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

[Lanefan]

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 Tomb is extremely challenging, only in a different way than usual: the challenges are tricks, traps and puzzles (i.e. challenging brains) rather than monsters and combat (i.e. challenging brawn).

What also makes the Tomb differen (and gives it its well-earned reputation) is that in many cases the result of failing a challenge is death: you don't get a second chance or a do-over.

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.

Or find another way of dealing with them that doesn't involve front-line fighters or melee combat.

Sometimes you really do need magic to get the job done, and while some see this as a problem, I don't. Have a Cleric handy to turn them, then blast away with ranged spells or even ranged missiles. But yes - in fact the very thing to learn from them is don't fight them hand-to-hand.

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.

Nothing wrong at all with developing SOPs for common situations.

And, the DM will never call for a roll while you do so?

Of course she will.

But giving clear specifics as to what you're doing, be it case-by-case or as a SOP, informs the DM exactly what you're touching or not, where you're checking and what for, and so forth; all of which may modify your roll for better or worse.

It also removes the burden of assumption from both sides and thus proactively ends the following needless argument before it begins:

Player: "I check the door for traps."
DM: "Good. Saving throw as you find the contact poison the hard way."
Player: But I wouldn't have touched it!"
<argument ensues>

The second a player says "I wouldn't have...", you have a problem. A big problem. And a completely avoidable problem had the player taken the time to be much more specific, in this case as to her search sequence.

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.

Agreed. It's not unfair at all.

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.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought 5e didn't have 'surprised' in its lexicon. So how is your 5e situation possible, where the Goblins get two complete rounds of firing before the party can react?

B/X and 1e certainly do, and yes: in those systems with unlucky rolling it's entirely possible that a party could be wiped out by ranged ambushers using poison without ever knowing what hit them. Further, surprised characters don't get shield or Dex bonuses to AC, making them easier to hit.

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?

No, you're describing the ideal outcome you're attempting to achieve. The DM then rolls to see if you achieved it or not.

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.

Turning around and bailing on the mission is always a valid choice; be it to come back later with more and-or better resources, or to pass the mission on to someone more qualified, or to just head south for the winter.

Nowhere is it written that the party have to always succeed on what they're doing.

 

[atanakar]

I had a dwarf once that had animal handling and trained a dog to fetch. He then got a stick with continual flame cast on it.

Quite handy in dungeons for detecting traps and random monsters.

One of my groups used a pig with a rope as leash. They roasted and ate whatever they could salvage from the trap. I stopped putting traps in my dungeons for a while, until they forgot about them...!!!

 

[Garthanos]

It is pretty boring to check everything and describe in detail what you do. There is nothing more annoying than a dungeon where you open a door only to find an empty corridor with yet more door and NOTHING happens in 95% of the rooms. Augh. I don't play regularly as it is, I'm not gonna waste my precious gaming time saying "I check the floor in front of the door for a weird crack, then I check the door frame for weird symbols, then I check knob for tiny holes where a poison needle would spring out." every. damn. time. Only to find NOTHING all the time.

One group I played with in 1e had pages of a yellow notebook covered with lists of steps for each and every... baf.

 

[Lanefan]

Prior to when?

Prior to 2e, for sure.

In 1e hit point gain sharply slowed down after 'name level' (around 9th-11th depending on class), and while the game in theory was open-ended as to levels it got wobbly enough in the very low teens that very few played beyond that.

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.

This is one specific instance where another edition (4e) is specifically less challenging than 5e, as 4e characters tend to have more h.p. on average particularly at low levels; and similar specific examples abound when comparing small bits in isolation between 5e and another edition, whatever edition that might be.

Those isolated examples still don't change the overall trend, which says 5e is the least challenging of the editions thus far.

It's like looking at a bad sports team at the end of the season. The fact that you won 12 games this season, some of them convincingly, doesn't do much to mask the fact that you also lost 45 and managed to eke out ties in 6.

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

I think you've kind of answered that question in the previous paragraph: you've done a good job of instilling fear and caution into your players/PCs. (or, they're just a naturally cautious bunch).

but all these DMs with decades of expeirence just can't seem to figure it out.

Perhaps again it's the players: those who aren't cautious and just wade in maybe aren't paying the same price they would have in older editions. They're not dying, they're not losing levels, etc.; meaning in 5e fortune really does favour the brave.

In other words, the challenges are more like illusions that they've successfully disbelieved.

 

[slobster]

I had a dwarf once that had animal handling and trained a dog to fetch. He then got a stick with continual flame cast on it.

Quite handy in dungeons for detecting traps and random monsters.

Oh man, I am SO telling D&D PETA on you.

I mean sure, I bet they weren't thrilled with all the monster slaughtering that your party also gets up to, but as we all know the biggest crime you can commit is keeping domesticated animals!

 

[Oofta]

Oh man, I am SO telling D&D PETA on you.

I mean sure, I bet they weren't thrilled with all the monster slaughtering that your party also gets up to, but as we all know the biggest crime you can commit is keeping domesticated animals!

Hey now! Spot was happy to serve as part of the team, he was a very good boy, yes he was! As were Spot II and Spot III.

Of course the same dwarf also named his horse "Spare Rations" so maybe you have a point.

 

[Lanefan]

It is pretty boring to check everything and describe in detail what you do. There is nothing more annoying than a dungeon where you open a door only to find an empty corridor with yet more door and NOTHING happens in 95% of the rooms. Augh. I don't play regularly as it is, I'm not gonna waste my precious gaming time saying "I check the floor in front of the door for a weird crack, then I check the door frame for weird symbols, then I check knob for tiny holes where a poison needle would spring out." every. damn. time. Only to find NOTHING all the time.

So do this once or twice in detail and then establish it as SOP for that character.

After that, when you check a door all you need to say is "I Thief over it"* and the DM knows what you mean, and what you're doing.

* - that's our standard term here for door-check SOP: Thief over it.

 

[slobster]

Hey now! Spot was happy to serve as part of the team, he was a very good boy, yes he was! As were Spot II and Spot III.

Of course the same dwarf also named his horse "Spare Rations" so maybe you have a point.

And here on the other side, my old group still tells the story of that time our paladin paid to have his horse mount resurrected...using up the last funds we had, meaning we couldn't afford to raise the halfling rogue who died in the same fight.

I mean, OOC the player who played the halfling was ready to roll up something new, and told everyone he'd rather just do that than get rezzed. In character though it was a hilarious move for a character who already had a reputation for being a bit lawful stupid.

 

[Undrave]

So do this once or twice in detail and then establish it as SOP for that character.

After that, when you check a door all you need to say is "I Thief over it"* and the DM knows what you mean, and what you're doing.

* - that's our standard term here for door-check SOP: Thief over it.

Fair enough!

It still doesn't change the fact that a dungeon of mostly nothing but dusty room where nothing happen is really boring I remember a few AL modules like that where just going over every door on a building's floor is such a snooze fest.

To the point where the one time we encounter something suspicious, an orb held by a statue, I was getting impatient and just had my Fighter grab it after we spent 15 minutes deliberating on what to do with it. Turns out it liberated shades or something. We survived but at least SOMETHING happened.

And that's how you roleplay low Wisdom

 

[slobster]

And that's how you roleplay low Wisdom

I do that a lot in my games, but I have serious doubts whether I can call it "role-playing" when that's just me doing what I want to do, anyway.