D&D General Let's Talk About How to "Fix" D&D

[Lanefan]

I don't know how I missed this thread but I just saw it now, so I haven't read 99.9% of the responses but this one early on the first page caught my eye. I'm not looking for drawn out explanation as I don't really crunch the math behind 5E so I probably wouldn't understand it. My question is, in laymen's terms, what has changed in 5E from previous editions that make single monster encounters so weak? I've kind of noticed this myself and that 5E seems less deadly than previous edition but never gave it much thought as to why.

It's not just 5e; single-monster encounters have been relatively weak since forever.

I suspect - but this is just a vaguely-educated guess - it's become more apparent as an issue in 5e due to the sometimes-stupendous amounts of damage a party can reliably (due to low monster AC) dish out in a hurry, relative to the monster's h.p. total.

 

[Lanefan]

And if your milestones are based on exploring an area?

I didn’t object to being disappointed. I objected to the idea adventure writers should feel bad for using milestones.

Personally, I think adventure writers should feel bad for using milestones.

Why?

Because it's enforcing the writer's expectations of how play will progress to a much-too-high degree. If a writer puts milestones at points A, B, and C in an adventure, that placement then somewhat demands that the players/party actually reach those points (and preferably in that order!) and doesn't allow for players/parties to approach the adventure in a different or unorthodox manner - e.g. going in the back door and reaching milestone F first - and leaves DMs hanging if they do.

Milestones also don't allow for a party to either get in over their heads or be too high-level for where they are; and while some may see this as a feature I see it as a bug, in that it's arbitrary rather than organic.

Now if the adventure is written in so linear a way that the players/party can't help but hit the milestones in order - or worse, are forced to no matter what they do - that's one thing; but IMO that's also crap-to-the-nth-degree adventure design and not something I'd want to buy or run.

Characters' xp should instead be earned by what they actually do, on a fairly granular basis, regardless of what order or sequence they do it in. And yes, this means the DM has to do a bit more tracking and calculating; but IMO that's just part of what you signed up for when you stepped behind the screen.

 

[billd91]

Personally, I think adventure writers should feel bad for using milestones.

Why?

Because it's enforcing the writer's expectations of how play will progress to a much-too-high degree. If a writer puts milestones at points A, B, and C in an adventure, that placement then somewhat demands that the players/party actually reach those points (and preferably in that order!) and doesn't allow for players/parties to approach the adventure in a different or unorthodox manner - e.g. going in the back door and reaching milestone F first - and leaves DMs hanging if they do.

Depends on how your milestones are defined. If they're dependent on certain events taking place in a chronology, then there's no getting to F before A, B, C - by necessity, it comes later. They can also be defined as relative proportion of some overall adventure complete - say, 1/3 of the Caves of Chaos explored and dealt with. Then, again, there's no assumption about the adventure unfolding in a certain way.

And even if the milestones are based on some kind of expectation of how an adventure unfolds, then you just level them up for the F milestone when they accomplish it even if they skipped the segments that would have gotten them milestones expected at C and E. It's not that big a deal.

 

[nevin]

It's only "poor ancounter design" because the system in 5E doesn't work for this kind of creature. And other than hit points it hardly matters when the PCs gang up on a solo whether they use their big guns or not.

I've never had this problem in any version. If you let the players rest they will. Thing is thats time for the baddie to prep, run, attack the characters in the middle of prep etc.

Thats an issue of dm either pacing things wrong or throwing too many low level encounters and the realizing they arent ready for big bad. (That ive done many times)

 

[TheSword]

Personally, I think adventure writers should feel bad for using milestones.

Why?

Because it's enforcing the writer's expectations of how play will progress to a much-too-high degree. If a writer puts milestones at points A, B, and C in an adventure, that placement then somewhat demands that the players/party actually reach those points (and preferably in that order!) and doesn't allow for players/parties to approach the adventure in a different or unorthodox manner - e.g. going in the back door and reaching milestone F first - and leaves DMs hanging if they do.

Milestones also don't allow for a party to either get in over their heads or be too high-level for where they are; and while some may see this as a feature I see it as a bug, in that it's arbitrary rather than organic.

Now if the adventure is written in so linear a way that the players/party can't help but hit the milestones in order - or worse, are forced to no matter what they do - that's one thing; but IMO that's also crap-to-the-nth-degree adventure design and not something I'd want to buy or run.

Characters' xp should instead be earned by what they actually do, on a fairly granular basis, regardless of what order or sequence they do it in. And yes, this means the DM has to do a bit more tracking and calculating; but IMO that's just part of what you signed up for when you stepped behind the screen.

Curse of Strahd is a Sandbox that doesn’t require a set number of areas to be completed, neither does it require them in any time frame or any order.

It rewards exploration and solving of problems in a variety of sites of the players choosing and the collection of items identified by procedurally generated clues.

It has a short introduction section in Barovia (village) though it doesn’t specify any required actions - just gives ideas. After that the world is open to explore. It suggests the party tackle Castle Ravenloft at around a particular level but only by suggesting hooks that might motivate players to travel there. It also acknowledges that players may travel there at any point.

Can you explain in what way this prevents players getting in over their heads, or being over-leveled?

 

[Reynard]

Curse of Strahd is a Sandbox that doesn’t require a set number of areas to be completed, neither does it require them in any time frame or any order.

It rewards exploration and solving of problems in a variety of sites of the players choosing and the collection of items identified by procedurally generated clues.

It has a short introduction section in Barovia (village) though it doesn’t specify any required actions - just gives ideas. After that the world is open to explore. It suggests the party tackle Castle Ravenloft at around a particular level but only by suggesting hooks that might motivate players to travel there. It also acknowledges that players may travel there at any point.

Can you explain in what way this prevents players getting in over their heads, or being over-leveled?

How does it employ milestone leveling?

 

[Eltab]

Thing I would like to see fixed: light, Darkvision, and exploring in the dark.
Lights (lantern, torch, spell, whatever) are visible farther away than the distance they provide illumination. Discover a large cavern and incidentally tell 25 troglodytes "Intruder(s) Now Arriving".

Solution: I dunno. Not every cave, cavern, mine, tunnel, &c is going to conveniently have a bend in it at 'decent combat range' intervals.

 

[Reynard]

Thing I would like to see fixed: light, Darkvision, and exploring in the dark.
Lights (lantern, torch, spell, whatever) are visible farther away than the distance they provide illumination. Discover a large cavern and incidentally tell 25 troglodytes "Intruder(s) Now Arriving".

Solution: I dunno. Not every cave, cavern, mine, tunnel, &c is going to conveniently have a bend in it at 'decent combat range' intervals.

That's just physics, though. You can see folks with flashlights or headlamps coming long before they can see you.

I would like to see dark vision removed from player character races entirely. It is detrimental to the tone of exploration and creates logistical issues in a mixed party.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Most people forget that in 5e, players with darkvision have -5 to passive perception checks in the dark.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Most people forget that in 5e, players with darkvision have -5 to passive perception checks in the dark.

I certainly forgot that. But why does that rule exist?