D&D 5E Is 5e the Least-Challenging Edition of D&D?

[Undrave]

Yeah. Hit Dice are the fifth edition version of healing surges, but they are much less relevant. What would have been called "surgeless healing" back in 4e is everywhere in fifth, and very potent to boot.

Yeah it's a bit annoying. Surge-based healing was the norm in 4e and it put a hard cap to how much you actually could keep going. I think surgeless healing in 5e is way too prevalent and not only make Spellcasters too important, it contributes to attrition being even slower of a burn. Plus, surge-based healing is anemic in 5e.

I'm a Monk in a group with a Paladin, a Barbarian/Fighter and a Warlock, and the lack of someone with Healing Spell is making our days shorter than they should be... Aside from the Paladin we could have go on and on and on but somehow we run out of HP WAY faster than I feel we should. We're downing potions more often than a Kyle downs Monster Energy...

Surges also had the bonus of being a good resource to drain through environmental hazard or a currency for important out of combat effects.

 

[Minigiant]

Depends on what you call least challenging

• Hardest to drop a PC to 0 hp: 4E
• Hardest to make a healthy party panic: 3E
• Hardest to make a bloodied party: 5e
• Hardest to make a weakened party panic: 4E
• Hardest to drain party resources with default assumptions: 3e
• Hardest to find non coinflippy challenges: pre3e
• Hardest to challenge power gamers: 3e

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Except that 4E had Healing Surges, not Hit Dice, so each use of Second Wind typically restored one quarter of the character's hit points, regardless of level.

Which of the following two, mutually exclusive, choices is "less challenging"?

A: All PCs may heal themselves 1/4 of their HP as an action once per battle.

B: Not all PCs may heal themselves 1/4 of their HP as an action once per battle.

This ability is one factor that leads me to answer "4e" as being the least challenging edition. It is not the sole factor. It is not necessarily the biggest factor. Any situation one can add to point out where the Healing Surge isn't helpful really doesn't argue against the fact that having self healing on the menu is never a negative.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No. 4e was the least challenging for characters.

If you find 5e too easy, first make sure you are following the 6-8 encounters per day. If you want less encounters use the slower healing options of the DMG.

In short 5e is expected that you normally have 6-8 lethal fights for the party per day to challenge them. You're going to be depopulating entire towns at that rate.

As for 4e not being challenging for PCs, I think I've killed PCs more regularly in 4e than in any other edition. On the other hand every time I did I was able to look back and say the PCs had made a mistake somewhere (I normally spotted it at the time). In every other edition PCs have normally died not because the challenge was higher but because the dice hated them that day.

And @Sabathius42 a better way of looking at it would be which of the following four mutually exclusive choices is "less challenging"
A: All PCs may access 100% of their total hit point pool at any point in the day whenever they need it (TSR era). GMs are expected to produce low threat encounters in order to whittle away this pool without seriously threatening the PCs
B: All PCs may access 100% of their hit point pool at any point in the day. PCs who aren't first level have easy access to items like Wands of Cure Light Wounds to top that hit point pool back up to maximum on short notice. In order to make up for this save-or suck spells frequently dominated. GMs are expected to use 4-5 encounters/day to properly challenge PCs.
C: All PCs may only access about 33% of their daily hit point allowance at any given time. In an emergency instead of attacking they could draw from their daily pool at the cost of giving up their attacks for a round (which is almost always not something you want) - and hit point recovery that does not draw from this daily pool is extremely rare. GMS are expected to produce high threat encounters that challenge this short term pool although multiple in a day is good to challenge endurance as well as short term.
D: All PCs may only access about 50% of their daily pool at any given time but hit point recovery that does not draw from this daily pool is common. In order to properly challenge PCs because they have fairly deep pools GMs are supposed to soften them up by using 6-8 encounters per day.

And this is why I consider that with good GMs (and using MM3 math) 4e is the most challenging version. You can run the PCs far closer and far tighter without fudging because the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are reduced and you have a much clearer indication of both how the PCs are going to be at the time and what your monsters can do thanks to much better balance. oD&D was a "test your luck" game for the challenge in part - 4e is a "good movement tactics" game.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Want to put the fear of god into players? Throw a roomful of flameskulls floating around starting out at max fireball range. In the dark, when at least 1 member of the party needs light. They're only CR 4, right?

Oh sweet good lord. I did that once in a convention game, very early in my run of 5e. Fully underestimated how devastating 3 or 4 fireballs in a row can be.

When the opening salvo takes most of the characters down to the last quarter of their hp, and you realize the enemy still have another 2 fireballs each to send down range? Yeah, that was a mistake I won't soon forget.

 

[Oofta]

Oh sweet good lord. I did that once in a convention game, very early in my run of 5e. Fully underestimated how devastating 3 or 4 fireballs in a row can be.

When the opening salvo takes most of the characters down to the last quarter of their hp, and you realize the enemy still have another 2 fireballs each to send down range? Yeah, that was a mistake I won't soon forget.

Glad I'm not the only one!

 

[Olrox17]

I almost wiped a party with one flameskull, four of them sounds like hilarious overkill. Also, banshees.

 

[Lanefan]

Not really indicative of 4E. Do that in AD&D I bet the kill count us going to be a lot higher.

Or 3E. 5E is high damage, high healing, 4E low damage higher healing.

3E depends on if the players know about healing sticks aka wands if clw. Our group used them most I saw did not ymmv.

OSR was moderate to low damage, low healing, nasty effects which bypassed attrition.

There's another variable too:

0e-1e-2e PCs generally had lower h.p. values than 3e, which in turn is lower than 4e-5e.

When comparing damage one also has to consider the ability to soak it up.

IMO the bigger difference is how death works: in 0e and 1e you die at 0, period. In 1e (optional) and 2e you die at -10, period. (also 3e? For some reason I can't remember how 3e death works). In 4e and 5e death takes longer via the death-save mechanics.

The other huge difference is that while PC death has become harder to attain, the opponents still (usually) die at 0 - this hasn't changed since day 1 - which gives the PCs an ever-increasing advantage as the editions go by.

 

[jasper]

Oh sweet good lord. I did that once in a convention game, very early in my run of 5e. Fully underestimated how devastating 3 or 4 fireballs in a row can be.

When the opening salvo takes most of the characters down to the last quarter of their hp, and you realize the enemy still have another 2 fireballs each to send down range? Yeah, that was a mistake I won't soon forget.

Season 6. DDAL06-01. Have Sik'Garuk cast fireball twice during the encounter if the group does not spread out. One of my two TPK in AL. Now some of the pcs were down due attacks by the other critters in the boss fight.

 

[Lanefan]

In short 5e is expected that you normally have 6-8 lethal fights for the party per day to challenge them. You're going to be depopulating entire towns at that rate.

Yeah, unless you're running a hard AP that doesn't go on too long the system expectations and the setting ecology don't exactly mesh.

And @Sabathius42 a better way of looking at it would be which of the following four mutually exclusive choices is "less challenging"
A: All PCs may access 100% of their total hit point pool at any point in the day whenever they need it (TSR era). GMs are expected to produce low threat encounters in order to whittle away this pool without seriously threatening the PCs

How are you arriving at "PCs may access 100% of their total hit point pool at any point in the day whenever they need it"?

Sure they can be cured up to full, but only as long as the healers have any spells left. They don't rest back much at all overnight and thus starting the day at less than full is a very possible thing. Long-term attrition works.

d20-era:

B: All PCs may access 100% of their hit point pool at any point in the day. PCs who aren't first level have easy access to items like Wands of Cure Light Wounds to top that hit point pool back up to maximum on short notice. In order to make up for this save-or suck spells frequently dominated. GMs are expected to use 4-5 encounters/day to properly challenge PCs.

See above re TSR-era.

4e:

C: All PCs may only access about 33% of their daily hit point allowance at any given time. In an emergency instead of attacking they could draw from their daily pool at the cost of giving up their attacks for a round (which is almost always not something you want) - and hit point recovery that does not draw from this daily pool is extremely rare. GMS are expected to produce high threat encounters that challenge this short term pool although multiple in a day is good to challenge endurance as well as short term.
[5e]D: All PCs may only access about 50% of their daily pool at any given time but hit point recovery that does not draw from this daily pool is common. In order to properly challenge PCs because they have fairly deep pools GMs are supposed to soften them up by using 6-8 encounters per day.

Absent from both these is the fact that all PCs will start every day at 100% of their hit points. Long-term attrition does not work.

And this is why I consider that with good GMs (and using MM3 math) 4e is the most challenging version. You can run the PCs far closer and far tighter without fudging because the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are reduced and you have a much clearer indication of both how the PCs are going to be at the time and what your monsters can do thanks to much better balance. oD&D was a "test your luck" game for the challenge in part - 4e is a "good movement tactics" game.

This comes back to whether one sees combat as sport (4e) where things are nicely balanced and the PCs are almost certain to survive*, or as war (0e) where almost any combat carried risk of one or more PC deaths and luck was much more of a factor**.

* - thus making combat the go-to answer in most situations
** - thus making combat something to be avoided if possible