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

[CapnZapp]

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.

This is a good thing.

Tell me your hit points and I tell you your level. Or challenge rating, I guess, but... yech.

I'm amazed how the encounter guidelines never begin counting from the other direction.

How much damage can the party deal consistently per round, if they make an effort but doesn't burn everything? A hundred points, you say?

And you want the BBEG to last three rounds? Hmmm... I wonder how many hit points he should have...

130 hp you say? WRONG. How about... *drum roll* 300!

And then, if he's supposed to handle the party all on his own, you double that. If he's particularly front-loaded (like a lich admittedly is), AND he's smart enough to surround himself with non-trivial beasties, you can shave some off. But not too much.

130 hp? Then there's no point casting "smart" spells that debuff him. The entire concept of making him save or suck is devalued. In the immortal words of Treantmonk, perhaps just deal 130 points of damage.

To me, it's blindingly obvious this is a much more practical approach to BBEGery than the simulationist approach "okay so he's eighteenth level, so this gives him 18d8, but that only gives him 81 hp so we need to tweak his Con, and then this and that spell...."

Simply give your BBEGs triple the damage output of the party and... done.

Of course, this means DMs have to know their parties and that's difficult so we can't have that. Better to create a freakishly complicated yet-laughably-inaccurate encounter framework to give off the illusion the game is simple! Yay!

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

Show me specific examples of exactly where official modules specify limits on the number of long/short rests available to the player characters.

I would love any such adventure; I just haven't seen them yet.

 

[CapnZapp]

PS. Note: I'm primarily interested in data known to the heroes. Not just the same old "you need to hurry" BS that's incredibly vague and also 99% patently false. I mean "you have seven days and seven nights or you won't get paid" type of deals.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

Okay so you agree with the claim 5th edition breaks down under pressure.

Finally. You, Sir, are a greater man than those apologists that absolutely refuse to see anything wrong with the game, instead preferring to throw blame around (mostly on the DM).

Now then, the discussion can move on to the next question, which I suspect has been Celt's real destination all along:

Does 5E break down more easily than other editions?

 

[CapnZapp]

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Exactly.

You don't need to be a super genius to use the tools given to monsters to create an incredibly frustrating experience for the players, and high level spells enable some very "unfair" tactics.

But I suspect you (those of you; not Azure) only mention those to shoot down the arguments "the monsters are too weak". What you don't get is:

We want monsters that doesn't have to use these tactics. We want monsters that come buff out of the box.

Any 100 hp monster simply cannot and should not be given a high CR. Period.

If it hides behind lots of muscle, that's one thing, but that's the Encounter CR, not the monster CR.

If the stat block itself says "the Lich always sends out ten squads of halfling-disguised azers before the fight, and always fights behind a hundred specters" then and only then would a sky high CR be warranted, despite the low hp.

You the DM should not have to work extra just to bring the monster up to the listed CR. The listed CR applies to a bog-standard out-of-the-box randomly-ecountered no-previous-DM-prep monster.

(The real takeway here is to ditch CRs altogether, but that's another discussion)

The point is: a designer is told a CR 15 monster is supposed to challenge a level 15 party. Giving that monster just north of a hundred hit points is then an objective error. It tells us that designer does not know his own game. It means he has no actual play experience, possibly excepting parties consisting of ten-year old girls playing elven princesses running away from home. That's a fundamental flaw, since any balancing needs to take the extremes into account. Not necessarily Celtavian levels of extremes, but certainly we should be able to count on the basic realization "you know Bob, a hundred hit points won't even last one round against five Regular-but-L15 Joes; you sure you're done with this monster?".

 

[dave2008]

Now then, the discussion can move on to the next question, which I suspect has been Celt's real destination all along:

Does 5E break down more easily than other editions?

That's tough, but I don't thinks so. 1e and 2e didn't have CR so they don't really enter into the discussion. I didn't play 3e so I will need someone else to comment on that edition. 4e seems similar to 5e in the break down of monsters; however, given all the PC options and party snyergy possible I would say it broke down faster and to a greater degree than 5e.

 

[dave2008]

Simply give your BBEGs triple the damage output of the party and... done.

Wait, have you been convinced that monsters need to do more damage now! I thought you were on the fence about that.

 

[Flamestrike]

Show me specific examples of exactly where official modules specify limits on the number of long/short rests available to the player characters.

I would love any such adventure; I just haven't seen them yet.

Again, you wont find them anywhere because 5E doesnt want to force that playstyle on you. If you want to run your games with single encounters per day go for it (although what will happen is that long rest resources which are designed to last 6-8 encounters can be nova dumped, meaning you'll also need to dial up your encounters and short rest dependent classes will lag behind).

Policing the adventuring day is not the same thing as saying '6-8 is an invoilable rule'.

In 3E the adventuring day wasnt discussed and the action economy were never factored into encounter difficulty. 4E tried to counter part of this with the A/D/E power structure.

5E leaves the refresh rate of powers, and the number of encounters to strectch them over entirely in the hands of the DM, with a recomendation that those resources are supposed to be stretched over 6-8 (with about 2-3 short rests scattered in there as well). It gives options for longer refresh periods and shorter shorter periods, and leaves the base rate entirely in the hands of the DM.

There is nothing hardcoded into many of the various dungeons in the published adventures that stops the PCs from engaging in the 5 minute adventuring day and nuking each room one AD at a time, taking months to clear out a dungeon. Feel free to run that style of game if thats what you want. I would quit such an unrealistic campaign if that was anynear the norm however. I prefer words that feel alive, and actions have consequences and so forth.

Its not that 6-8 is a hard rule encoded into published adventures, and I wasnt trying to suggest that it is. Its just the underlying meta point that they based the game balance at.

Once you get with that concept, you can start to mess around with it; its just you need to be aware of what messing with it does to class balance and encounter difficulty.

 

[Radaceus]

Trippled HP on a poorly played Lich will only postpone the battle by 300%

This does not equate to 5E encounter building by the book is broken!

How about we erase all of the discussion using the monty haul PC's, which were being touted as the encounter munching party referenced by Celtavian, until he proudly proclaimed we just look at the character sheets when questioned on the topic, and after which when we all were left jaws agape, proclaimed that that was a bad example...
wasn't it they that was his original example?
such circumlocution!

likewise, a poorly played Lich encounter, by the DMs own admission a bad example, yet had been used as AN example...

let's erase that from the conversation as well...
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Now from my experience, if you have more than 4 or 5 experienced players, the Encounter builder will come off to easy at first. But once the 5E system was dialed in for me, I have little trouble DMing in the same fashion I DM'd 1E and 2E and keeping my group on their toes. But I am an experienced DM, as it would seem are most everyone else posting here; so you all should know that the rules are your guidelines and toolkit, that the idea of building an encounter without fleshing it out and adding factors to create an environment and challenge on par to the gaming level of your players is, well, it isn't good DMing.

Furthermore, I feel that a group of people playing D&D for the first time would not find it as easy, in fact the system would work as intended.

 

[CapnZapp]

Again, you wont find them anywhere because 5E doesnt want to force that playstyle on you. If you want to run your games with single encounters per day go for it (although what will happen is that long rest resources which are designed to last 6-8 encounters can be nova dumped, meaning you'll also need to dial up your encounters and short rest dependent classes will lag behind).

Policing the adventuring day is not the same thing as saying '6-8 is an invoilable rule'.

In 3E the adventuring day wasnt discussed and the action economy were never factored into encounter difficulty. 4E tried to counter part of this with the A/D/E power structure.

5E leaves the refresh rate of powers, and the number of encounters to strectch them over entirely in the hands of the DM, with a recomendation that those resources are supposed to be stretched over 6-8 (with about 2-3 short rests scattered in there as well). It gives options for longer refresh periods and shorter shorter periods, and leaves the base rate entirely in the hands of the DM.

There is nothing hardcoded into many of the various dungeons in the published adventures that stops the PCs from engaging in the 5 minute adventuring day and nuking each room one AD at a time, taking months to clear out a dungeon. Feel free to run that style of game if thats what you want. I would quit such an unrealistic campaign if that was anynear the norm however. I prefer words that feel alive, and actions have consequences and so forth.

Its not that 6-8 is a hard rule encoded into published adventures, and I wasnt trying to suggest that it is. Its just the underlying meta point that they based the game balance at.

Once you get with that concept, you can start to mess around with it; its just you need to be aware of what messing with it does to class balance and encounter difficulty.

Okay, so the solution you've offered over and over again isn't actually part of the game as published.

Okay.

Perhaps time to tone down the "it's the DM's fault there aren't 6-8 encounters" rethoric against people complaining about the game being on easy mode, perhaps?