D&D 5E Design Debate: 13th-level PCs vs. 6- to 8-Encounter Adventuring Day

[Celtavian]

After the Slaadi see a fireball get counterspelled on turn 1, on turn 2 (remember the PCs are surprised on turn 1, and all PCs have disadvantage on ranged attacks due to the gloom) they both sit back and drown the PCs in cloudkills on turn 2. All PC's take 10d8 poison damage and are trapped down a dead end coriddor, with zero visibility inside two cloud kills.

Gloom only gives disadvantage on Perception checks.

A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Only darkness or invisibility give Disadvantage on ranged attacks. You indicated that Darkvision worked. There was no reason to believe it gave disadvantage on ranged attack rolls. Why do you think this?

Yes, they do. The Golem can quite easily overrun (Str athletics) or shove a creature prone, keep moving then use the bonus slam I gave it to bash something. Or just breathe poison gas on the party.

It also depends on where the party wind up. They race into the room following a Slaadi, and at the start of next turn a Golem gets placed at the eastern exit. It rolls well on initiaitve, and its on them before they can fall back and block the coridoor.

And he wastes an action doing it and gets one bonus action attack? Have you been watching how fast 160 hit points is gone? He won't last but a round or two. If you waste a round overrunning, he's going to do nearly nothing.

The Giants can simply step over medium sized creatures, or around the ape seeing as theyre in a huge chamber.

The party is condensed in the corner. He does not get to displace the party members. He gets to step over them. If there is insufficient room for him to stand, then he gets disadvantage for squeezing and the party gets advantage on him.

It only works because your DM allows it to work. I would quite happily ignore the PC dodging (and move some mooks up to pin him down) and move to the squishy targets at the back. I also use a lot of monsters with SLA.

You're dodging? Cool bro - fireball.

Dodge gives advantage on Dex saving throws.

Why cant monsters use the same tactics? I assure you as DM, I would.

Tell you what - Im NOT going to post the next encounter after the Golem. I'll run your party through it personally instead.

Lets see how it plays out shall we?

Go for it. But make sure you follow the rules. I'm beginning to see a trend here. Your knowledge of the rules is sketchy. You don't seem to follow rules like squeezing and you think dim light (gloom) gives disadvantage on ranged attacks. I did not see any indication of that. You said it reduced sight to dim light and infravision to dim light. Only total lack of visibility gives disadvantage on attacks of any kind, ranged or melee.

Please, ensure you are following the rules in the PHB when running encounters. If you do not, you completely remove your credibility as a DM in this test.

We're doing multiple parties. So post the next encounter, run it on your own, let us see the results. If you fail to follow the rules, I will call you on it. I follow the rules when I DM. The rules are the agreement between the DM and the players that set the parameters of the world. If you're not following them claiming the 6-8 adventure day works, then your proof is heavily tainted.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yes, they do. The Golem can quite easily overrun (Str athletics) or shove a creature prone, keep moving then use the bonus slam I gave it to bash something. Or just breathe poison gas on the party.

Oh great, powerful, and wise master DM of this thread, I pray that you will but allow this, your unworthy servant to whisper in your ear:

Bzzbzzbzzbzzbzz.*

Thank you, your munificence, for not smiting me immediately unto death for presuming to *coughcough*correct*coughcough* your worshipful correctness.

* Overrun, per DMG rules, costs your action or bonus action, so you can't use your bonus action to Dash and overrun.

 

[Celtavian]

I've thought about it some. I'm going to leave this to the rest of you.

This is such a disconnect from the rules concerning visibility by a DM, that I don't know what to think:

Encounter environment: The entry room to the dugeon demi-plane of blackrazor. As noted above, all walls and floors are made of a near indestructable black stone that eminates a gloomy light. Vison is reduced to 30' for creatures without darkvision, and 60 or 120' (as appropraite) for creatures with darkvision. Regardless, all visibility is reduces to dim light (advantage on stealth checks). Devils sight is unaffected and works normally. Treat this as a 9th level spell effect. The demipalne is not connected to the ethereal plane, so ethereal travel is not possible.

Nowhere save for creatures without darkvision would this apply disadvantage on ranged attacks. I doubt any of the others unless they are running members without darkvision were applying this penalty.

Darkvision: Many creatures in the worlds of D&D, especially those that dwell underground, have darkvision. Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light, so areas of darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned. However, the creature can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

So far in our discussion Flamestrike, I have seen the following:
1. Set up giants in a room in an extremely disadvantageous fashion for them to melee and move amongst the party. Room way too small and PCs able to maintain a corner.

2. Assumed the huge giant ape does negligible damage when it hits harder than all but one party member. Why do the giants ignore the guy hitting them harder than all but one party member? I don't know.

3. Assumed it's easy to hit casters to end their spells even when moving to hit the caster is often a double move,requires moving fast hard hitting enemies that get AoOs, and all the casters are proficient in con saves with high cons.

4. Decided the squeezing rules are unimportant when a giant tries to step amongst the wolves and humans they are fighting given they have insufficient space to maneuver in this area.

5. Set up slaad a double move away from melee.

6. Assumed a party can't quickly get rid of a cloudkill with a dispel magic from an abjurer while he is standing in it.

7. Not accounted for the bard with devilsight winning initiative and moving into counterspell range.

8. Not accustomed to grid combat that does require you to set up rooms so players can see where things are moving.

9. Decided to blame the DM for using tactics you recommended like going after the caster while having to move around a giant ape, which is not easy to do when using grid combat.

10. Set up the giants to attack targets that would put them both in hypnotic pattern range on a grid map even using their reach, then blamed the DM that took the time to map it out correctly for not playing them right.

11. Metagamed the slaad knowing the bard was going to counterspell them because your tactic didn't work like you thought it would. And likely wouldn't have worked even had they shifted to poison which would have barely tickled the cleric and most of the party with good Con saves and much higher chance of making both saves. Which means the average damage of 10d8 if both cloudkill spells has went off would have been 45, halved 22, and 11 to the dwarf compared to the 56 from double fireballs. If one of the cloudkill was countered, it would have done a whopping 23 or 11 to the entire party and 5 to the dwarf. Con saves for the entire party all in paladin aura:
Bard: +12
Cleric: +13
wizard: +12
Paladin: +12
EK: +12

Dex saves for party:
Bard: +6
Cleric: +4
Wizard: +6
Paladin: +4
EK: +9

Math is much more favorable for damage from the fireballs.

13. Unaware that dim light is only lightly obscured and only penalizes Perception checks, not attack rolls of any kind for creature with Darkvision.

I'll stop there. Look Flamestrike, I'm sure you have fun in your games. You're a creative guy that makes cool encounters. I give you kudos for doing so. I liked your idea. You obviously play theater of the mind given your understanding of grid combat and how it affects the game. If your players like theater of the mind, cool. My players like grid combat and want to see all the pieces moving. Which means I run things like Squeezing and have to ensure things like giants and wolves don't take up too much space to limit enemy combat movement in an area.

I'm not going to spend more time arguing over this with you. We're both just a couple of guys that like playing D&D. But it's obvious you don't play this game with optimizers. And that's fine. Heck, most players probably have more fun playing in a loose game with players more focused on having fun than optimizing. Even my players sometimes grouse about too much optimization. That being said if you follow the rules in the PHB including optional character build rules and use grid combat and the players are optimizing, they will rip the game apart as I have done to your first few encounters (not to mention the iron golem might not even have landed a single blow before it was dead). They have too many advantages for a DM to easily overcome much of the time.

I tip my hat to you for an excellent idea for an adventure. I'd advise you to brush up on the rules a bit. You may be screwing your players with incorrect rulings and letting enemies move a little too freely to their advantage. It was good chatting with you, but we run the rules very differently.

 

[BoldItalic]

Remember the mantra "Rulings not Rules"? Arguing with the DM is bad form.

What we have all learnt from this investigation is firstly, that we all play PCs differently because we have different ideas about what is fun, and secondly that we all DM differently because ... we all have different ideas about what is fun.

What we have not learnt is whether or not @Celtavian's PCs played Celtavian's way would succeed easily or less easily against @Flamestrike's monsters played Flamestrike's way.

Because reasons ?

 

[BoldItalic]

Bedrock, Edward and their friends stood gazing at the black, distorted tear in the fabric of the world, trying to pluck up the courage to walk in. "If we go in, will it be good or bad?" wondered Bedrock.

"Bad," muttered Dom under her breath, fiddling with her prayer beads. "For someone."

Just then another group of adventurers arrived, slightly out of breath from having run several miles in full kit. The newcomers looked our friends up and down with barely-concealed scorn, wove a few spells, readied various mean-looking weapons and walked carefully into the rift, as if they expected some sort of ambush.

"Were they the someones?" asked Bedrock.

Dom looked enigmatic and stroked her beard, as she did when she wanted to look wise. "Maybe. I don't think the gods have decided yet."

"I thought the gods decided everything?"

"Afterwards. They decide afterwards. We call it retropotence."

"Oh."

"Should we go in and help them?"

"You saw how they looked us up and down. I don't think they would want us to. They want to succeed on their terms, not ours."

"Well, we can't just do nothing," pointed out Edward squinting at the sun and doing some mental arithmetic. "It's less than two hours to the end of the world."

"I could recite a very long poem, to pass the time," offered the bard. "You would all enjoy that."

There was something about the way she said the word enjoy that worried Bedrock, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. "Perhaps just a few verses," he suggested tactfully. "Then we really ought to boldly go where others have boldly gone before."

The bard told the tale of Aswas and Bendaheel, the two lovers who died tragically in other people's arms. Then they all walked into the rift feeling a mixture of trepidation and relief.

"Gloomy in here, isn't it?"

"What's that funny smell?

"Fireballs."

"Steady on, ladies present old chap."

"I can see a very large pincushion in the middle of the room," announced Edward walking over and looking at it, frowning. "I think it was some sort of lizard man who was attractive to crossbow bolts. Very odd."

"Well, press on. Let's see where that passage leads."

They walked on through a strange other-planely tunnel to a strange other-planely crossroads.

"Look, there's another of your pincushion men here. And a big shiny statue leaning over it."

"Careful, it looks like a gollum."

"Don't you mean golem?"

"Is that what you call them? Shouldn't it be magically moving about or something?"

"Someone's broken it," said Tom astutely. "Stupid vandals. Those things are worth a lot of money in working order. Especially if you have the original crate."

"We'll, can't be helped. Which way now?"

"Its straight on. The side chambers are empty."

"How do you know?"

"I just went and looked."

 

[Flamestrike]

Oh great, powerful, and wise master DM of this thread, I pray that you will but allow this, your unworthy servant to whisper in your ear:

Bzzbzzbzzbzzbzz.*

Thank you, your munificence, for not smiting me immediately unto death for presuming to *coughcough*correct*coughcough* your worshipful correctness.

* Overrun, per DMG rules, costs your action or bonus action, so you can't use your bonus action to Dash and overrun.

Yeah man. I know.

You realise the Iron golem In this encounter has a bonus action dash or slam? Go back and check it out. No need for an apology.

Are you only posting in this thread to be antagonistic? Because you've added precisely zero aside from snarky remarks and criticism (or both).

It's kinda sad. And unwarranted. Do we know each other in real life and did I run over your cat or something? Do you talk to other players and your DM like this? How do you have a group to play in? Seriously. I'm a little weirded out.

 

[Lord Twig]

I've thought about it some. I'm going to leave this to the rest of you.

This is such a disconnect from the rules concerning visibility by a DM, that I don't know what to think:

...
bunch of stuff
...

I tip my hat to you for an excellent idea for an adventure. I'd advise you to brush up on the rules a bit. You may be screwing your players with incorrect rulings and letting enemies move a little too freely to their advantage. It was good chatting with you, but we run the rules very differently.

It seems to me that you take something that Flamestrike says, then interpret it in the worse way possible and assume that is what he meant and is therefore wrong.

For example, Flamestrike mentions that the Iron Golem can bonus action dash. You then say your melee guys would get in the way. Flamestrike then mentions that he could do an overrun or shove then slam as a bonus action. You then accuse him of not knowing the rules because he can't both dash and slam as a bonus action. The problem is he never said the golem could do both a dash and a slam, he said it could do one, then pointed out that it could also do the other.

But you don't even try to clarify. You just jump to the conclusion that he doesn't know the rules and is doing it wrong.

 

[Lord Twig]

Yes, they do. The Golem can quite easily overrun (Str athletics) or shove a creature prone, keep moving then use the bonus slam I gave it to bash something. Or just breathe poison gas on the party.

Oh great, powerful, and wise master DM of this thread, I pray that you will but allow this, your unworthy servant to whisper in your ear:

Bzzbzzbzzbzzbzz.*

Thank you, your munificence, for not smiting me immediately unto death for presuming to *coughcough*correct*coughcough* your worshipful correctness.

* Overrun, per DMG rules, costs your action or bonus action, so you can't use your bonus action to Dash and overrun.
I am on Enworld to discuss things I find interesting about 5E. If I am responding to your post, it's because I find it interesting, even if I disagree with it. I don't mean to be aggressive, and I apologize if I come across as such. Please don't take it personally.

The part were you quote him. Where does it say he has the Golem dash?

I am on Enworld to discuss things I find interesting about 5E. If I am responding to your post, it's because I find it interesting, even if I disagree with it. I don't mean to be aggressive, and I apologize if I come across as such. Please don't take it personally.

You know, just by putting this in your signature doesn't mean you can be aggressive and rude and get a pass.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You realise the Iron golem In this encounter has a bonus action dash or slam? Go back and check it out. No need for an apology.

Of course I realize that--I specifically called it out. What it doesn't have is two separate bonus actions. If you spend your bonus action on Dash, you can't also spend it on overrun.

Are you only posting in this thread to be antagonistic? Because you've added precisely zero aside from snarky remarks and criticism (or both).

It's kinda sad. And unwarranted. Do we know each other in real life and did I run over your cat or something? Do you talk to other players and your DM like this? How do you have a group to play in? Seriously. I'm a little weirded out.

Flamestrike, you need to put your ego down and stop thinking that everything is about you. Sometimes it's okay to say, "Okay, thanks for the correction" and move on. Don't turn everything into a personal war. You can even say, "That's not what I meant. I expect the PCs to be close enough that you don't need to Dash in order to hit the back line," and then at least everybody knows that there's no disagreement over the (important) rules but only over the (unimportant) physical details of the scenario.

Unimportant because it is easy for readers to judge for themselves whether it would apply at their own tables; whereas misinformation about the rules can lead people astray for a long time. After all, this thread is fundamentally about the rules and whether they work in the general case.

 

[Lord Twig]

I already have my party's tactics for moving in. Rogue and Ranger with wolf companion going in first with stealth. Followed a round later by the fighter and casters. I haven't rolled it out yet, and I'm trying to decide how it will work.

The Rogue moves up the left side first (higher initiative) trying to spot the creatures she knows is there because of her high hearing perception. Once she get's within 60' they are in range of her darkvision, but she is also in range of their darkvision and blindsight. So do they see her automatically? Or do they have to make a Perception check?

At this point the rogue's stealth check is a minimum of 25 and her perception is at least 22. So even without rolling she should beat the Slaadi's own perception and stealth.

After the Slaadi's turns the Ranger goes and moves up with her wolf. She and her wolf also has ridiculous stealth and perception checks.

The following round would be Rogue, Slaads, then the rest of the party with the Ranger in the middle somewhere. So what would the Slaads do? Throw fireballs? At who and when? When would they throw Cloudkill?

BTW, Cloudkill, in addition to being poison damage, shuts down ranged attackers as the cloud creates heavily obscured area that you can't see through, even with truesight. So it would be an excellent choice against an opponent with counterspell. First, it's a lot more difficult to counterspell since it is a 5th level spell. Second, only one has to succeed to blind everyone in the area.

BTW, I'm happy to get input from anybody on what the Slaads would do. It doesn't have to be just Flamestrike.