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The most important thing bastions will do is be a money sink for the tens and hundreds of thousands of gold the party gets in mid-high levels

Attacking more than twice in a turn isn't a good idea because of the Multi Attack Penalty (MAP). Don't fall into the trap of just repeatedly attacking with low accuracy. When building a PC, try to find "third actions" to take that don't have the Attack trait. Some good examples are: Raise a...

That is not a duration. Everything a spell does is its effect. Everything which has a duration that a spell does ends when the spell's duration ends.

Restoring hit points does not have a duration. Temp HP has a duration - they last until depleted or you finish a long rest - unless a more specific rule gives it another duration. The healing from Aura of Vitality (duration 1 minute) does not disappear when the spell ends, since healing does...

Dispel magic can only be used on spells with ongoing effects - that is, spells with a duration. Dispel magic could be used to end Polymorph, which would also remove any Temp HP granted by Polymorph. Dispel magic cannot be used to dispel False Life, since False Life has a duration of...

Specific trumps general. The rules in the description of Polymorph - that its duration is concentration up to an hour - are more specific than the rules for how temp hp works. Compare to False Life - which has a duration of instantaneous. The temp HP for false life follows the general rule...

Ultimately the issue is that complexity which used to be opt-in is now baseline. You used to be able to opt in to having a harder character by either picking a spellcaster, taking feats, or a taking complex martial subclass. Now things like feats, Weapon masteries, Rogue's Cunning strikes, etc...

Exactly - when your playstyle does not align with what a game's rules are designed for, you will have to create your own to patch the experience.

As has been established in this thread - 5e does not have functional rules for a party fleeing a combat where they are outmatched. A DM forcing the PCs into an unwinnable combat encounter is no different than them saying "rocks fall, everyone dies", in 5e.

Unless your classic dnd party has 8-10 human players, there should be plenty of hirelings around that the wizard's players can direct when they're in scenarios the wizard won't be useful.

It would be reasonable to say "your characters would know they likely cannot handle a dozen hostile foes, your action would draw all of their attention - do you still want to do that?" Much in the same way if a player wants their 1st level to jump off a 50ft cliff, you'd let them know they'd...

Then your GM shouldn't be putting you into a scenario where fleeing is a requirement.

5e had Multiclassing and Feats as optional rules - the DM would need to choose to opt-in to the added complexity/balance problems they create, and players would not expect them to always be available for them. 2024 makes both of these base rules. Now a DM has to BAN them if they want to play...

Chases end when the pursuer is close enough to Catch their target - a situation that is likely to occur during the very first round, assuming you a fleeing a monster from melee. This is true even with equal speeds - and many monsters will be faster than the PCs. The chase rules are best...

Running away is a completely unviable option, yes. Fleeing should be done in-between combats - once you've realized you're outmatched its too late to do anything about it.

Then sometimes the PCs will lose, and when PCs lose they tend to all die. If your players a cool with re-rolling frequently, that's not a problem. Agree. Then their characters should die. They will learn not to be overconfident next time.

The entire chapter 3 of the DMG, but specifically the encounter rules on pages 81 onwards. To turn that around to you - can you find me any rules for designing and running encounters specifically designed not to be winnable by the party?

Its what the game is designed for. As you stray from the game's assumptions for how it will be played, it has a tendency to break. In this case, if you stray from the assumption that the game will be composed of a large number of winnable combat encounters, it breaks in that there are no...

Yes that's what I said. That's working as intended. Deadly encounters are tuned to drain about 1/3 of a party's daily resources. They shouldn't kill a party unless they're extremely low on resources, especially if you're playing with experienced player or players that are min-maxing hard.

Page 81 of the DMG has clear guidelines on how to design encounters and how many of them to give your party. Nothing in the DMG addresses creating encounters which are too strong or unwinnable for your party. The hardest difficulty is Deadly - "A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or...