D&D 5E 5th Edition has broken Bounded Accuracy

[Celtavian]

[MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION], I'm not saying you're wrong, I just can't find it. Where is this 40 foot legendary action movement listed? The Wing Attack action has to actually attack a target doesn't it? I can't use that action without actually attacking something. It's for attacking then moving further.

I think that's a pretty wonky reading of the stat block to claim that it's simply a bonus movement. This is not something I would rule as a DM.

It's the wing buffet ability. Dragon hits targets with wings and moves up to half speed with the same legendary action. Not sure how you would play it as DM, but we allow a dragon to use it to move without having to attack. The two effects are independent of each other.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

[MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION], I'm not saying you're wrong, I just can't find it. Where is this 40 foot legendary action movement listed? The Wing Attack action has to actually attack a target doesn't it? I can't use that action without actually attacking something. It's for attacking then moving further.

I think that's a pretty wonky reading of the stat block to claim that it's simply a bonus movement. This is not something I would rule as a DM.

Wing Attack (Costs 2 Actions). The dragon beats its wings. Each creature within 10 feet of the dragon must succeed on a DC 19 Dexterity saving throw or take 13 (2d6+6) bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. The dragon can then fly up to half its flying speed.

At the fiction level, I see no reason why a dragon couldn't powerfully beat its wings without anyone being next to it, so it should be able use Wing Attack despite the name. At the game rule level, having creatures within range is not stated as a prerequisite, and "each creature" can include zero creatures (and would, if you tricked the dragon with an illusion into thinking there was a creature present), so the dragon can Wing Attack on nobody. It's no different from casting a Fireball on nobody because you want to set things on fire.

It's cool if you would run it differently as a DM. Table variation is a thing in 5E, and you adjust your tactics to match the rules you're playing by. By the rules you suggest, the dragon could still strafe the javelin holders, but he'd have to do it differently: start at 140' overhead, hold an action on PC #4 to dive down to 60', then on the dragon's turn he breathes on everyone and then flies back up to 140'. If you additionally rule that the dragon can't fly straight up (I only let them fly at 45 degrees max) then I guess we have to do some trigonometry but the javelin guys may be able to hit him after all.

 

[vandaexpress]

When we play a new game system, we start with the core rules and assumptions. We run the recommended module mostly as is. We like to test the core rules and assumptions to see how the game works. So for this particular campaign, we were playing pretty close to core with no house rules and only the optional feat rules. That's why I made a point to say "Core" We make changes once we determine how the core rules work.

I imagine tactically we're not the median 5E player. But the rules we were using were the rule as written aka as designed. I think that is one of the things that makes these discussion odd from my perspective. I'm pointing out how certain mechanics work in real combat situations absent any house ruling and some are thinking our group isn't typical. I get it. There is no typical. But if you're playing the game as it is written, you're pretty much playing it as the designers intended.

I'm the same way. I think a major difference between you and I is simply experience with the game itself. I get the feel that you and your group are a bit further along in system mastery than me and mine, so I'm not quite as confident of the conclusions you draw, preferring to draw my own conclusions after testing things myself. And Celtavian, humbling though it may be to admit, I often do find myself agreeing with you over time (this was certainly the case with GWM and TWF on that other thread). You are a very smart guy and I consider you and emdw45 to have the highest level of system mastery of any poster here, I just sometimes chafe at the way you express your viewpoints and feel the need to stick up for the guy you're pummeling--it's definitely not anything personal against you or the way you play the game, which actually seems to be very similar to me and my group. So I want to apologize if it seems like I've gone after you personally on the boards here and clarify that I have a lot of respect for you and your posts... 99% of the time.

The reason I play the core rules, I think, is the same you do - I don't believe in throwing in house rules and tweaks until I'm very confident I understand how the game plays according to the vision of the designers. In particular, I want to understand how the game plays across all level tiers to prevent me from jumping to conclusions about something seeming really powerful at low levels but not being that big a deal at high levels or against more challenging foes (like Heavy Armor Mastery in the other thread).

The reason I playtested the Adult White Dragon fight six times before running it was because my gut reaction was that the party was going to get absolutely hosed, and, in fact, if not for the limited area height and if I hadn't researched high jumping and suggested it to the barbarian player, I'm fairly certain the fight would have ended in a TPK for my group 80-90% of the time.

We've only started tweaking. We have about four or five house rules at the moment. 5E for the most part is well balanced and fun. We definitely want to keep it simple as that is part of the game's attraction. There are some goofy things we need to sort out. I think a tweaked game will suit our preferences.

Same, I just haven't deployed any real tweaks yet, but I plan to.

Yep. So little high level support. Kills me since we like to play the game to high level. That's probably why we won't see any official changes to Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Mastery. Doesn't affect 1st through 6th level too much. Once again our group will be high level orphans. Though I don't imagine will be anywhere near as bad as 3E/Pathfinder.

Agreed again. As my party progresses through the upper levels, I'm finding myself throwing out much of Tyranny of Dragons included encounters because I can't see how many of them will reasonably challenge a tactically-minded high level group. I find myself having to spend an increasing amount of time building and "enhancing" monsters for high level play. Or maybe I don't need to, and the encounters are more challenging than they look on paper. I look forward to seeing more people's perspectives on high level 5e play. Their surveys have indicated that many people tend to play 1st - 12th levels, so it makes sense that's where so much of their focus has been. I understand it from a business perspective, but it does worry me as my group approaches the third tier. I hope it doesn't all start falling apart like in 3e.

You just threw a bullseye on the dart board. Probably why our DM changed the terrain and room size. He hates (we all do really) stuff like dragons in 20 by 20 caves or 10 orcs in a 10 x 10 room or a huge monster in a 15 by 15 dump with nowhere to move. Such encounters are a waste of our time. A monster stuck in an area where it can't take advantage of its most powerful abilities should be a lower CR.

I don't disagree on any particular point. I think WotC/Kobold Press wanted to have an 'epic' dragon showdown to cap their first module and realized that a Dragon with full mobility, even a lowly white, would kill most groups of that level if played intelligently in an open space, so they deliberately handicapped it by putting it in a cave. The fact that they chose to do so may be, more than anything, evidence to support your assertion that Ranged > Melee. In fact, the DMG expressly boosts the CR of creatures below CR 10 that have a ranged attack and flying for precisely this reason. I am just going to wait until my party clears through tier 3 before I firmly and finally declare full support for the "Range is superior" argument. To date, my personal opinion of the most OP feat is Sharpshooter, particularly when combined with Crossbow expert - I actually feel that SS is incredibly strong even at low levels because it eliminates one of my most useful tools for mitigating ranged firepower: using cover.

I have a hunter ranger in my party that is, far and away, the most deadly. Part of the reason I have such strong views about the "ease" of shutting down ranged characters is because I have to custom tailor most of my challenging encounters to do precisely this (limit the power of Ranged) in order to challenge the party as a whole (without killing them) due to the Ranger's power level being insane compared to everyone else's. At this point, I'm willing to admit that if you play the game out of the box against vanilla encounters like those presented in Tyranny of Dragons, Ranged attacks seem to be a very attractive option for the levels I've played at. Holding off on final judgment until I wrap up the campaign, however. And it's possible that my perspective will be skewed by the fact that I invested a lot of time into balancing the big boss encounters specifically to challenge ranged characters in order to give melee-ers a chance to shine.

I started doing this once I ran a boss battle with an elite succubus (I gave her a bunch more hit points) that the party sniper took down incredibly fast. It was a disappointing encounter and the only time I will admit to fudging dice rolls as a DM in order to make it more challenging. Ever since then, I've playtested big encounters over and over again... because if I don't, the party ranger seems to make them much easier than intended. We likely have the same perspectives on range, but some choose to address it through house rules, whereas I choose to address it, and most game balance issues, by modifying encounters. House ruling is likely the less labor-intensive solution, but as I mentioned before, I'd rather accumulate more gameplay experience with RAW before tweaking, in case there's something I'm missing or some sort of paradigm shift that occurs at higher level encounters to bring melee back to the playing field. Based on your experiences, however, this is likely not the case.

Another poster who completed Tyranny expressed similar frustrations to you, particularly during the final battle, where his caster was essentially relegated to casting fly on the party melee'ers during the final battle with Tiamat.

I'm just hoping to find something that others have missed, I guess, because for low levels, I absolutely loved everything about 5e and I'm sort of desperately holding out that the awesomeness continues uninhibited at higher levels, I really don't want to have to start implementing house rules. I may just end up giving boots of flying or whatever to the melee'ers, I don't know.

As for small dragon lairs... I agree that the CR should be lower for these encounters, one could argue that the DMG encounter building guidelines technically account for this with the circumstantial difficulty modifiers but they're vague, and at first glance, a newer player may not recognize that the dragon in a lair with a 30' ceiling is at a significant disadvantage and overestimate the party's power level and deadliness, it would be nice to have more specific statements indicating that flyers without full use of mobility take a hit to their CR, similar to how some creatures, when faced in their lairs, get an increase to their CR.

 

[Celtavian]

[MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION], I'm not saying you're wrong, I just can't find it. Where is this 40 foot legendary action movement listed? The Wing Attack action has to actually attack a target doesn't it? I can't use that action without actually attacking something. It's for attacking then moving further.

I think that's a pretty wonky reading of the stat block to claim that it's simply a bonus movement. This is not something I would rule as a DM.

Why does he have to attack a target? Does the ability require it? Can you think of any reason why a simulationist wouldn't allow a dragon to flap his wings hard and move? It doesn't appear that by RAW it wouldn't let him move. I can't think of a fictional reason why he couldn't do it. Maybe RAI by the designers might say no.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Agreed again. As my party progresses through the upper levels, I'm finding myself throwing out much of Tyranny of Dragons included encounters because I can't see how many of them will reasonably challenge a tactically-minded high level group. I find myself having to spend an increasing amount of time building and "enhancing" monsters for high level play. Or maybe I don't need to, and the encounters are more challenging than they look on paper. I look forward to seeing more people's perspectives on high level 5e play. Their surveys have indicated that many people tend to play 1st - 12th levels, so it makes sense that's where so much of their focus has been. I understand it from a business perspective, but it does worry me as my group approaches the third tier. I hope it doesn't all start falling apart like in 3e.

Are you willing to take feedback from people who have high-level fights using low-level PCs? I've run several fights that would be Deadly for 20th level characters, using PCs at 8th to 11th level. Learned some things in the process about how to run monsters more intelligently and effectively. Am willing to share. High-level PCs will have additional countermeasures available to them that I haven't thought of yet, would probably steamroll Deadly encounters if played with intelligent preparation--but it's still useful to know monsters would defend themselves against typical threats, isn't it?

 

[Celtavian]

I'm the same way. I think a major difference between you and I is simply experience with the game itself. I get the feel that you and your group are a bit further along in system mastery than me and mine, so I'm not quite as confident of the conclusions you draw, preferring to draw my own conclusions after testing things myself. And Celtavian, humbling though it may be to admit, I often do find myself agreeing with you over time (this was certainly the case with GWM and TWF on that other thread). You are a very smart guy and I consider you and emdw45 to have the highest level of system mastery of any poster here, I just sometimes chafe at the way you express your viewpoints and feel the need to stick up for the guy you're pummeling--it's definitely not anything personal against you or the way you play the game, which actually seems to be very similar to me and my group. So I want to apologize if it seems like I've gone after you personally on the boards here and clarify that I have a lot of respect for you and your posts... 99% of the time.

The reason I play the core rules, I think, is the same you do - I don't believe in throwing in house rules and tweaks until I'm very confident I understand how the game plays according to the vision of the designers. In particular, I want to understand how the game plays across all level tiers to prevent me from jumping to conclusions about something seeming really powerful at low levels but not being that big a deal at high levels or against more challenging foes (like Heavy Armor Mastery in the other thread).

The reason I playtested the Adult White Dragon fight six times before running it was because my gut reaction was that the party was going to get absolutely hosed, and, in fact, if not for the limited area height and if I hadn't researched high jumping and suggested it to the barbarian player, I'm fairly certain the fight would have ended in a TPK for my group 80-90% of the time.

Pretty much in agreement here.

Agreed again. As my party progresses through the upper levels, I'm finding myself throwing out much of Tyranny of Dragons included encounters because I can't see how many of them will reasonably challenge a tactically-minded high level group. I find myself having to spend an increasing amount of time building and "enhancing" monsters for high level play. Or maybe I don't need to, and the encounters are more challenging than they look on paper. I look forward to seeing more people's perspectives on high level 5e play. Their surveys have indicated that many people tend to play 1st - 12th levels, so it makes sense that's where so much of their focus has been. I understand it from a business perspective, but it does worry me as my group approaches the third tier. I hope it doesn't all start falling apart like in 3e.

It seems better than 5E. At the very least, it is far easier to prepare for and run. You remember how hard Pathfinder was to prepare for followed by the 10 hour fight over a few sessions for a huge battle.

I'll provide more play reports once we get another campaign up. I'm going to run Against the Giants for 5E as a high level campaign. I feel like giants can be nasty enemies due to the damage and hit points when in large groups. I'll post how that goes at some point.

I don't disagree on any particular point. I think WotC/Kobold Press wanted to have an 'epic' dragon showdown to cap their first module and realized that a Dragon with full mobility, even a lowly white, would kill most groups of that level if played intelligently in an open space, so they deliberately handicapped it by putting it in a cave. The fact that they chose to do so may be, more than anything, evidence to support your assertion that Ranged > Melee. In fact, the DMG expressly boosts the CR of creatures below CR 10 that have a ranged attack and flying for precisely this reason. I am just going to wait until my party clears through tier 3 before I firmly and finally declare full support for the "Range is superior" argument. To date, my personal opinion of the most OP feat is Sharpshooter, particularly when combined with Crossbow expert - I actually feel that SS is incredibly strong even at low levels because it eliminates one of my most useful tools for mitigating ranged firepower: using cover.

I have a hunter ranger in my party that is, far and away, the most deadly. Part of the reason I have such strong views about the "ease" of shutting down ranged characters is because I have to custom tailor most of my challenging encounters to do precisely this (limit the power of Ranged) in order to challenge the party as a whole (without killing them) due to the Ranger's power level being insane compared to everyone else's. At this point, I'm willing to admit that if you play the game out of the box against vanilla encounters like those presented in Tyranny of Dragons, Ranged attacks seem to be a very attractive option for the levels I've played at. Holding off on final judgment until I wrap up the campaign, however. And it's possible that my perspective will be skewed by the fact that I invested a lot of time into balancing the big boss encounters specifically to challenge ranged characters in order to give melee-ers a chance to shine.

I started doing this once I ran a boss battle with an elite succubus (I gave her a bunch more hit points) that the party sniper took down incredibly fast. It was a disappointing encounter and the only time I will admit to fudging dice rolls as a DM in order to make it more challenging. Ever since then, I've playtested big encounters over and over again... because if I don't, the party ranger seems to make them much easier than intended. We likely have the same perspectives on range, but some choose to address it through house rules, whereas I choose to address it, and most game balance issues, by modifying encounters. House ruling is likely the less labor-intensive solution, but as I mentioned before, I'd rather accumulate more gameplay experience with RAW before tweaking, in case there's something I'm missing or some sort of paradigm shift that occurs at higher level encounters to bring melee back to the playing field. Based on your experiences, however, this is likely not the case.

Sharpshooter is the worst. Eliminating cover, a major terrain feature used by DM. Eliminating the penalty for long range. And a damage bonus on top is a ridiculously powerful feat. It is much worse when Crossbow Expert takes away the penalty for firing in melee range. You have two feats that eliminate every negative of ranged attacking. Ridiculous and annoying as a DM.

This kind of stuff pisses me off at the game designers. I refuse to change it myself. I'll just let a feat or combination of feats continue until the game designers go, "wait a minute. way too much." I feel like I pay the company for quality design including making official changes that improve the game like reining in problem feats. Why do I get pissed off? Because I DM more often than the everyone but one other guy. We get tired of having to argue with the players over these feat combinations then try to come up with a solution that pleases everyone for an imbalanced feat. I feel like the game designers didn't do their job and caused a problem at our table. It's so easy to see how amazingly overedpowered the feat combination is that how did they miss it? Eliminating the negatives of ranged attacking and adding damage at the same time should have been an obvious, "Way too much guys. Pull this back some."

GWM isn't too bad. It's easy to use. But damn, melee guys need something. Their life is painful.

Another poster who completed Tyranny expressed similar frustrations to you, particularly during the final battle, where his caster was essentially relegated to casting fly on the party melee'ers during the final battle with Tiamat.

I'm just hoping to find something that others have missed, I guess, because for low levels, I absolutely loved everything about 5e and I'm sort of desperately holding out that the awesomeness continues uninhibited at higher levels, I really don't want to have to start implementing house rules. I may just end up giving boots of flying or whatever to the melee'ers, I don't know.

As for small dragon lairs... I agree that the CR should be lower for these encounters, one could argue that the DMG encounter building guidelines technically account for this with the circumstantial difficulty modifiers but they're vague, and at first glance, a newer player may not recognize that the dragon in a lair with a 30' ceiling is at a significant disadvantage and overestimate the party's power level and deadliness, it would be nice to have more specific statements indicating that flyers without full use of mobility take a hit to their CR, similar to how some creatures, when faced in their lairs, get an increase to their CR.

Yep. WotC and most module designers are notorious for inappropriately sized encounter areas.

I'm the first to admit I come off somewhat overbearing. It's because I believe so firmly in my position. I generally don't strong positions based on feeling. I know when something is an opinion like I prefer fried chicken to steak. You can't win a debate like that on the basis of personal taste. There's no point in pursuing other than for fun. But some positions you can prove with empirical data as well as mathematical analysis. I didn't take my position just reading the rules. I waited until I saw them in play. We thought concentration would have a negative effect. We started talking about it very early on while we were playing. But we wanted to stick to RAW and we still found ways to win using RAW.

It wasn't fun playing a caster with the current concentration limitation. So we've adjusted it. I posted our new rule in the house rule section if you want to take a look. I imagine you have some good ideas of your own to improve your group's fun.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yep. WotC and most module designers are notorious for inappropriately sized encounter areas.

It's not just WotC, it's the whole D&D subculture. It's got a skewed sense of size. 20' dragons aren't big, that's smaller across than some driveways. Some people think 5' corridors are narrow--they're not, those are practically hospital corridors. I've been thinking about introducing more 3' corridors in my game (disadvantage to fight in per PHB rules, although I'd let spear and maybe shortsword wielders ignore the attack penalty) because that's how big the hallways we use in real life are. "Having encounters" at 60' outdoors? Nonsense. There are crosswalks larger than 60'. In real life you typically see cars and other large objects coming at distances easily greater than 600', and if you're paying attention you can easily see them at half a mile. There should never be an outdoor encounter not involving stealth or total cover which starts at 60'.

If I have a pet peeve in 5E, it's the puny ranges on monster abilities and spells. In AD&D2 the Tarrasque could paralyze with fear anything that could see it; in 5E it only paralyzes creatures within 120'. Bleh. Whoever wrote that had no conception of how big 120' is.

 

[yakuba]

We would have allowed arrows to break the ice in the module because we were running RAW at the time.

Isn't there a rule stating the DM can decide if a weapon can damage a particular substance ? I believe in the DMG it states the DM can decide if a weapon can do damage against a particular structure or substane. We'll probably use that type of ruling. Though AC 5 might be considered like glass. We might allow arrows to shoot through glass. It depends on circumstances. But a full on ice wall, probably not.

Just going to point out that although both ice and glass have some variation in hardness with temperature and composition, glass (~5.5 on Moh's scale) is typically much harder than ice (~1.5 on Moh's scale)

Carry on ....

 

[vandaexpress]

Are you willing to take feedback from people who have high-level fights using low-level PCs? I've run several fights that would be Deadly for 20th level characters, using PCs at 8th to 11th level. Learned some things in the process about how to run monsters more intelligently and effectively. Am willing to share. High-level PCs will have additional countermeasures available to them that I haven't thought of yet, would probably steamroll Deadly encounters if played with intelligent preparation--but it's still useful to know monsters would defend themselves against typical threats, isn't it?

Absolutely, yes. I spend a lot of time doing the same sort of exercises, but I haven't run too many different creatures (considering the total available selection in the MM).

 

[vandaexpress]

Why does he have to attack a target? Does the ability require it? Can you think of any reason why a simulationist wouldn't allow a dragon to flap his wings hard and move? It doesn't appear that by RAW it wouldn't let him move. I can't think of a fictional reason why he couldn't do it. Maybe RAI by the designers might say no.

I'm with Celtavian on this one. The legendary action appears to contain two separate effects, neither of which require targets, the first one is an AOE that hits no one if there's no one nearby. The fact that some other creatures (I'm looking at you, Vampire) have legendary actions that provide movement seems to indicate that burning a legendary to move isn't uncommon. I have no issue with it thematically or mechanically. Dragons should be fast, mobile, and hard to kill.

It's not just WotC, it's the whole D&D subculture. It's got a skewed sense of size. 20' dragons aren't big, that's smaller across than some driveways. Some people think 5' corridors are narrow--they're not, those are practically hospital corridors. I've been thinking about introducing more 3' corridors in my game (disadvantage to fight in per PHB rules, although I'd let spear and maybe shortsword wielders ignore the attack penalty) because that's how big the hallways we use in real life are. "Having encounters" at 60' outdoors? Nonsense. There are crosswalks larger than 60'. In real life you typically see cars and other large objects coming at distances easily greater than 600', and if you're paying attention you can easily see them at half a mile. There should never be an outdoor encounter not involving stealth or total cover which starts at 60'.

If I have a pet peeve in 5E, it's the puny ranges on monster abilities and spells. In AD&D2 the Tarrasque could paralyze with fear anything that could see it; in 5E it only paralyzes creatures within 120'. Bleh. Whoever wrote that had no conception of how big 120' is.

Agreed on this in theory. In practice, I have to be careful due to space limitations with the grid. I use a digital battlemat/projector and it's annoying to the players when I have to scroll the map, thereby losing the position of their minis, especially when there are enemies participating in combat that are out of sight. Still trying to figure out an elegant way to handle this beyond getting ever bigger tables and projectors with ever bigger throws.