D&D 5E (2014) Design Debate: 13th-level PCs vs. 6- to 8-Encounter Adventuring Day

[FormerlyHemlock]

Maybe it is not the monsters that are poorly designed, but the rules for ranged combat? Probably somewhere in between.

Also, if you want a Marilith to be good in ranged combat, give it ranged weapons. The MM is not intended to represent every Marilith, they will have different weapons. Heck, I would expect a Marilith that has lived for thousands of years to have magical weapons of many types. I do not, however, expect that these be listed in the MM. I do agree they should have innate spellcasting.

In AD&D, ranged combatant did not dominate melee because most monsters were simply immune to most ranged weaponry: it often took a +2 to greater magic weapon to damage them, and arrows from enchanted bows did not count. Ergo, you had to either kill them with a magic sword/etc., or kill them using memorized spells (and monsters often had % magic resistance that made spells less effective).

In 5E, characters are extremely mobile by default, even moreso if they plan for it (thanks to the Mounted Combat rules and various ways to spend your bonus action, etc.), cantrips like Eldritch Blast can damage almost any monster (very few things have Force immunity) and a simple Magic Weapon spell also makes any bow able to harm even more monsters than Eldritch Blast (I don't know of any non-homebrew monster which is outright immune to piercing weapons), and most monsters have no effective offense at ranges greater than 30'. It's a perfect storm of opportunity for ranged combat specialists.

So yeah, the root cause (fault?) is in both the ranged combat rules and the monster design.

 

[CapnZapp]

Problem is: innate spellcasting is complicated.

I really think it is a good thing that monsters are simplified.

What isn't a good thing, however, if they are simplified beyond the point where it becomes trivial for minmaxers to find tactics that completely defeat the foe.

Such a high-level threat as a Marilith has no business being left without a few tricks to counter or lessen the most obvious "shut down the brutish melee monster" combos. Either that, or we need to readjust our expectation of the Marilith. As a boring high-yield striker best used in numbers, the stat block works fine. As the described general of legions, not so much.

Our complaint is that it seems nobody at WotC played the high-level game, like at all.

The Marilith does not need the complication that comes with actuall spellcasting capability (a bunch of spells). She doesn't even need ranged attacks.

She just needs a half-reliable way to start her round in the face of the hero fighter, to do the job which she's designed for: whirling her blades giving the players a scare, making them scramble to shut her down, and then generally going down having forced the party to prioritize her over some other foe.

The problem is if she can only do that by getting the drop on the heroes, or if the DM consistently takes the trouble of setting up favorable terrain.

We who complain want all that built-in, right into her stat block.

If darkness is a solution - she should have that.
If fog is a good truesight combo - she should be able to generate that (perhaps as a lair action).
If she needs teleport - she should come prepackaged with one.

The CR reflects what you see on the MM page. Not what you see after hiring Flamestrike as a consultant.

And the plain truth is that the Marilith simply doesn't have the skill set needed to play with the big boys.

 

[Radaceus]

I could edit your links in, but I can't actually read your maps. I don't have anything that reads .pdn files. I'd mean meaning to ask, could you post jpeg versions or something?

Ohh! thanks for that, nobody said anything, sure you bet. I'll add jpeg versions tot he respective posts tomorrow

 

[dave2008]

It doesn't matter when she dies in three rounds. She's still not going to challenge the party.

Or she could be designed to challenge a part in 3 rounds. Hell, you could make a monster that last only 1-2 rounds challenge the party in those 1 or 2 rounds.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

When I play Monopoly, it assumes I want to keep the houses/property with which to generate income through development and rental. So, needless to say, I get frustrated because it doesn't very well let me emulate my desire to be a property flipper. In fact, it's a loosing strategy because, even though I sell the developed property cards for a decent profit (to my opponents), it ends up costing me repeatedly as I land on them as the game progresses. I always end up losing playing it the way I'd prefer. And that's Monopoly's fault.

 

[OB1]

I couldnt disagree with this advice more. The trick is to use more encounters, not ridiculously difficult ones.

Throwing ultra deadly encounters at the party is lazy DMing, and leads to an escalation of the very problem that leads to to the issue in the first place (generally Nova tactics by the party).

Hey Flamestrike, I actually completely agree with you, more encounters and proper environmental design is key. That advice was specifically aimed [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION], so that he can challenge his PCs when he drops them in a grass field against a solo monster. Do that with highly optimized PCs using highly optimized tactics, and of course the encounter guidelines won't work, they're not supposed to. They are supposed to work for casual players who do not have a high degree of system mastery. The higher the system mastery from the player, the more needed from the DM to use every trick in the MM and DMG to counter it. Or just be lazy and throw higher CR creatures at them until the PCs break.

As for me, when it's time for the big mission that the PCs have been working towards to accomplish their current goal, I design 10-14 encounters and purposefully go over the xp budget. PCs then go into the mission trying to avoid as many as they can, since they probably won't make their objective if they fight everything along the way. The best part of this is watching them decide if it's worth storming the treasure room full of shiny things but guarded by a deadly encounter and risk their primary objective. If they've successfully been avoiding other encounters along the way, they may have the resources to go for it, if not, well, does the princess really need saving anyhow?

 

[BoldItalic]

...
That being said, I agree with Celtavian that Mariliths are more impressive/fun if they are spellcasters. I would like it if the white-room scenario you describe above were likely to actually be challenging to a 10th level party instead of trivial. The way it's written, the Marilith can't even effectively pursue you into the 5' wide corridor! She can squeeze in using the "Squeezing into small spaces" rules, which gives her disadvantage on attacks (and IIRC ability checks) and gives her attackers advantage on their own attacks, and that's enough to render her basically ineffective. So the party can basically just potshot her to death with cantrips and she's essentially helpless--I'd prefer it if she started launching Chain Lightning back at them.

And, I miss demons that had built-in Teleport Without Error at will. I think they need to get that back.

Ah, but she doesn't intend to pursue out into the corridor. Her job is to guard the exit behind her.

And it's not entirely white room; the narrow passage and the doorway mean that only the character standing in front of the door actually has line of sight on the Marilith. So to get in an attack each the PCs have to rotate position, which if you work it out is quite tricky. Each PC has to move up through his friends (difficult terrain), kick the door open, make a short-range attack, disengage and move back down the line (difficult terrrain again).

Everyone has to disengage if they want to avoid an AoO because Mariliths get a reaction every turn. And they have to kick the door open because, as you have only just discovered, it's on a self-closing spring and shuts at the end of the turn it's opened on.

Get it right and there's no one outside the door when her turn comes up, so she doesn't get an attack. Except that her previous AoO was a tail attack and she may have restrained someone. Then she gets 7 attacks on him, on her turn.

You can't use ranged attacks because there's no line of sight and it's no good backing off and sending in AoE spell attacks, because the door is shut.

You could try destroying the door but it will cost you resources because it's enchanted and you can't just have your fighter smash it with brute force.

Oh, by the way, the exit behind the Marilith is a 5ft wide passage that leads to a dead end with a door on the left, behind which is another 10ftx10ft room into which the Marilith can teleport from the first one as an action ...

Is it complicated enough tactically yet?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ah, but she doesn't intend to pursue out into the corridor. Her job is to guard the exit behind her.

And it's not entirely white room; the narrow passage and the doorway mean that only the character standing in front of the door actually has line of sight on the Marilith. So to get in an attack each the PCs have to rotate position, which if you work it out is quite tricky. Each PC has to move up through his friends (difficult terrain), kick the door open, make a short-range attack, disengage and move back down the line (difficult terrrain again).

Everyone has to disengage if they want to avoid an AoO because Mariliths get a reaction every turn. And they have to kick the door open because, as you have only just discovered, it's on a self-closing spring and shuts at the end of the turn it's opened on.

Get it right and there's no one outside the door when her turn comes up, so she doesn't get an attack. Except that her previous AoO was a tail attack and she may have restrained someone. Then she gets 7 attacks on him, on her turn.

You can't use ranged attacks because there's no line of sight and it's no good backing off and sending in AoE spell attacks, because the door is shut.

You could try destroying the door but it will cost you resources because it's enchanted and you can't just have your fighter smash it with brute force.

Oh, by the way, the exit behind the Marilith is a 5ft wide passage that leads to a dead end with a door on the left, behind which is another 10ftx10ft room into which the Marilith can teleport from the first one as an action ...

Is it complicated enough tactically yet?

Wait, so you're telling me the Marilith is just going to stand there while the Rogue or Mobile monk kills her to death over the course of several rounds? She's relying entirely on opportunity attacks, and they have the ability to utterly deny her any opportunity attacks.

No, that's not complicated tactically, that's a bad joke.

Edit: the second room doesn't make it any better. Maybe if it were a 10' wide passage that the Marilith could actually fight in, that would help, but as it is it changes nothing about the scenario.

 

[Lord Twig]

I keep wondering why the Marilith, which is supposed to lead a legion of demons, is fighting the party solo. Give her some troops to command and see how hard it becomes. Likewise the Balor is not a solo monster. That's like complaining that Napoleon is a wimp because you can take him out with a musket when he is alone and only has his ceremonial sword.

Generals command troops, give them some troops.

How about 2 Glabrezu, 2 Vrocks, 6 Quasits, and 24 Dretch (need fodder).

 

[dave2008]

I keep wondering why the Marilith, which is supposed to lead a legion of demons, is fighting the party solo. Give her some troops to command and see how hard it becomes. Likewise the Balor is not a solo monster. That's like complaining that Napoleon is a wimp because you can take him out with a musket when he is alone and only has his ceremonial sword.

Generals command troops, give them some troops.

This is true, but they are also greater demons and, I feel, should be fearsome on their own. Of course, they are fearsome on their own if you fight them at a particular level (that level being depended on the PC and group optimization and coordination). The problem for me is that level is, I feel, to low.