D&D 5E Is 5e "Easy Mode?"

dave2008 said:

I agree, that could be one. Simply make poison save or die if that is what you like. Just let the group know and its done!

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Or Save or A Lot of Poison Damage.

• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw, taking 5 (2d4) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, taking 5 (2d4) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw, taking 14 (4d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. being slain on a failed save, or taking 2 (1d4) poision damage on a successful one.
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw, taking 5 (2d4) poison damage and is blinded for 1 round on a failed save or taking half as much damage on a successful one.
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw, being poisoned on a failed save. A creature poisoned by the snake's bite takes 2d4 poison damage at the start of each turn. At the end of each turn, a creature can make the save to remove the poison.

FWIW considering points damage: Poison is save or die for commoners, etc. in a sense. Considering a commoner has 4 or 5 HP IIRC, that 5 average poison damage is pretty much lethal.

doctorbadwolf said:

Lingering wounds, slow healing, ignore encounter building guidelines.

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I'm thinking by slow healing you mean dmg267

except like so many other optional & variant rules in the dmg it's barely on par with the quality you'd expect from a random internet forum homebrew idea & lacking commentary that would accompany the forum spitball pointing out problems or ways to improve it. The rule makes no mention of balancing the needs of short rest vrs long rest classes & provides no guidance on doing so. There is no mention of the fact that it turns nearly every magic item in 5e into what is practically an at will cantrip level expenditure because the vast majority of them regain 1d#+N charges each day at $Time. Nor is there any mention of how this screws over various spells & abilities now thrown off kilter due to their duration, footnotes on the pros & cons of adjusting those things in different ways, or even guidance on adjusting them.

But hey, good news! If you want to crank the dial past 11 by making it so magic items are effectively at will. "it's Super Effective" Coincidentally "it's Super Effective!" comes from a game that very well may have more depth & complexity than 5e and is aimed at a pretty young age group, there comes a point where simplified goes too far.

the words "lingering wounds" & "lingering wound" do not appear to be in either the dmg, phb, or even xge.
When people defend problems in a system by citing things that do not appear to be in print the result is to make the problem appear all the more glaring & nontrivial to solve.

dave2008 said:

OK, so you are claiming that monsters need more threaten abilities, is that it? And WotC hasn't provided the tools to make them more threaten? I've never liked save or die mechanics or their ilk (level drain, etc.), so I don't miss those. If that is something you do like, then yes WotC has not provided you with the tools to get there. However, neither did 1e, 2e, or 3e. Monster stat blocks are mini-rules modules in and of themselves. If you want monsters that do that, just give your 5e monsters those tools. If I want a monster from 1e in my 5e game. I just use the 1e stat block and adjust AC/HP/Damage based on the DMG tables and use the special abilities as is. There is nothing in 5e that makes this difficult. Heck, if you issues is just the monsters, that is a non-issue to me. That being said, I do realize that is not the case for others, apparently you are included in that group.

AH, I remember that post. However, I asked you for an explanation of what you are looking for, not of what 5e provides that you don't think is up to snuff. For example, you didn't like the healer's kit dependency because it can be overcome by magic. How is that different in 1e/2e when healing was overcome with magic and particularly magic potions? As a 5e DM I feel can restrict access to healing magic as easily as I did in 1e. Where are you having problems?

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I listed a bunch of things, zero of them came close to Save or Die mechanics. What are you going on about?
You really should not have brought so many of them up if you didn't want commentary on them...
@Garthanos regarding your post, is correct... It's not nearly as easy as people make it out to be when they say to just make it more difficult or to just add things that fix it. If it were nearly as simple to do so many of the things people pithily say to just do then we'd probably see things like a UA for meaningful tactical combat involving AoOs & the like instead of greyhawk initiative or dmg270/271 speedfactor trying to shoehorn tactical play in elsewhere.

BTW 272 and 273 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Lingering Injury Rule, It needs tweaked but I think its not a terrible start (many people who wanted grittier 4e were doing something similar)

tetrasodium said:

I'm thinking by slow healing you mean dmg267

except like so many other optional & variant rules in the dmg it's barely on par with the quality you'd expect from a random internet forum homebrew idea & lacking commentary that would accompany the forum spitball pointing out problems or ways to improve it. The rule makes no mention of balancing the needs of short rest vrs long rest classes & provides no guidance on doing so. There is no mention of the fact that it turns nearly every magic item in 5e into what is practically an at will cantrip level expenditure because the vast majority of them regain 1d#+N charges each day at $Time. Nor is there any mention of how this screws over various spells & abilities now thrown off kilter due to their duration, footnotes on the pros & cons of adjusting those things in different ways, or even guidance on adjusting them.

But hey, good news! If you want to crank the dial past 11 by making it so magic items are effectively at will. "it's Super Effective" Coincidentally "it's Super Effective!" comes from a game that very well may have more depth & complexity than 5e and is aimed at a pretty young age group, there comes a point where simplified goes too far.

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Why would a DM change the rest cycle from a daily basis, but not change the magic item renewal cycle?
Or just use the "Wands that don't recharge" variant option from the DMG alongside it?

the words "lingering wounds" & "lingering wound" do not appear to be in either the dmg, phb, xge, or even ggtr.

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Page 272 of the DMG.

Garthanos said:

Sure and I was also trying to point out perhaps that things removed are not trivial to put in... you know what happens when a fighter can do more opportunity attacks like one per turn? he can lock more enemies in place with a feat and now a fear spell can force enemies to continuously trigger those opportunity attacks... so you have to hunt for things like those and introduce subtle changes like if the enemy is hit while feared they get an extra saving throw or the like.

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Responding to Self About the fear spell modification : That is interesting because the old slap em in the face to give them an extra save is then supported by the fear spell... in 4e you could make a heal check on an ally to give them an extra save. So a general rule was in place. However in 5e context it sounds like a Help Action - Of course a saving throw IS NOT an ability check so you cannot use a help action to improve an allies saving throw... let alone grant an additional one.

tetrasodium said:

I'm thinking by slow healing you mean dmg267

Spoiler: Slow Natural Healing

View attachment 120466

except like so many other optional & variant rules in the dmg it's barely on par with the quality you'd expect from a random internet forum homebrew idea & lacking commentary that would accompany the forum spitball pointing out problems or ways to improve it. The rule makes no mention of balancing the needs of short rest vrs long rest classes & provides no guidance on doing so. There is no mention of the fact that it turns nearly every magic item in 5e into what is practically an at will cantrip level expenditure because the vast majority of them regain 1d#+N charges each day at $Time. Nor is there any mention of how this screws over various spells & abilities now thrown off kilter due to their duration, footnotes on the pros & cons of adjusting those things in different ways, or even guidance on adjusting them.

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The rule doesn't need to change any of that, it is just changing HD healing. It does not change the rest mechanics. Perhaps you are thinking about the variant rest mechanics? Combine this with requiring a healing kit and you have a much more dangerous campaign, IME. Have you tried, because I have.

tetrasodium said:

the words "lingering wounds" & "lingering wound" do not appear to be in either the dmg, phb, or even xge.

Spoiler: They do exist in ggtr... buuuuuuut...

This from ggtr176 does not look even slightly applicable.
View attachment 120465

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Injuries, DMG 272 w/ "Lingering Injuries" table

tetrasodium said:

I listed a bunch of things, zero of them came close to Save or Die mechanics. What are you going on about?

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I mentioned save or die in one sentence, that comment was not about that specific type of mechanic, if you missed that, I suggest your read it again. However, I said monster stats are discrete rules modules, just add the more difficult parts of older editions you like. Done.

I don't disagree the game defaults to the easier (meaning less deadly) side. I just find it trivially easy to challenge my players. If you can't that is ok, some DMs can handle deadly 5e and some can't.

However, how many options have you tried? I ask because my group has tried a lot. In fact, we got to a point that was too deadly (using lingering injuries from the DMG was part of that experiment) and had to dial it back. Eventually we found a sweet spot that works for us.

dave2008 said:

However, how many options have you tried? I ask because my group has tried a lot. In fact, we got to a point that was too deadly (using lingering injuries from the DMG was part of that experiment) and had to dial it back. Eventually we found a sweet spot that works for us.

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The rule reminds me a little of how easy it was to maim characters in RuneQuest actually. Rituals with real costly ingredients to remove such things I think can help...

Garthanos said:

Sure and I was also trying to point out perhaps that things removed are not trivial to put in... you know what happens when a fighter can do more opportunity attacks like one per turn? he can lock more enemies in place with a feat and now a fear spell can force enemies to continuously trigger those opportunity attacks... so you have to hunt for things like those and introduce subtle changes like if the enemy is hit while feared they get an extra saving throw or the like.

This is not just oh my put a new rule on it see how easy it is? Even simplified 5e has elements which propagate

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And even though this is true, it really isn't a massive issue. Most of these "knock-on" effects are either corner cases or really easy to spot. Nothing to difficult to adjust if you really want to.

And actually, there is a RAW version of this in the Tunnel Fighter Fighting style from the UA a few years back, so it is something that was considered to be added into the game.

Also, Cavalier does something similiar.

So, it isn't like there is nowhere to look for how some of these effects would work in regards to the rest of the game.

dave2008 said:

To start I will give several "out of the box" dials 5e provides for adjusting difficulty. I will also admit 5e has done a poor job of explaining (by WotC) how you can adjust these dials.

1. First you need to understand your groups baseline vs. the baseline assumption of the MM, which is: limited magic items, not feats, no multiclassing, and limited experience (ie. not optimizers and/or limited tactical & strategic skills). I pretty firmly believe if you play with those assumptions, the MM and encounter guidelines work well (I know they have for one of my groups that fits that description). However, if you find that not to be the case, you can use some of the following options to increase difficulty as needed.
2. Make monsters more difficult: increase HP. There is a range provided for a reason, use it. If your group mows through monsters, give them max HP so they last longer. (PS I did this back in 1e too)
3. Use tougher monsters: if the encounter guidelines don't work for your group, ignore them. Using higher CR monsters is like #2, except with the added benefit that the monsters should have higher AC/ attack bonus and DPR. The enounter guidelines are just a baseline, they don't work for most advanced groups and that is OK. They are not rules to be broken, but suggestions for new DMs with new groups.
4. Use more monsters. Did this in 1e and it works in 5e too.
5. Use more encounters. Using up more resources makes it more dangerous.
6. Using more dangerous encounters. I only use 2-3 encounters per "day," so I tend to make them tougher. Using waves of monsters is good for this. The same basic idea as #5.
7. Variant & Optional rules.
   1. Healing kit requirement
   2. Lingering injuries
   3. Slow Natural healing (combining that with healing kit requirement can be a game changer)
8. Homebrew
   1. Make monsters tougher: +1 to AC per tier
   2. Make monsters tougher, more damage: double strength bonus or +2 damage per tier, or max damage on a hit.
   3. Death and dying:
      1. death at 0 hp
      2. death at -10 hp
      3. 1 level of exhaustion each time you go to 0 hp

OK, that is just a few. If you have more specific things your are looking for we can tailor our response to what you need.

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9. Tailor the terrain and the environmental effects to the monsters’ benefit. You should be doing this already, but it is surprising how often even veteran DMs forget to do it.
10. Have your monsters (especially sentient ones) use smart tactics.