D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

Zardnaar said:

Generally I like d4 content. Interesting builds but he focuses a bit to much towards level 10+ imho.

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I like Colby Poulson's (D4 Deep Dive) content too because I find him entertaining. But his assumptions are just nothing like what our games are like. In fact, I don't think they even apply to HIS actual games!

First, he had to have nearly a viewer revolt to get him to stop multiclassing every single build, most of which started with Fighter 1, and Goliath species for a bit of extra damage, in what he would call being a "slave to the spreadsheet." In real games, almost nobody does that, and a huge number of PCs are straight single class, with whatever species they're interested in.

Second, almost every build of his assumes one combat encounter per day, four rounds for that combat encounter. He blows all his resources in those 4 rounds, as a generalization. And for some bizarre reason that's what he calls "sustained" damage to distinguish it from "nova" damage even though nobody else would call blowing all your resources in the first four rounds of combat in a day "sustained." You can't even begin to take another long rest for 23 hours and 59 mins after that, since by the rules you can only gain the benefits of a long rest once every 24 hours. So what the heck are his PCs doing for the rest of that time and how would they ever do even a tiny dungeon crawl? And does he think the short rest mechanic simply isn't used in most games despite some classes being designed around it?

Third, his extreme focus is not just average damage per round for four rounds, but ONLY for levels 6, 9. 13, and 17. This is often taken to absurd lengths, where he routinely makes choices which nobody would make in a real game where you're levelling up between those levels. Those choices, like taking the Charger feat at level 9, are purely to up damage to boost one of those four levels so he can artificially crank damage on what he calls a Damage Report level. I can't imagine who that helps with a real game, unless it's a one-shot at that specific level.

All of this I find entertaining, but nearly useless for actual games. And it seems he doesn't use his own builds when he plays. He admits he wouldn't build things this way for actual play himself and would make different choices if he were levelling up such a character and cared about things like defense and control exploration and diplomacy and role play more. I just wish he'd do that: make real builds for how he'd actually enjoy and play the character, instead of this artificial theoretical damage maximization at 4-levels over 4 total rounds per day spreadsheet concept.

tetrasodium said:

Ive considered it as well and even started spit balling it at one point but 5e really went out of its way to make it hard for someone to make that kind of change without going past major homebrew into full on fantasy heartbreaker. For all of the empty lip service that Crawford gave us over the last decade about how this or that aspect of 5e was designed to make it easier to homebrew and make changes it's remarkably inflexible and difficult to make meaningful changes that impact wargamer side of wargamer/theater kid spread.

It almost feels like something like that would probably take a total rewrite of everything the spells chapter plus a reconsideration for the role of cantrips and rebuilding a few classes that wind up with their class+subclass spaghetti code broken by the results of doing one or both.

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After some searching for curiosity's sake, I found this homebrew, btw. Might be time to make a thread to brainstorm around how to bring back classic vancian prepared spellcasting. Or look and see if there are more ideas.

Rather than extra slots.. maybe the answer is in character level-based auto-upcasting

Distracted DM said:

... If you entirely skip its 70% magic resistance, sure

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An AD&D 1E gold Dragon does not have Magic Resistance

Maxperson said:

I agree with you about damage spells being fun and being used by experienced players. That has been my experience as well. It's not just control spells.

Also, given the discussions that I've seen here over the years, I think this site has a much higher percentage of people who DM/play to high levels than the average 5e player.

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Of course! Comparing an Enworlder to a non Enworlder is like comparing a Formula One raceway driver to a ride sharer.

MichaelSomething said:

Of course! Comparing an Enworlder to a non Enworlder is like comparing a Formula One raceway driver to a ride sharer.

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Apparently you haven't been in some of the ride shares that I have been in.

ECMO3 said:

An AD&D 1E gold Dragon does not have Magic Resistance

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Yes, but your 1e 10th level wizard probably has 20-25 hit points and can't survive the breath weapon even if he saves.

Mistwell said:

I like Colby Poulson's (D4 Deep Dive) content too because I find him entertaining. But his assumptions are just nothing like what our games are like. In fact, I don't think they even apply to HIS actual games!

First, he had to have nearly a viewer revolt to get him to stop multiclassing every single build, most of which started with Fighter 1, and Goliath species for a bit of extra damage, in what he would call being a "slave to the spreadsheet." In real games, almost nobody does that, and a huge number of PCs are straight single class, with whatever species they're interested in.

Second, almost every build of his assumes one combat encounter per day, four rounds for that combat encounter. He blows all his resources in those 4 rounds, as a generalization. And for some bizarre reason that's what he calls "sustained" damage to distinguish it from "nova" damage even though nobody else would call blowing all your resources in the first four rounds of combat in a day "sustained." You can't even begin to take another long rest for 23 hours and 59 mins after that, since by the rules you can only gain the benefits of a long rest once every 24 hours. So what the heck are his PCs doing for the rest of that time and how would they ever do even a tiny dungeon crawl? And does he think the short rest mechanic simply isn't used in most games despite some classes being designed around it?

Third, his extreme focus is not just average damage per round for four rounds, but ONLY for levels 6, 9. 13, and 17. This is often taken to absurd lengths, where he routinely makes choices which nobody would make in a real game where you're levelling up between those levels. Those choices, like taking the Charger feat at level 9, are purely to up damage to boost one of those four levels so he can artificially crank damage on what he calls a Damage Report level. I can't imagine who that helps with a real game, unless it's a one-shot at that specific level.

All of this I find entertaining, but nearly useless for actual games. And it seems he doesn't use his own builds when he plays. He admits he wouldn't build things this way for actual play himself and would make different choices if he were levelling up such a character and cared about things like defense and control exploration and diplomacy and role play more. I just wish he'd do that: make real builds for how he'd actually enjoy and play the character, instead of this artificial theoretical damage maximization at 4-levels over 4 total rounds per day spreadsheet concept.

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Yeah some of his multiclass builds are crap until lvl 8 or 12.

Our groups tend to use spells like spirit guardians and try to get 1-3 fights out of it.

Some are learning to scout or use arcane eye. Mostly listen then kick in the door. Newer players blew their spell slots fast but learnt that generally my games are more like 3-5 encounters but can hit 8 or 9 level 10ish.

Treantmonks a bit better guidelines. I dont crunch dpr but more like dpr potential. I make no assumptions about AC or saves. ACs generally 14-19 though. CR 23 BBEG AC 18 RAW.

Maxperson said:

Yes, but your 1e 10th level wizard probably has 20-25 hit points and can't survive the breath weapon even if he saves.

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True, but a Dragon can't just choose to breathe in 1E, he needs to roll a 50 or below on a 1d100, and then he needs to target the Wizard.

ECMO3 said:

True, but a Dragon can't just choose to breathe in 1E, he needs to roll a 50 or below on a 1d100, and then he needs to target the Wizard.

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He can choose to in the 1st round just fine. The party isn't starting next to it, and most likely the dragon is flying and there would be no roll to breathe since there is no choice of different attacks. And if you think a supragenious 800 year old dragon isn't going to target the wizard...

Also, you seem to not understand what a cone or cloud is, since you think the dragon needs to target the wizard. It's likely that the gold dragon gets most or all of the party into the breath attack.

Zardnaar said:

Treantmonks a bit better guidelines. I dont crunch dpr but more like dpr potential. I make no assumptions about AC or saves. ACs generally 14-19 though. CR 23 BBEG AC 18 RAW.

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ATK goes from +5 at level 1 to +12-14 at level 20; call it +13.

A foe with 13 (level 1) to 21 AC (level 20) is then hit on a 8+; a 65% hit rate (or ~68% if we model a crit as 8/5 of a hit). 1/Damage d Damage / dAC is then about 7.5%ish.

So we can calculate EHP (HP accounting for accuracy) as roughly HP * (100% + 7.5%*(AC-13-2/5*Level)) =~ HP * (AC/13 - Level/30)

Assuming spell casters target random saves (which is generous to spellcasters; not that generous, as targeting lower saves restricts choice), this corresponds to +8 to their average save from level 1 to level 20.

If we assume an average save of +0 at level 1 (a total save of +6, average save chance of 40%), a similar accuracy requires a total save of +48 at level 20 (average +8) and the same average save chance (assuming a +2 bonus to save DCs and "random" attribute targets).

Magic damage is "save for half" usually on a save, so the impact of saves is smaller. With a baseline 40% save chance you do 80% of base DPR, +1 to +5/-1 to -5 on that you do 73% to 93%, only 2.6% more/less damage per point of saves. And with 6 stats being "targetted randomly", each point of save on a stat is 6 times less important, giving us a (1 + TotalSaves/230 - Level/100) spell EHP multiplier.

This undervalues saves as they also apply conditions, and conditions don't save for half. If we choose to ignore the save for half component it becomes ~8.3% per point of saves (on every stat) instead of ~2.6%. Treating +1 to AC as the same as +1 to all saves has a certian simplicity. We can also treat +/-1 AC and +/-1 all saves to be "worth" the same weight (for EHP).

This gives us EHP =~ HP * (0.5 + AC/25 + Total Saves/150 - Level/30)


where Level/30 reflects "higher level monsters should have higher saves and AC by default".

We can factor out this gamma (with a bit of rounding):

Gamma = (13 + AC + Average Save - 0.8 * Level)
and EHP = HP * Gamma/25


which gives you a "defence factor" number of Gamma, where Gamma of ~25 is "normal" for the monster's level.

If we boost level scaling slightly (equivalent to PCs having +3 weapons and focuses at level 20 and an extra +0.8 DC/ATK from another source, like crit range or whatever), we get:

Gamma = (AC-13 + Average Save - Level)
and EHP = HP * (1+Gamma/25)
(actually for Gamma < 0, you should use HP / (1-Gamma/25), it behaves better for large negative Gammas and the same for small Gammas).

Each monster +1 CR then requires about +1 to AC or +1 to average saves each level to "keep up" with player AC/ATK.

And calculating Gamma for a monster is easy: AC+Average Save - 13 - Level.

Random Monsters at a few CRs: (bold are positive)
Brown Bear. CR 1, 11 AC, 0.3 average save. Gamma = -1.7
Specter. CR 1, 12 AC, -0.5 average save. Gamma = -2.5
Ghoul. CR 1, 12 AC, -0.2 average save. Gamma = -2.2
Dire Wolf. CR 1, 14 AC, 0.3 average save. Gamma = 0.3
BugBear. CR 1, 16 AC, 0.5 average save. Gamma = 2.5
Ogre. CR 2, 11 AC, -0.2 average save. Gamma = -4.2
Knight. CR 3, 18 AC, 1.8 average save. Gamma = 3.8
OwlBear. CR 3, 13 AC, 0.7 average saves. Gamma = -2.3
Winter Wolf. CR 3, 13 AC, 0.8 average save. Gamma = -2.2
Wight. CR 3, 14 AC, 1.7 average save. Gamma = -0.3
Half-Red Dragon Veteran. CR 5, AC 18, +1 average save, Gamma = 1.0
Gladiator, CR 5, AC 16, 3.5 saves, Gamma = 1.5
Bulette, CR 5, AC 17, 0.2 saves, Gamma = -0.8
Unicorn, CR 5, 12 AC, 2.3 saves, Gamma = -3.7 (-0.7 if we count MR as +3)
Barbed Devil, CR 5, 15 AC, 4.5 saves, Gamma = 1.5 (4.5 if we count MR as +3)
Stone Giant. CR 7, 17 AC, 3.7 average save. Gamma = 0.7
Chain Devil. CR 8, 16 AC, 3.7 average save. Gamma = -1.3
Deva. CR 10, 17 AC, 4.6 average save. Gamma = -1.4 (+1.6 if we count MR as +3)
Nalfeshnee. CR 13, 18 AC, 6.3 average save. Gamma = -1.7 (+1.3 if we count MR as +3)
Storm Giant. CR 13, 16 AC, 7.8 save. Gamma = -2.2
Mummy Lord. CR 15, 17 AC, 5.7 save. Gamma = -5.3 (low)
Androsphinx. CR 17, 17 AC, 8 average save. Gamma = -5 (low)
Balor. CR 19, 19 AC, 9 average save. Gamma = -4 (-1 if we count MR as +3)
Ancient Brass Dragon. CR 20, AC 20, 8 average save. Gamma = -5 (low)
Pit Fiend. CR 20, AC 19, 8.7 saves, Gamma = -5.3 (-2.3 with MR)
Solar. CR 21, AC 21, 11.2 saves, Gamma = -1.8 (1.2 with MR)
Kracken. CR 23, AC 18, 11.2 saves, Gamma = -6.8 (low)
Ancient Gold Dragon. CR 24, AC 22, 10.8 average save. Gamma = 0.8
Tarrasque. CR 30, AC 25, 7.2 saves. Gamma = -11 (-8 with MR) (! very low)

So that isn't a horrible stat. Monsters tend to be in the range -5 to +5. Stuff over level 20 is suspect, as I think they might have stopped scaling AC and saves as much.

Sub-1 CR we can either treat them all as 0 or fractional, or make 1/2 be 0, 1/4 be -1 and 1/8 be -2. Using the negative option:

Bandit CR 1/8 AC 12 0.3 Saves Gamma = 1.3
Guard CR 1/8 AC 16 0.5 Saves Gamma = 5.5 (high)
Giant Rate CR 1/8 AC 12 -1.2 Saves Gamma = -0.2
Zombie. CR 1/4 AC 8 -1.2 Saves Gamma = -5.2 (low)
Boar CR1/4 AC 11 -1 Saves Gamma = -2
Giant Lizard CR 1/4 AC 12 -.5 Saves Gamma = -0.5
Skeleton CR 1/4 AC 13 -0.3 Saves Gamma = 0.7
Wolf CR 1/4 AC 13 -0.2 Saves Gamma = 0.8
Orc CR 1/2 AC 13 0.8 Saves Gamma = 0.8
Thug CR 1/2 AC 11 0.7 Saves Gamma = -1.3
Hobgoblin CR 1/2 AC 18 0.3 Saves Gamma = 5.5 (high)
Black Bear CR 1/2 AC 11 -0.2 Saves Gamma = -2.2

A +/- 5 Gamma corresponds to (0.8 - 1.2) multiplier on HP, and this is a "large" value from what I can tell.
A +/- 10 Gamma corresponds to a (0.7 - 1.4) multiplier on HP, and I found no monster with a Gamma this large, even the Tarrasque has a -8 when you factor in its magic resist.