D&D 5E 5e, Heal Thyself! Is Healing Too Weak in D&D?

[Helldritch]

@Lyxen
We have a few tweaks we use.
1) the one two punch rule. You need two consecutive save after a fail to fully get rid of a spell or an effect.
2) Any caster can reassert control or effect of a concentration spell/effect on its turn at the cost of a bonus action. It stimulate a battle of will.

Example:" A lich cast hold on a character.
Round 1, the character fail his save. The character is hold.
Round two, character turn. The character saves, ending the hold.
Round two, lich turn. It reassert its hold on the character with a bonus action. If the character saves, the hold is over. If the character fails the save, he is held again.

Legendary monsters get more legendary action with groups that are bigger, counting NPCs too! A group of 7 characters will see the lich bonnified with 3 more legendary actions for the higher than four group. It makes some monsters particularly dangerous. Even more than what is expected.

I do not (or rarely) use mono type monsters/foes encounter. The more varied the monsters, the more complex the encounters are and the longer they last.

I use blockers with high AC using dodge action to make them harder to hit while their backpack pester the players with ranged attacks. Of course it is not always feasible but whenever I can do it, my players know the fight will jot be an easy one.

I use push, shove and grab to make monsters break players line or prevent a character to attack. They have to get out of the hold or must get back into formation to prevent foes to access their back rank. Monsters will attack held character at advantage. Just getting rid of hold waste the character's turn if successful. No action action to attack. The higher the character, the more attacks the character lose.

 

[Lyxen]

We have a few tweaks we use.

Interesting list, it's good that you found something that works for you. Overall, since we don't want to increase the length of the fights, we would be using them, although I should say that I almost never use a single monster either, both for the sake of interest of the fight and balance.

 

[Lyxen]

• Grimlock Followers... yeah, I got nothin. They're basically filler for powerful underdark encounters.

And that's exactly my point, these are purely technical fillers. I have found Ghouls (Abyssal maybe, but still just ghouls) that are level 26 minions. 26 ! And with a power that technically is possibly fine to overcome but which means NOTHING, I mean, how do you explain taking damage because you are close to a ghoul with unending hunger, whatever your defenses as a level 26 hero ?

There are some level 23 CULTISTS, (Minions Brutes), I mean how do you get to level 23 as a cultist ? How do you get multiple of these ? I'm sure that, technically, they make for an interesting fight when coupled with a high level controller, but how does this make sense in terms of world and story ?

5e is not perfect, again, it's really debatable whether world-class heroes should still be vulnerable to goblins, but having grimlocks which are totally invulnerable and incredibly deadly even to local heroes is silly. It's really artificial scaling such as the one that you find in WoW with levels per area...

 

[Undrave]

And that's exactly my point, these are purely technical fillers. I have found Ghouls (Abyssal maybe, but still just ghouls) that are level 26 minions. 26 ! And with a power that technically is possibly fine to overcome but which means NOTHING, I mean, how do you explain taking damage because you are close to a ghoul with unending hunger, whatever your defenses as a level 26 hero ?

There are some level 23 CULTISTS, (Minions Brutes), I mean how do you get to level 23 as a cultist ? How do you get multiple of these ? I'm sure that, technically, they make for an interesting fight when coupled with a high level controller, but how does this make sense in terms of world and story ?

Minions are just a game construct. It's totally possible for the same Ogre to first show up as a Solo because of how powerful it is, then it runs away and show up as an Elite a couple level later, and then again as just one out of a couple of regular monsters, and finally you take him down in one hit when he shows up as a minion levels later.

A minion's single HP doesn't mean it only has 1 HP, it just means that its HP are too low to be worth tracking.

 

[Lyxen]

Minions are just a game construct.

That's exactly my point and my problem with them.

A minion's single HP doesn't mean it only has 1 HP, it just means that its HP are too low to be worth tracking.

And he is still level 26, with defenses and attacks that make him deadly and invulnerable to characters at level 10 to 15 ? This is the part where it does not make sense, at least to me.

 

[Lyxen]

I realise I forgot something about 5e design that I think strongly affects hit points and therefore healing. AC is meant to be low, because, for a player, it's frustrating to miss. Since the monsters have few defenses, the only way to make them vaguely tough is with hit points. And for the sake of consistency, the same applies to PCs, although PCs have in general a much higher AC.

Also note that making AC higher also makes the combat much swingier, since luck becomes a large part in being able to hit or not, rather than a constant stream of hit points.

 

[Helldritch]

I realise I forgot something about 5e design that I think strongly affects hit points and therefore healing. AC is meant to be low, because, for a player, it's frustrating to miss. Since the monsters have few defenses, the only way to make them vaguely tough is with hit points. And for the sake of consistency, the same applies to PCs, although PCs have in general a much higher AC.

Also note that making AC higher also makes the combat much swingier, since luck becomes a large part in being able to hit or not, rather than a constant stream of hit points.

Swingier yes but requires more tactical decisions making from the players. They will try to take advantage of terrain features, events and what not to get that little edge they need. They stop going after the "big one" to better fight methodically. Some bosses they fought were with bosses that boosted their underlings and these underlings can now be a nuisance that can not be ignored simply because hitting the boss is no longer a guaranteed thing. Yes, it makes the average fights a little longer. But with swinginess, comes uncertainty and with uncertainty comes tension and when the tension is rising, guess what? The fights do not look like a burden anymore. They become fun and success is all the sweeter. And giving these stronger "elites" a few points of AC do not make them that much stronger but just gives them a bit more staying power. My goal was not to kill or TPK, it was to give back that little stress, that little uncertainty that if you act not your best, you might fail. And so far it worked out quite well. The first time I used the Theros Mythical approach (combined with my BBEG mod) they almost screamed in despair but when they finally did it, they were (both groups) quite happy on how things had turned out. Both groups had a rough time but they saw it through and the success of their endeavour was all the sweeter to them.

Edit: Grammar and autocorrector...

 

[tetrasodium]

The system being designed so that the vast majority of PC attacks land actually makes it more difficult to correct problems & move away from giant bags of HP. For classes with like warlock/warlock dip & most martials with multiple attacks they have every attack made at the same tohit so they don't have any "well at least my first attack is probably a lock & maybe I'll get lucky with the rest" to ensure that low hp high AC monsters have an upper bound on staying power. Single attack classes like rogues & most casters/non-eldritch blast cantrip users by extension don't have a framework they can lean into for things like the old spell penetration & such & big AOE's don't really pull anyone out of the fire when the party's not at their best or gets unlucky thanks to giant inflated HP values & trivialized resource recovery.

The first time someone drives a car it might be exciting, it might even still be exciting for a great many times, but eventually driving a car is just mundane & routine. Yea success is "exciting" & failure is "frustrating" but there are limits to that just like driving a car. There's a big gap between the markers of success on god mode with an aimbot on the easy setting & a failure in nintendo hard battletoads/dark souls on the nightmare setting marker. If too many elements that support moving away from that first marker are removed it just adds extra hurdles for anyone who wants to make that move because the game itself is tuned for certain success.

 

[Lyxen]

Swingier yes but requires more tactical decisions making from the players.

That is very debatable, you know. The more luck you introduce, the lesser the impact of the tactical decisions is.

They will try to take advantage of terrain features, events and what not to get that little edge they need.

That is very different, it's a question of the difficulty of the encounter. I understand what you are saying, and having played that way at some points in my roleplaying history, I completely get it, but it's just one way to play, and a more story focussed game where combat is less stressful for the players is just as valid a way of gaming, just for different tastes.

 

[Helldritch]

That is very debatable, you know. The more luck you introduce, the lesser the impact of the tactical decisions is.

More or less. When the scales can tip one way or the other, you try to mitigate the "luck" aspect with sound tactical decisions. The "cinematic advantage" rule helps a lot in that.

That is very different, it's a question of the difficulty of the encounter. I understand what you are saying, and having played that way at some points in my roleplaying history, I completely get it, but it's just one way to play, and a more story focussed game where combat is less stressful for the players is just as valid a way of gaming, just for different tastes.

Yep, but... you can have both. A very story focused game where combat becomes as important as the story. Role playing and Roll playing can be combined to make a whole greater than its parts. I have no less role playing in my games than any narrative games out there that I have seen. The difference is that once combat is initiated, it is as if the movie was put under a lens and the action begins. Sometimes, we can have two to three sessions where not a single combat occur while at other times, a string of combats can last two session and we have the whole gamut in between the two extremes. Some combats are very fast others can be slow depending on the stakes. Role playing is never let down in favour of combat though...

What my style does have a weakness however. It is that an adventure "path" might take longer to complete than in a traditional play method. Strahd took us almost a year and a half to complete while I know some DM that went through it in barely 6 months and we have the same session's length which is about 4 to 5 hours of play each week. It is also a very gritty style where low level characters can and will die if played recklessly. As the players are getting the hang of the gritty rules, the "death count" has dropped by quite a margin.