That seems quick to me, for a serious/engaging/challenging 'set piece' encounter, anyway.
It's possible--my 4e games have never gotten to particularly high level, only like 6th I think, so perhaps I just haven't had a chance to see what the system can really do if "pushed" (in a good way, that is).
One or two levels will make a difference. Really you should already be seeing the difference, especially with the Druid (getting 'knocked out of wildshape,' btw, is nbd).
I hope it will. Going from 1->2 felt like almost no difference at all. Sure, we no longer had to fear being knocked to 0 by a single zombie's attack, but essentially at-level threats (a CR 2 Bandit Captain plus his four like CR 1/4 cronies) wiped the floor with us, and even just plain old giant spiders (whom we outnumbered) proved an unpleasant challenge. As for the Druid, it's just...well, when I see that fat buffer of (pseudo-temporary?) HP evaporate in just one or two hits, I get scared.
If you've just hit 3rd, you've only just started to actually play 5e. It's not really until you're well quit of apprentice tier that you can say you've given it even a small chance, let alone a fair one. If at all possible, I'd suggest starting future campaigns at higher than 1st level if you really want to give it a fair chance. And, definitely try several full-caster classes, at least one of which isn't a heal bot.
That...okay. I'm gonna be frank here. I think that's a huge load of BS. I have to play through 6+ levels just to "give it a fair chance"? The game experience is
intentionally sub-par unless you specifically choose to start above first level? This is exactly the kind of stuff I complained would happen in the playtest, and people ignored me or denied that it was a thing. Frustrating as hell. I've played a good 20+ hours of 5e now, and I "haven't given it even a small chance" yet? Ridiculous!
Wot no DM screen?
Wouldn't run 5e without one.
But, but... the book was begging for it!
Apparently it
is possible to roll in secret, our DM just doesn't do so. As for "but the book begs for screw the book, I make the rules stuff," that's just frankly not how this guy plays. I have made quite clear to the group that this is how 5e is expected to work--multiple times saying, "well this is what the book says, but the real answer is 'whatever the DM says' "--but I have yet to really see it in action from this DM. I don't know if it's inexperience overall, inexperience with 5e particularly, personal preference, or what, but that's what I'm dealing with.
It's always possible they'll add more meaningful class choices to the 'advanced' game.
I guess if I'm legit trying to give 5e its fair shot, I should
try to be open-minded about this sort of thing. But my gut tells me "ain't never gonna happen, don't even think of dreaming about it."
There's no way you should feel forced into being a heal-bot in a Cleric where literally everyone can heal. How the heck do you manage to snatch character deaths from the jaws of victory with a group like that. You've got Druid Wildshape hp buffer, lay on hands, and Cure Wounds/Healing Word on multiple class lists. WTF? I guess you're just lacking in DPR, so fights drag on?
That could be it. I don't really know. See my below info about the combat that almost TPK'd us. But yeah, I really genuinely do feel like if I'm not conserving
at least 50% of my spells for healing, somebody's going to
die die, not merely roll a death save or two.
You're also supposed to speed through the first few levels very quickly, the exp chart is skewed that way. If you go longish, full-'day' sessions, you could even do a level per session, in theory.
Our sessions tend to be on the short side--only around 3 hours, occasionally 4 if the DM feels up to it--such that a "full day" tends to run longer than a single session, but never more than two. We've played something like 6 or 7 sessions thus far, and right at the end of the last session hit 3rd level.
Then he's "doin' it wrong." ;P Yes, I'm aware of the irony. But, really, the only reason to run 5e "by the book" is because you like the results. ... Yeah, you're definitely not getting a fair chance to see what 5e can do.
Not sure what else to do or say, then--how can I actually get a "fair chance to see 5e"? Do I have to start interviewing my DMs before I join a game? If nothing else,
that seems like a pretty serious flaw...
It ratchets down. By 5th it really, really should be gone, but you should be noticing it tapering off at 3rd.
Alright. Like I said, I'm not giving up on the game until it ends, whether gracefully or crash'n'burn. Here's hoping you're right.
Wow. All I can say is that your DM does things very differently from me--and when I say "from me," I should say "from the published adventures I'm running," because that's where I'm getting most of my encounters (although I tweak them sometimes). Hardly any of our fights go five rounds or more. I'm curious what it is about your table that makes the fights run so long. It sounds like the DM is throwing a lot of high-HP monsters at you--probably ones with high damage too, since your PCs keep going down on the first round. And maybe your group's AC is lower than mine on average? (I do feel like my group managed to get high AC really fast, and for a while it felt like nothing could hit them...but I'm hoping Bounded Accuracy will help deal with that as we face monsters with higher chances to hit.)
Typically, we have either one big nasty, two big nasties, or one big nasty and a gaggle (2-5) of flimsy cronies. The Cleric has the highest AC, with Chain+Shield. The Paladin, regrettably, chose to partially forgo a shield (the DM, in one of his rare "rulings," added a "Buckler"/"light shield" that gives only +1 AC and counts as a "free hand" for manipulating objects, but not for carrying a weapon; said Paladin is going for a light-armor, high-Dex type, but is stuck on the idea of using the buckler rather than a full shield unfortunately). I think after that, it's my Bard at 15 AC (Studded Leather, +2 from Dex, +1 from Buckler) and the Ranger's either the same or slightly below. The Druid typically uses Wolf form, but I don't remember how much AC that has. Unfortunately, the DM lands the majority of his attacks--and crits easily twice as often as our entire team combined. He's commented, more than once, on the difference between his luck and ours, but it's not like we can blame the dice--we're all using the same Roll20 algorithm, and as stated, all rolls are made openly (Roll20 even gives a breakdown of die rolls when multiple dice are rolled). We also tend to roll below-average or even minimum damage, which merely compounds the "not enough damage output" problem.
--
Just for reference: the combat that killed my character (he got better, with some DM kindness) was a
Bandit Captain (CR 2) and his four mookish buddies (Bandits, CR 1/8, from what I can tell--you can find their stats on page 6 of the HotDQ supplement). We were a little worse for wear at that point--just finished a combat with spiders, and were starting a short rest in a place we thought was deserted, so I'm sure that didn't help the situation at all. So springing a multiplier-adjusted 900 XP fight on us (halfway between Hard and Deadly for five 2nd-level PCs) may have been a bit unwise...but, as I've said, our DM has frequently talked of how difficult his other 5e group is to challenge, and how surprised he is that our group is so much more fragile. I went down at the end of the first round, having managed to cast one spell (Sleep, which took out two of the mooks), then the Cleric and Paladin both went down in round 2, and the Ranger in round 3. By then end of round...6 I think, my character was dead (3 failed saves), the Druid was out of wild shapes and trying to retreat, and the Ranger was one save from dying as well. The only reason we survived at all is because the Ranger got a death save crit the next round, and thus stood back up and felled the Bandit Captain (which caused the still-conscious goons to scatter).
The biggest issue, really, was the sheer number of attacks the Bandit Captain could pump out, coupled with having enough health that we couldn't take him down quickly. Three attacks a round, at +5 to hit and dealing a minimum of 4 damage a pop, means nearly-guaranteed damage. Even a slightly-above-average damage roll, if all three attacks hit (and I don't think he missed once) was enough to incapacitate any single member of our party*, and a below-average roll would just be followed up by a crossbow shot from one of the mooks in the back.
*E.g. (4+3)*2+3+3 = 20 damage. Our highest-HP person is the Ranger, due to a +3 Con mod and d10 HP. At full health, he would've been left with only 2 HP. He blew through his half-orc endurance before he'd even gotten to act in the second round. As I recall, I
was at full health, and the Bandit Captain didn't even need to use all of his attacks on me to take me down. I don't remember if it was because of a crit, or because one of the mooks landed a crossbow shot first, but I definitely remember that he was able to move to another player, the Cleric IIRC, and hit him as well before the end of the first round.
