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

[CapnZapp]

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

Please note we seem to be talking about two (slightly but crucially) different things.

You talk about 5th Ed in general.

I talk about published modules specifically.

You, or I, or Angry DM are probably and hopefully all able to create challenging encounters for parties of all levels. As you correctly say, the best strategy is not to try to ensure that one particular encounter will be challenging, but instead to build several encounters, and then let the laws of averages ensure that at least one of them will (by pure happenstance) be challenging!

The sad part is that we would by this stage all be better than the ones writing the latter half of Out of the Abyss...!

 

[CapnZapp]

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

I can also add that yes, there are definitely a selection of monsters that really punch at or even above their paygrade.

This does not mean that most monsters don't. More crucial to my point, there are too many high-CR ones that are outright lame.

The MM is simply wildly variable. One monster is given a pair of pathetic melee attacks and no way to use them beyond an easily shuttered Speed 30. Another monster is given save or dies with frightening save DCs.

But generally, when you say combats are very swingy, combined with how you've played at no higher than 6th level - let me assure you, that is because characters have very few hit points at the first few levels, compared to the hurt one might be subjected to in any given round, even from notionally weak foes.

But once you've left those levels, and start to sport 50 hp or more, you will find that your increased health buffer quickly outruns the kind of damage you will take in most rounds.

(Sure you can always be ambushed by four Barlguras that happen to deal two criticals, like what happened to the monk in my campaign, and go from full hp to dying in a single initiative count... but by that time, something like that is a rare exception)

At really high levels save or suck spells will start to fly with frequency, possibly adding back a bit of swinginess. But that's something else.

 

[Mistwell]

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.

Have you found play reports of more recent WOTC adventures (Strahd and Giants, for example) support your opinion on this that a majority of people playing with those adventures are also finding this problem with encounter design?

 

[The_Gneech]

Prepared modules, true, I cannot speak to as I haven't had the opportunity to use them (and honestly probably would run them as written anyway, just 'cos I usually don't). I'd like to try my hand at some high-level shenanigans in 5E to see for myself!

Thing of it is, tho, I've always felt (regardless of edition) that high-level D&D pretty much requires customized content to work anyway. Once things like fly, raise dead, and dominate monster start showing up, players don't just go off the rails, they tie the rails into pretzel knots and point 'em right back at you. So any kind of story outline is going to be little more than a designer's "best guess."

All of which said, there is certainly a peculiar trend toward low CRs in the Monster Manual, with something like 50% of the monsters being CR 2 or lower. 5th Edition Foes punches this up a bit and presumably Tome of Beasts does as well.

-The Gneech

 

[Jester David]

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.

Which modules did your players find too easy?

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

I'm not sure how "experienced" and "interested in crunch" are related.
I also don't see how that's a problem at the table. How it affects the actual play of the game during the session.

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.

I find that amusingly old school. Small, incidental encounters pop up a lot in old school modules.
Plus, if you want your players to actually feel badass, they need to face weaker foes and have easy encounters. Sometimes you just need to kick someone's butt.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Not every encounter needs to be a threat
Speedbumps are useful, because resource management is part of the game.
No edition before really had challenging high level encounters. Actually I quit 3.5 because My really high level villain supposed to be a threat and was killed by buff scry teleport.
Also in ADnD 2e we steamrolled encounters. And that was indeed necessary. Because one more round and everythkng could have changed. Death attacks and summons were a thing back then.

 

[Prism]

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

Yeah that's my character let down by some seriously bad stat rolling (He's a mountain dwarf and those stats include the +2's!)

. Should be ok if he survives until level 4 so he can get the heavy armour feat.

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.

Yeah I agree. Our group plays pretty optimally in combat. If you watch any of the streamed games like Force Grey or Dice, Camera, Action they are pretty suboptimal in combat and often make it harder than it could be. Lots of splitting the party and spending actions which don't contribute to the usual way of defeating an opponent (ie damaging its hit points). How you design an adventure module to cover all game styles I'm not sure. It certainly looks like they aimed for the lower side of difficulty. Maybe that's the right approach for a general group who either don't build characters particularly optimally or don't play for the quick win during combat.

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...

You know, I can't actually remember playing a prewritten module in any edition above 10th level. Have they ever been that challenging or designed for encounter balance? We have played several high level campaigns but by that point its all been DM written stuff which can be as challenging as required.

 

[CapnZapp]

I find that amusingly old school. Small, incidental encounters pop up a lot in old school modules.
Plus, if you want your players to actually feel badass, they need to face weaker foes and have easy encounters. Sometimes you just need to kick someone's butt.

You make it sound like I was complaining my players don't feel badass enough, and thus serve up the brilliant solution "have weaker foes and easy encounters".

That's not what we're talking about here.

In fact, it's the complete opposite.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It is not only that players can't play optimal, but that players may want to play a cowardly character, or an egoistic character. Or one that always charges to th front. That is a playstyle people like. The optimal playstyle is a certain way of playing. If you make adventures for that play however you just kill off every other style or the party will die repeatedly.
Maybe the best way of handling adventure paths would be the way of doing it in adventurer's leage. Suggestions for harder and less hard encounters.

 

[CapnZapp]

First off: let me say that I understand the challenge of having this discussion, since there are many people voicing opinion without actually having any play experience with high level 5th edition play (and by "high level" I really mean mid to high level since there is no official content for truly high level play yet).

(Remember, I'm not talking about your superb campaign. I'm only talking about official published first-party content here. Things like Out of the Abyss)

It certainly looks like they aimed for the lower side of difficulty.

The problem is that this characterization would fit my previous experience (mostly 3E but a bit of 2E and 4E)

And if it were true, I wouldn't be here to post about it. Because if the aim was roughly right, just a little bit low, I could have worked with that. I know I have for decades.

But "aiming for the lower side of difficulty" is not the problem here.

When you have a module where encounters read as if they would challenge a 6th level party, but the party is in reality level 12, something is seriously wrong.

It's this shift I'm talking about. A trend I haven't seen before. Something new, and unsettling.