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lowkey13
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Eh, wouldn't that be 90ft in 1e? Seem to recall 1"= 10ft.However, in researching this post I noticed they increased the speed of the 5e purple worm to 50ft (basically double that of 1e's 9").
Eh, wouldn't that be 90ft in 1e? Seem to recall 1"= 10ft.
I recently picked up 5e conversion PDFs for the classic Desert of Desolation modules. Most of the conversion makes sense to me, but one thing that seemed odd is that they did a straight 'use the 5e monster stats' for purple worm encounters. The first Module is for levels 5-7, and the 'typical' 5e party size is 3-5, and a purple worm is a CR15 monster, which makes it seem like this a TPK waiting to happen to me. In 5e I haven't played much at higher levels or Dmed yet, so I don't have a good feel for how these things work, so I might just be underestimating just how much higher level characters can dish out. I wouldn't have a problem with giving the players a really tough fight (especially since this would happen when they have no time pressure), but I wouldn't want to just wipe them out with a hopeless fight.
The old 1e purple worm wasn't nearly as dangerous (especially the 6-8 size party assumed in 1e) - it had a straight 15 d8 hit dice instead of the d20 with con bonus it gets now, so something like 75 hp vs 250, and a much lower damage output. Being swallowed did automatically kill you after six rounds, but the current damage output looks like it would kill most characters at that level in 2-3 rounds. It also had a 'save or die' tail poison in 1e (because 1e loved save or die), but wouldn't be able to use it against a party.
It's a random outdoor encounter in all 3 modules, nothing to do with the plot at all.
Here's the thing: not every encounter should be a fair fight.
I'll repeat. Not every "encounter" should be a perfectly balanced encounter designed so that the PCs have a 90% chance of victory.
It's good to have the occasional fight where the party has to spend ALL their resources just to survive, even if not win. Where the win condition is just escaping or distracting the opponent rather than beating it over the head. Where the party has to react and think creatively rather than just attacking. Or even turn to diplomacy.