D&D (2024) Wrapping up first 2-20 2024 campaign this week, some of my thoughts

[ECMO3]

This requires use of your second wind. Now granted, you get 3-5 uses between long rests at 5th level, but using it on the first round seems wasteful (you're giving up the healing benefit). Unless you KNOW combat is going to be just that quick and easy. And if that's happening routinely, the DM really needs to adjust!

No it is not wasteful. We are 18th level, he starts with 4 and gets another one every short rest so it is probably about 5 or 6 uses per day average.

We have an 18th level Cleric. Being able to move 20 more feet on the first round (or sometimes the 2nd) is way better than the 25ish hit points you would get from using it to heal. This is a different story at 1st level or even 8th level. The only other thing I have seen him use second wind for in the last several levels is to pass a strength check he failed. He hasn't used it for the purpose of healing a single time in many levels as I recall (although he has healed when used for the purpose of movement).

Take the example he gave. If the fighter wins initiative one of those Devils likely dies before anyone else gets a turn if he can close with them. Even with only 4 uses, how many fights in a dungeon are going to start more than 40 feet apart?

 

[Clint_L]

Funny how so many people complained about how fighters were ineffective and now ... too good!

So many people on this forum.

When you look at tier rankings for 5e, fighters were always well regarded. When you look at DPR and survivability in long running campaigns, fighters have always excelled in 5e.

I understood the complaint that fighters lacked versatility (depending on subclass) but they were never weak. Now they’re even stronger.

 

[ECMO3]

I've both DMd and been in a high level group where the fighter was getting close to this kind of damage (though not quite that high and not routinely) but fights lasted quite a while. By that level there were, as you said, flying baddies, invisible baddies (though, at high level, blind fighting style is a fighter's best friend), teleporting baddies, etc. and usually multiple foes that the fighter couldn't easily drop in one round.

Have you DMed high level play using the 2024 rules?

IME Invisible is not a big problem as the fighter we are playing with gets heroic inspiration ever single turn, he often has 1d12 Bardic Inspiration, will and if he is unlucky enough to miss he gets advantage on the very next attack to cancel any disadvantage.

Flying is a bigger problem, but one that is easily solved by someone in the party casting Fly and the Topple mastery and Cunning Strike makes flying enemies regret flying rather quickly. Even if the Fighter wins initiative and can't benefit from a spell the first round; if that flying enemy is within 60 feet of the ground, there is a great chance the fighter is going to knock him out of the air with a Trident.

The last flying enemy we fought I won initiative and readied an action to shoot him when my Quasit got next to him. My familiar flew up to him and I shot at him with a pistol using truestrike. Then I put Cunning action trip on it to try to knock him down. He saved against that or he would have crashed right then. I had my familiar use the help action on his turn. The fighter threw a Trident with the help canceling the disadvantage and he failed the save against Topple. He fell to the ground, took another 6d6 and the Fighter started pounding him with advantage and an 18 crit range. With my sneak attack, the fighters attacks, action surge, steadied attacks, Heroic Inspiration and Bardic Inspiration the bad guy statistically would have had to make about 6 saves in a row (one from me, 5 from the fighter assuming 1-2 misses) to NOT to fall to the ground in the first two PC turns .... and that is with us being stuck on the ground attacking a flying enemy.

 

[Sulicius]

Hey folks can we cool down a bit? ECM03 is sharing their experiences, which is a really nice thing to do. Yes they might play the game differently than you do. Take away from that what you will.

I already learned that I should not give players free reign to pick magic items, and I'll need to crank up the difficulty a lot more than expected. That's a good lesson to learn without having to make the mistakes myself!

 

[tetrasodium]

They're 100% a problem with the system. Your argument doesn't remotely address that, in fact, it shows that they were a problem with the system, and just provides workarounds outside that system.

While I agree entirely, I also thought the satire was obvious enough to avoid Poe's law. The vast majority of 5e's system level problems have been ignored and often made into made intractable disasters when seenat the table. The last decade of reflexive "well I don't see that at my table, must be a you problem" style gm blaming juxtaposed with endless "give the players what they want" has only served to ensure wotc fails to support the gm with tools they need and often provides "support" in the form of an arrow to the knee like a "magic item tracking sheet" to track the raw number of magic items warded rather than better support for them on the PC sheet itself where related elements like encumbrance/carry capacity and attunement tracking is totally absent while gm supporting safety nets like well defined∆ body slot limits and bonus type conflicts not even optional footnotes.

∆ see the many times this thread alone has had people argue one way or the other one of ten rings was possible by RAW only for someone else to points rules text that implies otherwise as an example of how bad the current hint of a limit is

 

[Hussar]

I heard a lot of that in the past.

But think about the context here - I started this campaign the week the PHB was released to the DM. You are saying that our pace is crazy and no one else is doing that, so if that is true how is it that all these other people have different experiences than mine?

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I agree, no one else is getting experiences like yours. Everyone else is getting different experiences. Totally agree with you.

I do have to admit though, it's impressive to see that level of dedication to a game. I mean, you've stated that you've played about six or seven 1-20 campaigns using the 5e rules and get the same (or similar) results every time. Multiple campaigns, multiple publishers, same results. That takes some serious dedication. I mean, if I played a 1-20 campaign and the results were lackluster, I'd probably give it a second go just to see if it wasn't just that particular adventure. If I got the same result the second time around, I'd probably be very reluctant to continue with that system. The third time and get the same results? Yeah, I'd be shopping for a new game. But six or seven times and getting nothing but the same lackluster results? No wonder you don't like 5e D&D. That's just the gaming equivalent of hate watching.

So, yeah, mad props to you for sticking to it. I mean, that's really impressive.

But, you do mention that your current adventure is all dungeon crawls and you have almost never had an encounter start at more than 100 feet away. I do believe that this, right there, is possibly a pretty serious nub of the issue. Yeah, forcing all the baddies to stay on the ground, no swimming or phasing through the floor or walls. Everything starting within easy reach of the characters. Plus massively overpowering the characters with cherry picked magic items? Yeah, I'm not really surprised that you got the results you got. I'm just not really convinced you're taking the right lesson away from the experience.

Oh, and lastly, my posts are not very long. Please don't fisk. It's rude and will simply result in me ignoring 99% of what you say.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I also thought the satire was obvious enough to avoid Poe's law.

Yeah I thought it was probably satire until I saw a bunch of people saying the same in all seriousness, so I included it, sorry but when you're just matching the vibe lol...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yes, because focusing on a single throwaway example is productive?

If you don't want examples criticised, don't give bad examples. It's not complicated mate.

And no, I'm not. The entire logic you were suggesting is essentially "Well if the monsters run away and hide enough it should last more than one round!".

So, right off the bat, there's no way for the party to sneak up on them (virtually) and they absolutely should be attacking from outside the range of the PC's.

I thought you were against open rooms and ridiculous conditions? This would only be true if no PC has 120ft darkvision and you were outdoors in total darkness, or in a truly vast and completely dark space.

You're just proving my point at this point. Those guys are going to get mulched. High-level PCs can likely reach them staggeringly fast, and trying to drop ice walls to "split up the party" is just going to take up their actions and mean that one of them gets vapourized immediately in round two, instead of round one, oooooh big difference!

Finally, let's not forget, that I'm not only pointing at the very strange combat results. There's also the massively over powered magic item list, PLUS resting after each encounter, PLUS using 2014 encounter budgets. And, they are also getting this result from every single module? You think it's far more likely that the system, where no one else is getting these results, is the problem, but, it couldn't possibly be the DM?

Occam's razor (not something I normally use, but you brought it in) says resting after most encounters is the way most groups play D&D, and 2024 was supposed to fix that being as much of a problem, evidently it didn't.

2024 was also supposed to be backwards compatible adventure-wise, and if it's joke-easy at higher levels because of "2014 encounter budgets", well, then it isn't, is it?

And again, "no-one else is getting these results" is hogwash when "no-one else" is even playing a 2024 campaign at this level.

I'm sure the magic item budget makes things easier than it should be, but I'm skeptical about how much impact it has on kill times.

As for the DM being the problem, the reality is we just don't know, and cheaply blaming them and crapping on them whilst denying every single possible issue with 2024 is not a good look, nor a convincing or even really basically plausible argument.

 

[Hussar]

As for the DM being the problem, the reality is we just don't know, and cheaply blaming them and crapping on them whilst denying every single possible issue with 2024 is not a good look, nor a convincing or even really basically plausible argument.

Because, as usual, it's NEVER the fault of the DM. All DM's are the epitome of perfection. Any problems must always be the fault of the game.

I mean, good grief. It's been repeatedly pointed out that the DM has overloaded the game with bespoke magic items in direct contravention of game advice, the module is almost all dungeon rooms with little or no actual tactics and the players are running roughshod over this DM, not just in this adventure, but in EVERY SINGLE adventure for the past six campaigns.

But, no, this is 100% a system problem.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Because, as usual, it's NEVER the fault of the DM. All DM's are the epitome of perfection. Any problems must always be the fault of the game.

I mean, good grief. It's been repeatedly pointed out that the DM has overloaded the game with bespoke magic items in direct contravention of game advice, the module is almost all dungeon rooms with little or no actual tactics and the players are running roughshod over this DM, not just in this adventure, but in EVERY SINGLE adventure for the past six campaigns.

But, no, this is 100% a system problem.

The specific issue I said was 100% a system problem is 100% a system problem.

The rest is a false dichotomy you've cooked up, which isn't even a good argument, because it's an obvious strawman.

The reality is we don't know how much of it is a DM problem. The tactics stuff you completely undermined by pointing out Occam's razor, because most DMs don't elaborately kite and hide with their monsters and frankly neither 2014 nor 2024 encourages people to. Campaign-wise, it appears he's running official campaigns, hence your "2014 encounter weights" criticism, so you can't argue that AND argue "all dungeon rooms", as they're springing from the same source. You've got to pick one - WotC is inarguably responsible for at least one, and again, 2024's selling point was "It is backwards compatible with adventures"... so they're kind of responsible for both.

"Ohhhh DMs are perfect are they?!", that's a "you" argument, dude. A strawman. No-one is saying that. Rather all DMs are imperfect, very much including ones who think they're great DMs and who are keen to criticise others. The magic item stuff seems rather excessive, but some of it is absolutely stemming from changes that 2024 made, like the hilariously demented Ring of Resistance doesn't require Attunement thing. I'm sure the letting the PCs have items they want makes the game easier, but again I'm not convinced it's really boosting their DPR that much (it's much easier to boost survivability by targeting specific items than DPR in my experience).