this edition is Power Word Kill and knocking them to zero hit points. Attacks don't do near as much damage in 5E as they do in 3E. Rocket Tag was a very real thing in 3E. Not that I liked it, but it did make the game more lethal. You had to be real careful in 3E entering battle. I have casters barely using defensive spells in 5E they used to need to stack in 3E.
Not sure why acknowledging the 5E mechanics have changed the lethality of the game is something people are arguing when it's empirically provable that 1E, 2E, and 3E mechanics are more lethal than 5E mechanics. Different design goals in each game.
