D&D 5E FeeFiFoFum *splat* goes the giants

[Lyxen]

But if you do believe there is still room for improvement and growth, then please respect that critique is never pointless

I don't accept this sentence, and I don't respect critique that is not constructive and sounds like a complaint. What I accept is constructive criticism, which is not the same thing as critique.

that feedback is a necessary part of that cycle, and just because we can't see a better path, does not stop our desires for one.

And once more, as many people are telling you, what might be a "better" path for you might not be better for everyone else. So please accept that your wishes might just be your own, and that complaint is just pointless, all the more when it has been demonstrated to you that your wishes go against the very design intent of 5e.

Now was the CR system in 3e perfect? Hell no. But it was just as simple as 5e's system if not more so, I ran many campaigns in 3e and 3.5.....

3e's system was designed in accordance with 3e overall design, which was that of a competitive game with many options. As a result, the reason the EL computation could be "simple" (honestly, it was not more simple than that of 5e), was because it relied on a huge core of other rules about monster design. These rules were extremely bulky, extremely constraining and, in the end, exactly as chancy as those of 5e. One simple example was that, in 3e, buffs had a huge influence, and an encounter could go totally one way if one side was allowed to buff and not the other, and the other way around.

So not only was it not better (I ran and played huge campaigns under 3e as well), but it required extremely complex rules which caused me to spend 3 hours designing a single high level monster, but with no more chance of getting an encounter right than under 5e.

and never had this problem. Did I have to make some tweaks to account for a specific party, sure, of course, as any good DM must.

Then I don't see how that could cause you a problem in 5e.

But they were tweaks, I didn't toss the core math out the window and basically double the difficulty of every encounter just to get some challenge for my players (and 3e had WAY WAY WAY more options than 5e does). The fact that I am constantly having to do that for 5e tells me that something is off there. That is the table experience that I have generated.

And this is because you are not using 5e in the spirit in which it is intended. 5e is designed for standard characters with no options, whereas 3e was built with already partly optimised characters in mind. 3e was a geek game, 5e is a casual game.

Please accept that, if you are running optimised characters using options and probably dice-rolled stats instead of a standard array, you need to up the difficulty by 2 grades or consider your adventurers at least 1-2 levels higher. Then the maths will work much better.

But as long as you continue using 5e and its tools as 3e, you will need adaptation.

 

[ad_hoc]

You are correct that there are always groups that play the game so different from the defined norm that the system cannot account for it.

So then the critique of the game resolves around how wide are those parameters, and how sensitive is the system to change.

Let me take a look at my last party for an example:

7th level party: Rogue (thief), Fighter (Champion), Bard (Lore), Artificer (Alchemist), Warlock (Book), Barbarian (magic one, its the UA one that had wild magic effects can't think of the name).

Most of the party had a feat, and generally 1 magic item, +1 magic item for the group as a whole. Most items were uncommon with 1-2 rares. No multi-classing


So is my party insane, nuts....completely outside of the sandbox? I have 6 players (which the system does account for, so this is "standard" for the model). I am using a few feats and a few magic items, so clearly my group is a stronger than the baseline, but is this really the party that the designers looked at and went "no sorry that just destroys our mold, DMs really should allow groups like this"

Because that's what it feels like when my players routinely face Deadly x2 fights and come out fine. Once in a while, sure there was a special synergy, someone got surprise, my players used a cool trick, etc. Curbstombing a fight unexpectedly is not the side of a broken system. But fight after fight after, when I start using deadly x1 as my "easy", and deadly x2 is my "medium".... something seems wildly off.

Now again, maybe it was just that party. Maybe they were just insanely synergized in a way I had not expected, so maybe that campaign was the odd duck. Except....it happened in another campaign I ran. Completely different party, and yet same things happened. And then.... it happened a 3rd time. When 3 campaigns go by and I found "deadly x1" to be the bare minimum I would even run an encounter....then yeah something really seems off.


Now was the CR system in 3e perfect? Hell no. And yet I ran many campaigns in 3e and 3.5..... and never had this problem. Did I have to make some tweaks to account for a specific party, sure, of course, as any good DM must. But they were tweaks, I didn't toss the core math out the window and basically double the difficulty of every encounter just to get some challenge for my players (and 3e had WAY WAY WAY more options than 5e does). The fact that I am constantly having to do that for 5e tells me that something is off there. That is the table experience that I have generated.

Your party is way off the baseline.

Just because the game can be played with 100 players (that is within the rules) doesn't mean that is the ideal count. The more players there are the more wild encounters are going to be. Force multiplication is a thing as is being able to cover bases and have synergies. Like I said, you're asking for a 500 pg manual if you want a game that will take into effect all player counts.

The ideal of the game is 4 players and it works well with 3-5. Once you go down to 1 or 2 or 6+ things are weird.

Pg. 83 of the DMG: "The preceding guidelines assume that you have a party consisting of three to five adventurers." It then gives guidelines on adjusting for 1, 2, or 6+ PCs.

Sure, some groups will fit a lot of people around a table or want to play 1 person with 1 DM but I don't want a game designed around those player counts. Your improvement is my detriment.

You have far more magic items than would be average when using the treasure hoard tables. That's okay, the game is designed without any items at all so that DMs can gauge for themselves what impact they have. Do you want rules for how each and every magic item influences encounter building? We might get up to a 1000 pg manual now.

What are their stats? Did you roll for them?

How many of those encounters are they facing?

Can you give us examples of those deadly 2x fights? How did you play the enemy creatures? You are only 1 person, on average you're not going to play all enemy creatures as well as 6 people each making decisions for just 1 PC. This is even more true if you allow the players to confer to create battle strategies during the combat.

What do you think would happen if you ran those deadly 2x fights 100 times? Do you think maybe at some point a PC might die or there might be a TPK? That's what deadly means.

 

[Stalker0]

Please accept that, if you are running optimised characters using options and probably dice-rolled stats instead of a standard array, you need to up the difficulty by 2 grades or consider your adventurers at least 1-2 levels higher. Then the maths will work much better.

They are all standard pointbuy characters. Hitpoints are max at 1st, die round up each other level (aka d8 = 5 hp)

hehe maybe what you posted is literally the simple answer. If WOTC had said "if you use the feat system, decrease the difficulty of all encounters by 1 grade" and "if your players have magic items, decrease the difficulty of all encounters by 1 grade"....than that at least tells me that these optional rules aren't just tweaks to the game.....they are math destroying, encounter breaking systems that should only be used by extremely experienced DMs.

I don't really think that was WOTC's intention with those systems, but if that's the case then we can at least be up front about it.

 

[Stalker0]

Pg. 83 of the DMG: "The preceding guidelines assume that you have a party consisting of three to five adventurers." It then gives guidelines on adjusting for 1, 2, or 6+ PCs.

It doesn't give guidelines, it tells me exactly how to adjust the encounter math for 6 PCs. I could respect the argument if I had 7 players or 8....because now we are stretching "6+". But I am given the exact thing to do for 6 players, aka this party is a core part of the model.

 

[ad_hoc]

It doesn't give guidelines, it tells me exactly how to adjust the encounter math for 6 PCs. I could respect the argument if I had 7 players or 8....because now we are stretching "6+". But I am given the exact thing to do for 6 players, aka this party is a core part of the model.

Yes, and you're asking for a lot of rules here. Rules which would take up a lot of pages and push other things out. All for groups who play out of the regular parameters.

There are rules for groups of 100 too. The rule is 6+. That encompasses 100 players. That doesn't mean the game will work well with that many people. Things are also weird with just 1 player. What about a creature that has a paralysis effect? In a party of 1 that's a death sentence. Should all the creatures in the game have different CRs depending on how many people are in the party to reflect how strong or weak their different powers are going to be? How big of a rulebook do you think that's going to be?

They specifically designed the game around 3-5 players and then gave guidelines for going above or below. The more you deviate from the baseline the more things get wonky.

You presumably want a game that is catered to many different ways to play the game (not to be confused with having it designed for most of the people). I think that makes for a worse game. Your improvement is my detriment.

 

[ad_hoc]

It doesn't give guidelines, it tells me exactly how to adjust the encounter math for 6 PCs. I could respect the argument if I had 7 players or 8....because now we are stretching "6+". But I am given the exact thing to do for 6 players, aka this party is a core part of the model.

And why do you 'respect the argument' for 7 or 8? It gives exact rules for those counts too. There is literally no difference in how precise the rules are.

Sounds like you play with 6 players so you want a game that is designed for 6 players and are upset that this one isn't.

That isn't the game's fault.

 

[Stalker0]

And why do you 'respect the argument' for 7 or 8? It gives exact rules for those counts too. There is literally no difference in how precise the rules are.

Sounds like you play with 6 players so you want a game that is designed for 6 players and are upset that this one isn't.

That isn't the game's fault.

First of all, do you really believe that 6 players is some kind of unicorn number when it comes to player groups? I am sure it is a minority but we aren't talking like a 1% here. Last poll I saw on Enworld said 17% of people had 6 player parties. Its a small poll, so maybe its actually more like 10.... but still 10% of your player base seems worth supporting.

And sure, I would be upset if the RPG I played that used to support 6 players received an "upgrade" and now only supported 5. Its like a boardgame for 3-5 players had an expansion that "can only be used with 3-4 players".

The fact that they started next multiplier rule rule at 6, means that some designer actually took time to look at a 6 player party and decide what to do to challenge them, because otherwise they would have had no basis to pick any number at all. Now maybe they did that for 7 or 8 or 9....and maybe they didn't....but considering they created a baseline for that difficulty multiplier at 6, we should reasonably assume they at least took some thought to a 6 player party when putting numbers in the book. Otherwise that means they just arbitrarily picked a value without ever testing it....which of course would be terrible!

 

[ad_hoc]

First of all, do you really believe that 6 players is some kind of unicorn number when it comes to player groups? I am sure it is a minority but we aren't talking like a 1% here. Last poll I saw on Enworld said 17% of people had 6 player parties. Its a small poll, so maybe its actually more like 10.... but still 10% of your player base seems worth supporting.

And sure, I would be upset if the RPG I played that used to support 6 players received an "upgrade" and now only supported 5. Its like a boardgame for 3-5 players had an expansion that "can only be used with 3-4 players".

The fact that they started next multiplier rule rule at 6, means that some designer actually took time to look at a 6 player party and decide what to do to challenge them, because otherwise they would have had no basis to pick any number at all. Now maybe they did that for 7 or 8 or 9....and maybe they didn't....but considering they created a baseline for that difficulty multiplier at 6, we should reasonably assume they at least took some thought to a 6 player party when putting numbers in the book. Otherwise that means they just arbitrarily picked a value without ever testing it....which of course would be terrible!

Or they started at 6 because 6 is the number after 5.

They explicitly say the guidelines were designed with 3-5 players in mind.

Not sure what else to say.

Keep believing the game is broken I guess.

 

[ad_hoc]

A Ghost is a hard encounter for a party of 1 7th level character.

The character is expected to have a slim chance to die. How slim? Fail a DC 13 Charisma Saving Throw on the first round.

Look at how broken the game is.

WotC should have looked at every monster and adjusted their CR to take into account how many characters would be in the party. So instead of having just 1 CR value and multiplying or dividing it by the party size we have 12 CR values for parties up to 12 characters for every monster. Every party size will need its own rules and tables for creature powers to determine their CR. And they should all be playtested in various configurations in order to ensure accuracy.

That's definitely worthwhile and will make the game better for most people.

 

[Stalker0]

Or they started at 6 because 6 is the number after 5.

So are you saying they stopped at 5, just picked some multiplier that "felt good", and put it in their table for 6 players without any testing whatsoever?

How is that not broken?