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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6858927" data-attributes="member: 5834">Modification is not unique to 5E. As Flamestrike stated, DM modification has been a part of the game since 1E. DM Empowerment has been a part of every edition. But 5E is fairly new. Some of us were running the game as is until we got a feel for it. When we ran the game out of the box, we started to see all these problems that make the game "too easy" in our opinion. So we explained from the viewpoint of an optimizer both as a DM and player the problems. We were met with "The 6 to 8 encounter day fixes this" per the premiss of this thread and "I'm not having that problem at my table" or "Fix it this way" and other such defenses of the 5E system. None of those defenses helped because they don't fix some of the underlying problems in the base design of the game that are causing 5E to be "too easy." Even the term "too easy" is relative to the individual making the statement. For myself I mean it lacks the deadliness of past editions. This appears to be by design. I don't care for it as a DM, so I've been increasing the deadliness by analyzing some of the base design choices I think make the game far "too easy" or a monster "too weak."If you want to make appropriate changes, it is necessary to understand the mechanical issues that are making the game "too easy." When we bring these up on the forum, we often get told we're wrong. We know that isn't the case. So the test was created to show that optimized players using the base customization in the PHB (feats and multiclassing) can basically trash 5E challenges out of the box. Certain options are vastly superior to other options creating an imbalance of both offense and defense that forces people into a narrow spectrum of choices for effectiveness and makes player versus environment challenges trivial unless deadly far beyond the norm.For example, if Flamestrike didn't create very specific environmental conditions that were more dangerous than the monsters themselves, the party would be steamrolling the majority of these encounters even with a medium and hard designation. The environmental factors are more dangerous than the monsters themselves and Flamestrike had to make that part up because the base monsters in the Monster Manual[/b] are too weak to challenge an optimized party without a great deal of assistance from the environment. Some DMs like myself don't care for that. I feel monsters like giants should be quite dangerous even without heavy environmental advantages. But they aren't. Players have too much in their arsenal to be challenged by even powerful creatures. It kind of sucks as a DM and lover of Fantasy. One big giant or big dragon in a fantasy story is usually enough to challenge the mightiest heroes of the land. Yet in D&D, the premier fantasy game, one big giant or dragon is just an oversized orc with some extra powers to a D&D PC party. I'm working to change that in the worlds I run without having to heavily modify the environment.</blockquote>

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