Fiddling around with Fifth Ed

[The Crimson Binome]

If they have a solid grasp of the underlying principles they should be more inclined to create unique, outlier builds for the challenge of it.

Show off your system mastery with a 15 str, 14 Con, 8 Dex elf fighter who never increases those stats with an ABI but is still effective.

You can't ask a player to shoot themselves in the foot, when it may later result in the death of the entire party. This is a team game, and you owe it to everyone else at the table to at least try to take this seriously.

 

[MechaPilot]

A few observations I've made (and some that my players have shared with me):
1) 5e doesn't seem to support high level play. Most official products tap out at 11th level. There's little to no help in showing DMs how to craft adventures or encounters for higher level. It's as if there is no intention that characters should play beyond mid level.

As others have pointed out, the surveys have shown WotC that few campaigns go past level 13 or so. Naturally, their materials are targeting the 1st - about 15th level range.

Also, high level play is a lot of work for a DM (and a writer of adventures) because of all the magic the PCs are likely to have at their disposal. High level play requires a lot of built-in attrition of magical resources. I use a bunch of pit traps and chasms just wide enough that they can't be jumped just to eat up lower level spell slots (on jump, feather fall, spider climb and fly).

A high level adventure also pretty much has to be written with the assumption that the magic arms race is in full effect.
Want to keep something secret? It needs magic to keep it secret, and magic to hide that magic from detect magic.
The bad guys better have some means of preventing the PCs from scrying on them or teleporting in and out of their lair. That means more magic.
You might want to make sure patrols have a caster who can dispel magic on that Leomund's Tiny Hut the PCs are trying to rest in too. Yup. More magic.
And, you might consider adding a caster to several encounters just so they can counterspell some of the PCs' spells.

Frankly, high-level play as written is just a huge pain in the butt to run, let alone write adventures for. As a DM, I'd rather start a new game at that point than have to spend at least double the normal time preparing for high-level sessions.

2) The encounter creation math just doesn't work. Some monsters (such as hellhounds) can decimate low level parties. Others are not even challenging at all.

Encounter creation math doesn't work well. The only edition I found it worked well in was 4e. For every other edition you're probably better off using a different method. For 5e my base assumption for an encounter is a number of creatures equal to 1.5 times the size of the party (2 times party size if their AC or HPs are substantally lower than the PCs').

If a monster can hit your party's average AC at least 40% of the time, has at least as many attacks per action as the average party member, and the average party member can hit it no more than 75% of the time, I'd say it's on relatively even footing. Throw 1.5 times the party size of those at it and you've got a relatively balanced encounter.

Another way to look at it is to modify things based on optimization. I have a player at my table who loves to min/max. His wizard bladesinger can achieve a 26 AC with bladesong and shield active. I count that PC as two PCs when doing any encounter math.

Also, the RAW encounter math assumes no magic items. If any member of the party has any magic item that heals them, gives them any kind of resistance, boosts their AC, or their attack and damage bonus, then the math will be out of whack. Personally, I just don't give out +X items, ever. I might be willing to break this rule for some weapons (though I prefer giving them expanded crit ranges or just higher damage dice), but never for anything that boosts AC. NEVER.

3) Most combats are boring. There are few tactical options, and most monsters are just bags of hit points, ever-increasing as characters level up. (This seems to originate from the bounded accuracy design goal.) Most monsters can't reliably hit PC Armor Class.

A lot of 5e monsters lack tactical depth compared to 4e. I steal monster abilities liberally from 4e. I also make my monsters improvise actions a lot. The look on my PCs faces when a kobold rushes them, slides between their legs to get behind them before taking the dodge action, and then another one rushes them and now both kobolds have advantage is priceless.

Here's what I do with dragons in my setting. I'm sure you'll find it rather 4e inspired. And, if not something you want to use then at least hopefully reading it will be good inspiration for you to come up with other stuff of your own.

And here's a hazard and associated monster from my setting. Feel free to use them if you wish.

4) You either have a TPK or no character ever dies. (Not that I like character death, but it should at least feel threatening without being "campaign-ending")

I've found that as well. I think that might be an artifact of the death and dying system 5e uses, because I found the same thing in 4e as well.

5) Few groups (or official products) actually follow the encounters per day guideline, creating overpowered casters and underpowered martial characters.

True, but most 5e official products are remakes of old products who never gave a crap about balancing daily encounters anyway. But, those original products also assumed wizards would have no cantrips to use every round. I like my wizards to always have something magical they can do, but combat cantrips do make them roughly on par with fighters making melee attacks. I suppose one way to deal with this would be to cull all damage dealing cantrips from the cantrip lists. That way a wizard could prestidigitation or friends all day long, but no damage without spending a slot or spell points. Or you could just lower the damage dice of the damaging cantrips to d2s, d3s, d4s or d6s.

I've been watching Matt Colville's YouTube videos, and at his advice, I'm going through my old 4e books for inspiration. I've been redesigning every monster and the encounter math. The game I'm running now is still 5e from the players' perspective, but everything on my side of the DM Screen is homebrewed.

Matt's videos and advice are generally quite good.

I don't think you need to redesign every monster. Just start giving monsters equivalent equipment. At higher level play why wouldn't enemy monsters have +X weapons? As long as the +X equals or is less than what the PCs already have, you're not giving them any upgrades when they defeat the monsters. And why wouldn't goblins suitable for a higher level game be wearing heavier armor? Let's say . . . scale mail. I'm sure whatever high level boss is pitting them against the party can afford to outfit them in better-than-usual armor and weapons.

 

[OB1]

You can't ask a player to shoot themselves in the foot, when it may later result in the death of the entire party. This is a team game, and you owe it to everyone else at the table to at least try to take this seriously.

Who said anything about not taking it seriously? We established that the game is balanced on an assumption that optimizing for combat is not required for survival. That means there are thousands of viable paths for a character to take. I can both take an interesting path and carry my weight with the team. Or the team can decide as a group that the challenge of playing marginal characters is worth the risk of character death for the story we are interested in playing. Or, perhaps one person optimizes to the hilt and acts as a protector for the rest of us misfits.

But you can’t have both challenge and safety. If the characters really wanted to be safe, they wouldn’t leave their front door. And the meta game of optimizing characters isn’t a challenge when you can just look up builds on the internet.

If you want a challenge, you have to make your own, either with the DM adjusting the game around the standard assumptions, or the characters doing so. IMO, if the whole group is looking for challenge it’s much easier for them to build for it than the DM to adjust for it.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I've been running 5th edition since the Starter Set was released, and run several other campaigns including Hoard of the Dragon Queen (with D&D Encounters), Princes of the Apocalypse, Storm King's Thunder, Out of the Abyss, and (now) Tomb of Annihilation. I've run homebrew campaigns in Ravenloft (before the Curse of Strahd release) and in an original setting.

A few observations I've made (and some that my players have shared with me):
1) 5e doesn't seem to support high level play. Most official products tap out at 11th level. There's little to no help in showing DMs how to craft adventures or encounters for higher level. It's as if there is no intention that characters should play beyond mid level.
2) The encounter creation math just doesn't work. Some monsters (such as hellhounds) can decimate low level parties. Others are not even challenging at all.
3) Most combats are boring. There are few tactical options, and most monsters are just bags of hit points, ever-increasing as characters level up. (This seems to originate from the bounded accuracy design goal.) Most monsters can't reliably hit PC Armor Class.
4) You either have a TPK or no character ever dies. (Not that I like character death, but it should at least feel threatening without being "campaign-ending")
5) Few groups (or official products) actually follow the encounters per day guideline, creating overpowered casters and underpowered martial characters.

I've been watching Matt Colville's YouTube videos, and at his advice, I'm going through my old 4e books for inspiration. I've been redesigning every monster and the encounter math. The game I'm running now is still 5e from the players' perspective, but everything on my side of the DM Screen is homebrewed.

Has anyone else run into similar issues? If so, how did you address them?

Switched to Swords and Wizardry for my game. I just realized that 5e just isn't my bag and spending time hammering it into shape was a waste of time I could use more productively. Granted most people aren't going to want to switch to a clone of OD&D but with so many D&D variants out there no need to spend too much time messing with the system unless your group doesn't want to play another edition. In my case I have a stable group that has been gaming together for decades and when I said "I'm moving my next game to a new system" they all said "cool". I like your approach especially if the players are blissfully unaware of your mods. Kudos!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Who said anything about not taking it seriously? We established that the game is balanced on an assumption that optimizing for combat is not required for survival.

Optimization is absolutely mandatory in order to ensure the best chance of survival. If you don't optimize, and someone else in the party dies as a result, then it's entirely your fault.

As a player, it is your obligation to everyone else at the table, to optimize to the best of your ability (within the bounds allowed to you). To not do so would be disrespectful of the time and effort they have invested into the common cause.

But you can’t have both challenge and safety. If the characters really wanted to be safe, they wouldn’t leave their front door. And the meta game of optimizing characters isn’t a challenge when you can just look up builds on the internet.

If you want a challenge, you have to make your own, either with the DM adjusting the game around the standard assumptions, or the characters doing so. IMO, if the whole group is looking for challenge it’s much easier for them to build for it than the DM to adjust for it.

Optimization isn't meta-gaming. Optimization is making intelligent and thoughtful decisions as your character, and them asking advice from their peers. Optimization is a form of role-playing, as long as you're role-playing a competent adventurer.

Making an inferior character, because you want a challenge, is meta-gaming. If you want a challenge, and you aren't a meta-gamer, then those decisions need to be taken out of your hands.

 

[OB1]

Optimization is absolutely mandatory in order to ensure the best chance of survival. If you don't optimize, and someone else in the party dies as a result, then it's entirely your fault.

As a player, it is your obligation to everyone else at the table, to optimize to the best of your ability (within the bounds allowed to you). To not do so would be disrespectful of the time and effort they have invested into the common cause.Optimization isn't meta-gaming. Optimization is making intelligent and thoughtful decisions as your character, and them asking advice from their peers. Optimization is a form of role-playing, as long as you're role-playing a competent adventurer.

Making an inferior character, because you want a challenge, is meta-gaming. If you want a challenge, and you aren't a meta-gamer, then those decisions need to be taken out of your hands.

I’d argue that all choices related to what goes on your character sheet are an unavoidable meta-game. What you actually do during play is what matters.

Put simply, I can come up with any number of in game reasons why my decision to take Tavern Brawler as a Gnome Sorcerer is character driven, for example, that character often got into bar fights. You may counter that there was a better choice, but characters, like people, don’t always make the optimal choice in their lives.

Or, they might not be able to master a particular skill even if they want to. It’s only in the meta-game that any PC can always succeed at gaining the benefit of whatever ability they want. Knowing that is the case forever taints character creation and advancement with meta-game implications.

 

[Salthorae]

You may counter that there was a better choice, but characters, like people, don’t always make the optimal choice in their lives.

THIS!

Also now I want to see someone playing a gnome sorcerer who has tavern brawler, that sounds like an awesome character

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I’d argue that all choices related to what goes on your character sheet are an unavoidable meta-game. What you actually do during play is what matters.

Put simply, I can come up with any number of in game reasons why my decision to take Tavern Brawler as a Gnome Sorcerer is character driven, for example, that character often got into bar fights. You may counter that there was a better choice, but characters, like people, don’t always make the optimal choice in their lives.

Or, they might not be able to master a particular skill even if they want to. It’s only in the meta-game that any PC can always succeed at gaining the benefit of whatever ability they want. Knowing that is the case forever taints character creation and advancement with meta-game implications.

If you want to argue that it's meta-gaming, then so be it. I don't agree, but it's irrelevant to the actual point, which is that failure on your part may lead to suffering for someone else, or possibly the entire group. If you consciously choose to make your character less powerful than they could be, and someone else suffers because of that, then it's your fault.

By presenting a balanced game, without superior and inferior options, it avoids putting any player into that situation. Your choices become about what type of character you want to be, and not about your obligations to support others to the best of your ability.

 

[Oofta]

If you want to argue that it's meta-gaming, then so be it. I don't agree, but it's irrelevant to the actual point, which is that failure on your part may lead to suffering for someone else, or possibly the entire group. If you consciously choose to make your character less powerful than they could be, and someone else suffers because of that, then it's your fault.

By presenting a balanced game, without superior and inferior options, it avoids putting any player into that situation. Your choices become about what type of character you want to be, and not about your obligations to support others to the best of your ability.

Has there ever been a perfectly balanced version of D&D? Do you really think it's even possible?

While a totally incompetent character may be annoying, that's a far cry from saying that all characters must be the optimal build. People play for a lot of reasons, chasing after the "perfect" build isn't for everyone.

 

[Oofta]

THIS!

Also now I want to see someone playing a gnome sorcerer who has tavern brawler, that sounds like an awesome character

Hmmm ... does a gnome tavern brawler have a chance to stun opponents on a critical hit against male medium sized characters based on where they're punching?