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

[Helldritch]

You know, the guard could have taken the Dodge action BEFORE moving, probably making the monk miss and making the whole thing worse

I know, I did not want to TPK that is why I did it this way. All my rolls are made openly before everyone. So making little mistakes like this is my way of "fudging"?
The defensive stance made it hard for the players to hit those guys. They had shields so their AC was 20. Hitting 20 with disadvantage is not such an easy task. They did take the help action to attack at normal but it did not work.

And my second group is also having some problems with the fire temple as the cults are now on their tracks and hires Assassins, monsters and bandits to harass the players. They even hired a group of adventurers to kill/capture the players saying that they were the victims. These players, although experimented, ignored the RP aspect of the adventure and have almost no allies. The cults used disinformation against the players and use them as scape goats for their nefarious actions.

 

[Undrave]

And my second group is also having some problems with the fire temple as the cults are now on their tracks and hires Assassins, monsters and bandits to harass the players. They even hired a group of adventurers to kill/capture the players saying that they were the victims. These players, although experimented, ignored the RP aspect of the adventure and have almost no allies. The cults used disinformation against the players and use them as scape goats for their nefarious actions.

Oooh harsh. But I guess it's what happen when you don't try to find support. Your group should hire their own group of lesser adventurers to send on some disruptive missions

 

[Helldritch]

Oooh harsh. But I guess it's what happen when you don't try to find support. Your group should hire their own group of lesser adventurers to send on some disruptive missions

But to hire they need money. Which they don't have. They need allies, which they don't have. I was really surprised to see them acting this way. They are veteran players with as much experience as I. Even old timers make mistakes.

 

[Undrave]

But to hire they need money. Which they don't have. They need allies, which they don't have. I was really surprised to see them acting this way. They are veteran players with as much experience as I. Even old timers make mistakes.

Good luck to them then!

 

[Monayuris]

That is the ideal, but people will use the strategies and care they are going to use either way. And this sometimes leads to "pixel-ing" because if you trigger any trap, you die, so you take a 10 ft pole, give it to a hireling and have them tap every. single. square.

You can have traps provide interesting choices without resorting to pixel-ing or chronic searching. You just provide information that can be acted on. Describe hints and clues to the existence of traps and allow players to interact with the environment.

Actually, traps are a good example. Let me ask you this. Is the Tomb of Horrors challenging? Is it equally challenging if you know the answers to all the traps?

Tomb of Horrors isn't a great example as it was literally an f-you to players. It was designed to be nearly impossible. It is not generally considered to be a great example of a old school dungeon. It is an outlier case.

In video game design, this is a phenomena, though I can't remember the official term, but I tend to think of it as shallow challenge. Do the wrong thing, die. Do the right thing, move on. The problem is, after you solve it, it is boring. Because you just repeat the same steps.

I guess we are at odds here because I don't see the value of comparing D&D to video games. But yes, if you deal with a hallway filled with traps and you solve it, then of course the next time it is boring and you repeat the steps. This is the reward for solving it in the first place. You can easily pass through that hallway.

And, another part of this, is that death is not a failure condition of DnD. "My character died" does not mean you have failed to complete the game, because you simply roll up another character. Killing PCs is meaningless in the grand scheme of the game, unless you make it meaningful, and part of making it meaningful to me, is making it rare. I've had players freak out over dropping to 0 hp. 0 hp, there are three healers in the party and only two enemies left. They freak out, and it becomes a bit of a scramble to save the party member, who is objectively in no real danger.

So, I don't need to make it so poisons instant kill, or dropping to zero hp instant kills, because my players already fear death, even though I can't think of a single 5e PC I've killed without the player asking me to (they were leaving the game, wanted to go out in a cool manner, so I did)

Different people have different tolerances to PC deaths. I enjoy running and playing in high lethality games. But that doesn't mean I am callous about character death. I don't enjoy having my character killed and I don't enjoy killing players' characters. But I'm not so emotionally attached that I can't accept it and move on. Even though I can just roll a new character, I still got my old character killed. It still stings, even in a high lethality game.

The state of having a character die is a failure… it was something I did wrong that led to its death. This is the point to high lethality games. Character death is a failure that resulted from a mistake. But just like any other game, you can learn from your mistakes and get better at it.

They haven't been eliminated, they've been shortened.

The attrition is on the daily side of the scale, so you have to consider your resources for the day. Now, I will fully admit, that causes some issues with wilderness survival campaigns. Traveling three weeks through the woods where you fight maybe once every two days, is not a challenge for the party.

I've somewhat mitigated that by having HP require you spend HD during a long rest to heal, it shows some attrition on the parties resources. But on the daily scale, such as clearing a temple complex where you can get into two or three fights a day, those strategic decisions still appear, just on a shorter time scale. It isn't "do I use this spell now that I might need in three days" it is "do I use this spell now, or will I need it in the next room".

I agree with you. But the adventuring day as a concept doesn't work for me. I prefer a more realistic approach. There shouldn't be a standard unit of time that encapsulates challenge. It works for a more casual style game but it fails when you are looking at a larger scale campaign.

See, I agree with you, choices make the game challenging.

But "poison kills you if you fail a save" doesn't give the player a choice. What choice is there? Never get ambushed by a spider? You don't want to get ambushed anyways, so you are already trying to prevent that. Don't fail a save? You don't have a choice in that matter.

Now, I've never played B/X or OD&D, so maybe you are right, but it seems to me that all 5e did, is make it so that one bad choice doesn't kill a character. Which, I appreciate, because a dead character doesn't make choices. I like the chance for them to make multiple bad choices and get more and more desperate to get out of them.

The ambushed by a poison spider and dying in B/X is a statistical anomaly. It requires a 1 or 2 on d6 for Surprise, a 2 result on 2d6 Reaction roll for immediate attack, an attack that hits the characters AC, and a failed saving throw to die from the poison.

Honestly, if that happens in my games (as a DM or player) I'd just have to laugh at the absurdity of overcoming probability. The character was just destined to die.

More likely you will encounter a poison spider and have a chance to decide to attack or not. The decision to attack brings the consequence of being exposed to a potential save or die.

You have to live with it, if you made a choice.

The party lays down for the night, checking the campsite. The DM asks them to roll dice for perception. They all fail, especially the person on watch. The DM declares they never wake up, they are dead.

This is reductio ad absurdum. No one wants something like this to happen.

The thief checks for traps on the door, rolls poorly, dies. What do they do next time differently?

The thief can describe how they are searching for traps on the door. Are they looking for a trip wire, a spring on the hinges, a needle in the handle? A lot of times searching can be done without resorting to the roll. If you are a thief and just rely on the percentile roll, you are putting yourself in a massive disadvantage.

The fighter is walking through the woods with the party, goblin archers spring out of an ambush and shoot him with poisoned arrows. He fails the save, dies. What regrets should he have?

B/X Goblins don't usually have poisoned arrows. If the DM is giving them such then they are stacking the deck and will have to expect these results. It's a strawman argument.

Certainly, it is possible for this to happen without poison (just on the damage alone). If you are playing with the reaction rolls then you still have the statistical improbability of this (surprise plus immediately attack reaction plus hitting AC plus failed save). If the DM is not, then the DM is deciding to just have goblins kill the fighter.

What you are really proposing is a DM problem. A DM throwing an ambush with goblins with poison arrows in B/X is no different than a DM throwing an ambush with archmages with upleveled fireballs in 5E. The DM is creating a situation that will lead to the character's death.

You are fabricating a situation that will lead to a character's death to prove your point.

"Sometimes bad things just happen" is generally the response to these sort of scenarios, but that kind of highlights the point. Those things are deadly, but they aren't challenging, because the players made no decisions. "Next time they scout ahead for the goblins", who said they didn't do that this time? IF you make all the correct decisions, and still die due to bad luck, then there are no regrets, but also no challenge. Except to get luckier next time.

Scouting ahead, checking for traps, interacting with the environment using role-playing (don't just rely on the die rolls) will in general improve your chances of survival in ways that are challenging. Just rolling dice and getting high numbers or picking powers out of a list don't provide a challenge.

TPK just means the story ends and you have to start another. And, save or die effects aren't challenging, they are a coin flip. Earlier in this thread I gave the example of a coin flip dungeon.

Enter a room, flip a coin. Heads you lived, tails you died. Go to the next room.

That is deadly, 50% chance of any character dying at any time. But it isn't challenging, because you can't make any decisions to effect the outcome.

This happens when the players rely on the die rolls. This style of play is hoping to roll high. It relies on luck and not challenge. However, when you interact with the environment, think about your actions, make choices that are meaningful and have direct impact on your success and failure you are engaging in the game and being presented with greater challenge.

The point of save or die is that the choices you make in the game are more challenging because the consequences of potential bad choices are more significant.

In 5E, the game rules grant a level of a safety net to character survivability through game mechanics. It reduces the difficulty of the choices you need to make to survive because it will protect you from a poor choice. You have an easier time with choices because the in-game consequences are blunted.

Alternatively:
Torches make Light cantrips unnecessary
Rations make Goodberry cantrips unnecessary.

Torches cost coppers, rations 5 silver. 10 gold will last you nearly a full week and that is pocket change to most adventuring parties. Plus, survival rolls or even the Outlander background (because if you've spent your life living off the land... you should be able to live off the land) do the same thing.

I don't understand your point, here. Would you clarify?

 

[Monayuris]

Why even have character abilities then?

Character abilities can exist to provide differentiation for character classes. The game isn't just about character abilities. It/s about interacting with a fantasy environment. The choices you make in the actual game should be more important than the character abilities.

I think this is a result of the designer not being able to make tracking these things interesting, thus nobody ever bothered to track them so they just made them irrelevant to speed it up. Tracking torches and rations is bookkeeping and that's not an interesting challenge. Even picking who holds the torch isn't much of a challenge once you solve it one time. And Darkvision makes torches unnecessary before even taking a cantrip That said, Goodberry takes a spell slot and at lower level that could be a problem.

You bring up another reason 5e is less challenging. Every character race except for 2(?) have Darkvision. It is another change that reduces challenge and makes the game easy. When you are delving into the dark dungeons of the world, light should be a sacred resource. Try walking around in an unknown environment in pitch black.

Torches are an interesting challenge because running out of them is a death sentence. Torches take up weight and space. They last only so long. You only have so many of them. They are objects that can be lost, blown out by wind, disarmed, etc. Managing light is an important challenge.

Only if you consider attrition beyond the base Unit of Challenge of one day. Hit Dice don't regenerate during the day and they're one of the few resource that doesn't fully restore at the end of the Unit of Challenge, instead giving you HALF your HD back.

Yes, I do consider attrition beyond the base Unit of Challenge of one day. I made a mistake in arguing the idea of a unit of challenge. It is a ludicrous position that challenge is portioned out in discrete chunks. Challenge is something that develops organically over time during the course of a campaign.

Don't forget that if you take damage while at 0 HP you AUTOMATICALLY fail 2 death saves. Not 3, 2. That's a deliberate decision to make 0 HP a ticking clock and not an auto-death.

Let's say the DM scores a crit and brings you character from full to 0 HP in one single attack.

Scenario A: You're dead. Your allies can't do anything about it, so they go on without you and you sit back and watch them play with different tactics. Bad luck. Maybe the Mage pops an extra Slot he wasn't gonna use on this combat to make up for you dropping.

Scenario B: You're unconscious. Your allies need to position themselves so the enemies can't attack you, they'll drop what they do and try to heal you or make you stable, you're making death saving throws and feeling nervous. There's tension between finishing the combat, while dealing with your absence like in scenario A, and protecting your defenceless form.

Scenario A, if you drop to zero and you're dead, you can roll up a new character and jump back into the game, or play a henchman, or play a monster or any number of options. Yes, your character death is going to force the party to change their tactics to overcome.

Scenario B doesn't really happen often, except in very poorly built parties. You're unconscious, the cleric casts healing word and you are no longer unconscious. Done.

Cantrips exist because when you play a class you want to PLAY THAT CLASS. A spell caster that can only caster one spell a day is not a spell caster to me. By being able to do MAGIC all the time you feel more magical.

I disagree. A wizard who uses a crossbow is still a wizard. Doing magic all the time makes magic less impactful, it makes it routine. I think of cantrips as just crossbows, but worse. They are boring. They are default actions that are predictable and require very little thought or consideration to use. The exact opposite of magical. The act of deciding to expend a limited resource to create a magic spell effect is what makes magic interesting and compelling.

I will agree with you that something is missing, but I think it's because they didn't replace the old system with something new.

See, I'm not a fan of the way DnD uses immunity and resistance. Like, I'm a fan of Pokémon (I've played every gen since the beginning) and in that game I favour challenging in-game trainers with neutral Pokémon rather than go all out on the type coverage... But even there type match-ups are more interesting in Pokémon because of the reciprocity.

Aside from the Barbarian and a few spells it's hard for PCs to be on the receiving end of the Imunity/Resist/Weakness system. If, for exemple, using a weapon (or Cantrip) that does X damage type made you vulnerable to damage Type Y you'd have an interesting trade off and, again, tension. But damage in DnD is basically just a key for the monster-shape key hole, otherwise resistance just becomes like adding extra HP. You could give a monster more HP instead of resistance and no one would notice the difference.

So yes, Cantrip devalue the 'threat' of resistant monster, but I personally don't find that we lost anything particularly interesting or of value, but I do wish we'd gotten something else in return. Something more dynamic.

The point of introducing monsters with immunities is to force players to find alternative approaches to defeating monsters. Magic weapons can do it, but when you don't have them, you have to think outside of the box. It forces players to figure out different ways to defeat a monster you can't kill. This makes the game more engaging and interesting. It increases the choices you have and adds a level of challenge.

5E removes this by making magic ubiquitous, which allows players to approach such monsters in the same way as any other. There is no challenge because these monsters don't force a change in approach.

I think that was a problem starting with 3e so this isn't anything new. I don't think the number of spell slots mean anything, it's more the impact of each individual slot that matters. If you had 20 spells slot but all you could do with them is cantrip level effect, it doesn't really have the same impact. In that respect I feel like 5e Spell Slots are less impactful than 3e Spell Slot (or 4e Dailies for that matter, of which you had less).



Exept for HD that only recover at half-per unit. But that's really the point of a unit of challenge, you start relatively fresh at the start of each so it's not really an issue. It's just that you don't like the choice of Unit of Challenge and that's totally fair. I can respect that.

Heck, I think in most circumstance the base game IS easy for its unit of challenge, but that's a decision based on approachability of the game. What IS missing is more interesting tools to increase the difficulty. I just don't agree with your choices of tools to increase that difficulty.

Fair enough. I regret buying into the concept of a unit of challenge. There should just be campaign time with a sensible recovery per day/month/year mechanic. It should be organic and logical and clear and not based on an arbitrary game mechanic.

 

[Sadras]

You can fail without dying too. Being captured by Drow Slavers instead of rescuing the princess is still failing. Yet, no one died.

Yes that is true for all editions of the game though. However.
5e is less deadlier than 1e or 2e, and one of the challenges of the game (besides getting caught) is having your character survive combat. And let us not forget the combat pillar plays a significant role in D&D.
And since skills are easier (by your own words - refer below), you will find it generally easier to escape from the Drow Slavers using your 5e skills.

TPK just means the story ends and you have to start another.

And like I said, survival is one of the challenges of the game.

And, save or die effects aren't challenging, they are a coin flip.

Calling it another name, i.e. coin flip doesn't strengthen your argument.

That is deadly, 50% chance of any character dying at any time. But it isn't challenging, because you can't make any decisions to effect the outcome.

Ah but the challenge is in bypassing the coin flip scenarios or minimising their effect so that you survive.

Thank all the dice gods that Vancian is nearly dead. I hate the idea of trying to predict how many times I need a spell.

I point to where magic was more limited with no arcane traditions (and no cantrips) in prior editions thus making it more challenging for the wizard to survive and you respond by informing me of your dislike for the Vancian system. How is that relevant?

I'm also not sure why hp increasing past 9th level, in a game that goes to 20th level, is a bad thing. I'd be a little miffed to gain no benefits for 11 levels of play.

PCs with more hit points generally mean they can withstand more damage. Like you said it is a benefit, a benefit that was not there prior.

I like that skills are easier to perform, means I can succeed on things instead of randomly flailing about. I also like that anyone can climb or sneak. After all... anyone can climb or sneak. Seen a nine month old climb up a playset up past my shoulders. If they can climb, why can't any adult try climbing a surface.

So 5e is easier. I'm glad we are in agreement.

Also, side note, what does most of this have to do with deadliness?

If the likelihood of death decreases then that is one challenge within the game which is diminished

"Anyone can climb, the game is so much less challenging", what, previously if you fell in a pit you just died because you couldn't climb out? "Now anyone can talk the duke around to increasing the bounty" doesn't make the game less challenging.

How about Does it make the game easier because more people can do this and that?

And, frankly, less missing, less dying, more actual things happening that allow for decisons, which are the real challenging part of the game... I'm not seeing a lot of problems here.

Saved Ends does not provide the real challenging part of the game. There is no thought provoking decision.
Hmmm do I heal with a potion, a spell or should I Second Wind my hit points back?
Is that the kind of challenge you are looking for?

Save or Die provokes the need for real decisions for a real challenge.
Do we face the beast or not? Can we afford to die? What is my resurrection survival rate? If I lose another Constitution point I lose my modifier hit point altogether. I dunno guys is this really worth it?

 

[Don Durito]

It seems to me that the issue of whether older editions lack a universal mechanic that made resolution of activities easy to adjudicate is a somewhat different issue to whether they were more challenging generally.

They're not entirely unrelated mind. There's an argument to be made that a skill system can trivialise challenges that would have to be played through in previous editions - but that's only true in certain circumstances and it goes both ways anyway. (If the secret door can only be found with a DC 20 investigation roll and the entire party has low Int and is not trained in investigation then possibly the old school party that just described what they were doing were more likely to succeed).

But it's pretty tangenital. In any case you can point to at least one version of D&D (Castles and Crusades), that has a universal resolution system for adjudicating skill like challenges with a more old school scale of challenge generally.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You can have traps provide interesting choices without resorting to pixel-ing or chronic searching. You just provide information that can be acted on. Describe hints and clues to the existence of traps and allow players to interact with the environment.

Very true, traps can do that.

Less likely where the trap leads to instant death like was being described earlier, such as poisons where a single failed save kills your character. In that case, you can provide your clues and hints, but players will still take extreme caution, because a single missed clue ends their character.

Tomb of Horrors isn't a great example as it was literally an f-you to players. It was designed to be nearly impossible. It is not generally considered to be a great example of a old school dungeon. It is an outlier case.

Which is exactly why I brought it up as an example of "Deadly =/= Challenging"

The Tomb is incredibly deadly, possibly the most deadly dungeon ever designed, but it isn't challenging in the way that people want things to be challenging. And once you know all the tricks, it may still be deadly, but it is no longer challenging.

Deadly does not equal Challenging.

The state of having a character die is a failure… it was something I did wrong that led to its death. This is the point to high lethality games. Character death is a failure that resulted from a mistake. But just like any other game, you can learn from your mistakes and get better at it.

But, that is the point. Many of the things being touted as bringing the challenge back to the game are lethal, but you can't learn from them. You can't learn anything from a wraith sapping your Con or a Shadow sapping your Strength until your fighter is useless. What is there to learn? Don't fight wraiths? Great, but fighting monsters is deadly anyway. Have the low con people fight it? That just kills them. There isn't anything to learn, you just have to suffer through and try not to die while you're character is spending weeks or months recovering their abilities.

The ambushed by a poison spider and dying in B/X is a statistical anomaly. It requires a 1 or 2 on d6 for Surprise, a 2 result on 2d6 Reaction roll for immediate attack, an attack that hits the characters AC, and a failed saving throw to die from the poison.

Honestly, if that happens in my games (as a DM or player) I'd just have to laugh at the absurdity of overcoming probability. The character was just destined to die.

More likely you will encounter a poison spider and have a chance to decide to attack or not. The decision to attack brings the consequence of being exposed to a potential save or die.

I'll have to take your word for it, but I find it odd that one of the most famous ambush predators in the world, who lays traps for its prey, was always out in the open where the players could easily see it and decide if they wanted to fight it or not.

But, if no monster was ever hidden, snuck up on the characters, or set traps for them to fall into, then I can see why the increased deadliness of the monsters was necessary.

This is reductio ad absurdum. No one wants something like this to happen.

No one said they did, "Deadly does not equal Challenging" and "Character death doesn't mean you have something to learn" Those are points I've been making and while this is an extreme example, it also highlights the point. Death itself doesn't challenge or tell the players anything

The thief can describe how they are searching for traps on the door. Are they looking for a trip wire, a spring on the hinges, a needle in the handle? A lot of times searching can be done without resorting to the roll. If you are a thief and just rely on the percentile roll, you are putting yourself in a massive disadvantage.

So, pixeling. Just have a large piece of paper and read off every part of the door and how you check it for the trap. And, the DM will never call for a roll while you do so?

B/X Goblins don't usually have poisoned arrows. If the DM is giving them such then they are stacking the deck and will have to expect these results. It's a strawman argument.

Certainly, it is possible for this to happen without poison (just on the damage alone). If you are playing with the reaction rolls then you still have the statistical improbability of this (surprise plus immediately attack reaction plus hitting AC plus failed save). If the DM is not, then the DM is deciding to just have goblins kill the fighter.

What you are really proposing is a DM problem. A DM throwing an ambush with goblins with poison arrows in B/X is no different than a DM throwing an ambush with archmages with upleveled fireballs in 5E. The DM is creating a situation that will lead to the character's death.

You are fabricating a situation that will lead to a character's death to prove your point.

Three things.

1) I find it fascinating that in a game where you expect the players to try every trick in the book and follow a "combat is war" mentality, that something as simple as poisoning your weapons when you are cowardly and weak monsters, is going to come across as completely unfair.

2) One thing that may be skewing my understanding of the game is this lack of surprise. In 5e it is completely possible that the Goblins will all get an entire round, maybe two, of firing before the players get their first action, but you keep mentioning the "Statisitcal improbability" of that happening in B/X. If surprise was never really a thing, that might explain why 5e abilities are weaker, because you can actually surprise the party in combat instead of then instantly reacting to the appearance of ambushes.

3) Of course I am fabricating situations. We aren't actually playing a game here, I can't point to the chat log of what happened to your character. And I'm trying to prove the point that character death by itself is not challenging nor does it teach the player any lessons at all. So, an example where I say "The goblins ambush, but the fighter succeeds his reaction roll and slaughters all of them" doesn't exactly say anything about character death. So, I need to give examples where the character dies and doesn't learn anything or is challenged for me to even have a point, and I have done so, and all you have been able to say in response is "well, because of the dice, this isn't likely to happen" which doesn't disprove my point at all.

Scouting ahead, checking for traps, interacting with the environment using role-playing (don't just rely on the die rolls) will in general improve your chances of survival in ways that are challenging. Just rolling dice and getting high numbers or picking powers out of a list don't provide a challenge.

Maybe in older editions, but that isn't the end all and be all of 5e.

For example on scouting ahead, I sneak up the dim hallway, sticking to the walls and peer around the corner.

Was I stealthy? Did the enemy around the corner see me?

I can describe them not seeing me, I can describe the perfect sneak, but if I'm just describing why I should succeed, then scouting isn't dangerous because nothing can go wrong. No monster can be hidden on the ceiling, because I will always add "I check the ceiling for monsters" to the end of every statement.

I can describe success to you, but does that mean I automatically succeed?

This happens when the players rely on the die rolls. This style of play is hoping to roll high. It relies on luck and not challenge. However, when you interact with the environment, think about your actions, make choices that are meaningful and have direct impact on your success and failure you are engaging in the game and being presented with greater challenge.

The point of save or die is that the choices you make in the game are more challenging because the consequences of potential bad choices are more significant.

In 5E, the game rules grant a level of a safety net to character survivability through game mechanics. It reduces the difficulty of the choices you need to make to survive because it will protect you from a poor choice. You have an easier time with choices because the in-game consequences are blunted.

No, the example you quoted was yet again me making the point that "Deadly does not equal challenging"

A coin flip dungeon is deadly. It is not challenging.

And, you are making the assumption that my players, despite not being old skool, do not interact with the environment, do not think about their actions, do not make meaningdul choices that have a direct impact on their success and failure.

They can do all of that. While Wraith's only drain max hp for the day, poison isn't an instant kill, ect.

Because, if after twenty minutes of deciding to check the tomb they were sent to raid in every possible manner, and they open it and still die to something or other, their choice wasn't meaningful. They check it, just not in the correct way, and they all died. But they had to open the tomb either way, because the only other choice was to turn around and count the entire dive as a lost cause.

Meaningful choices don't automatically appear just because the result might be death.

I don't understand your point, here. Would you clarify?

The poster said that the light cantrip makes torches unnecessary.

A cleric gets three cantrips, five ever, and so using one of those slots for light is a significant choice. And, since torches only cost 1 copper a piece, and plenty of casters have a free hand, it is equally valid to say that Torches make the Light Cantrip unnecessary. A single gold buys a hundred torches after all.

They said Goodberry makes rations unnecessary. However, Goodberry is a 1st level spell, and a spell not many classes have access to. It is equally valid to say that five silver a ration makes Goodberry unnecessary, because a few gold buys you plenty of rations and you do not need to use your spell slot.

Or, take the Outlander background, and that gives you plenty of food without needing rations or goodberry

Or just make a survival check to forage for food (or describe yourself hunting and setting snares if you want) and you can usually easily find enough food to last you without needing rations or goodberries.

The ubiquity of magic hasn't removed these items, and the cheapness of those items (or ease of countering the same problem) could be easily seen as making those spells sub-par choices anyways.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes that is true for all editions of the game though. However.
5e is less deadlier than 1e or 2e, and one of the challenges of the game (besides getting caught) is having your character survive combat. And let us not forget the combat pillar plays a significant role in D&D.
And since skills are easier (by your own words - refer below), you will find it generally easier to escape from the Drow Slavers using your 5e skills.

It should be almost guarenteed that you escape, playing three months of "slave labor with beatings" isn't exactly going to be anyone's idea of a good time.

And sure, combat play a big role in DnD, but surviving combat and being challenged by combat are two different things. 3.5 high level characters could just stand in the middle of a room and let enemies attack them til the enemy died of exhaustion. The character survived combat, but that wasn't a challenge for them.

In 5e, every combat has the potential for the character to be harmed, and therefore every combat has the change for the characters to die. Could be a small chance, but it does exist.

And, maybe 1e or 2e was more deadly or more challenging, but that does not follow the OP that 5e is "The Least Challenging Edition of DnD" which includes all the previous editions.

Calling it another name, i.e. coin flip doesn't strengthen your argument.

Do all the example of Save or dies that aren't challenges strengthen my argument? You can look to my previous posts for them.

Save or Die effects are literally "did I roll how enough to live", that is not a challenge. And, if you say the challenge is in killing the monster before it can use that ability, then you are taking a very different approach to challenge. And, frankly, you can have that same challenge of "gank the monster before it acts" in 5e. After all, characters don't want to get hurt. Whether it is 8d6 damage that they will likely survive or instant death shouldn't matter, because getting injured is something people avoid.

So if the real challenge here is "kill the monster before it acts" then we need to be discussing that, and I think we would find that 5e is far more challenging, because that is something that is very hard to accomplish in 5e.

I point to where magic was more limited with no arcane traditions (and no cantrips) in prior editions thus making it more challenging for the wizard to survive and you respond by informing me of your dislike for the Vancian system. How is that relevant?

You said "And the Vancian System has been watered down". I assumed you were talking about how everyone is a spontaneous caster?

And so, my opinions on the Vancian system are relevant. It was terrible in my opinion. I am not a fortune-teller who should be able to peer into the future and guess what we will be fighting today. Even 3.5 acknowledged pure Vancian had problems, since it allowed clerics to turn any slot into a cure wounds spell instead.

And frankly, cantrips and "Neo-Vancian" have done nothing to make wizards more survivable. They still have crap AC and low hp. Actually, since they can now be effective in combat all the time, it has actually made things harder for them. Even non-intelligent enemies might go after a cantrip spamming wizard when they wouldn't have gone after the guy missing them with a crossbow.

PCs with more hit points generally mean they can withstand more damage. Like you said it is a benefit, a benefit that was not there prior.

Prior to when? As far as I've ever known (3.X and up) you gain hp whenever you level and the game goes til at least level 20.

In fact, 5e is the first version of DnD I have played, where the game did not explicitly go beyond level 20.

Again, I think maybe in the shuffle, people have lost sight of the thread and my position. The title is "5e is the Least Challenging edition of DnD", I've never claimed it is the most challenging. And so, sure, if B/X or OD&D stopped increasing hp half way through the game, that might be a thing, but since more than half of the editions of the game did increase HP, I'm not seeing it as a strike against 5e specifically.

Saved Ends does not provide the real challenging part of the game. There is no thought provoking decision.
Hmmm do I heal with a potion, a spell or should I Second Wind my hit points back?
Is that the kind of challenge you are looking for?

Save or Die provokes the need for real decisions for a real challenge.
Do we face the beast or not? Can we afford to die? What is my resurrection survival rate? If I lose another Constitution point I lose my modifier hit point altogether. I dunno guys is this really worth it?

You can still provide the question of "do we face the beast or not" and "can we afford to die here" in 5e. I've done it. I've had players retreat from a challenge (not even one that was a monster above their CR, it was a bunch of low CR mooks acting as guards) to recover and fight another day.

This is the point I just don't get. How is it that I am able to challenge my players, have done so for nearly 6 years, with 5e run very close to the book overall, but all these DMs with decades of expeirence just can't seem to figure it out.

And, frankly, you dismiss that healing decision and miss that it is actually a pretty decent decision point. Do I use a consumable resource that might be hard to come by, a daily ability, or a short rest ability. Could that spell slot be used for something more important now, or later?

Do I cast Cure Wounds at 2nd level, give my ally some breathing room, or can he hold out until the end of the fight when I can do more by casting Prayer of Healing?

You can mock these decisions, but I've seen players get paralyzed over them. These are important decisions for the skilled play we have. I've also seen them get paralyzed over whether they should risk opening a book, or a kicking down a door, or even jumping into a fight with an enemy.

The only difference seems to be, that death is not immediately on the line when they make these decisions. And that seems to be okay, because death was never the actually challenging part of the game.