D&D 5E Monster Manual and Players Hand Book Power Levels

[Umbran]

nice fair system here I must say.

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[ProphetSword]

You should play the game however you want to play it. There really isn't a right or wrong way to do it. If you're having fun and your players are having fun, then don't worry about what anyone else thinks. Bend the rules to suit your purpose. It does not affect me or anyone else here if you want to make the system match your vision of what is epic.

I, like a lot of people here, feel the game is extremely epic as written. But the world is certainly made up of different kinds of folks who want something different than what I want. With that said, I hope you and your players find the fun you're looking for. Good luck.

 

[CapnZapp]

Re-reading the thread from here in fall 2016.

I gotta say, the numbers argument against the "5E doesn't feel epic" complaint - "numbers are not important" "numbers should be invisible" etc is one huge strawman, and you are several posters that are guilty of this.

Of course a +2 or a +5 or a +87200 isn't significant in itself. That's not at all what the complainers are talking about.

They are (quite obviously) talking about the relative difference between a greenhorn and a veteran hero. Those +2s and +5s do take on a meaning when compared against each other. A +20 to hit might mean nothing, but if compared to a commoner's +1, it is (given the span of a single d20) truly epic, while a +10 to hit would feel much less so.

No "numbers should be invisible" argument can change this.

---

And oh, one more thing.

From the comfort of 2016 and actual, real, playtest, I can emphatically state for a fact that upper-range monsters are decidedly weak/soft in 5th edition and its official adventure modules. Both in absolute terms and compared to 3E/4E. It is definitely an edition we can call beginner friendly, because I have yet to come across an official module that truly test the player skill of veteran players at high levels.

(At low levels it is trivial to TPK the party, and so there there is no problem. In fact, 5E should be lauded for having the guts to pitch low-level heroes against near-insurmountable odds)

Since that might actually sound okay:ish, let me rephrase:

If you DM for competent players (players who pay attention, build with effectiveness in mind, and players who cooperate well in their team) and you thought the optional rules for multiclassing and feats and magic items were there to be used, prepare to redo almost every published high-level encounter or resign yourself to watching them cut through them like a hot knife through butter.

There are too many adventure writers that seemingly lack a full and complete insight of what a high-level party can do. There were too many MM high-level monsters written naively, without even a cursory token attempt at countering even the most trivial kiting tactics any competitive player group can and will deploy.

The bar is set so low that only middling players with no magic, no feats and no multiclassing could have trouble with them.

That 5E doesn't seem to be meant for us who like crunch is actually a big disappointment. You might have thought that feats and mc and magic items made the game more fun, but the primary effect is that everything becomes too easy. In this, 5E is a huge let down.

The game really is meant for characters w/o magic items. They're not kidding.

 

[Prism]

Re-reading the thread from here in fall 2016.

I gotta say, the numbers argument against the "5E doesn't feel epic" complaint - "numbers are not important" "numbers should be invisible" etc is one huge strawman, and you are several posters that are guilty of this.

Of course a +2 or a +5 or a +87200 isn't significant in itself. That's not at all what the complainers are talking about.

They are (quite obviously) talking about the relative difference between a greenhorn and a veteran hero. Those +2s and +5s do take on a meaning when compared against each other. A +20 to hit might mean nothing, but if compared to a commoner's +1, it is (given the span of a single d20) truly epic, while a +10 to hit would feel much less so.

No "numbers should be invisible" argument can change this.

---

And oh, one more thing.

From the comfort of 2016 and actual, real, playtest, I can emphatically state for a fact that upper-range monsters are decidedly weak/soft in 5th edition and its official adventure modules. Both in absolute terms and compared to 3E/4E. It is definitely an edition we can call beginner friendly, because I have yet to come across an official module that truly test the player skill of veteran players at high levels.

(At low levels it is trivial to TPK the party, and so there there is no problem. In fact, 5E should be lauded for having the guts to pitch low-level heroes against near-insurmountable odds)

Since that might actually sound okay:ish, let me rephrase:

If you DM for competent players (players who pay attention, build with effectiveness in mind, and players who cooperate well in their team) and you thought the optional rules for multiclassing and feats and magic items were there to be used, prepare to redo almost every published high-level encounter or resign yourself to watching them cut through them like a hot knife through butter.

There are too many adventure writers that seemingly lack a full and complete insight of what a high-level party can do. There were too many MM high-level monsters written naively, without even a cursory token attempt at countering even the most trivial kiting tactics any competitive player group can and will deploy.

The bar is set so low that only middling players with no magic, no feats and no multiclassing could have trouble with them.

That 5E doesn't seem to be meant for us who like crunch is actually a big disappointment. You might have thought that feats and mc and magic items made the game more fun, but the primary effect is that everything becomes too easy. In this, 5E is a huge let down.

The game really is meant for characters w/o magic items. They're not kidding.

I'm not sure that's a problem with the 5e system as such, but rather the encounter guidelines don't take into account the relative skill of the players. Some groups play completely non optimally with some characters doing very little during combat, others trying to push/trip/confuse the monsters when ideally they would be better of actually attacking. For a group like this (and I have seen/heard of a few) the published encounters based on the general guidelines are about right. They don't work for reasonably optimal groups - and I mean both during character progression and during encounters. Basically the modules seemed aimed at the fairly casual player in terms of difficulty.

We have played a fair bit of home written high level 5e play and our encounters are pretty tough when appropriate. I don't even refer to the encounter guidelines.

Our 20th level (converted) characters are laden with useful items but a fight with Grazzt, two type 5 demons, 3 succubus, 2 fire giants and a summoned balor was pretty epic.

Then again a single demilich also nearly tpk'd us

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm not sure that's a problem with the 5e system as such, but rather the encounter guidelines don't take into account the relative skill of the players. Basically the modules seemed aimed at the fairly casual player in terms of difficulty.

Yes, I mean the combination of rules and how they are actually applied by adventure writers.

I'm not so much talking about abstract theory (Challenge Ratings etc) as practical result (a single Nalfeshnee pitched against a level 12 party; or three Shadow Demons, or a couple of Minotaurs).

Of course, any single given example can be shot down by the old chestnut (all encounters doesn't need to be equally hard), but taken as a whole, you have whole chapters of official modules that seem more appropriate for a party half the assumed level.

It's actually quite distressing. Like I have missed something - "what does the writer know that I don't".

But no; in the end my only explanation is that the writers simply don't have a clue about how to appropriately challenge a party of double-digit level.

Zapp

PS. Not saying it can't be done, so it's not like I'm saying "in 5th edition, a high-level party can't be taken down". That's obviously nonsense (as at least one AL writer have proved ). Not talking about what can be done here - talking about what has actually been done, in actual print.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I think there is a certain amount of the writer knowing with absolute certainty that he doesn't know when the party did or didn't rest, unless being heavy handed and writing the rests into specific parts of the adventure and even then the writer has to know that the DM running the adventure could say "That's lame, not happening" and not force their players to adhere to the designated rest schedule.

The result being that gauging the amount of resource attrition the party will have experienced at the moment a particular encounter happens isn't going to be accurate enough to have any hope of guaranteeing a specific challenge level for any group, let alone a group that are skilled at playing the game.

So the writer chooses a different target, one they are more likely to hit, and instead of trying to write an adventure that challenges veteran groups of players, they write an adventure that most groups will be able to finish.

And likely assumes that any group experienced enough and skilled enough with the game to find the adventure too easy as written includes a DM that is also experienced and skilled and can scale the challenge upward to reach what the group desires.

 

[Prism]

So our current party is made up of

a front liner warlock with 15 Str, 13 con and AC13
a paladin who uses a long sword two handed because he worships Kelemvor
a human sorcerer who took magic initiate druid as his feat even though he has 8 wisdom
a dwarf cleric who likes a spear even though he can use a better weapon

I honestly think that we would be able to play prewritten modules without much modification. Maybe we are the target audience. I am not sure how typical we are though

 

[CapnZapp]

I think there is a certain amount of the writer knowing with absolute certainty that he doesn't know when the party did or didn't rest, unless being heavy handed and writing the rests into specific parts of the adventure and even then the writer has to know that the DM running the adventure could say "That's lame, not happening" and not force their players to adhere to the designated rest schedule.

The result being that gauging the amount of resource attrition the party will have experienced at the moment a particular encounter happens isn't going to be accurate enough to have any hope of guaranteeing a specific challenge level for any group, let alone a group that are skilled at playing the game.

So the writer chooses a different target, one they are more likely to hit, and instead of trying to write an adventure that challenges veteran groups of players, they write an adventure that most groups will be able to finish.

And likely assumes that any group experienced enough and skilled enough with the game to find the adventure too easy as written includes a DM that is also experienced and skilled and can scale the challenge upward to reach what the group desires.

Let's cut to the chase, Aaron.

Official 5E modules are noticeably and significantly less challenging once you're past the first few levels (say level 8+ or at least level 12+).

As opposed to previous editions, there is a definite shift.

If you have experienced players, and you are also interested in crunch and as many character build options as possible, this is bad news.

This is not what you try to make it out to be. A certain degree of cautiousness would be perfectly acceptable.

But this is not merely playing it safe. We're talking about inept (or possibly rushed, incomplete, uneducated; take your pick) encounter design.

Too many encounters in the latter half of Out of the Abyss read as if designed for a completely different game, one where a bunch of goblins or drow or minotaurs was a credible threat to a group of 15th or even 10th level adventurers.

The reasons for this doesn't really matter.

I'm telling it how it is, since that is the subject of this thread. Things simply didn't pan out the way people said so assuredly back in 2014.

 

[The_Gneech]

I've heard stories about banshees (CR 4) nearly pulling a TPK on a level 8 party because your non-proficient saves stay pretty much in the same place as they were at 1st level. And certainly Sly Flourish's essay about playing from 1-20 ( http://slyflourish.com/running_dnd_5e_from_1_to_20.html ) suggests that it's possible to maintain a consistent challenge across levels, but that the wonkiness of encounter building make it harder to do so over time.

Alas, I haven't had the opportunity to run a game beyond level 6 yet due to real life interfering, but I have noticed a trend in the low-level games I've run, which is that because combat moves so much faster than I'm used to from previous editions, I feel like the party isn't being challenged– until I'm reminded that at least two members of the group were dropped to 0 hp and one of them had two failed death saves.

So beware of falling into the idea that just because it was resolved quickly, that the fight was trivial.

5E combats are definitely very swingy tho. A lot of the fights I've seen were determined by which side had the drop on the other, even in cases where the victors, on paper, were horribly overpowered. Again, this can feel like the encounter was "too easy," when dice falling the other way could have made it a crushing defeat.

-The Gneech

 

[CapnZapp]

So our current party is made up of

a front liner warlock with 15 Str, 13 con and AC13
a paladin who uses a long sword two handed because he worships Kelemvor
a human sorcerer who took magic initiate druid as his feat even though he has 8 wisdom
a dwarf cleric who likes a spear even though he can use a better weapon

I honestly think that we would be able to play prewritten modules without much modification. Maybe we are the target audience. I am not sure how typical we are though

Of those four player decisions only the first one is questionable. At AC 13, nobody is a frontliner.

Of far more importance is how you act in combat.

One of my friends have triplets. They're about 13-14 years of age. He started playing D&D with them and a friend.

In their very first encounter (the goblins in Lost Mines), one ran away, one hid, one stood her ground and started shooting arrows, and only one charged the goblins.

The goblins would have TPK'd them without losing a single member of their tribe, had he not brought along a Dwarf Paladin NPC he himself controlled. The idea was that he would be the combat medic, but in this case, he pretty much had to kill off all the goblins by his lonesome.

So it's not that I can't see how even the most trivial of encounters can't be lost, badly, by the players.

But if you expect 5th edition to offer about the same level of challenge and encounter quality as previous editions....

... you should stick to single-digit levels, is all I'm sayin...

Once the CR goes above 10...
...it kinda doesn't...