D&D 5E Are Aura's burdensome?

[discosoc]

I just wrapped up a campaign with a paladin in it. I honestly felt like the character's presence (mechanically) made the whole thing worse. The auras and generally high AC made the character and party quite strong, defensively. It wasn't just the paladin, but his was the character most responsible for the headache. I lost count of how many times combat basically devolved into him using the dodge action over and over while the other characters sniped from afar. Or he'd slug away during a boss fight never smiting, because he was fishing for crits. A 4 round fight would turn into an 8 round slogfest where the players never really had a realistic chance to die or anything.

And although the paladin was sort of the poster boy of that crap, most classes had access to some really stupid cheese that would trivialize fights left and right. The druid summoning 8 elk and doing 3d6+3 damage PER ELK in a turn by level 5. Or the halfling who took the luck feat and basically never failed anything meaningful over the course of 18 levels. Or the grappling crap where once the grappled target is shoved prone, the have no recourse (which is made worse by the fact that grappling is largely an uncontested combat action since so few monsters or NPC's have a proper athletics or acrobatics score, not to mention the grappling DC's for monsters that have it built into an attack are laughably too low to pose much risk).

All in all, I was really excited about 5e and loved it for the first few months. Everything is really kind of fun up until about level 5 or 6, at which point it just seems like the entire game is one big power trip. I can totally understand a GM saying no paladins for that reason, even if it wouldn't begin to address the real problems with the game (which have nothing to do with paladins specifically).

 

[Flamestrike]

It is indeed a problem when players are not completely dumb, as it wrecks bounded accuracy.

Huh? It wrecks bounded accuracy as much as expertise does.

In my group there is a paladin, a rogue, a ranger and a barbarian. As you've probably noticed, they're almost all melee (some can fight at range but they prefer melee). Most of them have a way to negate all damage (or close) on Dexterity saves (Shield master, Evasion or Resistance). Against mental saves, it's almost always better for them to stay close to the paladin.

Mental stats that theyve likely dumped. So theyre getting what... +3-4 to Wisdom saves?

Auras are one of those things that make building challenging encounters a nightmare (along with GWM, SS, Polearm master, etc...). In our next game, I'll probably just remove them by making them "paladin only" or give the paladin's allies a reduced bonus (+1 to all saves for Aura of Protection, Advantage vs Fear / Charm for Aura of Courage and Devotion, etc...).

Use mooks. Mix your encouters up. Use lots of encounters per day, rather than one big one.

They also make magic items redundant. You just can't give a Cloak or Ring of Resistance to your players if there's a paladin in the group, because it makes things even worse. :/

Not true.

I don't want to spend hours modifying monsters to make them challenging, I have more interesting things to do, thank you.

Throw six [medium-hard] encounters per day at them. Problem solved.

 

[discosoc]

Throw six [medium-hard] encounters per day at them. Problem solved.

This is actually something I tried. It made no difference. Actually, I take that back. It did make it so the paladin had to start using lay on hands once in a while. Maybe every 3 or 4 days. Until he realized he may as well just start using HD on a short rest first and then lay on hands went back to the bin.

I had to crank encounter difficulty up to deadly (just past, not way over or anything) before the following things started happening:

1. monster to hit bonus was high enough to actually hit the paladin at a rate better than 19+.
2. monster spell save DC was high enough to actually be a challenge enough that other players had to actually think about the pros and cons of standing near the paladin for the bonus.
3. monsters could reliable (via spells or attacks or whatever) cause enough damage or disruption to the players that the players had to start using their support spells (heals, restoration, buffs, etc) to succeed.

Unfortunately, doing this meant that the monsters had the very real possibility to one-shot a character via a crit, or some other omega ability that was only a problem because the monster was meant for higher level characters. It also meant that combat went on much longer than it needed to because these monsters would have so much HP we'd go 4 or 5 rounds of everyone hitting and doing damage but the monster is still up and probably not doing much of anything unless it crits.

 

[Flamestrike]

The numbers also seem a holdover from 3rd editions bloated math insanity. Adding 5 to saves is just insane when monster DC's rarely crack 14. We wouldnt have a class that adds that much to armor, or attack values. Saves/Spell DC's are similarly bounded, and this just greatly skews them)

False equivalence. All classes have 4 saves that dont scale at all unlike in 3E.

I'm DM'ing for a paladin (order of the ancients, so yay, he grants damage resistance in addition to the other OP'ness) who rolled an 18 strength and charisma (on 4d6 IN ORDER no less). I quickly put the kibosh on that, limiting the bonus to +2.

You let your players roll stats, then when they roll high, you nerf the abilities that run off those stats?

Thats... not cool. Good thing youre not running a campaign with caster adversaries.

Given I'm running a caster heavy campaign for adversaries

Oh.

the alternative was giving all the bad guys the "Probably going to be killed by the PC's" feat that grants a +3 to spell DC's, but at the cost of probably being killed by the PC's.

No, the alternative is to use more encounters in between long rests.

Never increase encounter difficulty against the players. Increse encounter frequency instead.

I just wrapped up a campaign with a paladin in it. I honestly felt like the character's presence (mechanically) made the whole thing worse. The auras and generally high AC made the character and party quite strong, defensively. It wasn't just the paladin, but his was the character most responsible for the headache. I lost count of how many times combat basically devolved into him using the dodge action over and over while the other characters sniped from afar.

Why didnt you design encoutners that discouraged this tactic?

And what do the PCs really get out of such a tactic? Better saves?

Or he'd slug away during a boss fight never smiting, because he was fishing for crits. A 4 round fight would turn into an 8 round slogfest where the players never really had a realistic chance to die or anything.

Youre the one designing the encounters. I cant helop but feel its your fault, not the players.

And although the paladin was sort of the poster boy of that crap, most classes had access to some really stupid cheese that would trivialize fights left and right. The druid summoning 8 elk and doing 3d6+3 damage PER ELK in a turn by level 5.

How many summons does he get per AD at 5th level anyways? 2? And it uses his concentration slot. Not a problem if you stick to teh games 6-8 encounter/ 2 short rest adventuring day default.

Or the halfling who took the luck feat and basically never failed anything meaningful over the course of 18 levels.

How many times can you use lucky per day? Spread over 6-8 encounters, not many.

Or the grappling crap where once the grappled target is shoved prone, the have no recourse (which is made worse by the fact that grappling is largely an uncontested combat action since so few monsters or NPC's have a proper athletics or acrobatics score, not to mention the grappling DC's for monsters that have it built into an attack are laughably too low to pose much risk).

Grappling means one creature cant move. Thats about it. 5E encourages mook heavy mixed encounters featuring multiple monsters. If your party tank is wasting his time holding down the Hobgoblin captain and not beating it senseless, the Hobgoblins should be wailing on him.

It can be a problem on solo's and legendaries though (although many of them are immune to being grappled on account of size).

All in all, I was really excited about 5e and loved it for the first few months. Everything is really kind of fun up until about level 5 or 6, at which point it just seems like the entire game is one big power trip. I can totally understand a GM saying no paladins for that reason, even if it wouldn't begin to address the real problems with the game (which have nothing to do with paladins specifically).

The game is supposed to have an exponential power leap at 5th level.

If youre using the xp budgets in the DMG to design your encounters, this is taken in consideration.

 

[Flamestrike]

This is actually something I tried. It made no difference. Actually, I take that back. It did make it so the paladin had to start using lay on hands once in a while. Maybe every 3 or 4 days. Until he realized he may as well just start using HD on a short rest first and then lay on hands went back to the bin.

I had to crank encounter difficulty up to deadly (just past, not way over or anything) before the following things started happening:

1. monster to hit bonus was high enough to actually hit the paladin at a rate better than 19+.
2. monster spell save DC was high enough to actually be a challenge enough that other players had to actually think about the pros and cons of standing near the paladin for the bonus.
3. monsters could reliable (via spells or attacks or whatever) cause enough damage or disruption to the players that the players had to start using their support spells (heals, restoration, buffs, etc) to succeed.

• What level are the party?
• Whats the Paladins AC and how did it get so high? Plate, shield and defence style is AC 21. All the monsters in the MM have attack bonuses of much more than +2.

I can show you a few medium-deadly encounters that I would use against them that wouldnt suffer from your problem?

Unfortunately, doing this meant that the monsters had the very real possibility to one-shot a character via a crit, or some other omega ability that was only a problem because the monster was meant for higher level characters.

Thats why you avoid increasing the difficulty of encounters, and instead increase the frequency.

 

[discosoc]

Why didnt you design encoutners that discouraged this tactic?

Because it got exhausting. I was basically having to custom-tailor every encounter to work against the strengths of the group. That's ok once in a while, but it's also really annoying to make happen 6 to 8 times per day and not just start rehashing the same few types of anti-group encounter. Can't have them fight in close spaces because the paladin can block things off, but I can't have them fight in spaces too big because the druid will just drop 8 elks. But then I also want to make sure the ranger can actually enjoy ranged combat -- the reason that player rolled one -- so I need to somehow make sure he's not feeling boxed in or like he's constantly firing while in melee. And if the group does get overwhelmed (say because I decided to try and counter the elk strike with lots of mooks or something), then the wizard just starts with the AoE *on top of the group that's surrounded* because by now everyone knows they will most likely make their saves.

Encounters should be fun, but 5e really makes it hard to write good fun encounters that are also somewhat balanced. Not to mention the group has to really love dungeon crawling, because that's about the only way to squeeze in 6 to 8 encounters per day. It's non-stop combat (with wonderful hand-crafted encounters to make sure that certain classes don't swing the balance out of whack).

 

[discosoc]

What level are the party?

We recently wrapped the campaign up at 17, but 16 was the last level the actually played. It wasn't a problem with any particular level range though. Pretty much everything post-5 was messed up in one way or another.

He rolled into a set of Dwarven Plate at around level 6, if I remember right. All told, his AC was 23, and could go up to 25 with a spell if needed. What I was running into was that up until about level 10 or 11, the monsters they were fighting according to encounter budgets were sitting on +4 to +5 hit. Once in a while there would be something with a +6 or +7, which was a lot better.

Thats why you avoid increasing the difficulty of encounters, and instead increase the frequency.

Increasing frequency meant I had to start finding reasons for the group to constantly fight things. Like I mentioned above, that's easy in a dungeon crawl type game or adventure, but the moment you start doing stuff like overland travel or simply don't think it's likely that the group will find themselves constantly slogging through fights every time they need to run to the store, it gets a little repetitious.

Anyway, I'm not saying these are unsolvable problems. I'm just saying certain classes (or specializations) make the whole process of encounter building much harder than they should be; often with the end result feeling like everything is custom built to counter the group.

 

[Flamestrike]

Can't have them fight in close spaces because the paladin can block things off

Mooks just walk past him. He might drop one on the way past with an AoO. He only gets one.

but I can't have them fight in spaces too big because the druid will just drop 8 elks

He can do this twice per day at 5th level, and it would be a nightmare for the party to deal with.

Youre allowing 8 Elks? Youre aware that the DM determines what the spell summons? They're Fey creatures that are friendly to you. Not sure that they stay friendly if ordered on a suicidal Banzai charge.

Elks have an AC of 10 and 13 hit points. They attack at +5, dealing either 1d6+3 or 2d4+3 bludgeoning damage. An Elk needs at least 20 feet straight line charge toward a target for its ram attack which deals an extra 2d6 damage and may knock the creature prone.

I'm struggling to see how summoning a horde of them at CR5 encounter stage 2/ long rest is a game breaker?

5 x 5th level PCs have a hard XP budget of 3750. Thats a single CR 8, 3 X CR 3s, or 4 x CR 2's.

But then I also want to make sure the ranger can actually enjoy ranged combat -- the reason that player rolled one -- so I need to somehow make sure he's not feeling boxed in or like he's constantly firing while in melee.

Thats for the player to sort out.

Encounters should be fun, but 5e really makes it hard to write good fun encounters that are also somewhat balanced. Not to mention the group has to really love dungeon crawling, because that's about the only way to squeeze in 6 to 8 encounters per day.

Im having no such problems in my campaign. Just hit 7th and its working like a charm.

 

[bgbarcus]

In my campaign the game seems more deadly as we move to higher levels. We have paladins, rangers, sharpshooters, great weapon masters, and the rest of the "overpowered" and "underpowered" combos. I rarely have more than four combats per game day and usually one or two short rests per day. Challenging these characters has not been any problem.

Multiple monsters per encounter ties up lots of party resources. Letting intelligent monsters use smart tactics makes them very dangerous. Combine that with the high damage output of CR8+ monsters and characters can't withstand very many hits or failed saving throws so it is good that the PC's have lots of defensive powers to minimize those hits.

I don't know what is making the difference but there seems to be something missing in the games where paladins come across as breaking the game.

A few weeks back we played the final white dragon encounter in HotDQ. Six fully rested characters, all seventh level, barely survived against that one dragon. The lair itself made the dragon a major opponent and I didn't even use any lair actions. The paladin did finally turn the battle by using Misty Step to get into melee range but that was after he had been knocked unconscious by the initial breath weapon and then healed by the life cleric. The only reason the party survived long enough for that was strategic placements of multiple Wall of Fire spells that limited the dragon's mobility.

I saw no reason to think a similar encounter would less deadly a couple of levels higher, even with the paladin.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

False equivalence. All classes have 4 saves that dont scale at all unlike in 3E.

Hardly, it trivializes caster opponents in the same way a +4 AC aura would other fights. 5E combat is such a joke anyways you may as well just hand out participation trophies after they roll initiative. The paladin auras trivialize it even moreso, on an already overpowered class, which has good burst offense, great defense, AND a rock solid role in the social pillar.

You let your players roll stats, then when they roll high, you nerf the abilities that run off those stats?

You bet! Its called maintaining a semblance of a challenge.

No, the alternative is to use more encounters in between long rests.

Never increase encounter difficulty against the players. Increse encounter frequency instead.

Well, since I'm not running a MMO, I dont feel like having pointless trash fights to waste my or my players' time. Hey man, just throw 3 orcs, then 4 more orcs, then let them get an hour nap. Then 2 lizardmen, then an owlbear. Then we need to pause the adventure to shoehorn in another hour breather, because nothing says organic pacing like a bunch of encounters designed to waste a piddly amount of resources interspaced with long ass rest periods. Then maybe we'll mix things up and fight *5* orcs, and finally after we've had the mandated 6 weenie encounters, we get to the boss, only he's also a 1-2 round chump like nearly everything in the monster manual. Boy am I glad we devoted our one day a month to play to grinding out fights where the party's victory is a foregone conclusion, that only serve to whittle down resources through attrition!

The recommended 6-8 encounters per day is absurd, boring, and requires blatant railroading and fiat to ensure with any measure of regularity. Its hands down the worst part of an otherwise great edition.