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

[payn]

As soon as I get a chance I plan to reread all the PHB backgrounds mentioned as "trivializing" challenges to see if I am missing something. But for example, sure your Outlander can forage food for up to 6 people, but nothing says that would not take up to six times as long depending on the environment (which the background description explicitly says can limit or straight up deny this ability's usefulness) and their d6+Wis Mod roll, increasing chances of random encounters and/or slowing travel to the point where it might have just been easier to buy some rations in town.

Exactly. Sky isnt the limit, there are drawbacks if you choose to have them. Alternatively, if foraging or finding a bed isnt a big deal, you can just wave it with the background. It allows options, doesnt prevent them.

 

[jasper]

Neither. OR it depends. The opening BBEG have been deadly. But it depends on the group and adventure. See some my write ups for more detail.

 

[tetrasodium]

I reject the idea that a DM can be strong armed into doing anything. If you believe otherwise that's fine, but I will never speak about the game from that premise because I find it false.

You seem to have completely dropped the blame shifting effort rather than trying to support it, should we assume it's being retracted in acknowledgement of the original error?

As to this new approach... Sure the GM is perfectly free to drive an adversarial wedge through the table and fight back against a firmly held expectation that players have been led to expect, but that's hardly useful to the health of the social dynamics of the table or campaign.

 

[overgeeked]

I reject the idea that a DM can be strong armed into doing anything. If you believe otherwise that's fine, but I will never speak about the game from that premise because I find it false.

That’s a weird stance to take. The referee is only human. They don’t gain superhuman willpower simply because they’re refereeing a game. They’re just as subject to peer pressure and manipulation as every other human.

 

[jasper]

The math was hyperbole, point was they steamroll most combats.

here is the AL formula
Party Composition Party Strength 3-4 characters, APL less than Very weak

3-4 characters, APL equivalent Weak, 3-4 characters, APL greater than Average

5 characters, APL less than Weak, 5 characters, APL equivalent Average

5 characters, APL greater than Strong, 6-7 characters, APL less than Average

6-7 characters, APL equivalent Strong, 6-7 characters, APL greater than Very strong
And on certain builds I add the equivalent of 1 pc and make adjustments to the challenge.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I remember one adventure where the book made a point about the heroes having to scavenge for food and other survival stuff like torches etc.

Ranger had an ability to basically do that free of charge. Made that whole aspect kind of pointless.

 

[overgeeked]

One Drow was a beefy named guy but one Heat Metal spell later and he was handicapped. Plus again the Gloomstalker just cant be seen in the dark so yeah

You can overcome that with things like tremorsense, true sight, see invisible, and a few others. There’s also the low tech approach. Have a fight in a kitchen and someone throws flour everywhere. So goes for paint, mud, or anything else that’s appropriate.

 

[ezo]

I think a good example of the "combat ease" issue I have was last session.

Not knowing the full scenario, I'm not sure what advice to offer. It sounds like it ran about how it should.

By my calculations, that was a "moderate" encounter. Something meant to use up some resources (like Turn Undead and heat metal, etc.) but otherwise no real danger to the PCs. The fact that the wizard dropped as well was pretty much the goal. Did the gargoyle double-tap the wizard to finish them off? Or the gargolye could have threated to kill the wizard unless the PCs surrendered? Or the gargoyle could have grabbed the unconscious wizard and flown away with them.

Unlucky rolls by the PCs and luck on the foes side might result in more of challenge, but probably not notably so.

Some points, however, in case these were things you might have overlooked? (to be clear, I'm not saying you did, only you might have)

• Drow faerie fire would make the Gloomstalker visible.
• Being invisible is not the same thing as being hidden.
• You (generally) cannot take the Hide action if you are directly observed.
• Although the Cleric is tanking, unless it is a bottleneck, creatures can choose to attack whoever. The drow could have shot whoever.
• The gargoyle (with flying speed) should engage the ranged targets.
• When creatures can't "hit" a PC, grappling them is usually a better option. Then take the PC to the ground so others have advantage to hit in most cases.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The default for any given group should be discussed during a session 0. The guidelines are just that, a starting point. Add in that many people misinterpret CR and what deadly means, along with a sprinkle of monsters from the MM need to be revised and that's why I have a problem with saying that D&D is too easy. I don't care how you qualify it, I could just as easily state that D&D is extremely deadly because I go out of my way to kill off PCs by focusing fire and hitting people when their down.

The default is what the book suggests, sans optional rules.

 

[Oofta]

I think a good example of the "combat ease" issue I have was last session.

The group arrives at the boss fight. 4 level 3s. Cleric, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard.

vs 3 ghouls. 2 drow. 1 gargoyle. 2 zombies.

They ambush the party. Ghouls and Zombies rush in.

Ranger drops a drow from range.

Cleric immediatly Turns Undead and we are down 1 Ghoul and zombie. Ranger and Rogue get out of melee thanks to disengage and or stealth and using ranged weapons.

Drow with xbow cant hit anything. Needs a 15 or better to hit the Cleric who is out front tanking.

Lone zombie is just there to hold them in melee. Can't hit anything anyways. Gargoyle is the real champ and savages the Wizard.

Ghouls cant keep the Rogue pinned down and try to the taget that wont run, the cleric. Can't hit him anyways. Cleric summons Spiritual Weapon.

The Rogue does get Paralyzed at some point but the fights practically over. Only one KOed was the Wiz who got back up on his feet one cure later.

Bad dice rolls aside. I either had to attack the Cleric who simply couldn't run away but I needed a 15 or better to hit. Go after the Rogue who can auto disengage. No one could see the Gloomstalker.

What I thought would be a hard fight was just another bump in the path. I mentioned earlier about a Wight. Thought that might be a fun fight with some zombies. Turn Undead and an easy clean up.

Yeah yeah could have just had more drow or zombies pop up but that almost feels like cheating to me. I guess I need to get over that feeling

You know what I really miss? Full immunity for monsters from damage if you didn't have a magic weapon. Half damage is still a lot of damage.

Had some great fights back in the day where the front line would keep a monster at bay while the magic users would attack it because it could only be hurt by magic. Add in a magic dagger tossed to the fighter to add a bit more damage. Some real fun clench moments. Plus it was real teamwork.

First, using monsters with significantly lower CR that "rush in" is generally never a good idea unless you're using a significantly large number where I would start using the mob rules. I don't know the environment was, but drow are not going to be front line fighters in this situation. They're only useful as ambushers and coordinators. The zombies are also under 1 CR and not really a threat considering the group has a cleric. Sending zombies and ghouls in at the same time? Eh.

You can't always go by the CR calculator but I'm not surprised this was an easy fight. Instead I would send in the zombies in wave #1. Better yet, just have them laying around as corpses the group stumbles across that activate once the group is on top of them. Have the drow attack from a distance from the opposite direction (they have 120 foot darkvision) even if it's attacks with disadvantage (I'd probably give them short bows for this fight to negate that). After they fire, they duck back behind total cover, maybe even taking a round between attacks to hide and pop up from cover. Have the ghouls hold back more than 30 feet and out of sight of the group. Once cleric turns undead, you can have the ghouls go in or they can just lay in wait for the PCs to approach the drow soldiers who are directing them.

If and when the party splits up to go deal with the pesky drow, who should never be exposing themselves to fire, the gargoyle goes after a lone individual if at all possible. Remember, the gargoyle is just a statue until it activates, use that ability. Although honestly gargoyles are one of those weird monsters because of their immunity.

I guess all your PCs had magic weapons or attacks? What are their ACs? Was anyone surprised in the first round? All of the monsters are lower level so if you've been generous with money, it makes sense they're going to have a hard time hitting. Last, but not least, throwing low level undead against a group with a cleric that has channel divinity available means I regularly discount most of the undead from my calculations, but it's going to be swingy. Sometimes the undead just all make their saves.