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

[Celtavian]

Magma Mephits are great because they can each cast Heat Metal once a day, plus they have a 15' cone breath weapon. Twelve Magma Mephits means 24d8 damage to party per round (using their bonus action) plus forcing disadvantage on the party plus 24d6 of breath weapon on the next round. I'm AFB but I believe each Magma Mephit has about 20 HP, so roughly 240 HP for the whole group. It's not so much that that's a ton of HP as that it's more HP than the original lich had, and from the lich's perspective he's burning the party's spells/action surges/etc. AND doing a hundred or so points of fire damage. And he can do this every minute or so for as long as he wants, without even having to be physically present, and he can Teleport whenever he feels like it to wherever he feels like it.

The first group of zombie children (Magma Mephits) might strike your party as easy. The second group a minute later might strike them as annoying. The tenth group will have them running. And that's when they run into a Shadow Dragon (Shapechanged lich) backed up what appears to be an army of several hundred zombie children (actually Wights under a Seeming spell).

This is all assuming the lich rolls an 8 at some point to recover an 8th level spell slot. And all other associated spells he must roll a slot recovery for. Every minute seems quite quick given the travel time of the mephits and time to roll the proper spell recovery.

The demiplane idea I might actually use. Storing a bunch of undead in a demiplane would be interesting.

 

[Celtavian]

The math of skills, spells, feats, and monster design is not your problem. That's why nobody is talking about it.

Those were all your decisions. Those decisions were not the PHB's, not the DMG's, not the MM's, not UA's, not OotA's, not Jeremy Crawford's, not Gary Gygax's, not flamestrike's, not Hemlock's, not mine, not your PCs'. It was your decision to permit every single one of those things (and whichever ones you've not told us about yet). Your lack of acceptance of any responsibility for the role that you have played in your current predicament is frustrating.

What part of just this campaign do you not understand?

And, once again, as this new lich example demonstrates, you run your monsters as though they aren't just on suicide missions but as though the suicide is their primary objective on the mission. So even after making all of those decisions, you take your last line of defense (tactics) and implement suboptimal ones.

The math of the encounter guidelines and CR calculation are utterly inapplicable to your group's play style. Math will not save you. You are barely playing the same game that page 82 of the DMG thinks you are playing.

The game module designed less powerful encounters. I guess they aren't using page 82 either...the module designers who are associated withe company that created the game. What do you say to that?

I doubt very much that your group's style is significantly different in the other campaigns you've played. It has been like pulling teeth over the course of this thread for us to discover the various and sundry ways in which you have altered the game from the one that the encounter math is designed around.

Yes. It does very much. In the first campaign (Mines of Phandelver) and second (Tyranny of Dragons), we used point buy. In Princes of the Apocalypse[/b] we used slightly modified point by of 33 points and disallowed more than one score below 8. In Giantslayer[/] we used rolled characters because we needed them to be slightly stronger given the large number of giants. I allowed the same in Out of the Abyss due to my intent to allow large numbers of demons. Our campaign creation rules vary according to the type of campaign and feel we're going for.

Do you truly believe the encounter math is designed around PC's getting the equivalent of a +1 to every ability score via 4d6 drop the lowest times 7? Do you truly believe the encounter math is designed around level 10 characters possessing multiple magic items each that are beyond epic legendary, many of which possess more power than the PCs themselves do? Do you truly believe that the encounter math is designed around 6 PCs being able to concentrate on buff spells and other concentration spells at the same time?

Do you truly not understand when I say this is the only campaign we've played with this power level? That's why I keep saying over and over and over again this campaign is not a good example of the problem.

And yet you still refuse to appreciate the fact that your PCs are invincible because you allowed them to be invincible. You blame the game. Your problem has nothing to do with what a marilith's challenge rating should be or what a deadly encounter consists of. The game math is absolutely not the armor that your PCs are wearing.

The game math was a problem in Tyranny of Dragons, Princes of the Apocalypse, and Giantslayer, and the players were very bare bones. But you take this one campaign where I have very strong PCs and seem to think that's the standard and it isn't.

There are problems with the game math. High level encounters can be a trick to balance. I just played through a high level adventure the other day where we defeated the 3x deadly encounter much more smoothly than we did the medium encounter that followed it. There was no nova involved because we know our DM doesn't run single-encounter Adventuring Days

DING! DING! DING!

Your campaign is not evidence of problems with the game math. That is why I, for one, am not discussing the game math with you.

DING! DING! DING! Already said that myself. Already mentioned more than probably a hundred plus times to posters like yourself it has been every single campaign, even when we ran it strictly by the rules with magic items only from the WotC created modules and using point buy with feats and very little multclassing because no one knew what they were doing. Same thing happened around level 9.

Your entire complaint has been "the game doesn't work".

No. This has not been my complaint. Why do people like you keep putting words in my mouth that I never said.

But you refuse to recognize the fact that you're not playing the same game as (most of) the rest of us. If all you want to talk about is the encounter math and not the overpowered rules changes and content decisions that you've made, well then of course we can't help you.

I'm playing exactly the same game. I'm just pointing out where the math breaks down. You have taken one campaign where I clearly stated this is not a good example and extrapolated that to every campaign I've played. That is not the case.

We do very different things. In every campaign the same problems have shown their ugly heads. Expertise becoming such an extreme advantage at high level as to make detection and ambushing a given. Certain spells providing an advantage nearly insurmountable by the enemy.

If you don't want to believe there are problems with the game math even if you're playing point buy with no feats, then have at it. I know you're wrong. I'm tried of trying to convince people of problems that are obvious both in play and on paper. I've made my own modifications which which I will continue to test until I get the feel for the game I want regardless of how many people tell me "Everything's fine. Just do this and this and this." I know everything is not fine and 5E has similar problems to every edition of D&D where certain abilities are vastly more useful and powerful than others. I want to balance them so other options are equally capable. I'll keep at it until I get there or tire of the game.

 

[Celtavian]

Ignoring as in dismissing. Sure, you may have been aware of everything that's been mentioned by others in the thread. But you also routinely dismiss these ideas. You label them as not your style, or that they shouldn't be necessary. It seems a bit strange to dismiss these points and then ask why no one is willing to acknowledge that the game's baseline math is flawed. I think that most folks would say that the math is not perfect...and there are probably a few glaring errors in design that highlight this fact.

That's likely because we're having two different discussions. I'm mentioning this campaign because it is the current one I am running. I've discussed these same problems when I was running a point buy campaign and seen the same arguments. The only new one was the "6 to 8 encounter day" solves everything argument. I've been in this dog and pony show too many times. I respond mostly out of a sense of courtesy to respond to someone that has taken the time respond to a post of mine. Most of the responses tend to be wrong assumptions that I'm growing extremely tired of answering.

But I also think that many here think that, overall, the math works. They are looking at your descriptions of encounters and how easily they are overcome by your party, and they are more concerned about other areas than the math.

I would rather say that you can make the overall math work. I wouldn't say it works very well at a baseline level. There are lots of ways to boost your abilities far beyond what monsters can handle like the easy access to a 26 AC enough times per day to make many fights trivial is an easy possibility in any game that I'm surprised more people haven't experienced. 28 very easily is very possible as well. This is using point buy, no feats, and only multiclassing. I noticed a few people banned multiclassing, which was probably wise for game balance.

All of that stuff is doled out at the DM discretion. That's controllable. And I would say that the level of treasure and magic gear can have a huge impact on the game. Especially when you start to incorporate all kinds of home brew aspects like double concentration and intelligent weapons that get actual combat turns and the like.

Treasure does. I'm working on how to take that into account in this campaign. We didn't hand out near this much treasure in any previous campaign. Items were very limited. This campaign is a bad example to use, though I will state that a two or three times deadly encounter seems like it should be harder.

Now, I know that you said that campaign is a bad example because you're going for an over the top heroic feel...but it kind of implies that at least some of this power scale issue may be at play in any game you run.

It isn't. I control the power scale according to the circumstances. Two campaigns point buy by the book. Two campaigns 33 point buy with only one 8 stat allowed to smooth the stat dumping. This has been the most generous campaign yet because I wanted to make fighting the Lords of the Abyss something special.

I think the demon lords may be the only thing that can challenge that group at this point. And, if that group was hunting them down, it might actually be enough for Demogorgon, Orcus, and Graz'zt to set aside their differences this one time. These characters are epic style characters at level 9.

That may be true. I've done some other modifications that may work.

The math is flawed. There are ways to address this. Controlling the number of encounters and availability for rest, as the original exercise stated. Adding creatures or adding environmental concerns, or even adjusting a creature a bit. These are options, and they've been mentioned. None of them will solve all the problems, though....there's always going to be times when the game just breaks down a bit.

I think the core issue, though, is that the default game is at a volume of 5 on the dial. So if the players are also at volume 5, then things are balanced, and the system works as described. The more those volumes differ, the more one side winds up drowning the other out. You have to adjust things to bring them back in balance.

Your players have the volume dialed up to 8 with their optimization. And then you cranked it up to 11 by breaking the mechanics of the game with all kinds of options. Yet the game out of the box is at volume 5.

Not much to disagree with. It's been like this in every edition of D&D I've ever played. The reason I learn these math problems is due to min-max players. They really show you how to leverage game mechanics against the environment. This helps me find problems with the game math, so I can fix them either with a house rule or on the back end with encounter and monster design.

I just don't think the 6 to 8 encounter day is a panacea to the game math problems. The idea that it was I felt required a challenge. There is no easy fix for the problems in 5E anymore than there was an easy fix in any edition of D&D. You have to take the time learn what abilities cause problems, then test things to see how to get the feel you want. That's all folks like CapnZapp, Hemlock,Zardnaar, and myself are doing. We found some problems with the math of the game that players can leverage to make the game too easy and we're figuring out how to make changes that work to make the game as challenging as we want it to be.

It seems every time these discussions get started, someone wants to challenge that idea like the game system is perfect. It isn't. Never has and never will be a perfect edition of D&D. And encounter building has always been a work in progress in every edition. It takes time to figure out what works and what doesn't. These little tables rarely work. I liked the idea of challenging Flamestrike's belief the table works fine. I don't think it does. I don't think those tables ever do, at least not against experienced players. Better to do experimentation on your own until you figure out what will work and what won't than use those little tables in my opinion. Better to understand how the game rules interact than rely too much on CR assumptions to determine if a monster will be challenging. That's often been the point of these discussions from my perspective.

 

[Celtavian]

Ignoring as in dismissing. Sure, you may have been aware of everything that's been mentioned by others in the thread. But you also routinely dismiss these ideas. You label them as not your style, or that they shouldn't be necessary. It seems a bit strange to dismiss these points and then ask why no one is willing to acknowledge that the game's baseline math is flawed. I think that most folks would say that the math is not perfect...and there are probably a few glaring errors in design that highlight this fact.

That's likely because we're having two different discussions. I'm mentioning this campaign because it is the current one I am running. I've discussed these same problems when I was running a point buy campaign and seen the same arguments. The only new one was the "6 to 8 encounter day" solves everything argument. I've been in this dog and pony show too many times. I respond mostly out of a sense of courtesy to respond to someone that has taken the time respond to a post of mine. Most of the responses tend to be wrong assumptions that I'm growing extremely tired of answering.

But I also think that many here think that, overall, the math works. They are looking at your descriptions of encounters and how easily they are overcome by your party, and they are more concerned about other areas than the math.

I would rather say that you can make the overall math work. I wouldn't say it works very well at a baseline level. There are lots of ways to boost your abilities far beyond what monsters can handle like the easy access to a 26 AC enough times per day to make many fights trivial is an easy possibility in any game that I'm surprised more people haven't experienced. 28 very easily is very possible as well. This is using point buy, no feats, and only multiclassing. I noticed a few people banned multiclassing, which was probably wise for game balance.

All of that stuff is doled out at the DM discretion. That's controllable. And I would say that the level of treasure and magic gear can have a huge impact on the game. Especially when you start to incorporate all kinds of home brew aspects like double concentration and intelligent weapons that get actual combat turns and the like.

Treasure does. I'm working on how to take that into account in this campaign. We didn't hand out near this much treasure in any previous campaign. Items were very limited. This campaign is a bad example to use, though I will state that a two or three times deadly encounter seems like it should be harder.

Now, I know that you said that campaign is a bad example because you're going for an over the top heroic feel...but it kind of implies that at least some of this power scale issue may be at play in any game you run.

It isn't. I control the power scale according to the circumstances. Two campaigns point buy by the book. Two campaigns 33 point buy with only one 8 stat allowed to smooth the stat dumping. This has been the most generous campaign yet because I wanted to make fighting the Lords of the Abyss something special.

I think the demon lords may be the only thing that can challenge that group at this point. And, if that group was hunting them down, it might actually be enough for Demogorgon, Orcus, and Graz'zt to set aside their differences this one time. These characters are epic style characters at level 9.

That may be true. I've done some other modifications that may work.

The math is flawed. There are ways to address this. Controlling the number of encounters and availability for rest, as the original exercise stated. Adding creatures or adding environmental concerns, or even adjusting a creature a bit. These are options, and they've been mentioned. None of them will solve all the problems, though....there's always going to be times when the game just breaks down a bit.

I think the core issue, though, is that the default game is at a volume of 5 on the dial. So if the players are also at volume 5, then things are balanced, and the system works as described. The more those volumes differ, the more one side winds up drowning the other out. You have to adjust things to bring them back in balance.

Your players have the volume dialed up to 8 with their optimization. And then you cranked it up to 11 by breaking the mechanics of the game with all kinds of options. Yet the game out of the box is at volume 5.

Not much to disagree with. It's been like this in every edition of D&D I've ever played. The reason I learn these math problems is due to min-max players. They really show you how to leverage game mechanics against the environment. This helps me find problems with the game math, so I can fix them either with a house rule or on the back end with encounter and monster design.

I just don't think the 6 to 8 encounter day is a panacea to the game math problems. The idea that it was I felt required a challenge. There is no easy fix for the problems in 5E anymore than there was an easy fix in any edition of D&D. You have to take the time learn what abilities cause problems, then test things to see how to get the feel you want. That's all folks like CapnZapp, Hemlock,Zardnaar, and myself are doing. We found some problems with the math of the game that players can leverage to make the game too easy and we're figuring out how to make changes that work to make the game as challenging as we want it to be.

It seems every time these discussions get started, someone wants to challenge that idea like the game system is perfect. It isn't. Never has and never will be a perfect edition of D&D. And encounter building has always been a work in progress in every edition. It takes time to figure out what works and what doesn't. These little tables rarely work. I liked the idea of challenging Flamestrike's belief the table works fine. I don't think it does. I don't think those tables ever do, at least not against experienced players. Better to do experimentation on your own until you figure out what will work and what won't than use those little tables in my opinion. Better to understand how the game rules interact than rely too much on CR assumptions to determine if a monster will be challenging. That's often been the point of these discussions from my perspective.

 

[Celtavian]

Heck, you don't even need to change his spell list. If you want a by-the-MM lich to be nearly impossible to kill, then as long as he has at least a 4th level spell slot (and he's got 10!), then dimension door alone will make him maddeningly frustrating to get ahold of.

And if they do kill him, then unless you do something stupid like put the phylactery in an amulet around his neck with an engraving on the back that says "WARNING: PHYLACTERY. LICH WILL REJUVENATE IF THIS ISN'T DESTROYED", he gets a current model year, brand new body in the next 1d10 days. And now he's angry.

I was doing some testing. I didn't want a long-term lich encounter given this module is focused on demons. I came up with an appropriate background for a lich that wanted to die. He didn't choose lichdom, he was forced into by a being that was virtually a god. He didn't try to hide his phylactery. The reason I did this was to boost experience and to test power on power mechanics.

I don't know if you've read Out of the Abyss, so I'm not sure you're familiar with its design. It's very poorly designed. By level 10 they have random encounters with minotaurs and behirs for a level 10 group. I'm not even sure how many such encounters it would take to level the PCs using their random encounter tables, but I decided to increase them substantially. Out of the Abyss started off great, then went downhill from there. It's a sandbox that does not provide enough experience or sufficient challenge for the recommended levels. I've had to enhance everything. I started by populating random travel encounters with a large number of demons. Even level 10 characters without the insane magic items I've handed out wouldn't be challenged by CR 2 miniotaurs and a single wandering behir. It's been a series of experiments to see how it all works. I've been testing different monsters in different circumstances in a fairly straightforward fashion like liches, beholders, and death knights to see what kind of challenge they can be. So far it has been a mixed bag, though the design of the lair has proven to be a very important component for soft targets like liches and beholders. The monster itself is somewhat weak, but in its lair its potency increases quite a bit.

Right now I'm fixing certain things like the lack of athletics for many monsters which limits their grappling and show tactics. I'm buffing skills substantially for certain creatures so they at least have a chance of perceiving the PCs and stealthing up on them. I'm adding spellcasting to creatures I feel need it to fulfill their purpose like balors and mariliths. I'll continue to modify the game to make it work like I want it work at higher level.

 

[Flamestrike]

What I find really strange is that WotC modules don't follow Flamestrike's 6 to 8 encounter day model. The very game company that designed the game is producing adventures that don't follow the model Flamestrike believes is so integral to the creation of a challenging adventure. I've played Tyranny of Dragons, Princes of the Apocalypse, Mines of Phandelver, and Out of the Abyss, only Mines of Phandelver[/b] came close to the six to eight encounter day model and it was a low level modules. Every other one has been a sort of sandbox or set piece encounter adventure that let's the player set their rest periods very easily. It's why Flamestrike's claim of the entire game working fine if you use the 6 to 8 encounter day so strange given the company making the game doesn't seem to follow this idea at all.

As you claim above, you're letting the players set their rest periods. Thats on you, not on the adventure. The adventures all feature antagonists that have definate goals and timelines. If your PC's take their time meandering about the place, Tiamat/ the Demon princes/ Strahd win.

And every single dungeon/ tomb/ crypt/ adventure locale of (say) OotA, PotA etc has around 6-8 encounters in it (if not more).

When the PC's are wandering about in the bushes/ caves of the underdark between adventure locales then yeah, they're unlikely to get more than 2 (and frequently 0) encounters per AD.

Again, youre assuming that its 6-8/ 2 short rests all day, every day. It'll often be less. Rarely it'll be more.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's likely because we're having two different discussions. I'm mentioning this campaign because it is the current one I am running. I've discussed these same problems when I was running a point buy campaign and seen the same arguments. The only new one was the "6 to 8 encounter day" solves everything argument. I've been in this dog and pony show too many times. I respond mostly out of a sense of courtesy to respond to someone that has taken the time respond to a post of mine. Most of the responses tend to be wrong assumptions that I'm growing extremely tired of answering.

I'm trying not to make assumptions, and to only address what you have actually said. I realize that there were two aspects to the discussions...one the party designed for he challenge and another you brought up in your current campaign. I don't assume all games you play are like that, and you said that was not the case, so I get it...but I don't think that mentioning that campaign was very useful to your argument.

I don't know I I hold to the 6-8 encounter rule as solving everything, but having more encounters and having a party conditioned to think more encounters are likely before they can recover certainly mitigates many concerns about party power. Not all, you are correct. But it's one area, and kind of a foundation to start with.

I would rather say that you can make the overall math work. I wouldn't say it works very well at a baseline level. There are lots of ways to boost your abilities far beyond what monsters can handle like the easy access to a 26 AC enough times per day to make many fights trivial is an easy possibility in any game that I'm surprised more people haven't experienced. 28 very easily is very possible as well. This is using point buy, no feats, and only multiclassing. I noticed a few people banned multiclassing, which was probably wise for game balance.

Here's the thing....there are many many more ways to not get your AC to 26 or 28. Of all the combinations of classes, abilities, spells, and gear....most of them don't reach that level. The game as it's designed does not expect the party members to find only the most mathematically beneficial combinations and then crank out minmaxed PCs like an assembly line. So that's a big part of the problem. Your players are intentionally trying to make the math break down. They may not see it that way, but really, that's what they're doing. And in a lot of ways, that's fine. If that's what you guys enjoy, then more power to you.

But the game does not expect that. The game assumes that for every optimizing power gamer, there's also a 10 year old girl playing with her uncle, and all she cares about is being an elven princess who ran away from her kingdom so she could be an adventurer. This player isn't worried about winning combat so much as she just wants to pretend for a bit. She's not concerned about maxing Dex and dumping Str, and making aure she takes sharpshooter instead of her first ASI because DUH everyone knows ranged is superior!!

The game is designed with both of those players in mind. So if your players are all optimizers, then you have to adjust things. To me, this is a given...I would assume this to be the case, and wouldn't blame the game for it. And I think that's the basic argument.

Treasure does. I'm working on how to take that into account in this campaign. We didn't hand out near this much treasure in any previous campaign. Items were very limited. This campaign is a bad example to use, though I will state that a two or three times deadly encounter seems like it should be harder.

It isn't. I control the power scale according to the circumstances. Two campaigns point buy by the book. Two campaigns 33 point buy with only one 8 stat allowed to smooth the stat dumping. This has been the most generous campaign yet because I wanted to make fighting the Lords of the Abyss something special.

I think magical gear, despite being so limited in this edition both by the cap of +3 and with many items requiring attunement, ironically may have a bigger impact than ever. I've long been stingy with magical gear (to a fault, honestly), so that idea appeals to me in a way. But it also means every item you give them can have a huge impact on the game, especially if it's given at a level that's a bit lower than it should be given.

Not much to disagree with. It's been like this in every edition of D&D I've ever played. The reason I learn these math problems is due to min-max players. They really show you how to leverage game mechanics against the environment. This helps me find problems with the game math, so I can fix them either with a house rule or on the back end with encounter and monster design.

I just don't think the 6 to 8 encounter day is a panacea to the game math problems. The idea that it was I felt required a challenge. There is no easy fix for the problems in 5E anymore than there was an easy fix in any edition of D&D. You have to take the time learn what abilities cause problems, then test things to see how to get the feel you want. That's all folks like CapnZapp, Hemlock,Zardnaar, and myself are doing. We found some problems with the math of the game that players can leverage to make the game too easy and we're figuring out how to make changes that work to make the game as challenging as we want it to be.

It seems every time these discussions get started, someone wants to challenge that idea like the game system is perfect. It isn't. Never has and never will be a perfect edition of D&D. And encounter building has always been a work in progress in every edition. It takes time to figure out what works and what doesn't. These little tables rarely work. I liked the idea of challenging Flamestrike's belief the table works fine. I don't think it does. I don't think those tables ever do, at least not against experienced players. Better to do experimentation on your own until you figure out what will work and what won't than use those little tables in my opinion. Better to understand how the game rules interact than rely too much on CR assumptions to determine if a monster will be challenging. That's often been the point of these discussions from my perspective.

I don't think there's any panacea. The game isn't perfect and won't be perfect even if adjustments are made. I myself don't stick to the tables at all. I think the 6-8 guideline is a decent tool to use, but I don't think it's the end all be all. But I don't think that [MENTION=6788736]Flamestrike[/MENTION] thought that either. He clearly had encounter design and environment and time constraints and all kinds of other tools in mind to help the multiple encounter day be challenging. I think he was right that it can be done, I just think that there was a fundamental difference about what "out of the box" meant. I don't really see either side as right or wrong...you and some of the other posters you mentioned who view the game through the lens of optimization all make plants of good points.

As with most things, the answer is in the middle ground. But either way, good discussion.

 

[Azurewraith]

I can understand this. My group fought a lich. They killed it quite quickly. It only has 130 hit points or so. That goes extremely fast against a party. It did some damage with AoE spells. I was setting up for a power word kill death hit, but he just couldn't last long enough. I'm going to modify lich hit points next time. I'll add a bonus based on power from its phylactery or whatever semi-appropriate means to raise its hit points. 5E is very much a hit point attrition game. The primary defense is hit points. AC, saves, and every other type of defense can be circumvented by hit points.

I could see the lich going down in 1round Mr.atropal lost nearly half his hitpoints in the first round. If I didn't five him automatic suprise on his first round I can't imagine he would of done anything.
Looking to get my write up of the full thing tomorrow

 

[Azurewraith]

That lich was an idiot. A lich in its lair gets unlimited 1st through 8th level slots due to lair actions. It can afford to do crazy stuff like scry out the party's location via Clairvoyance/Arcane Eye, conjure up twelve magma mephits via Conjure Minor Elementals VIII, Longstrider them all just for fun, use Seeming to disguise them as halfling zombies (to fake the party out into the wrong countermeasures), and then send them all off to hunt PCs. And if that fails it can repeat as many times as it wants, or switch to Invisible Stalkers, or accompany the mephits in person (wearing a nice Blink spell and some Mirror Images at the moment of contact) and Mass Suggestion or Forcecage PCs at the worst possible moment before opening up a Demiplane filled with a functionally-unlimited number of zombies and skeleton archers (the lich is limited only by availability of equipment and bodies, not spell slots), chucking a Chain Lightning, and then Teleporting away, laughing.

All this comes out of infinitely-renewable resources. If the lich instead breaks out his 9th level spell slot and Shapechanges into a shadow dragon, things get even worse.

Would your party be ok with Mephit spam? Mine would be maybe once twice they would be pissed, third time you bet I'm getting daggers across the table and the odd dick move comment I do it again there walking. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

 

[CapnZapp]

This is also a viable solution and one I've considered myself.

Nod.

My problem, however, is: I want this to be in the core books.

Having a default is fine. (Saying a short rest is five minutes or eight hours in the PHB is fine)

But I want the DMG to explicitly contain the variant where rest durations aren't set in stone. Not just suggestions to change the time but then always stick to the new choice.

Oh well, 6E perhaps...