D&D (2024) 4e design in 5.5e ?

[darjr]

I said they did not provide flexibility for any of us, that you do not care about that flexibility does not mean they gave it to you or me.

But not all of us. I got lots of flexibility from them and 5e.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree. But I think people took more issue with martial daylies than martial encounter powers.

Sure, and I do think it would have made sense to make dailies optional.

I do think 5 minute short rests in 4e were better than an hour. It worked well in the fiction where, for me, an hour often clashes.

Absolutely.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Right but this was not my point.

The original statement made was that the discussion of difficulty is ultimately irrelevant because the DM can always add more monsters.

My counterpoint is that such an addition does have a cost to the overall narrative. Things like:

• Why are there so many monsters in this area all of a sudden?
• Why are dragons such a big deal of if 4 low level people can take one on?

Now a small narrative cost a good DM can (and does) deal with. The question becomes when does that narrative cost require DM tweaks that remove some of the immersiveness and enjoyment from the game?

Ultimately all of this is to say.... difficulty does matter. Its not a rigid line, and that line can move table to table....but there is a general range where difficulty is "appropriate" and a range where it is not. The ability to add additional monsters does not change this fact. Therefore, a discussion of an edition's difficulty is a very relevant topic, and cannot be dismissed off hand.

I cannot follow that reasoning. My assumption was that we still use common sense.
My comment never has been about dragons that can be one hitted.
Next time I know better and define the bounds I am speaking of.

So just assume I have said in my first comment:
Speaking about difficulty in a game, where you as a DM can use higher or lower level monsters to adapt the challenge, makes not a lot of sense as long as monster strength is within reasonable bounds.
Actually it is not possible to have monsters perfectly balanced, because players have the freedom to make stronger or less strong characters.

And to be clear: 2e, 3e, 4e and 5e all fell within those bounds.

 

[Charlaquin]

I always liked the name "reserves" myself.

What would you call a unit of reserves though? “Spend one reserve” sounds awkward.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure, and I do think it would have made sense to make dailies optional.

And they kinda did with Essentials - martial classes in Essentials had at-will and encounter powers but no dailies.

 

[Stalker0]

What would you call a unit of reserves though? “Spend one reserve” sounds awkward.

"Use a reserve and heal X". I don't think you have to get any fancier than that.

 

[Charlaquin]

"Use a reserve and heal X". I don't think you have to get any fancier than that.

Sounds bad to me, but what do I know?

 

[Mordhau]

In 13th Age Healing Surges are called "Recoveries".

You also roll them, although the rules say you can choose to take the average of the roll if you prefer. (And of course, if you examine what the average of the recovery roll is, it always turns out to be approximately one quarter of total hit poits.)

 

[Stalker0]

So just assume I have said in my first comment:
Speaking about difficulty in a game, where you as a DM can use higher or lower level monsters to adapt the challenge, makes not a lot of sense as long as monster strength is within reasonable bounds.
Actually it is not possible to have monsters perfectly balanced, because players have the freedom to make stronger or less strong characters.

I agree this is a much more reasonable statement. The argument here would be on "what is reasonable bounds", but I think this statement focuses on the understanding that balance is not "rigid" or "perfect", that it is a range.....and a game that is falling within that range must be considered balanced.

Now as to whether 5e falls within that "reasonable bound", we all of course have our table experiences to draw from. For example, I will use one of mine. Probably the closest I ever got to "truly pushing my party" was when they faced:

Party: Six 9th level PCs + one 11th level NPC cleric vs 100 githyanki archers, 10 githyanki knights, 3 githyanki battle skiffs, 1 battle barge, 1 githyanki general + 1 githyanki battle commander. Ballpark CR was 30 all said and done (and my numbers are probably a bit off I ran this about a year ago, especially the archer numbers I just remember it was quite a lot of them).

Ultimately my party triumphed in an absolute epic battle, was a lot of fun. It was also a narratively changing moment in my game. It dealt a massive blow to the githyanki people, and made them a sworn enemy of the city my party came from. Had major consequences down the road, all perfectly fine, I as the DM had no issue with that...... as a one off.

That's what it took to challenge my party in a single fight, and if you look at the epic CRs listed on the forum....that's not really outside the bounds, that's actually pretty reasonable for what my party had.

So as a one time was great....but if I was doing that all the time no that would not work at all. So either I challenged my party through large numbers of encounters (which my group doesn't particularly enjoy except on occasion), or I would throw "big fights" that at the end of the day I knew weren't really all that challenging.....to keep the narrative intact. I choose the occasional big day of fights with the majority just being larger fights that my party ultimately would win....and I used the plot to keep things interesting.


So I use comments such as "I think 5e is generally too easy"....this is the experience that I draw from. In my next game after that one I used a few houserules. For example I went back to the old PF 1e dying system (aka you die at -your con score). Had a major impact, fights that had been straightforward to my last group were much deadlier looking to my new group....simply due to the notion that one good crit could in fact take them out. They also considered in combat healing a lot more important in that game.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And they kinda did with Essentials - martial classes in Essentials had at-will and encounter powers but no dailies.

For sure. If I could do a 4e clone or a 4.5e, though, every class except maybe Wizard would have passive class features they could choose instead of gaining a daily “slot” and a new power to use it with.

That, and you’d be able to use any power you know, and have X encounter powers per encounter, like 5e Spellcasting.