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

[Maxperson]

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)

Only if a TPK is the only fail state, which it isn't. You can end up running away from the fight as a fail state. In a game where coming back from the dead is rare, 1 PC death is a failure. The enemy could rob the party and leave it unconscious. The party could be taken prisoner. And more.

All a 2/3 success rate means is that on average, out of every 3 fights the party will have bad stuff happen once.

 

[mearls]

Does "monster level" equal PC level? For example, can I use a level 8 player character for a level 8 monster?

Or is a level 8 monster an "appropriate" threat for level 8 characters, and if so, how much is a monster level worth in comparison to a character level?

It measures threat. Encounter building works like this:

If monster and PC levels are equal:

• 4 minions per PC
• 2 troopers per PC
• 1 champion per PC
• 2 PCs per elite
• 4 PCs per solo

Monsters also have XP values so you can mix and match using the DMG encounter rules.

 

[Maxperson]

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

Right. It's not possible for 5.5e to have corrected the math so that 1 fight is what it is balanced around. It only made minor adjustments, which means that the problem is still there. They corrected it a bit, but it's far from fixed.

 

[Maxperson]

I assume you mean roll stats down the line? Yeah that's one way of doing it. On the other hand, if a group communicates and works out what everyone's playing, then they can avoid being short in such cases... but I know many players come to the table already planning to play a certain character.

Sort of.

What I do is have the players roll 5d6-2L twice, 4d6-L twice, and 3d6 twice. They have to assign the dice to the various stats before rolling starts. What typically happens is the 5d6-2L gets placed into the best two for the class the player wants his PC to be. the 4d6-2L into the two next important to the character class/concept, and the 3d6 are the "dump" stats.

Sometimes, though, the 5d6-2L ends up in the 9-12 range, and I've seen the 3d6 come up as high as 17, with 12-15 not being uncommon. That's why I allow a swap of one pair of stats. If you wanted to be a Fighter and your 5d6-2L roll was a 10, and you rolled a 17 charisma on your 3d6, you might swap those two. Or maybe the 3d6 charisma was a 13 and your 4d6-L in dexterity was a 17, so you swap the strength and dexterity numbers, leaving you with a 13 in the "dump" stat.

 

[Maxperson]

Why do you think short rests deserve such a pass in service of enabling the short rest class nova loop? All such a section would do is embolden short rest class players who already feel like they should expect ultra regular short rests to fuel endless nova.

Wotc's refusal to do or say anything about excessive shortrest abuse while regularly giving a finger wag at excessive long resting over the years has actively exacerbated the problem with regular reinforcement of the bad expectation for classes being designed to need a default nova

The 5e PHB says the party should get about 2 short rests before the long rest happens. If the DM follows that in his pacing, or just as a hard limit like a lot of DMs do, then the short rest abuse is non-existent.

 

[Maxperson]

Fly 8am-11am
Short Rest 11am-12am
Fly 12am-3pm
Short Rest 3pm-4pm
Fly 4pm-7pm
Settle in for Long Rest

You forgot the layover in Phoenix.

 

[Maxperson]

Cantrips do not require energy or a tapping into the Weave, the wizard can use the invisible residual magic which exists all around. Level 1 slots and higher require that extra effort to link with the Weave.

The problem with this is that smart wizards, which is almost all of them, would figure out a way to draw in that residual energy over time to fuel any spell they know. They'd be able to cast every spell as a ritual, with the amount of time needed being based on the spell level of the spell being cast.

 

[AnotherGuy]

It does support it by telling players that an 8 intelligence is a low ability to reason, remember, etc. There's no mechanical force behind it, but if you are roleplaying what the game describes an 8 intelligence as, you aren't going to be coming up with a lot of good ideas if you are roleplaying your 8 int PC.

To say that there is no mechanical force behind it is the understatement of this site.
An 8 intelligence caster per 5e RAW can cast 9th level spells!
The dude has the ability to cast the highest level spells IN THE GAME but is incapable of determining that a Dispel Magic will be useful in a particular scenario?
So, roleplay-wise what you're going for is, the caster has intricate spells at their disposal but must be roleplayed like I'm not even sure what because they wouldn't know when best to use a Fireball, a Teleport or an Anti-Magic Shield. That must make for exciting combats.

 

[tetrasodium]

How many short rests do you allow in an adventuring day?

Why go from actively ignoring it as a thing even deserving a footnote to asking how many I would allow?Would you not agree that the rules should provide some support the gm in such a thing if they are expected to handle that for the system?I'll answer your question with a call for you to supply credible evidence of mechanical support for enabling the gm limiting such a thing in the 5e resting rules. The rest rules pretty much guarantee a successful short rest when players simply resume after an interruption and that holds fairly true right up until the gm invokes fiat to simply declare the short rest impossible with the finality of RATM: killing in the name's closing lines.

To answer the question though, back in ad&d2e & 3.x when the GM had significant influence over how much of a rest was even possible & players had PCs designed to hsndlylinear returns i was probably reasonably flexible when it came to allowing and negotiating small recoveries to cover for things like bad luck and unexpectedly poor strategies given a track record reasonable resource burn rates falling well short of an attempt at 5mwd.

To be fair, I'm concentrating on long rest abuse, because I haven't seen short rest abuse at my games, yet.

If you need it, imagine this group . They approach the game with a video game mindset expecting regular on demand rests as the resting rules very much support. Previously they learned and accepted that the GM might be justified in limiting long rests and after quick rules skim noticed that short rests get such an obvious pass on top of short rest class design that the idea of video game style short rest recovery is as RAI of a play style that now 2.5-3+ players in @ 3-5 player group have built PCs around their ability to maintain it

Although it's not a thing that you need to see personally in order to accept that it's a thing GMs deserve published support on. Multiple posters have commented about frequently seeing players with that video game sourced mindset to roleplaying games short rest loop expectation & other posters saying there should be no attrition with all encounters assumed beginning with full resources. All that's required is to accept that they aren't a pack of liars and imagine yourself in the scenario where players came to the table with badly set levels of power fantasy expectations. It's easy to react in ways other than reinforcing the badly set power fantasy expansion once that low bar of imagination looking out from the shoes of others --OR-- agree that there is probably a line where short rests become an excessive overindulgance which the gm should have solid backing when it comes to saying "enough".

The 5e PHB says the party should get about 2 short rests before the long rest happens. If the DM follows that in his pacing, or just as a hard limit like a lot of DMs do, then the short rest abuse is non-existent.

I am aware of that pointless and unsupported but of advice existing in print in a system with the mechanics to those rests nearly guaranteeing success outside of an active battlefield. Now please expound on the tools provided to the gm when players of short rest classes feel the number should be far in excess of that and those players also have a video game mindset that results in them blaming the gm for the result of any narrative consequences of their own excess

 

[AnotherGuy]

Why go from actively ignoring it as a thing even deserving a footnote to asking how many I would allow? Would you not agree that the rules should provide some support the gm in such a thing if they are expected to handle that for the system?

Yes the rules should do A LOT OF THINGS.
That 5e's Rest system is a design failure is something I have repeatedly said in this thread and over the many years of the game's existence. I'm not sure how 5e24 handles it as I did not acquire the books but I would imagine they never addressed it.

I'll answer your question with a call for you to supply credible evidence of mechanical support for enabling the gm limiting such a thing in the 5e resting rules. The rest rules pretty much guarantee a successful short rest when players simply resume after an interruption and that holds fairly true right up until the gm invokes fiat to simply declare the short rest impossible with the finality of RATM: killing in the name's closing lines.

My question was to determine where your problem lay with Short Rests because that is what you alluded to in your reply to @M_Natas.
I've posted upthread some workable solutions, of course those are homebrew ideas.

Now if I had a table that would Short Rest after every 1-2 encounters, and they were resistant to

• Workable houserules, everyone can contirbute; or
• Published solutions from 5e adjacent material

I would take on the gritty system in the 2014 DMG which is 5e RAW and let those B@$t3rd$ suffer!