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

[tetrasodium]

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I'd love to run a bunch of 5e-only gamers through 2e style encounters, such as warbands of 6d10 goblins. (From memory. I vaguely remember some goblin encounters were in lots of d100s)

Going to comment my experience on this one since so many others have too. Same experience as everyone else commenting on it and will give an example of doing it along with the scenario where it happened most recently.

*Five players with level 5-6ish PCs were three encounters (maybe 2) and an equal number of short tests into a lowish level adventure involving a possible necromancer kidnapper with zombies and refluffed undead hounds of some form. Nobody had been particularly injured and they literally were given a full 3.5 style 50 charge CLW wand during session 1 at 1st level which they refused to use on account of "we might need it more later and the merchant who [literally] gave it to us might expect us to do the job he said would come next time if we want another" but they refused to use it anyways. The rest loop was to endlessly recover fighter action surge warlock pact slots and monk ki spent at nova rates every turn so far.

* Players decided that they were going to hole up in a storage shed/barn of some sort for a long rest after barricading the door. The structure in question was A:behind the gates B:inside the walls and C:surrounded by the necromancer's forces... Some of those forces were already seen by players)/PCs across the compound but the undead (zombies and such) had not reacted to them.

* I pointed out all of the many reasons why this was a colossally bad idea ranging from possible survivors to the necromancer and variety of (un)seen undead likely to react to the recently slain undead the players had already killed and left behind.

* Players decided that pulling up the ladder and sleeping on the second floor of the barricaded barn or whatever while knowing A B &C would be more than enough to get back to full.

Not only did the players choose to do nothing and finish their rest when they heard noises at the door then heard more noises outside.... They were angry that finishing a long rest on the second floor of an eventually∆ burning barn that had been barricaded from the outside was bad for their health and demanded me to produce a rule for that (debuffs? Exhaustion? Been a while). They totally lost their minds when they got outside and found levelup5e squads of zombies presenting an actual threat.

∆ wasn't a gotcha, "we finish the rest"> you still haven't finished but smell pitch and know it's sometimes used in arson>ok you ignore the smell and keep resting but you start smelling smoke and think you see/hear fire below>really? Okayyyy... Having been told the risks you continue on with the rest. Lucky dice roll you finish but picked y[debuff or whatever].

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am laughing in all the times I have seen Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Lee, Reeves or Willis mow down literal hundreds of enemies without a single scratch.

As I have said, the time pressure is often unspoken and obvious to anyone who is not an idiot or deliberatelly refuses to treat the world as the world. Hell, such things as "enemeis will call for backup and restaff the rooms you cleared" and "someone else may show up and steal your treasure" alone are unspoken time pressure on every enemy dungeon. Even "the longer we have this issue unsolved, more people will suffer and die" applies here, that is bloody obvious.

And if you want to know what GM should really do when players propose 5 Minutes 32 hours rest adventuring day? Say "no" and move on. If they try to argue, say "rules disputes will be handled between session, my ruling right now is still "no"." I am sorry if DM's, you have seen beign abused by players to let them exploit rules in such a way, had no backbone.

The above is far from the "different strokes" attitude @DEFCON 1 proposed and that you liked. Looks more like you think anyone who feels differently than you is either an "idiot" or "refuses to treat the world as the world".

 

[Hriston]

So is @mearls saying PCs actually only engage in four rounds of combat per day?

That's actually somewhat close to my experience, but I thread this needle a bit differently than most, I expect, to suit my play style.

First, I completely ignore encounter difficulty. I total the party's adventuring day XP budget at the beginning of the day when they're fresh, so I have that number available. All my encounters are generated randomly using AD&D resources, so throughout the adventuring day I roll up encounters and only adjust the number of monsters if it exceeds the current XP budget. I don't reduce to less than one monster. If an encounter results in the party engaging in combat, the adjusted XP for the encounter gets subtracted from the budget. If the encounter is resolved another way such as socially or if one side evades the other, then the XP budget is unaffected. I also use morale rules and other procedures that might affect the results.

Here's an example from my current game. The party consists of six level-one PCs with an adventuring day budget of 1,800 XP. In an eight-hour dungeon exploration, they had three combats: a one-round fight vs. three large spiders (112.5 adj. XP), a three-round fight vs. eight orcs (1,600 adj. XP), and another one-round fight vs. another large spider (12.5 adj. XP). They've now left the dungeon looking for a place to take a long rest so they don't risk exhaustion from attempting a forced march. Their remaining budget is 75 XP. At our next session, they will immediately face a random encounter check with a 1 in 12 chance of encountering an ogre. There's an abandoned castle nearby where they could take a long rest, but they'll be attacked by a wild boar upon entering the castle's courtyard, so that's at least one more round of combat if they choose that option. If they try to camp in the wilderness, they'll face one or two more checks to encounter the ogre before they complete a long rest. That amounts to five or maybe a few more rounds of combat before the first long rest in this first-level game, so I guess in my case they were only off by factor of maybe three or four?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Saying no to your players is not railroading. "No" is as much a tool in DM's arsenal, as is "yes", "yes and", "yes but", "no but" and "no and"

I've always preferred, "you can certainly try" over "no" myself.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Saying no to your players is not railroading.

It is if you're arbitrarily blocking an action that is clearly allowed by the rules and supported by the fictional situation. It is not only railroading, it is very blatant kind of railroading.

 

[Charlaquin]

Bolded part: that's why it is effective to spread them across a few rooms.

Perhaps 6 to 8 rooms?

 

[Maxperson]

Good thing I don't have to worry about PCs and NPCs being different.

If that's your response to that post, then you have essentially acknowledged that I am correct about this. That sentence doesn't even attempt to refute anything that I said there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If that's your response to that post, then you have essentially acknowledged that I am correct about this. That sentence doesn't even attempt to refute anything that I said there.

If you are operating on the premise that PCs are special, and serve different narrative purposes that are reflected in their mechanics, then yes, I can't refute you. I don't operate on that assumption, so the problem simply doesn't occur in my game.

 

[Maxperson]

So, just so we're absolutely clear:

Wizards literally have no idea when their spells become available. It just happens, spontaneously, always after a consistent pattern, but literally centuries of people practicing these arts while actively academically studying them, not one of them has ever figured out that a combination of minimum time and bed rest are required for being able to cast spells again. Nor has any deity ever told any Cleric how it works. Nor has any natural spirit ever told any Druid. Nor have any Bards, Artificers, Paladins, or anyone else who casts spells ever figured it out. Even though absolutely everyone works by precisely the same pattern which could be discovered with an extremely simple series of experiments.

I'm sorry, this is patently ridiculous.

Is it rest and time, or is it the gods granting them the power after the rest and time, or is it the universe granting them the power after rest and time, or is it...

They know it happens after that, but they don't know the exact mechanic. And perhaps neither do the gods or spirits. The DM would have to make that decision.

This is about the PCs not knowing the actual mechanics, not about the PCs being unaware of patterns in the fiction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is it rest and time, or is it the gods granting them the power after the rest and time, or is it the universe granting them the power after rest and time, or is it...

They know it happens after that, but they don't know the exact mechanic. And perhaps neither do the gods or spirits. The DM would have to make that decision.

This is about the PCs not knowing the actual mechanics, not about the PCs being unaware of patterns in the fiction.

But if the PCs are aware of that pattern as you suggest, why wouldn't they act on that knowledge?