D&D 5E (2014) Damn paladins, you scary!

[Psikerlord#]

5 minutes AD? What is that?

It's a myth, by and large (ime)

 

[S'mon]

Who has 2-3 encounters in a dungeon, then falls back to sleep the night anyway?

My old school grognard 5e player group do that, if they can, since they know it maximises chances of success. My newbie groups are much more likely to press on even when not strictly necessary - running old school adventures like B7 Horror on the Hill this heroic attitude does risk getting them all killed...

 

[Bardbarian]

What you are concerned about is the normal damage curve of the game. It's ok for a player to nova occasionally. from the example you gave, the Paladin used a first and third level slot while maintaining an AC of 18 tops without magic. Compare that with a wizard casting a fireball for an average of 28 damage per target. If there are 2 targets, and why would you fireball if there is only one, the wizard just did 56 damage with a 3rd level spell. Now lets say the wizard has no armor or armor spell and is attacked with a base 16 dex. She can cast shield for an Ac of 18 and has now used the same number of resources while over a hundred feet from the battlefield. Both characters are effective offensively and defensively. The situation will determine which proves more effective at any given time.

Extend this to a fighter of the same level, using dual weild just to keep it simple and only one feat for dual weilding equivalent weapons. 5 attacks with action surge used and lets say 2 battle dice used, one for precise strike to turn a miss into a hit and the other for damage. for a total of 5d8+1d10+25 for roughly 54 damage using similar amounts of resources. this seems pretty close to balance and once again will depend on the situation.

If you are worried about balance the main source of imbalance is the Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter feats. Vs. low armor opponents they can sway the damage way off the curve, but are not inherently imbalanced.

As many have said, the way to handle massive nova potential is to mix it up between a few powerful foes one encounter and then many weaker ones in another fight. Keep the style of the fights dynamic so different characters get to shine at different times.

 

[Eltab]

I've seen players try to do that, but only when conditioned to do so by an adversarial DM that runs every encounter at the bleeding edge of possible to defeat, so the party is actually at the point of "if we push on, we die" before trying to take that rest.

My Tiamat group did exactly that in Chuth's lair - cleared everything out but him then took a long rest. (A VERY LONG rest, the campaign is on hiatus while I work a seasonal job).
In PotA, most of the same group broke into the Cult of Water's dungeon, made a bee-line to the Executive Officer's room, defeated her, and took a long rest while the rest of the place woke up and realized there was a problem. My 'scout' character wasn't able to get them out of that self-created trap.

My group is doing it from tactical blindness, not exhaustion.

 

[Eltab]

One good way to challenge a Single-Shot-Nova PC is to give him a swarm of little bitty guys to deal with - it's not worth unloading your Alpha Strike on any of the dozen kobolds with 5 HP and a 1d4 Sling each.

But once in a while - BBEG fights, say - bring in a bodyguard who has HP(max) and can take everything they throw at him; stagger back a moment than return for more. Let them feel like they've accomplished something !

 

[Flamestrike]

My old school grognard 5e player group do that, if they can, since they know it maximises chances of success.

Enter the DM.

And wandering monsters and time limited quests.

My newbie groups are much more likely to press on even when not strictly necessary - running old school adventures like B7 Horror on the Hill this heroic attitude does risk getting them all killed...

Horror on the hill is a great module - one of my favories from BECMI! It would convert effortlessly to 5E too (the BBEG Red dragon might need to be toned down to a White though!)

Those dungeon levels are teeming with monsters, so maintaining pacing with 'random' encounter is definately a thing. Additionally there are plenty of quest givers who could impose time limits on the PCs in this adventure.

• The boatman who drops the PCs off will come back to pick them up in 7 days. Within that time limit they are free to expore the hill at their leisure.
• The two old women will exchange a magic item to the PCs in exchange for them completing a task for them... within a certain time limit.
• The evil cutist in the dungeons has captured an important NPC from town. He intends to sacrifice her in 3 days time on the full moon; its up to the party to save her!

Etc

 

[Uller]

One good way to challenge a Single-Shot-Nova PC is to give him a swarm of little bitty guys to deal with - it's not worth unloading your Alpha Strike on any of the dozen kobolds with 5 HP and a 1d4 Sling each.

This.

Paladins are great against big bags of hp. Not so much against hordes of mooks. My group just got to level 9. In our last game they fought a couple large groups of monsters and spell casters. The paladin spent most of the game session feeling pretty useless. He rolled poorly on init and most of the time when a significant threat emerged, it would be negated by the casters before he managed to do anything interesting. The last fight of the day included 8 lizardmen, 6 dretches and a Hezrou...the paladin went toe to toe with the Hezrou, someone gave him adv, he scored a crit and that was the end of the Hezrou...that's what paladins do....take damage, heal a bit and nova big damage when it is really needed.

As for games with less than 6-8 encounters between long rests...

Two solutions...1) change your rest rules as per the DMG...short rest is 8 hours and long rest is a week. 2) build 6-8 encounters as per the design guidelines then group them into 2 or 3 very large encounters. Use waves. A deadly encounter followed up by another deadly encounter will cause your players to sit up and take notice.

Most of our group's forays into the temple sections of PotA have turned out like this. The party goes into the dungeon, sneaks around reconning as much as they can, a fight starts, the noise attracts more monsters...next thing you know there are 15 or so bad guys and the party is cornered in a 10X15 room with one way out and throwing fireballs and walls of fire out the door...

For my part, I don't design adventures around the 6-8 encounters per day paradigm. They just happen. Time pressures and monsters behaving a bit rationally take care of keeping the party from resting.

 

[Tshiow]

Played a paladin till level 6. Must admit a lot more kick as than previous editions and easier to RP due to the different oaths and alignment options.

Not OP though? Especially when DM is stingy or careful with gold and magic items. Besides, paladins only deal good damage when smiting.. And that burns their spell slots which are a once per 24 hours ability. On a typical day that would translate to outstanding damage output in 1-2 encounters only.

Fighters on the other hand have a variety of abilities that refresh every short rest.. Far more consistent.

 

[S'mon]

Enter the DM.

And wandering monsters and time limited quests.

As I keep pointing out, fear of wandering monsters is a major reason why the PCs leave the
dungeon 'early' after 2-3 fights, while they still have the resources to handle a random encounter
or two on the way home.

With my grognard online group I'm running a sandbox campaign in which time-limited "can't stop
to rest" quests simply don't come up that often. The PCs choose their own activities and what they prioritise. Occasionally this might involve a time-limited quest but it's usually more "defeat the enemy army before they conquer your homeland" not "rescue the princess before she gets sacrificed tonight" - it's not generally a campaign for creating arbitrary artificial time limits; if a princess gets kidnapped it's a result of emergent play between the factions.

I may have a go creating a time-limited quest that fits naturally into the campaign events, but I'm not going to contort things to get there.

 

[Flamestrike]

Occasionally this might involve a time-limited quest but it's usually more "defeat the enemy army before they conquer your homeland"

There is an overarching time limit right there.

Within that paradigm you can set up a series of smaller time limits (for minor quests and missions related to the ongoing war - stop enemy resupply by time 'X', capture the enemy leader before time 'Y', recon the enemy position before they move at time 'Z' etc.

Each time the PCs fail to meet one of those time limits, the enemy army gets 1 victory point. Each time they succeed in a quest within the time limit, the PCs get one. When the time comes for the final showdown, the side with the most victory points gets (advantage in final battle) with more advantages the larger the number.