D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[Xenolith234]

Yeah, I feel a lot of players want that, and more appear every day (trained by the most popular current rules). It's very frustrating, because I've never wanted that as a player or a DM.

I think if WotC presented a higher difficulty as a default, those players wouldn't necessarily know any better. But since the difficulty is lowered by default, altering from the baseline is frowned upon.

 

[ezo]

For a game where attrition is often professed to be important, why has D&D NEVER offered guidance on gauging the challenge of encounters based on said attrition?

Well, they sort of have though, haven't they...?

I mean the 6-8 medium/hard guidelines are exactly that--guidelines--as in guidance. When I first started 5E from an AD&D background, I vastly overjudged what I thought PCs could handle because in AD&D they could handle such encounters. Now, they really can't at the same level.

I decided to work on a summary of my campaign encounters to date. The encounter difficulty distribution of the 77 encounters so far is 30% easy, 15% moderate, 35% hard, and 20% deadly. The (adjusted) XP value for the average encounter is almost exactly half of the deadly max (so for level 1, that would be 100 xp per PC), with the maximum adjusted XP value at 165% of that barrier between hard and deadly. That means on average my encounters are half of max deadly value, which is the maximum of moderate. In other words, nearly exactly between moderate and hard.

I think it would have been helpful if the designers assigned values to the encounter difficulties:

1 - easy
2 - moderate
3 - hard
4 - deadly

At 6-8 (say 7) moderate to hard (2.5) that gives 17.5 "encounter points". If you spend those points given the values above, with say a short rest about every 5-7 points, it works out well IME.

• In the easy encounters, a few hp might be lost or some ammo spent, etc. but that is about it.
• In moderate encounters, spell slots are typically used but at a minimum, hp is likely reduced, a potion or such might be consumed.
• In hard encounters, spell slots are used, even a big whammie maybe, hp depletion is promenent and wider spread--not just the tanks. Magic items used are likely spent.
• In deadly encounters, everything is on the table. Players understand this is when they have to use resources and recovery (a short or long rest) is likely needed.

You throw two deadly encounters at PCs without any rest in between, and they are likely feeling the sting of attrition. A moderate and hard in tandem and spell casters might start wondering how much they can use a spell slot on the next encounter. An easy follow-up encounter makes the players relax--all in not doom and gloom, but that last medium encounter might just be too much after so many resources are gone.

I (quite literally!) see this sort of attrition-based game play work all the time. But, there is a point I would like to address in that: this is on the "adventure" day--during the actual adventure, not just random encounters while travelling, etc. Travelling days are often much easier as random encounters don't tend to cluster like adventure encounters do, with little chance to rest in between.

I'll give you a summary of the encounters for my last three sessions. The PCs had just discovered the enterance to a cave system where water was flooding from (ruining the region!). We had a scroll of Water Breathing, so had 24 hours to finish the mission before we had to return. For our 4 PCs the encounters were:

Session 1:
1. Two water weirds (moderate)
2. A giant shark and a sahuagin (hard)
3. Two sahuagin priestesses and a merrow (hard)
- short rest -
4. Six sahuagin coral smashers (hard)
- short rest -
5. A Kraken priest (BBEG) and five sahuagin coral smashers (deadly)
- long rest -

Using the above point system: 2+3+3 (rest) +3 (rest) +4 (long rest) = 15. Not guite the 17.5, but close. We could have handled another moderate encounter probably at most without serious risk of TPK...

Session 2: the players decided to remove the remaining threats to the area
1. Four merrows (hard)
2. Four swarms of quippers (easy, avoided)
3. A water elemental and a sahuagin (hard)
- short rest -
4. Four hunter sharks (hard)
5. Two sahuagin priestesses (moderate)
x. Two merfolk (allied - no point cost)
6a. Two sahuagins (easy)

Session 3: battle resumed after the two sahuagins when their companions came
6b. Four sahuagins and two sea hags -- the merfolk we allied with (hard, resulted in PC death)
- short rest - (we didn't have time for another long rest but we REALLY wanted it)
7. Six sahuagin coral smashers (hard), this used a lot of our last ditch resources like relentless endurance on BOTH half-orc PCs... The PCs were nearly exhausted of all resources. Now, losing the healer in the prior encounter really made this one hurt.
x. Ten merfolk and four reef sharks (allied - no point cost)
STORY AWARD: finally closed portal
- long rest - (on the surface)

3+1+3 (rest) +3+2+1+3 (rest) + 3 (long rest) = 19. A bit over the 17.5, and we felt it at the 16 point mark! Between the two "adventuring days" for sessions 1-3 above, the total is 34 points, just one shy of the 35 average.

Now, the PCs could have gone in different directions changing the encounter order, and they would have had to adjust the rest schedule to match it--wondering if the next encounter might be too much to handle with their current resources levels.

The "sahuagin lair" was designed around the world implications for the cave system map, random rolls for encounter difficulty (based on the WOLRD, not the PCs!!!, but this is another point not directly connected to the guidelines in the DMG...), and a search to find creatures appropriate to the encounter difficulty, story, etc.

In the long run, IME, it tends to work itself out.

EDIT: I just realized a point system of

1- easy
2- moderate
4- hard
8- deadly

at 6-8 moderate/hard encounters would generate 21 points on average. So, one hard and two deadly encounters--which likely might require a short rest after each, would give you the attrition needed for an adventuring day most likely. I prefer to spread it out a bit more, but it might work...

 

[Mecheon]

I want to remove Darkvision from most ancestries and add Concentration to the Light spell to balance out the efficacy of it, and make the dark threatening again. I know for certain that my players will balk against this because it's weakening them. Is this such a significant balance change that it's really a problem? I don't believe so.

I mean I'd argue it is a balance change, as you're adding either a minimal resource drain or a "Woops you didn't buy a torch guess you've got to turn around now and go get one". Its not making the dark threatening again, its making the dark annoying again.

Mind, having both seen Skyrim players have a dislike to all the "Make the dungeons dark so you have to use torches" mods after the fact, and played a lot of Ark Aberration (the cave map) where colour balance is a god-damn nightmare during the dark moments. The dark ain't a threat in Aberration, but the radiation, giant murder-snakes and the hellspawn (who stay away if you got a little light pet on your shoulder) are

I had a similar reaction when I brought up Gritty Realism so that I could stretch encounters out over a week instead of a single day. It doesn't actually impact them much at all, just makes things more realistic.

Gritty realism absolutely impacts them? It slows down everything by its nature. If they're not expecting that slower pace and came in for the default chips and nachos 5E experience, why wouldn't they complain?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Well, they sort of have though, haven't they...?

I mean the 6-8 medium/hard guidelines are exactly that--guidelines--as in guidance.

Not really.

Yes, they tell you to have a truly interminable amount of encounters a day, but they don't explain how encounter 8 is going to be more difficult than encounter 2 due to said attrition and how to take that into consideration when designing encounters and adventures.

The game doesn't really talk about attrition; it just does attrition and hopes we'll figure it out.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not really.

Yes, they tell you to have a truly interminable amount of encounters a day, but they don't explain how encounter 8 is going to be more difficult than encounter 2 due to said attrition and how to take that into consideration when designing encounters and adventures.

Further, they pretend that this is totally optional, and that you can substitute almost any amount of non-combat encounters in for those combat ones. But then when you actually dig into the math and look at how the game was designed...they legitimately did presume an absolute floor of 5-6 specifically combat encounters in order for LR classes to keep up with SR/non-rest classes.

That's part of why 5.5e buffed Warlocks and Fighters and added in all those mastery properties etc., and why their initial attempt to fix the Warlock's problems was simply to delete everything that made the Warlock unique and SR-based.

The game doesn't really talk about attrition; it just does attrition and hopes we'll figure it out.

Which, frankly, is how much of 5e is done--and part of why the 5.0 DMG is really just...double plus ungood. I have often phrased this as throwing the DM to the wolves, or into the deep end of the pool.

 

[Zardnaar]

This one is actually easy, and pretty common - sometimes, what folks want is the appearance of danger, but not the actual danger.

Like, you know, a roller-coaster, which has all the appearance of risk, but very little actual risk? You get all the rush, even when you know you're going to come out okay.

Sonething similar to this.

Except in D&D you have the if something goes wrong (or blatantly stupid) you're dead level of risk.

Good DM is casting multiple illusions imho.

 

[pemerton]

Some of the discussion in this thread feels like it's time-travelled forward from 1990!

All the issues around stakes and tension, death spirals, whether death should even be on the table, etc - these are solved problems in RPG design.

That's not to say that there is a unique best solution - there is no unique best RPG, any more than there is a unique best card game - but it's not like we need to be groping in the dark to try and find a working system that incorporates whatever we want in these respects.

In a game where players are measured by Hitpoints gear and stuff that make them harder to hit and let them do more damage how do you get rid of attrition?

Encounter-based design.

There would still be per-encounter attrition, but everything resets after each encounter and no one has to care about tracking things throughout the day.

There is also the 4e approach, in which most mechanical oomph is per-encounter, but there are a smaller number of less-easily-recharged "spike" abilities (dailies) and an overall attrition mechanic (healing surges).

I don’t think it’s purely a matter of challenging them in combat because we can always use stronger monsters (though default monsters are pretty dull to run), but that the sense of challenge is only merely temporary. Got knocked unconscious? Eh, you’re not dead yet. 1 point of healing and you’re right as rain (and it resets all of your dying-ness!).

For me the response to death spirals being a problem is to as a player do what I can to avoid being in one, not to simplify then out of the game. If my PC gets hurt I want that to matter.

There are endless excellent RPGs with death spiral mechanics.

Rolemaster is a classic, with a recently-released new version. HARP is RM-lite, but keeps a version of its death spiral.

My favourite FRPG is Burning Wheel. It has a death spiral, and PCs can easily carry meaningful injuries over multiple sessions.

One thing that BW has in common with RM is that recovery of injury by rest, and the passage of time, is a much bigger deal than it typically is in D&D (which features much more ubiquitous and effective magical healing).

Marvel Heroic RP also has a death spiral, despite its generally non-sim mechanics. And of other RPGs I enjoy, Torchbearer and Classic Traveller both have death spiral elements, though on an attrition basis rather than a within-the-encounter basis.

I never did it, but 4e D&D is also reasonably easily adjusted to include a death spiral, by using the disease/curse track to represent ongoing injuries.

I think, the game needs that tension, for both them and me, and if the threat of death is only pretend, then the same emotional depth and reality of it isn't being plumbed.

The issue with this is that it means that either we must introduce new mechanical stakes that somehow are not a type of attrition, (so any sort of injury is out) or the only thing that can be mechanically at stake at the encounter is a character death, and once we get resurrection magic, a TPK.

I don't particularly care for influence systems or point systems when it comes to social interactions (I value roleplay at the table over rollplay)

I on the other hand see no good reason why combat has to be the only place in the game with solid rules.

Personally, I find an approach to play in which PC death (or TPK) is the default, or the only real, stakes of conflict is one which produces very emotionally shallow, "video-gamey" or Fighting Fantasy-type RPGing.

I mean, in my day-to-day life I am very rarely at significant risk of death, but things challenge and move me. And the most emotionally engaging stories I read, films I watch, etc are rarely about the risk of death.

The simplest RPG I know that has a universal resolution rule, which permits any sort of emotional, dramatic or "narrative" stakes, is Greg Stafford's masterpiece Prince Valiant. I know - from the experience of play of the system - that it easily allows establishing situations that are comic, that are dramatic, where the players (as their PCs) will care about and pursue lofty goals or trivial ones.

And the most important principle around PC death is stated on p 26 of the Prince Valiant rulebook: "Normally death is not an important part of Prince Valiant." That does not create any obstacle to emotional depth.

I posted the following earlier this year:

What's the process, in D&D, for a PC hoping to meet a friend or ally - and having a chance of doing so - but also having a chance of an enemy turning up instead to rain on their parade?

What's the process, in D&D, for having a king's guards turf a PC out of the castle into the moat that doesn't have a real chance, and likelihood, of escalating into a deadly conflict?

What's the process, in D&D, for a PC attempting to shame a NPC into taking some action, and having the redound upon them, so that they are the one who has to carry the weight of embarrassment?

What's the process, in D&D, for a PC to persuade a skeleton lord to give up their guardianship of their forlorn forest, and instead convert from heathenism and have the bones of them and their followers placed in the PCs reliquary?

What's the process, in D&D, for two characters to argue about whether or not one will mend the armour of the other, with the outcome of the argument not just being chosen by one or other controlling participant, and with the outcome being binding at the table?

The above examples are intended to provide some illustrations. If all that can be staked and resolved, without the outcome just being GM fiat, is PC death, then it is hard to address other thematic concerns.

The questions are not rhetorical, in that there are answers available at least in some approaches to D&D - Streetwise checks, skill challenges, etc. But I don't think the most typical approaches to D&D tend to foreground these sorts of situations, or try to approach their resolution in a non-fiat way.

It's not my job, or aspiration, to try and change what WotC publishes, or mainstream approaches to D&D. But for anyone who is interested in broadening or deepening the stakes and scope of their FRPGing - who wants their play to focus on more than DPR balance among the PCs, and to be more than colourful but low-stakes exploration that links combat encounter to combat encounter - I would suggest having a look around at how other RPGs have done this. There might be stuff that can be incorporated into your D&D play; or you might decide to take up a different RPG. But, as I said at the start of this post, these are solved problems.

 

[pemerton]

What if the players are trying to make the game a way the DM doesn't want?

Yeah, I feel a lot of players want that, and more appear every day (trained by the most popular current rules). It's very frustrating, because I've never wanted that as a player or a DM.

If I want to play a gambling-type game, I can play backgammon. If my friend wants to play a highly intellectual-type game, they can play chess. But it's going to be pretty hard for the two of us to play the same game at the same time and have it be both a gambling-type game and an intellectual-type game.

RPGs are no different from any other game in this respect. If the participants are looking for different sorts of gaming experiences, then they are not going to be very satisfied playing together!

 

[Xenolith234]

I mean I'd argue it is a balance change, as you're adding either a minimal resource drain or a "Woops you didn't buy a torch guess you've got to turn around now and go get one". Its not making the dark threatening again, its making the dark annoying again.

Mind, having both seen Skyrim players have a dislike to all the "Make the dungeons dark so you have to use torches" mods after the fact, and played a lot of Ark Aberration (the cave map) where colour balance is a god-damn nightmare during the dark moments. The dark ain't a threat in Aberration, but the radiation, giant murder-snakes and the hellspawn (who stay away if you got a little light pet on your shoulder) are

Gritty realism absolutely impacts them? It slows down everything by its nature. If they're not expecting that slower pace and came in for the default chips and nachos 5E experience, why wouldn't they complain?

It slows them down, but it doesn't change encounter balance by much (some buff to short-rest characters aside). It's not like now they'll be getting 6-8 encounters per day but only able to long rest once per week. My players like a roleplay, slow burn kind of game, but again, the perception of a nerf to them is a slight.

If we're taking away all things that annoy players, we wouldn't be left with much of a game in the end.

 

[Steampunkette]

The people who made 2e decided to model the Ranger on Drizz't. Big mistake.

The 1e Ranger never needed a wholesale makeover. A bit of tweaking, sure, but trying to turn what was originally a good solid tank class into a two-weapon swashbuckler (which they should have done to Thieves instead) was just plain dumb.

Getting 2d8 at level 1 while Paladins and Fighters were getting 1d10 is certainly tankier. But what class fantasy was "Good character with more hit points early game than Fighter/Paladin and Druid Spells later on" trying to evoke, exactly?

Especially with the bonus to fighting "Giant Kin" I feel like "Dwarf" was the closest to an actual class fantasy as existed for early Ranger...