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

[Azurewraith]

Ill admit you can smoke most monsters in 5e real easy be it maralith, balor,dragon or pelor but most ua stuff is sketchy at best particularly stacking hit bonuses from fighting styles

 

[Radaceus]

IMO, the Marilith encounter is a bad example to use for this case, leading the discussion down the garden path...

I feel that one encountered on its own, would be a subpar representation of a Marilith (this does not read: 'DM Celtavian played it wrong'), encountering a marilith on it's own is not common, possibly rare.

It's so rare that it didn't happen in Celtavian's game either! The marilith had vrock, hezrou and chasme demons with it.

Okay, thanks for the clarity, I have not read the bulk of the last 12 pages, I had recalled early on a mention of a single maralith

 

[matskralc]

I'm a great believer in actual play posts, rather than abstract speculation, generalisation or theory-crafting, and Celtavian has provided a pretty clear actual play post that explains how his group defeated this marilith + friends encounter pretty straightforwardly (with an admitted misreading of the Banishment spell - we don't know how much difference it would have made had the Concentration requirement been imposed).

Don't forget the house rule that permits casters to concentrate on two spells at the same time as long as one is a buff on another party member. No wonder Celtavian thinks bless is even better than those of us who already realize it's pretty good. He's still allowing his Clerics and Paladins to concentrate on something else, too! Hey, wait a minute...practically the entire paladin spell list requires concentration...

Concentration is probably even more important than the spell slot limitation when it comes to limiting the power of higher-level casters during a particular encounter. What we have here is a DM complaining that his high-level charcters are too powerful for him to meaningfully challenge while he's doing things like house ruling the concentration mechanic in favor of the PCs (since I doubt he's running parties of six spellcasters all buffing each other concentration-free right back at them).

That an admission of such a ridiculously OP mechanical change was just casually referenced well into the discussion like it was no big deal can only lead one to wonder about what other rules are being misapplied or altered? Are we stacking the effects of the paladin auras? It sounds like there is a suspiciously large amount of +5s and feats in a party full of "mostly drow" who may be multiclassing themselves out of ASIs. Are the multiclassing spellcasting rules being followed correctly? Do the sword-and-boards have a free hand while they're casting somatic component spells? Are we house ruling away the "casting a bonus action spell means only a cantrip with your action" rule, too?

At this point, I suspect the problem is less the out-of-the-box ruleset and more the house ruleset that is actually being used, but I don't know for sure because when Celtavian complains that the game's designers have failed to challenge his PCs, he's not being upfront about the rule changes he's made that are facilitating his problem.

And that's without even addressing the fact that the first round or two of combat should have resulted in every PC making anywhere from, what, 5-10 saving throws each against incapacitating effects, followed by a swarm of demons carrying away and beating the tar out of whichever PCs failed. The mooks should be burning all of their incapacitating abilities first and using those in combination with grapples and shoves to separate and surround the party so that the marilith can go squish the squishies. There is no question in my mind that a party of six well-optimized level 10s playing without house rules that encountered a horde of demons that possesses a tactical awareness greater than that of a box of rocks at a time and place of the demons' choosing should have been slaughtered. Even the fact that this party could go nova (and make no mistake: they did) since they knew they weren't getting six more encounters before their next long rest (which, again, short adventuring days are the leading cause of mypartyslaughterseverythingitis) shouldn't have saved them. None of that is the game's problem.

D&D is a great hammer. I can (uh, hire somebody else to) build a nice little house just fine using that hammer. I can't, however, grab that hammer by the head and attempt to use the handle to nail together a spaceship and then, after I fail, blame the designers of the hammer for not giving me something that I can alter and then use to build a spaceship.

 

[BoldItalic]

Can a Marilith be equipped with three longbows?

Asking for a friend ...

 

[pemerton]

Can a Marilith be equipped with three longbows?

Asking for a friend ...

I'm sure that it can be. But I don't think that really speaks to the issue, which is that as a sword-fighting critter (which is its paradigmatic schtick) it is a bit underpowered.

The most obvious change I would make is to allow its reaction parry to apply a bonus to AC vs ranged attacks from one target until the start of its next turn: (i) I think a marilith deflecting arrows, bolts, some cantrips, etc with its swords is a reasonably cool image; (ii) that encourages the PCs to engage it in melee, which is the sort of thing that makes a marilith more interesting.

That change doesn't help it vs SoD/SoS, but that's not the complaint, at least in this case.

 

[CapnZapp]

Pemerton, 4th edition had very enjoyable combats.

The problem was that we're methodical and kind of slow, so a single main encounter could easily take a whole session.

Which meant the action edged out the story and role-playing. Not to mention any "filler" combats; they went right out.

In the end 4th edition was a success as a tactical boardgame, but a failure as a campaign-enabling role-playing game.

(Not saying "4e not a rpg"! I'm not kicking expired equines, I'm merely relating our personal takeaway of that edition)

 

[Radaceus]

Can a Marilith be equipped with three longbows?

Asking for a friend ...

depends on the friend...



hahah

the 5E one says 7 melee attacks, 6 with longswords, 1 with tail. I'd think yes it could use 3 TH weapons, how well it could aim three bows (at more than one target) is another story.

I think the mentality of the marilith, it's ecology, and how 'they embrace any opportunity to rush headlong into battle,' would suggest they wouldn't think of such a tactic.

 

[CapnZapp]

The most obvious change I would make is to allow its reaction parry to apply a bonus to AC vs ranged attacks from one target until the start of its next turn: (i) I think a marilith deflecting arrows, bolts, some cantrips, etc with its swords is a reasonably cool image; (ii) that encourages the PCs to engage it in melee, which is the sort of thing that makes a marilith more interesting.

Not sure about that. That change means you want to shoot MORE arrows into it than it can parry. Or forget about arrows and take it out with spells.

Okay, so the Marilith with its many reactions is special. But as a general solution, I'm not satisfied. I would much rather nerf ranged on the players end than boost all monsters arrow deflection...

The real problem is:
1) It's easy (too easy?) to create a party that can bring most of its attack power to bear at range

Coupled with

2) It's easy (or at least "not difficult enough") to deny monsters melee

You never want to enter melee with something like a Marilith. It's quite possibly the single monster in the whole of the MM you do not want to enter melee with (possibly excepting the Tarrasque) [emoji3]

If 1) wasn't true, the spellcasters would have to expend considerable effort taking it down with spells. Problem (partially) solved.

If 2) wasn't true, however, the game would work much better. And as a bonus, ranged would be devalued, which in turn would help with 1)

 

[pemerton]

I would much rather nerf ranged on the players end

Sure, I can see that. Not as quick-and-dirty as my suggestion, but certainly more systematic.

My own view is that, in fantasy RPGing, melee is more interesting than archery and so should be encouraged as a viable approach. That makes me sympathetic to the idea of nerfing Sharpshooter and its ilk.

I suspect that [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] might disagree, but maybe I'm wrong on that.

 

[matskralc]

The real problem is:
1) It's easy (too easy?) to create a party that can bring most of its attack power to bear at range

Coupled with

2) It's easy (or at least "not difficult enough") to deny monsters melee

1) You still have to take Crossbow Expert to get away from the "disadvantage on ranged attack rolls when an enemy is within five feet of you" rule, though. I'm AFB but I don't remember any other way to nullify that. Celtavian didn't mention it, so I'm guessing he didn't park a demon next to that archer to put all those rolls at disadvantage. Anyway, taking Crossbow Expert means you didn't take something else. And besides that, there's no getting around some monsters being smart enough to walk around the corner or seek total cover. Or, heck, even falling prone until the party does engage in melee.

2) It's not that hard for melee monsters to deny the party range, either. You can't shoot a monster that just gets up and leaves, coming back with range of its own or when the environment is more favorable. Too many DMs run their monsters like they're all on suicide missions.