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Neither will I, but that's besides the point. I think the rules are simple, clean, and useful, here: NPCs can be willing, unwilling, or hesitant, as determined by the DM. The first two won't necessitate any roll. A willing NPC will accept, an unwilling one will refuse. So we're left with the...

But you totally can intimidate (or persuade) an hostile opponent to give up the fight. Otherwise, there would be no "hostile" disadvantage to checks (there would be no check at all). "Intimidate a monster" is clearly listed in the Influence action, for instance.

I don't think so, at least not in my case, as I've never touched 4E (an edition that didn't appeal to me at all), nor anyone in my groups save one or two exceptions. And I don't see how 5E would have worked against that, to the contrary. See for instance (DMG24) : Or (same source) : There is...

I too play Performance exactly like this, as a way to stage a whole, well, performance, even if the aim is not to entertain people at all, but to distract (as in Deception), to blend in (as in Stealth), to enthuse (as in Persuasion). And I, too, might leave the players the choice of the skill...

The "establish, action, consequences" loop as seen for instance in Legend in the Mist is a very good way to frame what @Charlaquin is referring to in posts #4 and #5. You don't go from player A to player B to monster C. You go "here's the situation, what do you do, A? [A declares an action, it...

The book is super clear about its expectations, though, as repeated ad nauseam in this very thread: the average group can handle 6-8 medium to hard encounters a day. The way to go from there to a statisfying 1-3 encounters model is a bit convoluted, but still there: via the daily XP budget. It...

For me the best skills are the ones the current characters are proficient with. I've seen and DMed games where Performance was king. Well, maybe not king. Prince. Same with Animal handling, Survival, and Investigation. So, my rankings will follow this method: how easy is it to come up with...

To me the revised encounter rules in the DMG24 are an anwser to all of that, changing from an adventure day paradigm to an "each encounter should be considered against a fully rested party". And they work quite well with my usual players. A high difficulty encounter always leaves them in bad...

I'm sorry, you seem very angry at the game, and possibily at your players. I hope you'll soon find some suitable game for you. I'd rather not engage with you more on this topic if you don't mind, first because I have a lot of trouble understanding what you write, second because I have not...

I hear you, but I don't find 5.24 monsters to be weak sauce at all. My kids are very much afraid of them. As for a design aiming both at casual and hardcore gamers, I think 5E is somewhere in the sweet spot. Casuals can't really make bad builds, no character is useless in battles, rules mastery...

But if the characcters are hurt, exhausted and missing some magic, the attrition did its job. Tension is there. Resting is fine as soon as it will be narratively possible. Things can come up, though.

Again, I think your view about what is power gaming and what is casual is skewed, or mine is in the other direction, to the point that it might be a fool's errand to design a game for the both of us, at least as a design goal. And that's not a problem, I think. For instance, your 150 damage a...

I agree with dr Jawa. I find 5.24 to be fairly well balanced, too. Noticeably better than 5.14.

I don't know. Even for theory crafting, BG3 is not a good model for a tabletop game, at least not for me. There is a crap tone of magic items and consumables to abuse, when in my games every magic weapon is a wonder long pursued (and even in a video game format this inventory is a nightmare)...

I really don't want dnd to be built around the expectations and tactics of the super hardcore gamers. Dnd easy mode for me, thanks. I want my kids to have fun with it out of the box. Me and the uber optimizers can tweak it on our own.

I'll add a caveat to this 6-8 encounters thingie. The advice is 6-8 medium to hard encounters. If you go with deadly encounters, the number drops. In fact, something like one deadly battle, short rest, one deadly battle, short rest, one epic battle (deadly+), long rest, works perfectly fine...

And all the while, people I play with like stories that make sense, where a good night sleep in a haunted house (or worse) is not even a possibility. They also like being challenged from time to time, so they're not constantly moving back and forth between the dungeon and the town, and when they...

(And I forgot to speak about rests. Oh well, a topic for another time. But in short: when you're here for the story, the 5 minute work day disappear completly, as it doesn't make any narrative sense. And when you're playing for the balanced challenge, it becomes one of this dial you'll have to...

A topic as old as 5E, if not older. And every time I personnally struggle to see any kind of problem. I mean, sure, if you're there for a pure tactical-puzzle solving wargame, you'd have to to follow the 6-8 encounters advice and the story might feel tedious or disjointed, but... you're not...

City of Mist, Vampire 5th, without any doubts nor trouble. Could go into the hundreds. DnD 5e24 close third, but sixty sessions is somewhat a maximum for me with this kind of stories where adventure is the main point and vertical progression of skills and powers the only mechanical changes...