pukunui
Legend
This. I don't think it's far to complain that the revision is "even easier mode" because all we've been getting so far is player-facing PHB previews. Let's wait and see what the DM-facing DMG and MM previews give us.
D&D General 5.5 and making the game easier for players and harder for DMs
- Thread starter DarkCrisis
- Start date
MGibster
Legend
I grew frustrated with my first 5E campaign because it felt as though my players were steamrolling through most combat encounters. I finally sent an ancient red dragon at them and while they had a bit of difficulty the encounter wasn't too difficult for them. It took a bit for me to figure out how to balance encounters, though I will admit I am not that good at it. I've only run a few 5th edition campaigns since 2014. I don't want the lethality of earlier editions of D&D, but I don't want combat to be so easy that it lacks tension either.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I think you have to ask yourself what your goal is as a DM. The 5e DMG makes a few statements about what it believes the DM's goals are.
"weave legendary stories" -front cover
"tell fantastic stories about heroes, villains, monsters, and magic"
and
"create the world where those stories live"
as well as-
"The Dungeon Master is the creative force behind a D&D game. The DM creates a world for other players to explore, and also creates and runs adventures that drive the story. An adventure typically hinges on the successful completion of a quest, and can be as short as a single game session...when strung together, these adventures form an ongoing campaign...the Dungeon Master gets to wear many hats. As the architect of the game, the DM creates adventures by placing monsters, traps, and treasures for the other players' characters to discover. As a storyteller, the DM helps the other players visualize what's happening around them, improvising when the adventurers do something or go somewhere unexpected. As an actor the DM plays the roles of monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them." -introduction
Taken in total, it's the DM's job to create the world and everything in it that the players discover, and to create a narrative where the players complete many adventures over the course of the campaign.
You'll note that it never says the goal of the game is to make the players lose, in fact, the DMG further says "The D&D rules help you and other players have a good time...it helps to remember that Dungeons & Dragons is a hobby, and being the DM should be fun".
So what is your objective as a DM? What is fun for the players and you? If "fun" is wanting the players to survive to see more of the world you've created, then these little tweaks to make characters more likely to survive really don't matter.
If "fun" is trying to make every adventure include a brush with death and a real risk of failure, then yeah, maybe these have an impact. Maybe it means you would need to use more and more deadly encounters to achieve that effect than the game advises you to- it's worth noting the DMG also says "as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them".
Perhaps the default version of the game isn't balanced to the liking of you and your group. This may mean that the game is easier on players and requires more work on the part of the DM to make the game suit you and your group. This is as it should be- no game is perfectly suitable for everyone as-is, after all.
And it may be that this version of the game is not suitable for you and your group's needs- that's ok, there's many different games and versions of D&D out there. Each has it's own benefits.
Certainly, 5e is more survivable than say, 3e, but 5e characters do not have the same potential in power as 3e ones, who could have ability scores far in excess of 20 and the ability to crack worlds in half with a sufficiently large rock, lol.
Increasing player survivability speaks to the goals of the system, and that may seem like "easy mode" for you, if you prefer a harsher version of fantasy role playing. This is not, however, part of some conspiracy to make being a DM harder- if you're the kind of DM who merely wants to create worlds, tell stories, and complete a game with 20th-level characters and have your campaign be spoken of for years to come by your players, these modifications to player survivability support the DM, not the opposite!
It's only if your goals as a DM are different than the goals the game pre-supposes that requires you to make adjustments, up to and including removing the offending character benefits.
In this case, yes, it's making your job harder, but only if you expect base 5e to be a different beast than it actually is. The good news is that there are many levers and dials you can adjust to make the game more to your liking.
"weave legendary stories" -front cover
"tell fantastic stories about heroes, villains, monsters, and magic"
and
"create the world where those stories live"
as well as-
"The Dungeon Master is the creative force behind a D&D game. The DM creates a world for other players to explore, and also creates and runs adventures that drive the story. An adventure typically hinges on the successful completion of a quest, and can be as short as a single game session...when strung together, these adventures form an ongoing campaign...the Dungeon Master gets to wear many hats. As the architect of the game, the DM creates adventures by placing monsters, traps, and treasures for the other players' characters to discover. As a storyteller, the DM helps the other players visualize what's happening around them, improvising when the adventurers do something or go somewhere unexpected. As an actor the DM plays the roles of monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them." -introduction
Taken in total, it's the DM's job to create the world and everything in it that the players discover, and to create a narrative where the players complete many adventures over the course of the campaign.
You'll note that it never says the goal of the game is to make the players lose, in fact, the DMG further says "The D&D rules help you and other players have a good time...it helps to remember that Dungeons & Dragons is a hobby, and being the DM should be fun".
So what is your objective as a DM? What is fun for the players and you? If "fun" is wanting the players to survive to see more of the world you've created, then these little tweaks to make characters more likely to survive really don't matter.
If "fun" is trying to make every adventure include a brush with death and a real risk of failure, then yeah, maybe these have an impact. Maybe it means you would need to use more and more deadly encounters to achieve that effect than the game advises you to- it's worth noting the DMG also says "as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them".
Perhaps the default version of the game isn't balanced to the liking of you and your group. This may mean that the game is easier on players and requires more work on the part of the DM to make the game suit you and your group. This is as it should be- no game is perfectly suitable for everyone as-is, after all.
And it may be that this version of the game is not suitable for you and your group's needs- that's ok, there's many different games and versions of D&D out there. Each has it's own benefits.
Certainly, 5e is more survivable than say, 3e, but 5e characters do not have the same potential in power as 3e ones, who could have ability scores far in excess of 20 and the ability to crack worlds in half with a sufficiently large rock, lol.
Increasing player survivability speaks to the goals of the system, and that may seem like "easy mode" for you, if you prefer a harsher version of fantasy role playing. This is not, however, part of some conspiracy to make being a DM harder- if you're the kind of DM who merely wants to create worlds, tell stories, and complete a game with 20th-level characters and have your campaign be spoken of for years to come by your players, these modifications to player survivability support the DM, not the opposite!
It's only if your goals as a DM are different than the goals the game pre-supposes that requires you to make adjustments, up to and including removing the offending character benefits.
In this case, yes, it's making your job harder, but only if you expect base 5e to be a different beast than it actually is. The good news is that there are many levers and dials you can adjust to make the game more to your liking.
Yeah they said they are adjusting monsters to match their CR most accurately so I 100% expect monsters to hit harder and at will.
Players will need dem bonus action potion chugs.
MGibster
Legend
I don't go out of my way to kill PCs, but I love it when the monster gets some good licks in. I love it when a monster rips a PC to shreds and stomps on the little pieces, but then I love it when the PCs defeat a monster spectacularly as well. I need tension and big hits on both sides to enjoy combat.
A lot will also depend on what each DM is looking for in terms of what their interests are in choosing to DM.
If you are a DM looking to "kill off" the players whenever you can... that's your focus-- the fights and how much you care about making combat the focus of your game and making them hard enough that the players all have to really work at keeping their characters alive... I would agree that 5E14 or 5E24 are not probably the best editions that allow you to do that.
But if you are a DM who is more interested in long-term storytelling and putting narrative arcs and story roadblocks in front of players and seeing how they can get their characters to navigate these things... the new PHB giving players an easier time to use their combat widgets doesn't really matter. A PC can drink a potion with a bonus action and thus make it a bit easier to survive? Well... since this type of DM doesn't really care about PC survival and instead is more interested in having reasons why the characters have to get into fights in the first place and what the results of these fights are (or arguments are, or quests are, or social engagements are, or discovered information are etc. etc. etc.)... a PC surviving easier is not much of a concern. Because the game isn't about PCs surviving, it's about all that other stuff.
And quite frankly... the fact that all our Actual Play RPG shows have taken off as well as they have and have brought and/or inspired so many old and new players nowadays-- and almost all of them are about the stories the character get into and not just "winning the board game by staying alive"-- these newest versions of D&D play into that and allow players to follow those shows along and that focus of the game.
Sure... all the old school players and DMs who are still harkening back to their teens years back in the 80s are all raising their eyebrows at all these modern players caring more about story than survival... but that's just the way things have evolved. And if those old school players and DMs don't like or appreciate the new normal... they need to decide whether to move on from the game in its current form. No harm no foul if they do... but they are going to nothing if not annoyed all the time with the game if they don't.
If you are a DM looking to "kill off" the players whenever you can... that's your focus-- the fights and how much you care about making combat the focus of your game and making them hard enough that the players all have to really work at keeping their characters alive... I would agree that 5E14 or 5E24 are not probably the best editions that allow you to do that.
But if you are a DM who is more interested in long-term storytelling and putting narrative arcs and story roadblocks in front of players and seeing how they can get their characters to navigate these things... the new PHB giving players an easier time to use their combat widgets doesn't really matter. A PC can drink a potion with a bonus action and thus make it a bit easier to survive? Well... since this type of DM doesn't really care about PC survival and instead is more interested in having reasons why the characters have to get into fights in the first place and what the results of these fights are (or arguments are, or quests are, or social engagements are, or discovered information are etc. etc. etc.)... a PC surviving easier is not much of a concern. Because the game isn't about PCs surviving, it's about all that other stuff.
And quite frankly... the fact that all our Actual Play RPG shows have taken off as well as they have and have brought and/or inspired so many old and new players nowadays-- and almost all of them are about the stories the character get into and not just "winning the board game by staying alive"-- these newest versions of D&D play into that and allow players to follow those shows along and that focus of the game.
Sure... all the old school players and DMs who are still harkening back to their teens years back in the 80s are all raising their eyebrows at all these modern players caring more about story than survival... but that's just the way things have evolved. And if those old school players and DMs don't like or appreciate the new normal... they need to decide whether to move on from the game in its current form. No harm no foul if they do... but they are going to nothing if not annoyed all the time with the game if they don't.
Rabbitbait
Grog-nerd
My ideal combat is one where:
- Combat begins
- The players realise that this combat is not gonna be easy
- The players start to think that they are going to be wiped out
- The characters are almost wiped out, with at least two characters getting knocked out
- The characters pull through at the end, and thank their lucky stars that they were able to pull a win out of the hat.
MonsterEnvy
Legend
I think you some of you guys are overestimating the power the PCs will have.
I don’t really see things getting harder on my side from what I have seen so far. The New DMG could end up making things much easier for the DM to run things.
You are assuming too much right now, we need to see more.
I don’t really see things getting harder on my side from what I have seen so far. The New DMG could end up making things much easier for the DM to run things.
You are assuming too much right now, we need to see more.
mamba
Legend
not according to bookscan data. The PHB is slightly ahead, but DMG and MM combined outsell it by a lot, it does not even take any of the adventures (which combined outsell the three core books…)
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