D&D 5E Design Debate: 13th-level PCs vs. 6- to 8-Encounter Adventuring Day

[Celtavian]

Theyre out of plane shift (thats how tehy got here) so banishment works fine.



Firstly, because the Bard can clearly see the Slaadi and is not surprised - this may very well cause one to decide to lob a cloudkill instead of a fireball as a result. Cloudkill obscures the Slaad from the PC that can see them, granting them greater freedom of action, and regains the initiative (in a figurative sense) by sowing confusion.

Also, at least some party members each have potentially two saves to make against the CK due to surprise, and the Slaads initiative relative to thiers (on rounds 1 and 2). This means they may very well be forced to make two saves.

Plus - the bard is in leather armor - from the looks of him he's probably a rogue of some type and thus good with Dex saves, and likely has evasion.

Secondly, the DM is well within his rights to metagame. He's the one behind the screen. Its his job to deplete party resources, police the adventuring day, and maintain the overall challenge and balance of the adventure. He's within his rights to throw a 'random encounter' at the party (that isnt random) if theyre having too easy a time of it, just as he's within his rights to fudge a lucky hit on a PC that could result in an unexpected and unfair TPK.

Its part of running the game. Im aware you probably prefer your DMs to be less participatory and more passive (basically just referencing the rules, and staying out of the story) but I violently disagree with that assertion. The DM doesnt just reference rules, he also (with the trust and participation) regulates the pace of the game, the challenges faced and so forth. There are whole chapters devoted to this in the DMG. Its not your preferred DMing style I can tell, but its a perfectly valid way to DM the game (again, see the DMG).

Putting my DM hat on here, I might decide (as DM) that as the party are fairly resource heavy (having breezed through the earlier encounters) to hit them with a harder effect to increase the overall challenge of the rest of the adventure. I pause and think of an 'in game' reasoning for this strategy (forcing two saves against cloudkill, and circumventing this foe who can clearly see the Slaadi by shutting down the visiblity of the party makes tactical sense) and come up with 'The Slaadi see you charge forward holding a bright gem and reacting to their presence - you see them stop chanting the spell they were about to cast... however they instead cast a spell you recognise instantly - Cloudkill! Make a Con save please as noxious green vapors blocking out vision choke up the hallway'

And cloudkill would have been countered. What part of that is not being understood?

 

[Flamestrike]

And cloudkill would have been countered. What part of that is not being understood?

What part of 'leave my table you're a terrible player, an even worse sport and a total buzzkill' dont you understand?

I should instead have been saying 'Jubilai smiles as she recognises the words to the Cloudkill spell. Her expertise in the study of the arcane has prepared her for just such an occasion, as has her lightning quick reflexes. She raises a hand and with but a single word of power, the cloudkill fails to work. A look of respect crosses the (now visible) Slaadis toad like face. Cross off a 5th level slot'

Instead im saying 'Not interested in listening to you anymore because you're acting like a t***'

And thats on you.

Mod edit: Unacceptable language. See my post below. ~Umbran

 

[Celtavian]

That you still see this as some kind of 'war' between you and I, is absurd. I have (or had anyway) no ill feelings towards you. It was intresting to see how different parties dealt with encounters as they came up. My issue was that you were the only one that was challenging rulings (constantly in fact), and even redoing the encounters. Youre NOT the DM in this experiment. I am. You accept rulings, and you take the encounters and conditions as they come or you leave the game.

I do not accept rulings. If i wanted a situation where I create rules to make the game more challenging, I'd have not wasted my time in this experiment. This was an attempt by you to prove the 6 to 8 encounter day without modification such as extensive DM environment changes using Monster Manual monsters worked.

The intent was to run an adventure and see how it went. I put on my DMs hat and let things fly. I would have made the same rulings regardless of who I was talking to. All my rulings to date have applied to all participants equally, and have been fair and reasonable.

That was not my intent. My intent was to prove that the common monsters found in the Monster Manual without serious tweaking of things can't generate a great challenge against a min-maxed party.

You've flat out refused to show me the courtesy, trust and respect I expect from a player at a table where I run a game and that you yourself demand from your own players. And I've really tried with you man. I really truly did. I even forgave you for your initial shennanigans with messing with the plot hook and being obstructionist, and tried to resolve it via PM.

Look - this is the last time I'm going to respond to you in any detail about this. Its best just to state we have wildly different playing styles and expectations from the game and leave it there. I wish you all the best with your own game, but kindly ask you to leave mine, and to refrain from arguing with me fiurther. Im happy to address any general issues you have with the encounters, but please be prepared to accept any rulings that come out of those questions.

All the best.

This was a, "Hey, if you create some really messed up environmental factors and tinker with the game some, you can make regular monster manual creatures way stronger." Thanks for attempting to prove something I already know.
If I ever see that 6 to 8 encounter day talk knowing you forgot to add "If you seriously beef up the environment of course, then you might be able to handle min-maxed optimized parties", I'm going to ignore it. It's nothing I don't already do.

Talk about changing the goal posts after the game has started. I'm just going to chalk this up to internet forum miscommunication and move on. Man, I seriously wonder how small a minority I'm in when it comes to min-max gaming.

 

[Flamestrike]

I do not accept rulings.

No sh*t.

That was not my intent. My intent was to prove that the common monsters found in the Monster Manual without serious tweaking of things can't generate a great challenge against a min-maxed party.

What a ridiculous assertion. The MM actively encourages DMs to tweak monsters. The DMG expressly encourages the DM to create unique encounter environments. Heck, the last few adventure paths released do both.

Adventure prep script:

Frank: Hey Matt, what you up to?
Matt: Designing a cool adventure for the weekend for my group. Its got all kinds of cool references to OSR modules a neat twist on some old faves
Frank: Hang on is Celtivan in that group?
Matt: Yeah mate, why?
Frank: Have you included any unique environmental conditions, or things not expressly covered by the rules? Have you made any changes to monsters, that might challenge the players or detract from the way they are statted out in the MM?
Matt: Yeah but...
Frank: For the love of God dont. He flat out refuses to play in any game with rulings not rules. He wont accept them and will argue about something as inane as a unique planar trait altering light conditions to impose disadvantge to ranged attacks for literally hours.
Matt: What if I insert a unique magic item that isnt in the book?
Frank: Oh he's totally cool with that. Rulings are fine if they help him.
Matt: Huh?
Frank: Yeah man. And he'll flat out refuse to engage in your plot hook.
Matt; No way, this hook is perfect.
Frank: He only ever creates amoral characters who dont care if the world burns. No friends, family, or any interest in the world at all. This includes being wealthy or being in positions of power, because according to him, 'wealth means nothing in 5E'. This is intentional so he cant get 'roped into adventures by the DM'
Matt: Blinks.

This was a, "Hey, if you create some really messed up environmental factors and tinker with the game some, you can make regular monster manual creatures way stronger." Thanks for attempting to prove something I already know.

I dont care. This is an adventure that has a few unique challenges attached. Like how vampires can walk around in sunlight in Barovia and the PCs cant leave 'because fog' (and spells function differently). Or the effects of faezeres and Demon madness in the Underdark adventure before it. Or whatever. Youre the only person who feels the need to have a sook about it. Constantly. Even after I ruled that it wont apply to the adventure because I neglected to put it in the first post.

I mean WTF? If you did this at my table, I'd have to restrain a few of my players from physically turfing you out the door.

I seriously wonder how small a minority I'm in when it comes to min-max gaming.

Whats happening here has nothing to do with your characters and their abilities, optimisation or min-maxing, or 6-8 encounters. My home party are extremely optimised. Our 3.5 party featured a Ruby knight vindicator [archivist], an Incantatrix and CoDzilla. Optimization is pointless to an extent, as the DM can always optimize more - all it really does is create more work for everyone, and bar less experienced players from the game. No, this has everything to do with you as a player. Jubilai wasnt being an argumentative fool and questioning every single ruling, or sooking about encounter conditions, or redrawing encounters, or whining about monster tactics, you were. Maybe you tolerate this in your home games when you DM. I certainly dont.

You managed to alienate me totally as a DM and a fellow player of the game. That this still seems to be lost on you truly worries me.

 

[BoldItalic]

"That's a relief," said Dom, untwisting her beard from her ears.

"Is there always a white mist?" wondered the bard. "I know lots of verses about white mists. I expect you would find them helpful if I recited them?"

"There's a castle over there," said Bedrock, hurriedly changing the subject.

"You're at home in castles, Bedrock, do we walk up to the gate and invite ourselves in?"

"Um, I'm trying to remember something. When I was and a little tiny boy ..."

" ♫ With a hey ho and a hey nonny no ♫ "

"... my uncle had a tome in the library called "Castles of the Worlds in XXV Volumes" and I used to look at the pictures when it was raining. Which was practically every day - it rains a lot in Cornwall. Anyway, I think I recognize this one. It's especially gothical. It's called Borovia and it belongs to Count somebody or other. I don't think we're related, though. Not blood relations, anyway."


And there we must leave the tale of Bedrock, Edward and the others, for it belongeth not in this thread

 

[Charles Rampant]

Well, this thread was certainly very interesting, but I'm not sure that the results of the experiment have yielded much. A shame, as I was really interested to see how things went in a 13-level dungeon. [MENTION=6788736]Flamestrike[/MENTION], would you be able to post the encounters as a single document, so that those of us in the peanut galleries can see your construction, and perhaps offer commentary?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

hat you still see this as some kind of 'war' between you and I, is absurd. I have (or had anyway) no ill feelings towards you. It was intresting to see how different parties dealt with encounters as they came up. My issue was that you were the only one that was challenging rulings (constantly in fact), and even redoing the encounters. Youre NOT the DM in this experiment. I am. You accept rulings, and you take the encounters and conditions as they come or you leave the game.

How is it possible that Celtavian and Hemlock are both the "only one challenging rulings"? I assure you, we're not each other's sock puppets.

Besides, the OP of this thread makes it clear that you're supposed to "Describe how you would run the challenge as designed including any rulings you would make at your table." There is not a word of "Describe how Flamestrike would run this challenge and slavishly obey it." Describing your own rulings is supposed to be part of this thread.

It's not about you, Flamestrike.

 

[Lord Twig]

Can they Plane Shift back in to ambush the party? I noticed they had plane shift. If a banishment worked, I was going to have them plane shift back into the demiplane and ambush the party. Flamestrike said they had recently plane shift-ed into the plane. Did they get a chance to long rest, so they could use their plane shift to get back if banished? You should check.

I did debate over using Banishment on the Death Slaads. I eventually reasoned it like like this...

First, does Ceric (my wizard) know that the Death Slaads have Plane Shift? If not, then he would use Banishment.

If he does know that they have Plane Shift then what are the odds that they have already used it considering they are in a extra dimensional plane that did not exist earlier that day?

If they have already used it, then the Banishment will work.

If they haven't used Plane Shift then there is nothing from stopping them from using Plane Shift on one of Ceric's friends, and they will probably fail their save. With the limited time there would be no way to get them back before the "End of the World" and I would be down a couple characters. By banishing the Death Slaads I have either removed them entirely, or I have at least removed their most dangerous ability.

Plus Ceric is an Abjurer and Banishment would be his go-to 'save or die' spell effect when faced with outsiders.

 

[iserith]

They can't survive in it because they aren't immune to poison or even resistant to it. They have no ranged attacks besides fireball. They cannot attack in the cloud. The party would clear the cloud in a single move because heavy obscurement does not impede movement. The slaad don't have the power set to take full advantage of a cloudkill. If the slaad were immune to poison or had amazing ranged attacks, it would be in their best interest to fill the entire room with a cloudkill. But they don't. Their main damage is melee. So they have to close the distance. Cloudkill for all intents and purposes is exactly like fireball in the circumstances in the room. A damage spell that will likely do one round of damage.

Cloudkill has always been a somewhat hard to use spell. One of the best uses in 3E was coordinated or quickened. You cast cloudkill[/k] and quicken a wall of force to seal creatures in with a cloudkill. If the slaad had a wall of force, that could have been nasty as well.

Death slaad just don't have the combination to use cloudkill against a PC party as much more than a direct damage spell.

I've already mentioned how I would set up the terrain to make cloudkill more viable, but failing that, I wouldn't mind sticking the slaadi in the cloudkill. Their blindsight will allow them to attack with advantage while the PCs attack with disadvantage. Both will take damage from the cloud and the slaadi a 50% chance to save and have regeneration to offset that a bit. (On average, a successful saving throw and regeneration reduces the damage to 2 hp only!)

In a fictional sense, I've always seen slaadi as a bit crazy (being from Limbo and all). So unleashing cloudkill with themselves all up in it isn't much of a stretch in this regard. Once they get close to death, a fireball centered on themselves would also be a cool way to go out.

I'm of course speaking in general here without reference to the characters involved in the scene.

 

[hawkeyefan]

How is it possible that Celtavian and Hemlock are both the "only one challenging rulings"? I assure you, we're not each other's sock puppets.

Besides, the OP of this thread makes it clear that you're supposed to "Describe how you would run the challenge as designed including any rulings you would make at your table." There is not a word of "Describe how Flamestrike would run this challenge and slavishly obey it." Describing your own rulings is supposed to be part of this thread.

It's not about you, Flamestrike.

I believe that saying "I would run this encounter this way..." is one thing, as opposed to telling the encounter designer "You are running the encounter wrong."

I think that the format of the discussion has had a lot to do with some of the disagreements in the thread...not happening in real time is a big factor...but I don't really see how you can tell the person who designed the encounters that this is not about him or that he's doing it wrong. It is very much about him as he seems to have put a lot of effort into this. I for one appreciate the effort. And that by no means is me saying that his encounter design is beyond criticism or discussion....but there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it.