D&D 5E Super Deadly 5E?

[S'mon]

I think the party is too large. I have 6 players including 2 paladins with high AC, an insane AC monk who can shut down anything with a grapple, a cleric, a ranger with healing spirits, and a wizard who focuses on evocation magic. The only time they've had any difficulty is when they split party and go totally reckless. The amount of healing available is ridiculous. There are 4 healers in a party of six. And this wasn't even done on purpose - it's just inherent in the design of the system.

As with 4e, too many healers definitely lowers the threat level.

The main thing with a powerful group is to have the monsters play to win; those with multi attack or in mobs should certainly CDG fallen PCs. And it's ok to have frequent Deadly+ encounters, as well as lots of encounters between LR.

 

[S'mon]

Well, not knowing the rest of the encounter, a single Wraith got lucky by smacking a Wiz-5 with 22 hp (which, FWIW means NO CON bonus and/or crappy HD rolls) for a critical hit and the PC failed the CON save (again, with no or little bonus). So, while the 22 damage is basically average for the critical hit, the odds are pretty rare (about 1 in 30). I guess the PC also had no inspiration to reroll the failed save or anything?

Then the cleric failed to turn the Specter? Again the odds are against that as well. Specter's have no WIS mod or save, so it was a straight d20 roll against the Turn DC, which at 5th level should be about 14 or so. That is only about a 1 in 3 chance to make the save. Not bad, but 2-1 against.

So, not knowing the rest of the party (other than a cleric), even with all that being the case, the three remaining PCs would have a "hard" encounter against the Wraith and Specter combined instead of the "easy" it would have been with all four against the Wraith alone. Unless another unlucky crit came up, odds are the remaining three should prevail (dependent on other factors such as resources (spells, feature uses, etc.) remaining and hp and such).

I don't know why you keep saying critical hit - it was a regular hit with 1 point above average damage. The elf Wizard had no CON bonus which was certainly a mistake. There were 3 level 5 PCs vs one CR 5 Wraith and it kicked their butts fair & square.

Edit: a crit from a Wraith averages 39 damage! :-O

If the GM wants to be mean (which Sage Advice never is IME), you can certainly interpret the wording that the damage stacks with the hit point reduction, so an average crit with failed save would reduce max hp by 39 and also do 39 damage to current hp, reducing PC's current hp by 78...

 

[S'mon]

But you do realize that monk can't grapple Huge creatures, right, without magic or something?

Combine this with Monk having advantage on the grapple check, and I start to get suspicious...

Personally I generally give Large creatures advantage to resist or break free of grapple vs medium creatures. But Monks can just Stun anyway.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Combine this with Monk having advantage on the grapple check, and I start to get suspicious...

Personally I generally give Large creatures advantage to resist or break free of grapple vs medium creatures. But Monks can just Stun anyway.

Giving them advantage is RAW, advantage in grappling starts with one size category larger than whoever started it.

That also means that large creatures starting a grapple have advantage to pick up people and carry them away from the party.

 

[S'mon]

Giving them advantage is RAW, advantage in grappling starts with one size category larger than whoever started it.

That also means that large creatures starting a grapple have advantage to pick up people and carry them away from the party.

"Grappling
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a Special melee Attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this Attack replaces one of them.

The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check instead of an Attack roll: a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you succeed, you subject the target to the Grappled condition (see Conditions ). The condition specifies the things that end it, and you can release the target whenever you like (no action required).

Escaping a Grapple: A Grappled creature can use its action to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your Strength (Athletics) check.

Moving a Grappled Creature: When you move, you can drag or carry the Grappled creature with you, but your speed is halved, unless the creature is two or more sizes smaller than you."

 

[Chaosmancer]

"Grappling
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a Special melee Attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this Attack replaces one of them.

The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check instead of an Attack roll: a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you succeed, you subject the target to the Grappled condition (see Conditions ). The condition specifies the things that end it, and you can release the target whenever you like (no action required).

Escaping a Grapple: A Grappled creature can use its action to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your Strength (Athletics) check.

Moving a Grappled Creature: When you move, you can drag or carry the Grappled creature with you, but your speed is halved, unless the creature is two or more sizes smaller than you."

????

I know I saw it in the books somewhere. Did I miss it up with a different rule?

Edit: The spells.

Every spell that includes grappling or restraining gives Large creatures advantage on the save or check involved. That's where I got it confused

 

[S'mon]

????

I know I saw it in the books somewhere. Did I miss it up with a different rule?

Yup.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don't know why you keep saying critical hit - it was a regular hit with 1 point above average damage. The elf Wizard had no CON bonus which was certainly a mistake. There were 3 level 5 PCs vs one CR 5 Wraith and it kicked their butts fair & square.

Edit: a crit from a Wraith averages 39 damage! :-O

If the GM wants to be mean (which Sage Advice never is IME), you can certainly interpret the wording that the damage stacks with the hit point reduction, so an average crit with failed save would reduce max hp by 39 and also do 39 damage to current hp, reducing PC's current hp by 78...

Sorry, for some reason when you wrote a single hit originally I thought you had written a critical hit. My bad.

Either way, yes a no-CON-mod Wizard is never a good idea (low hp, poor concentration). But this also means not only did the newly made Specter make its save versus the Turn Undead, but so did the Wraith (less than a 50/50 it would make it). Which lends even more to this encounter being a string of bad luck which could have otherwise been an easy encounter.

As for the idea of ruling double-impact from the hit, I don't know of anyone who would rule it that way since the max hp is a separate number from hp and requires a failed save to be affected after the damage is dealt. If any DM tried ruling it that way, I would find another group to play with.

 

[Ratskinner]

In prior editions you had all of these could be deadly & create riskof being deadly regardless ofif anyone dies or not.

• "we cut that a little too close & overestimated ourselves"
• Those crits/fireball/etc really threw us for a loop Alice almost died
• Dick monsters with save or suck/save or lose mechanics
• damn, I really should have cast x instead of doing y
• ack sorry Bob I thought that fireball would be ok.
• Dick monsters with save or die abilities.
• Dick killer GM's

In 5e you only have those last two, the first 5 are practically as scary as a five year old threatening to beat up an adult & your post pretty much admits that by listing the last one as the solution.

Its weird. My experience with 5e is simply that the last only the dick monsters are gone.

 

[Oofta]

For the idea of ruling double-impact from the hit, I don't know of anyone who would rule it that way since the max hp is a separate number from hp and requires a failed save to be affected after the damage is dealt. If any DM tried ruling it that way, I would find another group to play with.

Really? Because the rule says

The target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or its hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the damage taken.​

The critical damage is part of the damage. This just came up in my last game, and yes it almost took out my wife's rogue with one hit. Guess it's lucky she doesn't see it the way you do.