D&D 5E 5e, Heal Thyself! Is Healing Too Weak in D&D?

[Lyxen]

4e makes not the slightest attempt to be simulationist, and it makes no apologies for not doing so.

On this, I completely agree (except maybe for the term "simulationist" which is always debatable), it made for a great tactical mini-game (by far the best of any edition of D&D), but it's also why people who play the game differently got annoyed by it (in particular our tables where there is mostly the story, and combat needs to make sense as much as any other pillar, and actually not be disjointed at all).

 

[Lyxen]

Hit points are a pacing device. That's it.

I would actually agree with this, but the main difficulty that whatever pacing you set has to make sense in the world, and that's my main problem with minions.

There's nothing "unrealistic" about a might hero slaying an ogre or a giant in one blow. Nor is there anything "unrealistic" about a giant or ogre putting up a struggle and being defeated only with great effort.

It's not a question of realism, it's one of consistency. The minion mechanic creates creatures that are proportionately way more dangerous but also way less enduring, and it does this with a huge "quantum" between the two.

Technically, it works really well and has the advantage of making encounter computation very easy for a balanced fight. In terms of story, I much prefer the 5e way of having something that makes the same sense at low and high level, because it's a continuous gradation. You might encounter 1 orc at level 1, 5 orcs at level 5 and 100 orcs at level 10, but they will be the same orcs, with the same capabilities, there won't be artificial gradation of their abilities, and especially not quantum leaps in what they are doing just to adjust an encounter technically.

In our campaigns, there are no "areas" with set levels. Some encounters/fights are trivially easy (and usually not even resolved), and some are just impossible to win (and are better avoided or fled from). We are not adjusting the level of adversaries for that. We are not transforming some into minions because the PCs have reached a certain level. They are what they are, with creatures that make sense in the world, in particular with respect to each other.

 

[Lyxen]

Its trivial to come up with creative, genre-appropriate fiction for why a "Ravenous Ghoul" might trigger automatic 5 HP damage in aura 1:

See, on this I agree with many other posters, it's purely technical and does not make sense. I salute your creativity in explaining effects, but it still makes no sense whatsoever if you consider that the PCs are heroes of the highest caliber and not your average peasant thrown in to "Night of the Living Dead" and that these are only minions, not even the main adversary of secondary fights.

If you've ever grappled with someone who has an endless gas-tank, brutal top-pressure, heavy hips, and single-minded will, its trivial to figure out a "sapping your staying power/capacity to fight" justification for the fiction of TTRPGing...because that is exactly what happens. Grappling with a ravenous ghoul would be hell even if you manage to stave of attack-after-attack-after-attack. It would wear you the hell down and quick.

It's not even grappling you, it's just standing there and actually attacking someone else, and it's still doing damage to you ?

Auras are some of the best part of 4e combat design. It creates an awesome layer of tactical overhead and, overwhelmingly (like in the Ravenous Ghoul case here) the aura 1 is not only easy to map onto the fiction but it makes perfect sense.

See, while I completely agree with the first part of your paragraph up to "awesome layer of tactical overhead", I would insist on the "not only easy to map onto the fiction" pursuing that into "actually impossible to map" and therefore for me while it makes perfect sense in the tactical mini-game of 4e combat, it makes no sense in the overall type of play that we like at our tables. But YCMV and to each his own.

 

[pemerton]

And have you run such an encounter ? I am pretty sure you have not, it would have been an absolute slaughter.

I've run an encounter with one high level fighter (28th level) against 20 27th level minions and a 28th level elite. It was a slaughter, but only for the minions! Details here.

40 on-level minions against 5 PCs would not be any sort of slaughter at paragon or epic tier, and probably not even at upper heroic.

 

[pemerton]

I'll give you a simple example:

• Orc Raider: AC 17 ( Leather Armor, Int 8, Dex 15)
• Orc Warrior: AC 21 (Leather Armor, Int 8, Dex 11)

Can you explain why the Orc Warrior's AC is 4 points higher than the raider' one when he is wearing the same armor but has much lower dex ? Is he perchance wearing magical armor ? But then why can't I loot it of him ?

For the same reason that the PCs' AC is higher at higher levels. It's all game device, to manage action resolution across the tiers of play. You could delete all level bonuses and make no difference to play except that now the Monster Manual would no longer suggest a progression across the tiers of play that reflects the "story" of D&D.

It's not a question of realism, it's one of consistency. The minion mechanic creates creatures that are proportionately way more dangerous but also way less enduring, and it does this with a huge "quantum" between the two.

Way more dangerous to whom?

You are assuming that the numbers correlate to elements in the fiction. They don't. In the fiction, a minion ogre of upper paragon level and a standard ogre of upper heroic level are the same. We change the numbers to make the game work smoothly. That's all.

If you want a game in which, instead, the ogre is almost unmissable by the PCs and almost unable to hit them, go for it! But the outcome will not be very different from using the minion except that everything will take longer.

If you want a game with no scaling to reflect tiers of play and the "story" of D&D, then play 5e rather than 4e! (Which I gather is what you do.) That doesn't make the fiction of 4e inconsistent. What is inconsistent about a heroic PC finding it a bit of a challenge to defeat an ogre, and a paragon PC finding it easy to do so but not entirely free of danger?

 

[Eric V]

And you can do that in 5e and the best thing is that you don't even have to change the stats, they are still applicable, rather than creating bizarre things that you still call orcs but are artificially way more dangerous and resilient but still die in 1 hit.

Are there really 'minions' in 5e though? Monsters you can drop with one hit? I ran a game up to 15th level and tried to take advantage of BA for a type of epic "against the horde!" encounter, and...it was a freaking slog. Gnolls have 22 hp, which means most characters don't drop them with one hit, but they still needed 17+ to hit the heroes...it was just loooong. Players begged me not to do that again.

4e minions may not have been easy hits, but they went down when you did.

 

[Lyxen]

I've run an encounter with one high level fighter (28th level) against 20 27th level minions and a 28th level elite. It was a slaughter, but only for the minions! Details here.

Yeah, right, on an open plain against one character who could use his AoE and with minions with basically no effect apart from minor hp damage. Now I wonder how he would have fared in any other circumstance in particular with allies in the way and actually effective minions.

40 on-level minions against 5 PCs would not be any sort of slaughter at paragon or epic tier, and probably not even at upper heroic.

Since someone mentioned E2 (which I've played through) I went and had a look, and quite a few of the minions (those I remembered) have very nasty side effect (in particular the rider on their attacks) that would make such a statement very doubtful.

For the same reason that the PCs' AC is higher at higher levels.

So, training then ? But then why does the 3rd level standard have 46 hit points and the 9th level minions have 1 ? The answer is not because it makes sense in the world, for sure. It's purely a gamist construct.

It's all game device

And then we agree. My point being that if that's what you're looking for, the minions' mechanic is the right one for you. If you look for world-wide consistency, it's not, because it's purely gamist.

to manage action resolution across the tiers of play. You could delete all level bonuses and make no difference to play except that now the Monster Manual would no longer suggest a progression across the tiers of play that reflects the "story" of D&D.

Or you could, you know, use the 5e system without minions that makes a difference of play across the tiers why preserving the consistency of the world without relying on such extremely visible gamist strings.

Way more dangerous to whom?

To a PC of let's say intermediate level.

You are assuming that the numbers correlate to elements in the fiction. They don't. In the fiction, a minion ogre of upper paragon level and a standard ogre of upper heroic level are the same.

Except that technically they are completely different for no other reason than "the system requires it to work". My point is that 5e has solved this without requiring such technical juggling, that's all.

We change the numbers to make the game work smoothly. That's all.

And then, my point is that in this domain 5e has the better mechanic because it does not require a number change to run smoothly.

If you want a game in which, instead, the ogre is almost unmissable by the PCs and almost unable to hit them, go for it! But the outcome will not be very different from using the minion except that everything will take longer.

Not necessarily, and at least the overall world consistency will be maintained, there will not be a purely technical quantum leap, and for the players it will be much more satisfying to see their progression.

If you want a game with no scaling to reflect tiers of play and the "story" of D&D, then play 5e rather than 4e! (Which I gather is what you do.) That doesn't make the fiction of 4e inconsistent. What is inconsistent about a heroic PC finding it a bit of a challenge to defeat an ogre, and a paragon PC finding it easy to do so but not entirely free of danger?

Because they are not the same creature at all. It's pure artificial tailoring to make the system work. So more work for the DM

 

[Lyxen]

Are there really 'minions' in 5e though? Monsters you can drop with one hit? I ran a game up to 15th level and tried to take advantage of BA for a type of epic "against the horde!" encounter, and...it was a freaking slog. Gnolls have 22 hp, which means most characters don't drop them with one hit, but they still needed 17+ to hit the heroes...it was just loooong. Players begged me not to do that again.

They don't drop with one hit, but they drop with a round's attack if you're a martial and they drop on AoE otherwise. This is not much different from 4e in which you only had one attack in a round anyway.

We have used "minions" like this time and time again without any special problem, including their attack, just roll as many d20s as necessary, it's fast.

4e minions may not have been easy hits, but they went down when you did.

But then they did not often drop from an AoE since they had such high saves.

 

[Manbearcat]

See, on this I agree with many other posters, it's purely technical and does not make sense. I salute your creativity in explaining effects, but it still makes no sense whatsoever if you consider that the PCs are heroes of the highest caliber and not your average peasant thrown in to "Night of the Living Dead" and that these are only minions, not even the main adversary of secondary fights.



It's not even grappling you, it's just standing there and actually attacking someone else, and it's still doing damage to you ?



See, while I completely agree with the first part of your paragraph up to "awesome layer of tactical overhead", I would insist on the "not only easy to map onto the fiction" pursuing that into "actually impossible to map" and therefore for me while it makes perfect sense in the tactical mini-game of 4e combat, it makes no sense in the overall type of play that we like at our tables. But YCMV and to each his own.

1) These are Abyssal Ghouls right? As in, "of-the-Abyss?" These aren't the guys from "Night of the Living Dead." These are human-like monstrosities, who dwell in some deep layer of the Abyss (where only Epic Tier heroes dare tread), insanely hopped up on some Abyssal version of Fentanyl meets Super Soldier Serum. They're feral x 1000 but Epic Tier heroes (with 150ish HPs at that level) who brave the Abyss can deal with them in droves because of D&D's gamist construct of HPs.

2) Just like you're mapping some kind of process simulation position onto D&D's gamist construct of HPs (which are meant to facilitate functional play and genre tropes within the D&D), you're mapping some kind of process simulation orientation onto the abstraction of position and attacks. Both of those things are abstractions on a battlemap specifically and in D&D generally. You're not statically occupying a small space in combat with others. There is all manner of distance control management, circling, feinting, flurrying, and retreating going on in a short interval. "The square" is an artificial game construct meant to facilitate functional play. It isn't the fiction of play. Same goes with "the attack." You aren't just attacking once. And, the rules of threatened squares and attacks of opportunity show that you can threaten/menace everyone around you while "attacking" (again, game construct) one party; this is basically an exception-based iteration on Threatened Squares and Opportunity Attacks.

The Abyssal Ghouls aura is a piece of fiction married to the game engine. These mad zombie horrors of the Abyss scratch and claw and bite at everything around them with insane speed and ferocity and implacability and unpredictability. You get near them and stay near them and its jaws and claws and necrotic spittle (see their attack) everywhere; Aura 1 - each enemy that starts its turn adjacent takes 5 damage.

Gamist constructs easily mapped onto fiction for awesome layer of tactical overhead. You're interpreting the architecture of D&D's engine (HP, Position, Attack...while also eliding the fiction of Threatened Squares and Opportunity Attacks) in a particular way that creates a nonsensical fiction and then blaming the engine for that. You can toggle off your process simulation orientation to the aforementioned constructs and rewire your game engine: fiction mapping.

 

[Lyxen]

1) These are Abyssal Ghouls right? As in, "of-the-Abyss?" These aren't the guys from "Night of the Living Dead." These are human-like monstrosities, who dwell in some deep layer of the Abyss (where only Epic Tier heroes dare tread), insanely hopped up on some Abyssal version of Fentanyl meets Super Soldier Serum. They're feral x 1000 but Epic Tier heroes (with 150ish HPs at that level) who brave the Abyss can deal with them in droves because of D&D's gamist construct of HPs.

And they can deal with them so easily that the slightest blow kills them. But still, they are horrifying to said heroes ? => Disconnect

2) Just like you're mapping some kind of process simulation position onto D&D's gamist construct of HPs (which are meant to facilitate functional play and genre tropes within the D&D), you're mapping some kind of process simulation orientation onto the abstraction of position and attacks. Both of those things are abstractions on a battlemap specifically and in D&D generally. You're not statically occupying a small space in combat with others. There is all manner of distance control management, circling, feinting, flurrying, and retreating going on in a short interval. "The square" is an artificial game construct meant to facilitate functional play. It isn't the fiction of play. Same goes with "the attack." You aren't just attacking once. And, the rules of threatened squares and attacks of opportunity show that you can threaten/menace everyone around you while "attacking" (again, game construct) one party; this is basically an exception-based iteration on Threatened Squares and Opportunity Attacks.

The Abyssal Ghouls aura is a piece of fiction married to the game engine. These mad zombie horrors of the Abyss scratch and claw and bite at everything around them with insane speed and ferocity and implacability and unpredictability. You get near them and stay near them and its jaws and claws and necrotic spittle (see their attack) everywhere; Aura 1 - each enemy that starts its turn adjacent takes 5 damage.

Only it's not necrotic spittle doing necrotic damage, it's untyped damage and it's called "unending hunger"...

Gamist constructs easily mapped onto fiction for awesome layer of tactical overhead. You're interpreting the architecture of D&D's engine (HP, Position, Attack...while also eliding the fiction of Threatened Squares and Opportunity Attacks) in a particular way that creates a nonsensical fiction and then blaming the engine for that.

Yes, I am blaming an engine that makes it especially hard to do that mapping by imposing purely technical gamist mechanisms on the game world rather than it being the other way round, with the result that no player I've seen EVER thinks about what it means in the game world, just rolls dices and pushes counters on a grid.

You can toggle off your process simulation orientation to the aforementioned constructs and rewire your game engine: fiction mapping.

You might be able to do so, but some engines make it way harder than others, and actually encourage the reverse, that's all. Once more, YCMV and to each his own, our groups choose our own and it was not that one.