D&D 5E 'daily' Powers/leveling breaking immersion?

[Var]

The RPG problem that Encounters need to keep up with you while you level is always a bit jarring. At least for the vast majority of campaigns where a party will always run in level appropriate opponents, is rarely if ever expected to retreat. How often do you fight an army of low CR opponents at level 10+? Or an Encounter below easy, so i.e. CR2 Encounters at level 10+?
Most of us have faced the BBEG or one of his Lieutenants early at leavel 1-3 in a campaign, usually fights designed to run for our lives are rare or non existent. This is a game and players are often going to expect to progress smoothly, kill the dragon, rescue the Princesss and start over to do it all over again in the next campaign.

This is unrelated to the story of a campaign. DnD and level systems as a whole are designed to have an upward trend. Rewards, progression and improvements are easy to sell to players. Loss, atrophy and punishment are imho a more interesting premise to deal with, generally more included as temporary inconvenience that goes away after a short term condition is met.

I'd love to play in a campaign that starts out at higher levels playing at PC hubris and setting up an encounter they shouldn't take (but most people probably will). 5 years in Prison for murderhoboing in town, locked away in a BBEG's dungeon after the party insisted on RPing Chaotic Good as Chaotic Stupid, TPK at level 8 but the replacement party isn't a wandering party of heroes but level 3s who happened to hunt a Troll in the vicinity. I'm all for a campaign that hits the reset button in the middle rather than aim for level15+.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm having a weird issue playing D&D lately. Our group gets presented with various in-game problems and I, sometimes, say to myself, "I would like to go do 'x' but I don't think we are high enough level, maybe we should do 'Y' instead, first" I think this, even though it makes no sense, in game.

This was never a problem for me in 3.5, even as a spellcaster but - I took a break from D&D for almost a decade and came back to it from games that don't have 'daily' powers. You pick your abilities and you can just do them.

Every time I think, 'oh maybe I should take a short rest to regain my ability' it takes me out of character in an annoying way. "I only have 1 rage left, maybe we shouldn't go and kill those minions in room (a) and, instead fight the boss in room (b) because we don't have time for a Long Rest. The decisions are often metagame decisions and not character decisions. The DM sometimes hints at things being a 'side quest' etc... or 'I wasn't expecting you guys to get here so soon' probably is doing a bit also. I dunno.

Is this an issue with other people? Is there a reason why I'm feeling it now and didn't really have an issue with it in 3.5?

I think it's pretty normal in every RPG. I wouldn't worry too much. The PC don't know about rules and levels, but they know what they can do in a day. They can explain short/long rest abilities by draining their physical or mental energies. Magical abilities don't even need particularly realistic explanations, spellcasters just know that one more spell won't work. Most non-magical abilities recharge on a short rest, so the characters can just say they're tired and need a rest, although Rage is an exception.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Well there's always GURPS

 

[payn]

I just don't need to hear it. I'd rather in-game foreshadowing. I think that may be part of what was influencing me. I don't mind discussing this stuff, after the fact, as a debrief of the game, though. Taking rests can be jarring as well as well but it's way easier to justify a character's limits. And, overall, I think I may just be overthinking it. I think I was Trying to predict the flow of the game on the meta-level. Which is a stupid thing to do. I just need to play the game.

Edit: just to clarify: this wasn't a DM problem but I did ask him to help me with my personal issue regarding the topic.

I think this is a great step in the right direction. I often use the term "under the hood" to refer to mechanics I want to keep out of sight. Asking the GM to avoid comments during play like, "the module didnt expect you to do that.." can be helpful in keeping things under the hood.

 

[Li Shenron]

It's more than daily powers, though. Even the idea of 'are we high enough level to be doing this part of the adventure?' seems to be popping up more. Maybe because we're currently doing a module? Idk. I'm just making decisions based on events in the game and how I feel my character would act. Then there's the, 'oh, I wasn't expecting that!' from the DM and suddenly we're facing a boss and I'm thinking, "Oh crap, should we have done one of the 'side quests' first?"

To me, I shouldn't be thinking of events as 'main quest/side quest'. It should just be: here are the series of events that lead to this moment.

I find myself in a strange position...

For years I've been reading about most DMs wanting to carefully tailor the challenges around the PC, choosing how many encounters per day they should have, accompanying them to level up in sync with the adventure, making them find magical treasure appropriately. At the same time shaming any bit of metagaming on the players' part like it was a deadly sin.

I am myself guilty of these, that's how I always DMed in 3e! And I started to do the same when coming back to D&D with 5e. But after passing the phase where I was afraid of the new system, this way of DMing frankly started to feel a mix of babysitting and pulling the puppets' strings.

I still choose an adventure based on its general level, and I still check the monsters CRs and encounter difficulties, sometimes changing things here and there, but that's all... I don't want to think or plan too much for the PCs.

I'd rather tell my players upfront "this is a hard encounters with CR5 monsters" and let them decide what to do with it. But I let the world work more like the proverbial sandbox, I don't want to care anymore about balancing stuff with a scale, just barring the extremes and keep a reasonable range is enough. Why should I be steering the players towards a specific number of encounters per day? They can do the math and figure out when they need to stop. If sometimes they are too slow and lose an adventure, that's good, why should they always win or have a TPK?

So why is so bad that the players wonder if they are high level enough? That's fine. They can choose to risk it, they can invest all their money and everything else to boost their chances, or they can even give up.

To be honest, my ideal adventure is probably one which happens without levelling up, and the ideal campaign the one that lasts 20 years with extremely slow advancement. I can't do it because players like going up in level often, but it would make my life easier.

As a DM I would rather let the game go and have the players take care of themselves, and me basically be more like a referee and supporting cast, and less the director

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I find myself in a strange position...

For years I've been reading about most DMs wanting to carefully tailor the challenges around the PC, choosing how many encounters per day they should have, accompanying them to level up in sync with the adventure, making them find magical treasure appropriately. At the same time shaming any bit of metagaming on the players' part like it was a deadly sin.

I am myself guilty of these, that's how I always DMed in 3e! And I started to do the same when coming back to D&D with 5e. But after passing the phase where I was afraid of the new system, this way of DMing frankly started to feel a mix of babysitting and pulling the puppets' strings.

I still choose an adventure based on its general level, and I still check the monsters CRs and encounter difficulties, sometimes changing things here and there, but that's all... I don't want to think or plan too much for the PCs.

I'd rather tell my players upfront "this is a hard encounters with CR5 monsters" and let them decide what to do with it. But I let the world work more like the proverbial sandbox, I don't want to care anymore about balancing stuff with a scale, just barring the extremes and keep a reasonable range is enough. Why should I be steering the players towards a specific number of encounters per day? They can do the math and figure out when they need to stop. If sometimes they are too slow and lose an adventure, that's good, why should they always win or have a TPK?

So why is so bad that the players wonder if they are high level enough? That's fine. They can choose to risk it, they can invest all their money and everything else to boost their chances, or they can even give up.

To be honest, my ideal adventure is probably one which happens without levelling up, and the ideal campaign the one that lasts 20 years with extremely slow advancement. I can't do it because players like going up in level often, but it would make my life easier.

As a DM I would rather let the game go and have the players take care of themselves, and me basically be more like a referee and supporting cast, and less the director

Back in the day, I had a DM that invested heavily in the Lore of his campaign world. Generally, you knew that there were giants in the mountains and orcs on the plains etc...

It had been told to the characters, by more than one NPC, that the mountains were dangerous. Not really heeding any of these warnings, our 2nd level party ventured into the Mountains. Maybe we thought he'd scale the adventure. Instead, we ran into some hill giants and we all died. We made new characters.

I'm fine with getting in over my head and with needing to run away. But, I think, in-game knowledge can and should inform PCs where the risk lies. It's hard to bridge the gap if you are relying on playing knowledge too much - at least, I think so, as a player.

I get it if you, as a DM, want to tell your players, out of character that this is going to be a 'deadly' encounter. It's good to know the stakes before you commit. Simply saying, "Your characters are counting the enemy numbers, and you know the rumours/legends of this enemy. What do you want to do?"

Like I said, I'm not sure what it is that's been bothering me about the game lately. I'm sure It'll get worked out.

 

[Li Shenron]

I get it if you, as a DM, want to tell your players, out of character that this is going to be a 'deadly' encounter. It's good to know the stakes before you commit. Simply saying, "Your characters are counting the enemy numbers, and you know the rumours/legends of this enemy. What do you want to do?"

Yes, that's the point. It doesn't mean to do it every time but for example in that adventure of yours, I would have at some point broken OoC and told the players "look, hill giants are X levels higher than you, your chances are grim".