D&D 5E (2024) Mike Mearls explains why your boss monsters die too easily

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, levels 1 and 2 each only take half an adventuring day to gain enough XP to level up. By design, because they’re supposed to be tutorial levels. Should be about 3 combats each if they’re designed according to the encounter balance guidelines, and most levels after that last for about two adventuring days. Ish. Most levels take around 10 combats to gain enough EXP to level up, a few take 12, and if I recall correctly 5th level takes 15.

20 rounds of combat is really not that long. Again, 3 rounds should be doable in about 10 minutes, maybe 15 for a slow group, so 20 rounds should be doable in an hour or two, leaving a typical D&D session with an hour or two for exploring the dungeon between those combats and and hour or two of interacting with NPCs in town before and/or after.

Do you DM 5.5?

 

[Charlaquin]

What the system was built around (at least, according to the 2014 DMG) was "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six or eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can handle more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer."

Obviously, that means that not every day needs to have six or eight encounters, so long as you keep an eye on the difficulty. Hell, I bet that why most DMs ran fewer encounters, and they tried to make them harder. The problem is that what the 2014 DMG called the various encounter difficulties didn't align well with how most DMs understood the words.

Right, so if your encounters are easier (and therefore take fewer rounds) you can handle more of them. If your encounters are harder (and therefore take more rounds), you can’t handle as many. The target is still about 20 rounds, the 6-8 encounter figure is based on the assumption that a medium encounter will take about 3 rounds.

 

[Zardnaar]

Right, so if your encounters are easier (and therefore take fewer rounds) you can handle more of them. If your encounters are harder (and therefore take more rounds), you can’t handle as many. The target is still about 20 rounds, the 6-8 encounter figure is based on the assumption that a medium encounter will take about 3 rounds.

Have you read or used the new encounter rules?

 

[Charlaquin]

Maybe at low level.

Go have a look at CR3 monsters. I ran a 5.0 adventure and a wight jumped from 45 to 81 HP. 6 kobolds can be horrible level 1, easy level 2.

Low levels did get the most thorough playtesting. 2014 legendary monsters were notoriously undertuned, even by the DMG guidelines.

 

[prabe]

Right, so if your encounters are easier (and therefore take fewer rounds) you can handle more of them. If your encounters are harder (and therefore take more rounds), you can’t handle as many. The target is still about 20 rounds, the 6-8 encounter figure is based on the assumption that a medium encounter will take about 3 rounds.

In principle, yes. In practice, I've never seen combat in any 5e-ish game I've been a part of run anything as quickly as you--and that's leaving aside any narrative concerns about the fights fitting into things.

 

[Zardnaar]

In principle, yes. In practice, I've never seen combat in any 5e-ish game I've been a part of run anything as quickly as you--and that's leaving aside any narrative concerns about the fights fitting into things.

Very easy ones xan at low levels.

Or 1 rounds fireball a mob can.

By level 7 though youre going to need 10-15 fireball bait encounters before the PCs run out of 3rd and 4th level spells (2-3 spellcasters my group has 4).

 

[John Lloyd1]

20 rounds of combat is really not that long. Again, 3 rounds should be doable in about 10 minutes, maybe 15 for a slow group, so 20 rounds should be doable in an hour or two, leaving a typical D&D session with an hour or two for exploring the dungeon between those combats and and hour or two of interacting with NPCs in town before and/or after.

10 minute combats seem very quick to me. @SlyFlourish estimates 45 minutes per scene (Scenes – The Catch-all Step of the Lazy Dungeon Master). That seems more realistic. Obviously, it changes depending on character level, number of players, player familiarity with their abilities, encounter difficulty, etc.

 

[Charlaquin]

Do you DM 5.5?

Have you read or used the new encounter rules?

Haven’t gotten the chance to yet. I’m talking about classic 5e, because that’s what Mearls was talking about in the opening post. I’m sure these assumptions have shifted for the revised rules. They couldn’t shift too far due to the backwards compatibility mandate, but it does seem like they’re building monsters to the same effective HP and damage targets, but hitting them more consistently, and that the new encounter building guidelines assume more monsters per encounter, and fewer encounters per day.

 

[Zardnaar]

Haven’t gotten the chance to yet. I’m talking about classic 5e, because that’s what Mearls was talking about in the opening post. I’m sure these assumptions have shifted for the revised rules. They couldn’t shift too far due to the backwards compatibility mandate, but it does seem like they’re building monsters to the same effective HP and damage targets, but hitting them more consistently, and that the new encounter building guidelines assume more monsters per encounter, and fewer encounters per day.

Gotcha apologies.

5.0 monsters are complete weaksauce and no on dies 6-8 in any event.

5.5 encounter guidelines are better, new monsters better, updated 5.0 (most of them) are meh.

 

[Charlaquin]

10 minute combats seem very quick to me. @SlyFlourish estimates 45 minutes per scene (Scenes – The Catch-all Step of the Lazy Dungeon Master). That seems more realistic. Obviously, it changes depending on character level, number of players, player familiarity with their abilities, encounter difficulty, etc.

It seems very quick to most people. It probably doesn’t help that they’re overtuning their encounters because they’re trying to challenge parties with less than half the recommended number of encounters per day. Are your combats taking more than 3 rounds each? I would bet based on your 45 minute assumption they’re taking closer to 9 or 10 rounds.