D&D 5E (2024) High Level 5.5E: Building Encounter Chains

[tetrasodium]

Not really theres 3 things you can do. You solution isn't the one true path.

1. Give every class like dailies like you suggest.

2. Remove dailies from all classes. Everything i at will or at will and encounter.

Both require a rewrite.

3. Playstyle/DM issue. Theres done very good in gane reasons not to 5MWD. Reinforcement snd fortifying things for starters. Or flee and take loot. Change the playstyle.

Your solution isnt the only one.

Thats assuming the 5MWD is actually an issue. I suspect a lot of newbies are doing this due to inexperienced DMs, video game influence and static adventure design.

If peopke are having fun ping it so be it. Its not how I do it but I"m not claiming my ways the one true way either.

My way does fix it though. PCs sod off for 8 hours any serving creatures with intelligence of 10 or higher could just flee taking loo with them. Read out what they fled with and PCs missed.

Or the monsters attack at night. If they have dispel magic available leomunds secure bunker wont save them.

Ir they reinforce and make everything tougher for the PCs. Relocate the entire dungeon to the first few rooms and hit them hard.

Basic tactics and strategy. A 5MWD if is a problem is playstyke issue. Think about D-Day gove the Germans 8+ hours to respond for free. Happened at ANZAC Galipoli landing as well. That was a two hour head start iirc on one of the beaches. Foes took high ground and dug in.

If your players are taking the piss abusing 5MWD do it back.

Thats the counter to it its basically players metagaming and DMs who cant figure it out or are gappy to roll with it. May not be an issue and easily countered.

More to the point it's exactly what the OP is asking. Consequences in game is the counter.
. 3 or 4 deadly encounters RAW the players will start struggling depending on level.

2 low encounters technically count as a high its more likec3 as youre crushing them piecemeal.

Mediums a bit harder. Theyre about 2-1 or 1.5-1 medium/high.

Thats the counter to 5MWD and 3-4 high encounters depending on terrain. If you keep hitting them they'll need to short rest to heal with hit dice.

Another way is hit them harder over and over. Once they're more or less depleted throw a medium encounter at them. If they're really depleted throw an low encounter at them. How many to reach that point depends on level, composition, monsters used etc. Its somewhere between 3 and 10 encounters.

WotC won't be rewriting anything soon. So my ways the way forward by default or play something else. OP specifically asked about changing the playstyle. They described 5MWD (1 set piece encounter)

Think I was the first and only one to answer OP using what the actual rules say. Think I'm the only one here who's actually used said rules from the sounds of it.

So I answered the question you bitch and moaned, didn't help and claimed one true way lol. Typical ENworld tbh its fairly useless here lately. OP up voted my suggestion.

Anything practical to add or just declare yourself right?

Well there is a pair of obvious issues.

Firstly the one where I previously mentioned more than once that removing short rests fixes the designed in base core rules incentives to engage in that sort of no s loop 5mwd play. It does so while avoiding the need to engage in the sort of extensive avalanche of houserules to rewrite 5e into some kind of heartbreaker edition while simply being a good solution because it is an easy work around for reprehensibly hostile design.

Secondly the absurd "D-Day gove the Germans 8+ hours to respond for free"is still talking only about long rests and doesn't really apply to short rests or you simply do not know the rules well enough to recognize that they are on different timers with slightly different mechanics that make short rests easier. That sort of literal active warzone battlefield time crunch doom clock is absolutely more than sufficient for long rest class 5mwd & can even work for a one off edge case or one shot , but it also loses credibility when used all of the time in s longer running ongoing campaign.

Anything practical to add or just declare yourself right?

Well seeing as you don't seem to be aware of the mechanical differences between long & short rests or have enough experience with short rest classes to recognize how regular rest fueled nova loop becomes a 5mwd without the need for long rest classes to even strain their resources even a little without needing multiple long rests by late tier 2 or tier 3+ I don't think there's any need to do anything of the sort and never did.

 

[Zardnaar]

Well there is a pair of obvious issues.

Firstly the one where I previously mentioned more than once that removing short rests fixes the designed in base core rules incentives to engage in that sort of no s loop 5mwd play. It does so while avoiding the need to engage in the sort of extensive avalanche of houserules to rewrite 5e into some kind of heartbreaker edition while simply being a good solution because it is an easy work around for reprehensibly hostile design.

Secondly the absurd "D-Day gove the Germans 8+ hours to respond for free"is still talking only about long rests and doesn't really apply to short rests or you simply do not know the rules well enough to recognize that they are on different timers with slightly different mechanics that make short rests easier. That sort of literal active warzone battlefield time crunch doom clock is absolutely more than sufficient for long rest class 5mwd & can even work for a one off edge case or one shot , but it also loses credibility when used all of the time in s longer running ongoing campaign.


Well seeing as you don't seem to be aware of the mechanical differences between long & short rests or have enough experience with short rest classes to recognize how regular rest fueled nova loop becomes a 5mwd without the need for long rest classes to even strain their resources even a little without needing multiple long rests by late tier 2 or tier 3+ I don't think there's any need to do anything of the sort and never did.

Short rests can be as short as 10 minutes or 1 round in 5.5.

Big difference in 1 hour vs 8 to prepare vs flee.

 

[tetrasodium]

Short rests can be as short as 10 minutes or 1 round in 5.5.

Mmhmmmmm.... Are you trying to suggest that having an even lower bar on the SR class nova loop fueled 5mwd somehow makes it a non-issue in 5.024 or are you admitting that it is an even more pronounced designed in problem made worse by further undermining the GM's ability to hamper the excess?

Big difference in 1 hour vs 8 to prepare vs flee.

This the mechanical problem invalidating any explanation of with expecting gm side doom clocks and dynamic worlds fo solve a design issue where the relevant rules themselves tuned to avoid being meaningfully mitigated by those GM side adventure design choices. Heck because someone decided that designing the math so magic items are ""pure candy" the pcs won't even be meaningfully impacted in future encounters if the dynamic world burns and refuses to feed magic item churn.

 

[Zardnaar]

Mmhmmmmm.... Are you trying to suggest that having an even lower bar on the SR class nova loop fueled 5mwd somehow makes it a non-issue in 5.024 or are you admitting that it is an even more pronounced designed in problem made worse by further undermining the GM's ability to hamper the excess?

This the mechanical problem invalidating any explanation of with expecting gm side doom clocks and dynamic worlds fo solve a design issue where the relevant rules themselves tuned to avoid being meaningfully mitigated by those GM side adventure design choices. Heck because someone decided that designing the math so magic items are ""pure candy" the pcs won't even be meaningfully impacted in future encounters if the dynamic world burns and refuses to feed magic item churn.

Only one edition built magic otem math into the base game. It tanked and lasted 4 years.
. They learnt you can't force propke to play in one true way.

AD&D/pre 3.0 never did either. Its really up to the DM. Not everyone likes magic items. They never balanced the pricing of them (90%+ in 4E and 3Ecwere crap for the price).

That's good design not bad. Made the game more complex for not much gain. Made magic items boring.

Short rest doesnt nova as vad as long rest. One could theoretically remove both.

Or pick one or another.

Dailies are to baked in to remove imho.

Dont need a doom cloak just common sense. Way D&D adventures are designed encourages 5MWD.

Modern design in general. They removed everything that helped mitigate it.

 

[Mort]

tl;dr: Help me figure out what a 15th level 5.5E encounter chain to stress resources looks like. Thanks!

Longish thread, sorry if I say anything repetitive!

I've found 3-4 encounters between rests sufficiently challenging for my group (currently just made 19th level).

My current group isn't particularly optimized, so I've found a mix of moderate with some high difficulty thrown in works, but for more optimized groups keep the encounters high difficulty.

Not all of the encounters have to be combat. You can have resource draining exploration or even social encounters thrown in. For example, the PCs need to get somewhere or get a specific item. It's behind a seemingly impenetrable barrier. With a bit of investigation (which itself can cost resources if they go the spell route) the group determines that sufficient magical energy will open the barrier. They must pump in Y spell levels for it to open for X amount of time.

For combat encounters, throw on the occasional wave. Next set of monsters comes RIGHT after an encounter finishes. You mentioned a Great Wyrm Red. Have it be flying in WHILE the group is engaged in a different fight. They know they have 3-4 rounds before the dragon arrives. Adds tension and really makes them think about when to blow their high level resources.

Thoughts?

 

[tetrasodium]

Only one edition built magic otem math into the base game. It tanked and lasted 4 years.
. They learnt you can't force propke to play in one true way.

AD&D/pre 3.0 never did either. Its really up to the DM. Not everyone likes magic items. They never balanced the pricing of them (90%+ in 4E and 3Ecwere crap for the price).

That's good design not bad. Made the game more complex for not much gain. Made magic items boring.

Short rest doesnt nova as vad as long rest. One could theoretically remove both.

Or pick one or another.

Dailies are to baked in to remove imho.

Dont need a doom cloak just common sense. Way D&D adventures are designed encourages 5MWD.

Modern design in general. They removed everything that helped mitigate it.

Not quite. Prior to 3.x the slower than 3.X recovery rates with risk of adventuring having so much more lethality that went with adventuring very much made it so PCs were almost required to gain destroyable magic items while maintaining a relationship with the world that left them at least tolerated when there were plenty of monsters who simply could not be hurt at all without sufficiently magical weapons. Heck the ad&d 2e DMG even had a line saying how options of healing were fairly necessary and should be "readily available"∆, there was even a whole chapter in it about players and gm working together to design quest for & craft custom magic items/spells. Comparisons with 4e are difficult because it was ADEU rather than attrition over adventuring day, but even that didn't go as far as 5e's dismissal of basic rudimentary math to pretend they were "pure candy". The PCs being able to completely shrug and carry on unaffected.

Adding back enough of what 5e removed that once mitigated the 5mwd would an extreme hurdle for simple homebrewing

∆ I want to say page 115 but going from memory on page number

 

[Zardnaar]

Not quite. Prior to 3.x the slower than 3.X recovery rates with risk of adventuring having so much more lethality that went with adventuring very much made it so PCs were almost required to gain destroyable magic items while maintaining a relationship with the world that left them at least tolerated when there were plenty of monsters who simply could not be hurt at all without sufficiently magical weapons. Heck the ad&d 2e DMG even had a line saying how options of healing were fairly necessary and should be "readily available"∆, there was even a whole chapter in it about players and gm working together to design quest for & craft custom magic items/spells. Comparisons with 4e are difficult because it was ADEU rather than attrition over adventuring day, but even that didn't go as far as 5e's dismissal of basic rudimentary math to pretend they were "pure candy". The PCs being able to completely shrug and carry on unaffected.

Adding back enough of what 5e removed that once mitigated the 5mwd would an extreme hurdle for simple homebrewing

∆ I want to say page 115 but going from memory on page number

115 is about right table might be 116 from memory.

AD&D it you played official adventures youre golden when it comes to hitting +2 required.

4E dressed things ip in AEDU but it was daily attrition system.

3E got it closed with 4 encounters imho. But it was also 3E.

Each group plays differently so one size fits all 3E/4E doesnt work imho unless it also matches ones personal taste.

Im ruining closer to pre 3E than 4E. Players dont know how many encounters. World is not static, and you cant buy what you want in unlimited quantity.

 

[Mort]

Im ruining closer to pre 3E than 4E. Players dont know how many encounters. World is not static, and you cant buy what you want in unlimited quantity.

I've always run games this way, works pretty well in any edition - at least in my experience.

 

[Pamphylian]

I'm not close to level 15, but my game has definitely improved with generally lowered hp and increased damage to most non-boss/miniboss type monsters. Like close to half hp, double damage for mooks (often through additional multiattack, and either choosing hp at the lower end of the possible range or using TSR era monster HD as a guideline). The benefits have been manifold: faster fights (means I can get more fights in a session and thus get more attrition - as a side benefits: tedium is decreased, exploration is more satisfying when you can cover more ground in a session), tenser more resource draining fights (enemies that can drop a character's hp by 1/3-1/2 in a round in most fights is ideal - this also forces players to be more mobile), and I can use more enemies without turning things into a slog, keeping the action economy challenging and allowing players to see progress in taking down individual monsters rather than semi mysterious HP sacks.

Realistically, with 2.5-3 hour sessions, I'm often not going to get 6-8 fights/resource draining activities in most sessions, and I find things feel kind of incoherent and unsatisfying if you are still on the same rest after more than 2 weeks. So more, faster encounters makes getting the attrition I want (especially with 5.5e healing) much easier.