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

[meshon]

I think the group of PCs wasn't particularly trusting, I just thought that this view of their method of approach was based on the "group up around the paladin" tactic that was mentioned.

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[matskralc]

Wow, man. Your players are not very paranoid. Really, they're all just going to walk up to the pyramid in a tightly-clustered group like that?

He said that's what Celtavian's and Azurewraith's PCs tend to do, which seems a fair characterization.

 

[Flamestrike]

I think the group of PCs wasn't particularly trusting, I just thought that this view of their method of approach was based on the "group up around the paladin" tactic that was mentioned.

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Those tactics change now that they know the encounter naturally.

If the atropal attacks the Owl, then it wastes its chance at surprise doing nothing important because the party is too far away. That is precisely why you HAVE the Owl on point.

Blindsight obviously doesn't work beyond blindsight radius. I already talked about this in the post you quoted.

I'm not saying my SOP is perfect or without risk. I'm just like, "Wow. These guys are so trusting. How cute." I don't believe they are actual 13th level PCs.

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It detects the owl at 120 (most likely) then flies forward using its detect legendary ability to scan for PCs. If it finds any before its turn proper it nukes them. If not, it nukes the (surprised) Owl.

Im not saying its a bad plan mind you. Distraction owls are a valid target.

That said, id be pretty surprised if the familiar lasted this long without death. A party that makes a habit of sending a lone familiar up to scout would have had it killed at the Slaad encounter (and probably a few others), and doesnt have much time to resummon one.

In actual play at a table (with no PC knowledge of the monsters and encounters, and a proactive DM) these encounters would challenge any party.

Id be super intersted to run the experiment again at 17th level. Now THATS a test of 5E. 3E would never hold up at that level.

 

[Azurewraith]

Just seems safe if your in the unknown group around the guy that grants fear immunity a bonus to saves spell resistance and can impose disadvantage on an attack roll

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

He said that's what Celtavian's and Azurewraith's PCs tend to do, which seems a fair characterization.

Good point. And we know that's in part because Azurewraith's PCs misunderstood the way the Paladin of Ancients' aura works, so they think it's about 5x as good as it really is. (In reality, spells have low damage in 5E, so almost any non-NPC monster that can hurt you badly with a spell can probably hurt you even worse with its personal attacks, although the AoE factor can help counterbalance that... but if you clump up so everyone can fit in the aura, you are making the monster's AoE more effective, not less. All in all, the aura is nice to have in some situations but not usually very important.)

Forum buzz leads me to believe that many or most DMs who post on these forums misunderstand the Paladin of Ancients' aura in the exact same way. I wonder how important that is.

 

[Azurewraith]

Good point. And we know that's in part because Azurewraith's PCs misunderstood the way the Paladin of Ancients' aura works, so they think it's about 5x as good as it really is. (In reality, spells have low damage in 5E, so almost any non-NPC monster that can hurt you badly with a spell can probably hurt you even worse with its personal attacks, although the AoE factor can help counterbalance that... but if you clump up so everyone can fit in the aura, you are making the monster's AoE more effective, not less. All in all, the aura is nice to have in some situations but not usually very important.)

Forum buzz leads me to believe that many or most DMs who post on these forums misunderstand the Paladin of Ancients' aura in the exact same way. I wonder how important that is.

Ye it really is alot weaker I would of read it as spell but when remembering it replaced spell with magic as there similar but on effect totally different the law student in me is ashamed

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Those tactics change now that they know the encounter naturally.



It detects the owl at 120 (most likely) then flies forward using its detect legendary ability to scan for PCs. If it finds any before its turn proper it nukes them. If not, it nukes the (surprised) Owl.

Im not saying its a bad plan mind you. Distraction owls are a valid target.

That said, id be pretty surprised if the familiar lasted this long without death. A party that makes a habit of sending a lone familiar up to scout would have had it killed at the Slaad encounter (and probably a few others), and doesnt have much time to resummon one.

In actual play at a table (with no PC knowledge of the monsters and encounters, and a proactive DM) these encounters would challenge any party.

Id be super intersted to run the experiment again at 17th level. Now THATS a test of 5E. 3E would never hold up at that level.

Good point about the familiar already maybe being dead. The Slaad encounter wouldn't have killed the owl because, it being on the other side of a dimensional barrier, sending through the lone owl is going to be useless. Instead I'd want to send a group of sixteen wolves/whatever, staged in groups of 4, 8, and 4 per round, followed by the PCs on the fourth round. (Their orders are to spread out and defend themselves if attacked. The goal is to trip any ambushes without costing the party any important resources; the wolves may or may not be able to deal with the ambushes all by themselves but they'll sure make it more complicated for any enemies.) I don't remember the encounter description well enough to say if that ideal plan would actually be feasible or if there's some reason to PCs have to go through alone, but that's the tactical doctrine for jumping into unknown teleportals: send a (disposable) vanguard first if possible.

So the Slaads wouldn't have killed the owl, but something else very well could have. That doesn't change the general doctrine for the atropal fight, it just changes the specifics. If the owl/bat familiar is dead and hasn't been resummoned, push out a recon element of a different kind: summoned animals, an invisible Shadow Monk with a d10 Bardic Inspiration Die and Bless on her, whatever your party can afford. The recon element is going to sweep the room and try to locate any potential threats before bringing in the main body of PCs, so they at least "know" which direction is safe to retreat toward once contact is made (back out of the room? away from the pyramid? towards the pyramid?). The risk in this case, especially if your recon element is a non-disposable PC, is that there could be traps or hidden threats which cut the recon element off from the rest of the party, e.g. a sliding stone door triggered by a tripwire or pressure plate when you're entering the room. That can make the cautious approach blow up in your face when part of your party has to deal with any threats alone.

Counterplay against that kind of threat is (1) possible; and (2) interesting; and (3) beyond the scope of the current discussion. For now I'll just say the module gets much more interesting if the players are required to be paranoid about both monsters (things you kill via HP attrition) and traps (things you avoid through roleplayed decisions and "utility" spells/abilities) without knowing precisely which they are going to be dealing with next. When I say "your players aren't very paranoid" it should be understood that I mean "in the context of a DM who relies only on monsters." Against a DM who uses both kinds of threats, the exact behavior I'm marvelling at as non-paranoid may in fact be extremely paranoid, against a different kind of threat.

But, if you're worried about the corridor being cut off, you are still at a minimum going to want to spread out once you're inside the 300' x 300' room--unless you are afraid that spreading out through the bushes/whatnot will trigger hidden tripwires as the clumsier/less observant PCs stumble over them! [evil DM laughter]

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Just seems safe if your in the unknown group around the guy that grants fear immunity a bonus to saves spell resistance and can impose disadvantage on an attack roll

I'm curious. Why do people make a big deal about the paladin's fear immunity aura? Fear is straightforward to deal with: you typically get a saving throw against it every single round, and once it wears off it often can't be renewed, and there are a ton of low-level spells that negate it. (E.g. Heroism.) The fear aura is nice to have, but again, not something that you should take other risks in order to get.

I think the PCs who do this are not actually operating on a rational level--I think they're feeling the herd instinct which says subconsciously, "It's dangerous to be alone!" even when rationally the opposite is true. From a roleplaying perspective, roleplaying irrational instincts is perfectly fine of course, but it's interesting all the same, especially for DMs who are interested in designing challenges--it means that players who are not afraid will have a markedly easier time with the encounter than ones who are. E.g. Celtavian's group of jaded grognards would be less likely to clump up, and would therefore take less damage against the atropal. I think that's worth being aware of.

 

[Flamestrike]

Good point about the familiar already maybe being dead. The Slaad encounter wouldn't have killed the owl because, it being on the other side of a dimensional barrier, sending through the lone owl is going to be useless. Instead I'd want to send a group of sixteen wolves/whatever, staged in groups of 4, 8, and 4 per round, followed by the PCs on the fourth round. (Their orders are to spread out and defend themselves if attacked. The goal is to trip any ambushes without costing the party any important resources; the wolves may or may not be able to deal with the ambushes all by themselves but they'll sure make it more complicated for any enemies.) I don't remember the encounter description well enough to say if that ideal plan would actually be feasible or if there's some reason to PCs have to go through alone, but that's the tactical doctrine for jumping into unknown teleportals: send a (disposable) vanguard first if possible.

So the Slaads wouldn't have killed the owl, but something else very well could have. That doesn't change the general doctrine for the atropal fight, it just changes the specifics. If the owl/bat familiar is dead and hasn't been resummoned, push out a recon element of a different kind: summoned animals, an invisible Shadow Monk with a d10 Bardic Inspiration Die and Bless on her, whatever your party can afford. The recon element is going to sweep the room and try to locate any potential threats before bringing in the main body of PCs, so they at least "know" which direction is safe to retreat toward once contact is made (back out of the room? away from the pyramid? towards the pyramid?). The risk in this case, especially if your recon element is a non-disposable PC, is that there could be traps or hidden threats which cut the recon element off from the rest of the party, e.g. a sliding stone door triggered by a tripwire or pressure plate when you're entering the room. That can make the cautious approach blow up in your face when part of your party has to deal with any threats alone.

Counterplay against that kind of threat is (1) possible; and (2) interesting; and (3) beyond the scope of the current discussion. For now I'll just say the module gets much more interesting if the players are required to be paranoid about both monsters (things you kill via HP attrition) and traps (things you avoid through roleplayed decisions and "utility" spells/abilities) without knowing precisely which they are going to be dealing with next. When I say "your players aren't very paranoid" it should be understood that I mean "in the context of a DM who relies only on monsters." Against a DM who uses both kinds of threats, the exact behavior I'm marvelling at as non-paranoid may in fact be extremely paranoid, against a different kind of threat.

But, if you're worried about the corridor being cut off, you are still at a minimum going to want to spread out once you're inside the 300' x 300' room--unless you are afraid that spreading out through the bushes/whatnot will trigger hidden tripwires as the clumsier/less observant PCs stumble over them! [evil DM laughter]

A lot of this is preordained by knowing the encounter first up though.

I have noticed a lot of tactics specifically designed to defeat encounter X, which assumes a lot of knowledge about the encounter that the PCs would not have in game.

 

[Azurewraith]

Its nice not to poo your pants o guess getting scattered by fear is annoying