D&D 5E Removing the HP Bloat

[DND_Reborn]

So, one of our players ran his next session in our CoS game. I will give you a run down of our two battles (which took just over one hour each to play out).

PCs:
3rd level Ranger (UA Beast Master, AC 18, 24 hp)
3rd level Bard (College of Swords, AC 15, 25 hp)
4th level Paladin (homebrew Death Oath similar to Death Domain cleric, AC 17, 33)
3rd level Warlock (Hexblade)/ 1st level Sorcerer (Shadow Magic, AC 18, 24 hp)

versus:

#1.; 4 Dire Wolves (Note, paladin and sorlock were both 3rd level here, not 4th.)

then

#2: 6 Scarecrows

The Dire Wolves battle took 5 rounds and the Scarecrows battle 6 rounds.

Are these unreasonable? Not IMO. Yet the monsters didn't die in 2 or 3 rounds, did they? No.

So, how are YOU (for those who say they are and monster die too quickly) doing it?

 

[Immoralkickass]

So, how are YOU (for those who say they are and monster die too quickly) doing it?

Its simple - git gud.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Its simple - git gud.

Sigh, once again pretty much offering nothing to the thread... what a surprise.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Sigh, once again pretty much offering nothing to the thread... what a surprise.

Not really. You said we usually don't agree with each other, but actually the truth is... from your posts, you have shown that you lack understanding of stuff, and your opinions are... misinformed.

HP bloat is a thing, yes, but mostly at very high levels. That's because all the martials (except Fighter) dont get any more extra attacks after level 5, which is their main source of damage output. Feats like GWN/SS/PAM don't scale too, so they are at their best when taken early, but they are stagnant while monters HP continue to grow. This is why we always say magic items are assumed to be part of the game, they are supposed to help the PCs defeat stuff like the 470hp kraken.

And i dont think you should expect us to offer much of your CoS run when you didnt provide any info on the PC's build, gear etc. Because you shouldn't be using low level combat to prove your point in the first place.

 

[NotAYakk]

So, one of our players ran his next session in our CoS game. I will give you a run down of our two battles (which took just over one hour each to play out).

PCs:
3rd level Ranger (UA Beast Master, AC 18, 24 hp)
3rd level Bard (College of Swords, AC 15, 25 hp)
4th level Paladin (homebrew Death Oath similar to Death Domain cleric, AC 17, 33)
3rd level Warlock (Hexblade)/ 1st level Sorcerer (Shadow Magic, AC 18, 24 hp)

versus:

#1.; 4 Dire Wolves (Note, paladin and sorlock were both 3rd level here, not 4th.)

By DMG guidelines, a deadly encounter.

I'm guessing 0 of you have SS or GWM. And you rely on weapon damage, none of it magical.

And you use 1 handed weapons with 16 attack stat and d8 dice, sometimes with a +2 from Dueling or +1d6 from hex.

Bard probably doesn't leverage dissonant whispers for mass OA spam? (one cast while everyone in melee with target = 3 attacks)

37*4 HP is anout 150. AC of 14 means you hit 2/3 of the time, so need to throw 225 total damage. Swords deals 10, warlock 11, ranger 10 plus another 5, paladin 10. So baseline is 46; 225/46 is 5 rounds.

One whisper landing is a round off that total. Bard can cast it 3 times, DC 14 means 2/3 chance of landing. That gets it down to 3 rounds assuming warlock/paladin does something with spell slots.

#2: 6 Scarecrows

Ah lovely. No blasters, probably no fire. Weapons aren't magical (except hexblade?), so half damage. 200-odd total HP, but *2 for resistance is 400.

Of course, grab a torch to use as a club (say, 1d3 bludgeon + 1d3 fire) and they melt (1d8+5 halves to 5 per hit; 1d3+5+1d3 halved to 3.5 plus doubled to 4 is 7.5). But probably didn't do that.

So 5+2.5 ranger, 11 (magic) warlock, 5 swords bard, 5 paladin.

30ish. 11 AC so hit 75% of the time, for 22 DPR. Against 200 HP, 9 rounds. Finishing them in 6 takes effort.

Grab some torches and hit 36*.75 is 27 DPR. 7ish rounds. Whispers for 3 rounds hitting twice, 5 rounds to win.

The Dire Wolves battle took 5 rounds and the Scarecrows battle 6 rounds.

If nobody in that group is built to do damage, as modelled above, that seems reasonable. Note the scarecrows where significantly deadly+ encounter and the wolves where deadly. Both mainly due to high HP.

Your party doesn't seem to have AOE, so multiple foes will screw you over. The game assumes you have aoe to efficiently drop crowds. When you don't you'll suffer.

Two casts of burning hands could kill every scarecrow hit.

Are these unreasonable? Not IMO. Yet the monsters didn't die in 2 or 3 rounds, did they? No.

Uncertain. I had to invent builds and tactics. Builds where all low damage, no AOEs, and did little but attack action to get your times (on average)

So, how are YOU (for those who say they are and monster die too quickly) doing it?

GWM reckless barb with 16 str and a +1 greataxe deals 1d12+14 (20.5) damage and hits 75% of the time. L 2 Burning hands deals 14 damage to 3 and 28 to 3. Barb kills 2, ranger+pet kills 1. Bard whispers (DC 13, +0 wis save), resulting OAs kill one more.

Next round cleanup. So killing 8 scarecrows in 2 rounds is plausible, assuming you have a party with low level damage optimization.

 

[DND_Reborn]

By DMG guidelines, a deadly encounter.

Yeah, that was what I had when I did the calculations later myself.

Otherwise, you're making a lot of assumptions and optimizations. That's fine since I understand you have to build your own party given I didn't provide tons of detail about our group or how the encounters went, but for instance, assuming the bard has Burning Hands and manages to hit all six scarecrows (it seems like that what you did, but maybe I am misreading you...) is a big stretch. At our table (anyway) magic weapons at levels 3 or 4 is not common at all, especially something like a +1 greatsword.

But anyway, I appreciate the work since you put a lot of thought into it, but overall I am convinced unless the party met the encounters under near optimal conditions and/or were insanely lucky, these foes would take more than 2-3 rounds to defeat.

Regardless, as I said before, each battle took a bit more than an hour. Too much time, too many rounds IMO. Maybe during our next session I'll take notes during a couple battles so you can offer a more informed critique since I like what you wrote. Mea cupla on this one since it was presented in general terms.

 

[JeffB]

..., each battle took a bit more than an hour. Too much time, too many rounds IMO.

Something else- You might want to steal the escalation die mechanic from 13th Age. It's super simple, inserts seamlessly into 5E initiative, and it will shorten combats as the PC's increasingly hit more often as the combat goes on- Also great to give badass "boss" monsters and up the tension on the players. (also having special monster abilities trigger when the die reaches "X"). I use a foam D6 about the size of a Rubix Cube on a tall candlestick/candleholder

Escalation Die
The escalation die represents a bonus to attacks as the fight goes on.

At the start of the second round, the GM sets the escalation die at 1. Each PC gains a bonus to attack rolls equal to the current value on the escalation die. Each round, the escalation die advances by +1, to a maximum of +6.

Monsters and NPCs do not add the escalation die bonus to their attacks

If the GM judges that the characters are avoiding conflict rather than bringing the fight to the bad guys, the escalation die doesn’t advance. If combat virtually ceases, the escalation die resets to 0.

 

[Fanaelialae]

So, one of our players ran his next session in our CoS game. I will give you a run down of our two battles (which took just over one hour each to play out).

PCs:
3rd level Ranger (UA Beast Master, AC 18, 24 hp)
3rd level Bard (College of Swords, AC 15, 25 hp)
4th level Paladin (homebrew Death Oath similar to Death Domain cleric, AC 17, 33)
3rd level Warlock (Hexblade)/ 1st level Sorcerer (Shadow Magic, AC 18, 24 hp)

versus:

#1.; 4 Dire Wolves (Note, paladin and sorlock were both 3rd level here, not 4th.)

then

#2: 6 Scarecrows

The Dire Wolves battle took 5 rounds and the Scarecrows battle 6 rounds.

Are these unreasonable? Not IMO. Yet the monsters didn't die in 2 or 3 rounds, did they? No.

So, how are YOU (for those who say they are and monster die too quickly) doing it?

Just some thoughts.

You may want to take a look at how long everyone is taking for their turns. These are low level characters (and relatively simple monsters) so why is it taking over two minutes on average for each person to act? (4 players plus the DM, 5 to 6 rounds, over one hour per encounter.)

The casters have a handful of spells and the warriors have a single attack (two if dual wielding). Even the monsters are pretty straight forward.

These are not insanely complicated characters (or monsters). They have a fairly limited number of options at their disposal in any given round. 2+ minutes is a very slow turn unless someone has a bunch of options to choose from (analysis paralysis).

Additionally, I would suggest mixing up your encounters a bit. For example, instead of 4 dire wolves you could have used 2 dire wolves and 2 bugbears (who were riding them or using them as a distraction or whatever). That'll make the fight more dynamic. For example, the dire wolves have pack tactics, so hopefully you weren't bothering with the trip check during the encounter if it wasn't going to matter anyway. But with the bugbears, it suddenly does matter! Additionally, bugbears are significantly lower HP but higher AC than the wolves, meaning that the players have strategic options to divide and conquer.

I realize you are using a module, but using a bunch of the exact same monster is rarely all that interesting (and hasn't ever been). Variety is the spice of life and all that...

 

[CleverNickName]

I remember a houserule from a couple of years ago that I thought was pretty good. We only played it for two or three gaming sessions over a long weekend, so I can't say how suitable it would be for a long-term D&D campaign. But I remember it fondly, because it really made combat a lot more exciting and dynamic.

Player Characters start the game with hit points equal to your Con score. They gain hit points equal to 1 + Con modifier (min. 1) at each level-up, and they recover hit points equal to 1 + Con modifier (min. 1) for each short rest. Monsters have hit points equal to 1/2 the amount shown in parenthesis (in the stat block), min. 1.

I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff, but this was the gist of it. It was nice because 1st level characters weren't quite so squishy, and I liked how hit points weren't tied to class.

 

[NotAYakk]

Yeah, that was what I had when I did the calculations later myself.

Otherwise, you're making a lot of assumptions and optimizations.

I assumed your party had next to zero offensive optimizzations, and I got combat durations similar to what you experienced.

I then replaced 2 of your party members with offensively optimized characters and could kill 8 scarecrows in 2 rounds.

You asked "how do fights end in 2-3 rounds" - and the answer is people build characters that can deal damage faster.

If you have a party with zero offensive optimization you will find fighting takes longer.

That's fine since I understand you have to build your own party given I didn't provide tons of detail about our group or how the encounters went, but for instance, assuming the bard has Burning Hands and manages to hit all six scarecrows (it seems like that what you did, but maybe I am misreading you...)

I actually miscounted and simulated a 2 round fight against 8 scarecrows. The aoe caster burning hands 6/8.

is a big stretch. At our table (anyway) magic weapons at levels 3 or 4 is not common at all, especially something like a +1 greatsword.

Then throwing a deadly+ encounter of weapon-resistant monsters against a party with only single target weapon damage is going to be a grind.

Fixing that by rebuilding how HP works is ridiculous.

But anyway, I appreciate the work since you put a lot of thought into it, but overall I am convinced unless the party met the encounters under near optimal conditions and/or were insanely lucky, these foes would take more than 2-3 rounds to defeat.

Your party? Quite possibly. I suspect your party needs someone able to AOE blast, or heck non-weapon damage.

Regardless, as I said before, each battle took a bit more than an hour.

The dire wolves you should have been able to make short work of. Talk to the bard; with that party, dissonant whispers is a save-or-die.

The scarecrows exploited a serious weakness in your party composition and build, and on top of that was a crazy deadly encounter budget.

Maybe your DM isn't following the really over complex and annoying rules. I really wish they had used a different system; there are plenty that you can use that are basically equivalent but don't screw around with encounter size multipliers.