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

[pemerton]

So at what INT level is any specific usage of Dispel Magic allowed by said Arcana Cleric?

It is sounding like you might possibly be proponents of a DM stating "your character wouldn't do that", if the player of that INT 8 Arcana Cleric were to try to cast it in certain situations. Or am I misinterpreting your stance here?

The odds of rolling an 8 on 3d6 are 21 in 216 (ie about 10%). The odds of rolling an 8 or less are 56 in 216 (ie just a touch over 25%).

So we can tentatively infer that a D&D character with INT of 8 is in the cleverer half of the least clever quarter of the population. Even before we get into issues of the GM dictating to a player how to play their PC, I reckon we can allow that this person is capable of performing obvious feats of reasoning, like preparing Dispel Magic might be useful if I'm expecting to confront magic-using enemies and Dispel Magic might be capable of getting rid of this seemingly magical phenomenon that is confronting me.

At least to my intuition, that doesn't seem outrageously generous!

 

[James Gasik]

So at what INT level is any specific usage of Dispel Magic allowed by said Arcana Cleric?

It is sounding like you might possibly be proponents of a DM stating "your character wouldn't do that", if the player of that INT 8 Arcana Cleric were to try to cast it in certain situations. Or am I misinterpreting your stance here?

The statement was made that someone able to cast Dispel Magic would be smart enough to know to use it on Leomund's Tiny Hut. My stance is that Intelligence has nothing to do with spellcasting ability for non-Wizards, disputing that claim. Now if you want to get into the weeds of what a given rating of Int allows you to do in game- I can't answer that. There's no rules about it, Intelligence doesn't actually map to anything concrete in the rules. It's just a number. Any value we give to it is highly subjective.

Honestly, it's why I don't like mental ability scores in games to begin with, because there's no way to say "you're not smart enough/too smart to do X" that isn't arbitrary. But if there is meaning attached to it (and I think most people who play the game think it means something), then that should be taken into account. Further, one of the things Intelligence does do is affect possible Arcana checks required to identify a spell effect. So enemy spellcaster C might have a woeful Arcana check, despite having Dispel Magic prepared (or having a scroll of it).

Extrapolating from this point, if a monster has a bad Arcana check, then their ability to know what LTH is, how long it lasts, whether or not there are enemies hiding inside, or if it's actually some deadly trap, like some kind of "death piñata" best left alone, should be taken into account.

 

[James Gasik]

The odds of rolling an 8 on 3d6 are 21 in 216 (ie about 10%). The odds of rolling an 8 or less are 56 in 216 (ie just a touch over 25%).

So we can tentatively infer that a D&D character with INT of 8 is in the cleverer half of the least clever quarter of the population. Even before we get into issues of the GM dictating to a player how to play their PC, I reckon we can allow that this person is capable of performing obvious feats of reasoning, like preparing Dispel Magic might be useful if I'm expecting to confront magic-using enemies and Dispel Magic might be capable of getting rid of this seemingly magical phenomenon that is confronting me.

At least to my intuition, that doesn't seem outrageously generous!

Again, all I'm saying is, we shouldn't assume monster knowledge of things any more than player knowledge. If someone decides PC's don't know how to beat Trolls, then it seems a bit of foul play to just assume all the NPC's not only know what LTH is, how to counter it, and to have counters for it already in place.

If, on the other hand, someone is the kind of DM who doesn't care about that sort of thing, then feel free to seed every adventure with casters capable of casting Dispel Magic- though at that point, you've really just stealth banned the spell, since any time the players try to use it when you don't want them to will be countered, making the spell somewhat toothless (not worthless, mind you- when traveling in inclement weather conditions and the like, it's still useful).

I don't particularly like this approach, it feels like I'm in some kind of arms race with my players. I also don't like having to consider banning or altering the spell to "solve" the problem it creates for adventure design and pacing- I feel that if the spell is disruptive it shouldn't be my problem to fix it.

That doesn't mean I haven't considered it, or that I won't, just that it bugs me that I should have to.

 

[pemerton]

Again, all I'm saying is, we shouldn't assume monster knowledge of things any more than player knowledge. If someone decides PC's don't know how to beat Trolls, then it seems a bit of foul play to just assume all the NPC's not only know what LTH is, how to counter it, and to have counters for it already in place.

Sure. I prefer to use methods other than GM decides to handle this sort of thing. I started a (long) thread about this earlier this year: GM fiat - an illustration

I was just making the basic point that INT 8, at least to me, doesn't seem to entail is incapable of reasoning.

If, on the other hand, someone is the kind of DM who doesn't care about that sort of thing, then feel free to seed every adventure with casters capable of casting Dispel Magic- though at that point, you've really just stealth banned the spell, since any time the players try to use it when you don't want them to will be countered, making the spell somewhat toothless (not worthless, mind you- when traveling in inclement weather conditions and the like, it's still useful).

I don't particularly like this approach, it feels like I'm in some kind of arms race with my players. I also don't like having to consider banning or altering the spell to "solve" the problem it creates for adventure design and pacing- I feel that if the spell is disruptive it shouldn't be my problem to fix it.

That doesn't mean I haven't considered it, or that I won't, just that it bugs me that I should have to.

The closest I've ever come to dealing with LTH is the 4e ritual Hallowed Temple (Divine Power p 157):

Level: 12
Category: Creation
Time: 1 hour
Duration: 8 hours
Component Cost: 520 gp
Market Price: 1,300 gp
Key Skill: Religion (no check)

The Hallowed Temple ritual creates a shimmering temple associated with your deity. The temple occupies a close burst 7 as it materializes around you. The structure incorporates as many appropriate artistic elements as you like: the exterior features iconography, stained-glass windows, and other decorative features, and the interior contains an altar, statues, or other appropriate items related to your faith.

The temple is comfortable, and creatures inside it feel close to your god. It is immune to damage. Access to the interior is through the temple's front (and only) door. The walls of the temple, including the door, are solid obstacles. The temple and all its contents (even items removed from the temple) vanish at the end of the ritual's duration.

Demons and undead cannot cross the temple's threshold. Any creatures within the burst (except for you) when the temple materializes are displaced to a space outside the temple as close to their former location as possible. If insufficient space exists either for the temple itself or for the displacement of creatures, the ritual cannot be performed.​

This is quite good for resting in! And at various point (eg when the PCs were on an extended trek in the Underdark) they needed to use this ritual to take a long rest at all. Nevertheless, the players only used it when they were in need of a rest due to healing surge and dailies depletion.

To me, LTH seems more like a symptom than a cause. If the frequent resting is mucking up the pacing of the game, I think the GM needs to be clear about that with the players.

 

[Zardnaar]

Leomunds invincible bunker should probably return to its earlier incarnations.

 

[M_Natas]

On the other hand, some adventures are basically static, and have no ability to react to the player's actions. Acererak's Tomb of Horrors or The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, for examples. You're actually meant to take your time and be cautious, so not only is there no reason not to rest, you literally; should when possible.

While Keraptis could react to the PC's actions in White Plume Mountain, as written, he only steps in after they recover the weapons and try to take them away. There's a lot of "classic" adventures that function in this manner, and even among the ones where the enemies can take action if the players take too much time, it's often on the DM to figure out what form that takes.

Now granted, the "Wandering Monsters Tables" in such adventures can be used to good effect, but really, if the players have demonstrated that they can rest safely for 8 hours, it doesn't really matter how many more fights they get into- it's just more experience points for them!

5e's resource model is woefullly inefficient when it comes to ye olde "ancient tomb sealed for a thousand years"- and the DM shouldn't have to A) not run such adventures, or B) come up with a timeline of events just to keep the game from imploding. And of course, what happens when bad luck forces a rest or makes the party unavailable to continue? Now your clock might ensure they fail through no fault of their own.

In "old school" play, adventurers are supposed to be cautious, to advance slowly, never overcommit, gain as much information as they can, plan and prepare ahead of time for difficult fights- maybe even trying to avoid them entirely!

It seems interesting that after five decades, we have a version of D&D that breaks if players actually do anything besides rush ahead until their batteries are drained, and DM's have to conspire to keep them running full tilt, and actually punishing that sort of methodical play, which logically any sane person in universe would be attempting!

I would say, it would be good advice in adventures and the DMG, if they add something like this:

For the DMG: Think about the pacing of your adventure. Does the party have time constraints? What would happen if a party takes long rests after every battle? Think about the ingame consequences and failstates that could generate. But also, if the adventure you are planning to run doesn't have time constraints and it would be contrived to find failstates for frequent long rests, you can increase the encounter difficulty to two times the deadly/high difficulty xp value.

And for adventure similiar:
"The encounters in this adventure are tuned to party that adventures cautiously and frequently takes long rest, because it is about the exploration about this mega dungeon with a lot of mindless undead, who will not act strategically to the intrusion of the party into their domain. So don't try to punish a party for often going back to base camp and rest."

Vs

"This adventure is on a time crunch. If the players don't finish it in 3 ingame days, the dragon will be sacrificed to the princess, evil unicorns will devour the lands and a puppy will be kicked. If the party takes more than two long rests, they loose the adventure. The encounters in this adventure are attuned to two long rests and should be achievable by a party, that's acts smart.
If, by bad luck or poor choices, the party is low on ressources and out of time, you can guide them to the temple of deux ex machina, where you can grant them the benefits of an additional long rest as an action for all the treasure they have accumulated so far."

 

[M_Natas]

But 5.5 encounter difficulty is designed around fully-rested characters, so there would be not much of a point, here. Besides, the DMG14 is still there, isn't it?

But is it, though?
If we lock at the XP per encounter - first, they cut easy encounters, which is okaish, because easy encounters are trivial.
So, let's look at the deadly encounters:

From level 1 to 8 the xp budget is the same.
From 9 to 11 it is higher on 5.5e, at levels 12 and 13 it is lower in 5.5e, from 14th level on it is higher again.
So if we only look at XP budget, 5.5e is similiar to 5e up to level 13.

Now, the biggest adjustment in difficulty is the removal of the adjusted XP multiplier for several monsters.

Let's take a level 1 party, 4 pcs.
Deadly/High end counter is 400xp.
Now we are already in trouble, because we can't use a single monsters, because they advise against using cr2 monsters (450xp) vs a level 1 party and you should but exceed the XP budget in 5.5e (while in 5e, compare the adjusted XP threshold and match it the closest one that is lower ...)
So in 5e I'm allowed to use a CR2 monster, which makes it a deadly encounter. in 5.5e I'm not allowed to do it ...
And if I use 5 level 1 PCs, a 450xp encounter in 5e becomes hard and not deadly, while in 5.5 it is higher (which is the new deadly ...).
So already, when using a single creature, 5e gives you a harder fight at level 1 than 5.5e.
Now the opposite is true if you take several creatures.
In 5.5 400xp gives you 8 goblin warriors or 4 goblin warriors and a goblin boss. In 5e you only get 4 goblins (equal to goblin warriors). Or a goblin boss and 2 goblins.
So, if you use single monsters, 5.5e is not to different from 5e, even weaker, if you use several monsters it becomes harder. But the math doesn't expect a fully rested party.

 

[M_Natas]

In general terms, slightly above 2/3 is a good success/failure rate for that dopamine rush. If one insists on an encounter-full refresh that is also a challenge, failing just under a third of the time on average (all else being equal etc) would be about right, I reckon.

That would mean on average a game of D&D would end in a TPK after 3 fights (2/3 win ratio with full refresh)

One of the nice things about the full day model is that it spreads that fail/success ratio over a number of mico-moments, not really reasonable to do that in a few minutes if each Encounter is a full refresh.

Yes, the adventuring day model is actually preventing a TPK, because it stretches out the fail state over several encounters and allows the party to react to it over several encounters.

 

[BenjaminPey]

So, if you use single monsters, 5.5e is not to different from 5e, even weaker, if you use several monsters it becomes harder. But the math doesn't expect a fully rested party.

It encourages you to put some minions around your boss monster, yes, which is a common advice and a good practice. And in my experience, it totally expects a fully rested party in its calculation, meaning: if you put a fully rested party in front of this fight, you'll have this result. A high difficulty encounter will be highly difficult, when "deadly" in 5e14 never meant deadly before the very last fight of the day.

From level 1 to 8 the xp budget is the same.
From 9 to 11 it is higher on 5.5e, at levels 12 and 13 it is lower in 5.5e, from 14th level on it is higher again.
So if we only look at XP budget, 5.5e is similiar to 5e up to level 13.

Do we look at different tables? Mine is not lower at levels 12 and 13.

The tables have some quirks, obviously, and you didn't even speak of the most egregious ones (the infamous eight-lion combat against four level 3 PCs). It can be too deadly with many opponents and not deadly enough with a single one, yes. But it's simple to read, simple to adjust, simple to use, simple to tweak.

The DMG14 used THREE tables, revised by another set of FIVE tables in XgtE. So, maybe it was better to conceive highyl reffined scenarios in super skilled DM's hands (I'm not even sure to be honest; it didn't work that well in mine for instance), but the talk of the town wasn't exactly going this way: almost no one used them correctly, and everybody complained that "deadly" didn't mean "deadly".

 

[M_Natas]

It encourages you to put some minions around your boss monster, yes, which is a common advice and a good practice. And in my experience, it totally expects a fully rested party in its calculation, meaning: if you put a fully rested party in front of this fight, you'll have this result. A high difficulty encounter will be highly difficult, when "deadly" in 5e14 never meant deadly before the very last fight of the day.

But if it expects at totally rested party in 5.5e, it already expected one in 5e, because the tables only have minor adjustment.

Do we look at different tables? Mine is not lower at levels 12 and 13.

Argh, you are right, I slipped in the line while reading the tables.

The tables have some quirks, obviously, and you didn't even speak of the most egregious ones (the infamous eight-lion combat against four level 3 PCs). It can be too deadly with many opponents and not deadly enough with a single one, yes. But it's simple to read, simple to adjust, simple to use, simple to tweak.

The DMG14 used THREE tables, revised by another set of FIVE tables in XgtE. So, maybe it was better to conceive highyl reffined scenarios in super skilled DM's hands (I'm not even sure to be honest; it didn't work that well in mine for instance), but the talk of the town wasn't exactly going this way: almost no one used them correctly, and everybody complained that "deadly" didn't mean "deadly".