D&D General 5.5 and making the game easier for players and harder for DMs

[FitzTheRuke]

Some players may help, but not all. Some anecdotes…

One of my players - who’s been in my 3.5e game for 20 years, and is currently DMing his own 3.5e game - still gets confused over how many actions he can take in a round. He often tries to do about 1.5 rounds worth because he gets so excited.

Another player in my other campaign, who’s played for about 5 years now, sometimes gets confused by things like the difference between and ability score and its modifier, e.g., a 14 versus the +2.

A guy I used to play with was rolling d12 instead of d20 for many sessions.

Oh yeah, the imperfection of things is kinda my point. I won't necessarily remember every condition if I have to track a ton (and I'm not convinced that D&D 2024 is going to have a ton to track - certainly not compared to 3.5 or 4e. Maybe compared to 2014, but I don't think by enough to go from "good" to "bad")

... But I expect that if I forget, someone will help to remind me. And if they don't, that no one will care much as we move forward with the game. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Absolutely, it could be made simpler. But I don't think that it's something that needs to be overly worried about. Imperfect? Sure. Disastrous? I doubt it.

 

[tetrasodium]

No. I simply mean, if they're (PC) the ones who applied a condition that needs to be tracked, then they are likely to remind you (DM) of it when it is important to remember it.

No that ignores the problem. Unlike grapple or something these are not status effects applied to a monster beside Alice Bob Cindy Dave and Eddie... They are stylus effects applied to every monster all five of them attacked recently enough and they are likely explicitly allowed to juggle in a new weapon each round just as they are now explicitly able to move around between attacks rather than being able to do it by omission unless the gm says its not within the rules to do those things


If all five of them being able to Jiiiiiiii delay for mid attack status updates was slow already it's certainly not going to get better waiting for a consensus from them before any monster might take an action that could potentially be impacted by one of the many at will status effects they may or may not have applied

 

[Ibrandul]

Are your players using Feats, Multi-classing or Magical Items? Because the adventure doesn't assume you have any of those.

If you are using those to increase player power... and your players want a harder game... then ask if they are willing to take those things out. IF they aren't, then you need to increase the power of the monsters. Even if it is as simple as just maxing their hp (remember, the hp listed is the average, you can use the max) and updating their equipment to be better.

Thanks for the tips.

Feats: yes;
multiclassing: yes for only one PC, who's playing a druid with a one-level monk dip (admittedly does help that PC's survivability a bit, but I don't think it has had a huge impact);
magic items: only what the adventure itself has provided.

So the only "variant" I'm implementing that significantly boosts the party's power is feats—which will no longer be a variant in 5.5e.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't think they were calling their players toddlers. They were making an analogy.

Many players want to feel like they've earned a victory, but they also want lots of cool powerful stuff. Many of them don't give thought to game balance, they take what advantages they can get so that they have a better chance of winning fights, not losing.

They don't realize that it's tough to be on the other side of the table, making encounters that are challenging without being murderous, or cake-walks that they have no problem with.

I have a couple players that have made optimized characters, and later on said "oh wow this is busted, I'm overshadowing the rest of the party" or "can we tone down this class? It's ridiculously good." Those players end up having more sensitivity to the matter going forward- but they're not every player.

Your position is far more nuanced and reasonable compared to theirs. But also, I think there are some obvious things being stated or mistated.

For Example, I remember a guy years ago who was complaining that they wanted to run a survival heavy campaign. They told their party they wanted to run a survival heavy campaign where camping and supplies would be important. The players then showed up with goodberry, create food and water, leomund's tiny hut, and other spells designed to solve the problems he was planning on them facing. The individual was furious, because the game was designed to ruin all of his plans! Except... was it? The game was designed to give the players tools to solve problems, and when he said "we are going to be facing these problems" the player's built to solve those problems. Because obviously.

The same thing happens when you tell players "I am going to run a campaign focused on defeating undead" you will get characters who are specialized in taking out undead.

Where things get misstated though, is on the part of the designers. Quickleaf seems convinced that the designers are creating all these things "without limits, risk, or real challenge" that they have given no thought whatsoever at how it affects the game if the Rogue can trip enemies at-will.... but they did. They did think about that. They just don't see the Rogue being able to trip or poison people as a problem for the DM. They aren't thinking "well, now the rogue can trip and poison enemies, so now my enemies won't be effective in combat, oh no, this is horrible!" they are thinking "We've given the rogue the ability to help their team by tripping and poisoning an enemy, this is a great tool."

I've also noticed a few other things, for example, many DMs who get on complaining that fights are too easy go with something like "I took the standard pit fiend from the MM, put it solo against a party using all the optional rules and optimal builds, and they defeated it easily!" Well... yeah. The designers never assumed that the Pit Fiend would be solo. They never assumed you wouldn't do something simply like give it magical gear, feats, or increase its health if you were using all the optional and optimal builds in the game. Of course you are going to curb-stomp it. This isn't because the designers put zero thought into designing the game, but because they had different assumptions that you (general) are ignoring. Like never having a solo encounter. Like making sure you have five or six fights before the last encounter of the day.

Yes, players are often not considering the game balance when they make their characters, this is true. But that doesn't mean the designers also didn't consider it, they just set different parameters than you did. And you (general) need to understand that if you are going to fully realize the situation

 

[Chaosmancer]

Thanks for the tips.

Feats: yes;
multiclassing: yes for only one PC, who's playing a druid with a one-level monk dip (admittedly does help that PC's survivability a bit, but I don't think it has had a huge impact);
magic items: only what the adventure itself has provided.

So the only "variant" I'm implementing that significantly boosts the party's power is feats—which will no longer be a variant in 5.5e.

Okay, I honestly would say that if your party is using feats, then monsters using feats is fair game. I also know that the 5.24 MM will have rebalanced monsters, so that should also help.

Side Note: Monk/Druid sends a shudder up my spine. It is the only and singular multi-class I have banned at my tables. Level 1 shouldn't be too bad, but it (if run with monk abilities working in wildshape which was my call at the time) is stupidly, insanely powerful.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

No that ignores the problem. Unlike grapple or something these are not status effects applied to a monster beside Alice Bob Cindy Dave and Eddie... They are stylus effects applied to every monster all five of them attacked recently enough and they are likely explicitly allowed to juggle in a new weapon each round just as they are now explicitly able to move around between attacks rather than being able to do it by omission unless the gm says its not within the rules to do those things If all five of them being able to Jiiiiiiii delay for mid attack status updates was slow already it's certainly not going to get better waiting for a consensus from them before any monster might take an action that could potentially be impacted by one of the many at will status effects they may or may not have applied

I can see how it reads like that might be an issue, but as I said before, having played with weapon masteries for dozens of sessions, I haven't seen it to be a problem in practice. The once or twice that I forgot to give the monster disadvantage on its following attack or tried to make it charge forward when it was down 10ft off its speed - the player who inflicted the condition reminded me, I nooded, and we moved forward.

I'm not arguing that it's ideal, but I would say that weapon masteries add more than they take away (in that they are more fun than they are cumbersome). And TRUST ME - I do NOT like cumbersome rules. IDK - maybe I'll see what you're talking about in time.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It never ceases to amaze me how much disdain DMs have for their players. Comparing them to toddlers? I'd walk out of your game on principle.

I'd have been good calling it with the idea of making the game less frustrating and more engaging was 'givign the players everything they want', or 'coddling' them.

Then again, if I hear a DM complaining that killing my characters is too difficult, I know we do not share the same gaming priorities.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'd have been good calling it with the idea of making the game less frustrating and more engaging was 'givign the players everything they want', or 'coddling' them.

Then again, if I hear a DM complaining that killing my characters is too difficult, I know we do not share the same gaming priorities.

To be fair, I think they're talking about challenging your character, not actually killing them, but who knows? There's all kinds.

 

[Vaalingrade]

To be fair, I think they're talking about challenging your character, not actually killing them, but who knows? There's all kinds.

There's a lot of back and forth about the threat of death being different from death, but the end result of the desires on display is... death is more common full stop. And it's more common via making the game more frustrating by making healing not worth using on still-up characters anymore and making potions hurt your action economy again and, of-freaking-course taking away the one very tiny nice thing given to martials.

So for me, it's bad means to a bad end. Do not want.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's not that this is so overpowered, but now a misty step means the player has to choose from a menu of options, and then the DM has to make a bunch of saving throws and keep track of who failed. It adds tactical complexity but also adds to the stack of things to keep track of. So in the aggregate, when all classes add to the stack in this way, such changes do make life harder for DMs. Now, again, whether this is a deal breaker is an individual preference.

I mean. It’s a warlock ability. Warlocks were already causing creatures to have to make saving throws and the DM to have to track that kind of thing. If that was the kind of thing that was going to be a deal breaker for someone, I would imagine the deal has already long since been broken for them anyway.