D&D General Is WotC's 5E D&D easy? Trust me this isn't what you think... maybe

[Art Waring]

The trouble with when the risk & difficulty drop past a certain point is that roll or not you have a situation where the consequences can't matter.

This reminds me of that old argument around scaling DC's.

You can scale DC's (Difficulty Class), but then players never feel like they have gotten better at anything because the difficulty keeps scaling with their power level treadmill.

Or, you can lock in DC's at fixed intervals, and once players get good enough, nothing presents a challenge.

This has been a problem for a very long time, at least since 3e, I don't have a magic solution, all I know I that at my table I run it as a fixed DC table, but I also cap the game at lower levels akin to E6 games so players never get to ridiculous numbers.

YMMV.

 

[tetrasodium]

This reminds me of that old argument around scaling DC's.

You can scale DC's (Difficulty Class), but then players never feel like they have gotten better at anything because the difficulty keeps scaling with their power level treadmill.

Or, you can lock in DC's at fixed intervals, and once players get good enough, nothing presents a challenge.

This has been a problem for a very long time, at least since 3e, I don't have a magic solution, all I know I that at my table I run it as a fixed DC table, but I also cap the game at lower levels akin to E6 games so players never get to ridiculous numbers.

YMMV.

I recently saw an excellent turn of phrase extending the treadmill analogy as it applies to bounded accuracy. I'm not sure that the resulting self pedaling dc motor equipped stationary bike is can support the effort of pretending.

 

[Charlaquin]

An experienced dm should not be running balanced encounters. This is usually tje issue with easy dnd. Stop fighting cr equal to your level and start running serious combats with serious challenges. Cr = to level means easy mode. Cr = level + 3-8 is dangerous.

“Balanced encounters” are balanced around the assumption of resource attrition over the course of a 6-8 encounter day. If you follow that assumption, balanced encounters are not individually challenging, but surviving the whole adventuring day is. However, if you do want each encounter to be a challenge on its own, yeah, you do need to shoot well above the party’s level, and the party will consequently be able to handle far fewer of them in a day.

 

[Charlaquin]

A lot of people like to say it's either "too easy" or "Super lethal". Can't there be a middle ground?

Yeah, just follow the 6-8 encounter adventuring day guideline. You end up with lots of easy individual encounters that collectively end up being hard. Players get to feel awesome killing tons of enemies, feel challenged to survive the adventure, and either feel rewarded when they manage to pull through, or feel like at least they had a fair chance when they lost.

 

[Charlaquin]

I know there are some counterexamples at lower levels, but I'd say that's when losing a character matters the least, since they're easy to replace.

Funny, I would say that’s when it matters the most, because that’s when you have the least ability to access resurrection spells.

 

[overgeeked]

“Balanced encounters” are balanced around the assumption of resource attrition over the course of a 6-8 encounter day. If you follow that assumption, balanced encounters are not individually challenging, but surviving the whole adventuring day is. However, if you do want each encounter to be a challenge on its own, yeah, you do need to shoot well above the party’s level, and the party will consequently be able to handle far fewer of them in a day.

Exactly. And that’s another thing that makes 5E such a cakewalk. Referees not doing 6-8 encounters per day. It’s easy to hit that in a dungeon crawl, really hard anywhere else. The classes being split between short- and long-rest resources also screws up any chance at balancing things. Only throw a “short rest” worth of encounters (about 1/3 of a day) at the PCs, and the long-rest resource classes will stomp the encounters. Throw a “long rest” worth of encounters (a full day) at the PCs, and the short-rest classes get short changed. You either accept most fights are pointless cakewalks or house rule the hell out of the game or play something else.

 

[Charlaquin]

Exactly. And that’s another thing that makes 5E such a cakewalk. Referees not doing 6-8 encounters per day. It’s easy to hit that in a dungeon crawl, really hard anywhere else.

Yeah, I’m convinced 5e was designed around dungeon crawling. That was certainly the focus of the D&D Next Playtest, at least.

The classes being split between short- and long-rest resources also screws up any chance at balancing things. Only throw a “short rest” worth of encounters (about 1/3 of a day) at the PCs, and the long-rest resource classes will stomp the encounters. Throw a “long rest” worth of encounters (a full day) at the PCs, and the short-rest classes get short changed. You either accept most fights are pointless cakewalks or house rule the hell out of the game or play something else.

Or, you know, the party could just take a couple short rests over the course of the adventuring day and a long rest at the end. That works fine.

 

[overgeeked]

Or, you know, the party could just take a couple short rests over the course of the adventuring day and a long rest at the end. That works fine.

Right. I’m saying throw fewer, bigger fights at the PCs. If you throw more than 1/3 of an adventuring day at the party in one fight, you screw over the short-rest resource classes. If you throw less than the full adventuring day at the PCs in a day, the long-rest resource classes easily stomp the fights. The only way to balance things is 6-8 encounters per day or house rule the hell out of the game.

Another fix is to take a more gamist approach. The PCs can rest when they’ve had the right number of encounters, not before. After 2-3 fights, they get a short rest. After 6-8 fights they get a long rest.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Exactly. And that’s another thing that makes 5E such a cakewalk. Referees not doing 6-8 encounters per day. It’s easy to hit that in a dungeon crawl, really hard anywhere else. The classes being split between short- and long-rest resources also screws up any chance at balancing things. Only throw a “short rest” worth of encounters (about 1/3 of a day) at the PCs, and the long-rest resource classes will stomp the encounters. Throw a “long rest” worth of encounters (a full day) at the PCs, and the short-rest classes get short changed. You either accept most fights are pointless cakewalks or house rule the hell out of the game or play something else.

A small price to pay for that D&D feeling!

 

[Charlaquin]

Right. I’m saying throw fewer, bigger fights at the PCs. If you throw more than 1/3 of an adventuring day at the party in one fight, you screw over the short-rest resource classes. If you throw less than the full adventuring day at the PCs in a day, the long-rest resource classes easily stomp the fights. The only way to balance things is 6-8 encounters per day or house rule the hell out of the game.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I agree. That’s how it’s designed to work, so it’s unsurprising to me that it would work poorly when used in a different way.

Another fix is to take a more gamist approach. The PCs can rest when they’ve had the right number of encounters, not before. After 2-3 fights, they get a short rest. After 6-8 fights they get a long rest.

That would work, if you struggle to fit adventuring days to the assumed structure organically.