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

[Minigiant]

No way in hell. You cannot fit 6-8 fights in four hours even though that's all you'd do. And I want majority of the game time to spent to other things regardless. Two fights per four hour session is pretty much the max, maybe three if they are really simple ones, but I wouldn't make a habit of it. And zero to one fights is pretty normal.

5e was designed around ending sessions with your resources not at 100%.

Every single edition was designed for you to end with your PCs incomplete unless you were running Gygaxian Hubtowns .

That's is why Vancian magic was chosen. Because you were supposed to literally erase expended spells so you didn't have to worry about what was spent. It was erased gone

But when 5e turned everything numerical, you suddenly had to manage a ton of numbers and everyone wanted to start sessions fresh rather than recalling why you where at 2/4 first level spells.

 

[payn]

They haven't used the words ever green in a long time.

It was marketing speak anyway talking about concepts. I didnt take it as a promise just the goal of a longer edition cycle.

Or even the final edition cycle. If 5E tanked it probably would have been the last one.

They dont have to say it for it to feel like its a concept they are trying to achieve. I think 5.24 spoke volumes on the subject. Even if they make it 30+ years folks will still chirp about being right about evergreen being an impossibility and something they never should have "promised" despite never doing so.

 

[Zardnaar]

A lot of the "general public" is still playing 5.0.

They are idk the amount.

In bigger sites you have to specify what version your talking about. You cant assume everyone's on 5.5.

Unlike say 2003 forums kinda assumed everyone switched to 3.5. Reality they probably lost 30-40% of the users from 3.0.

No one's really raging apathy probably more prevalent. 5.5 doesn't have to outsell 5.0 though. Just 5.0 in say 2023 or 2022.

 

[Zardnaar]

Hrm - like, have you tried not having a long rest after a session?
An adventuring day and a session don't need to be same.
Like at my tables we sometimes have even 3 or 4 sessions before we have a long rest.

Before I came to ENworld I didn't even thought thag people would make a session basically an adventure day.

Its a boo keeping thing. Players forget what they've used, or what theyre doing etc.

We play bi weekly but if players are afk thats 3 weeks with hopefully a catch up extra session.

I got sick earlier in the year . Missed around 2 months of D&D. In and out of the doctor for 3 months.

Typically its probably 2 sessions for a long rest though. 3-5 encountes I'll prep 8-10 for bigger events abd they might do 6.

The extra encounters are used as reinforcements, random encounters or ignored.

Avatar of Mykul was encounter 6 or 7 Bane was 4&5.

 

[Minigiant]

Its a boo keeping thing. Players forget what they've used, or what theyre doing etc.

We play bi weekly but if players are afk thats 3 weeks with hopefully a catch up extra session.

I got sick earlier in the year . Missed around 2 months of D&D. In and out of the doctor for 3 months.

Typically its probably 2 sessions for a long rest though. 3-5 encountes I'll prep 8-10 for bigger events abd they might do 6.

The extra encounters are used as reinforcements, random encounters or ignored.

Avatar of Mykul was encounter 6 or 7 Bane was 4&5.

Hey, that was the beauty of 4E.

Every fight your green and red powers were available.

And you never got more than 4 black dailies.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Hrm - like, have you tried not having a long rest after a session?
An adventuring day and a session don't need to be same.
Like at my tables we sometimes have even 3 or 4 sessions before we have a long rest.

Before I came to ENworld I didn't even thought thag people would make a session basically an adventure day.

Sure, but it is convenient if you could do that. Also, with normal daily rests the time becomes really weird. It become like the 24 TV show. In real time months may have passed whilst the characters are still living the same day. (Yet another reason to use gritty rests.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

I heavily speculate that many are still playing 5.0 due to the Sunken Cost fallacy.

Not sure why that's relevant. If I were still playing 5.0 sunk cost would be reason enough for me to keep doing it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They haven't used the words ever green in a long time.

It was marketing speak anyway talking about concepts. I didnt take it as a promise just the goal of a longer edition cycle.

Or even the final edition cycle. If 5E tanked it probably would have been the last one.

Yeah, hard to tell what's marketing speak and what isn't. It all sounds the same.

 

[Staffan]

No way in hell. You cannot fit 6-8 fights in four hours even though that's all you'd do. And I want majority of the game time to spent to other things regardless. Two fights per four hour session is pretty much the max, maybe three if they are really simple ones, but I wouldn't make a habit of it. And zero to one fights is pretty normal.

You can if you use theatre of the mind and the fights are simple. "You come into a room where four orcs are sitting around a table playing some kind of dice game. They grab their axes and rush to attack!" I remember the designers talking about how they could have three fights on one of their lunch breaks (presumably 1 hour).

I heavily speculate that many are still playing 5.0 due to the Sunken Cost fallacy.

In my case, I'm not running any D&D game at the moment (I'm running Savage Worlds). I am a player in one, and we're still on 5.0 because that's what the campaign started in. It's probably going to take a long while before it's done because we're playing fairly intermittently, and at that time we'll see if the DM's interested in (a) running another campaign and (b) switching systems.

If I were to run another D&D campaign, I'd use 5.0 because of sunken costs, but in this case it's not a fallacy. It's because even though what I've seen of 5.5 looks better in most cases, it doesn't look enough better to justify buying the books. But that's an academic question – right now it looks like if I were to run a game similar to D&D, it'd be Draw Steel.

 

[Marc17]

Thread is growing faster than I can keep up with. Some random thoughts. I'd say the largest surprise would be that Mearls not understanding that different people play the game differently (or at least not caring). At least they admit that interaction and exploration exist now, even if not supported. Level based CR always seemed wrong to me as they can never be exactly tuned to every group. I sort of miss the old way where everything was divided into ten levels ranging from trivial to epic. As for groups playing with the 5minute work day. If that was not what the dungeon was designed for, it seems the 5E way to deal with it would be to give the dungeon lair power like monsters have lair powers, and every time the creatures in it are knowingly attacked and then the attacker retreat for a long rest, one of the powers gets activated. Represents the creatures inside taking action from those attacks. Could be extra perception, calling in reinforcements, just taking their treasure and bugging out, etc.