D&D 5E Difficulty Settings for 5e

[guachi]

i had decided to lower starting stats in my next game to give everyone a feat (and that would be the only feat they'd ever have). I chose 14 13 12 11 10 9 as the array. In looking around the internet it turns out this uses the exact number of ability points (10) as can be found in the d20 PF SRD for low fantasy campaigns.

It's like I reinvented the wheel, or something. I suggest going there and seeing how they do it.

In addition, I decided that instead of an ASI giving +2 to one score or +1 to two scores I'd give the players 3 ability score points to improve their base (before racial adjustment) score. The enables scores up to 13 (before adjustment) more cheaply but higher scores are more expensive.

I was contemplating giving the standard +2 or +1/+1 for the ASIs at level 6 for fighters and rogues and level 10 for fighters as those are competing with other classes getting some non-stat based ability.

 

[Horwath]

Garth, my special needs 1/2ling disagrees with you.
Stat wise the best that could be said for him was that "Well, he doesn't have a negative modifier to his Con....".

When the game he was played in ended he'd survived 6 months of play & achieved almost 7th lv.
Game died, Garth didnt. And he was a hilarious challenge to play.

Then he is an exemption that confirms the rule.

Look at the US Army Rangers. Out of the trained soldiers(not average out of general population) pass rate in recent years was 40-50%.

If they put to the training general population pass rate would be around 4-5%, maybe.

Adventurers are outstanding individuals, maybe 1% of population in fantasy setting goes to be adventurers, and that is usually top 1% of that population.

 

[Lanefan]

Then he is an exemption that confirms the rule.

Look at the US Army Rangers. Out of the trained soldiers(not average out of general population) pass rate in recent years was 40-50%.

If they put to the training general population pass rate would be around 4-5%, maybe.

Adventurers are outstanding individuals, maybe 1% of population in fantasy setting goes to be adventurers, and that is usually top 1% of that population.

Depends how you look at it.

Sometimes the best adventurers are average-joe farmhands who got their courage together and just went for it.

It's not all about stats. It's about desire. Someone in a game world might have 10s or 11s in everything (in other words, as average as you can get on a 3d6 bell curve) for stats but turn out to be a great adventurer through sheer willpower, desire, and - yes - luck.

Also, I'd amend your quote above to read "Successful adventurers are outstanding individuals..." - that's your 1% or even less; but there's probably another 2 or 3 or 5% out there who died trying.

Lanefan

 

[Azurewraith]

I wouldn't say the ability scores would make it harder per say you would just sit back and watch the party do the other bits, much like you do now. The group barbarian doesn't roll a history check because of his -1 Int but the +5 wizard on the other hand.

 

[OB1]

Sometimes the best adventurers are average-joe farmhands who got their courage together and just went for it.

It's not all about stats. It's about desire. Someone in a game world might have 10s or 11s in everything (in other words, as average as you can get on a 3d6 bell curve) for stats but turn out to be a great adventurer through sheer willpower, desire, and - yes - luck.

Also, I'd amend your quote above to read "Successful adventurers are outstanding individuals..." - that's your 1% or even less; but there's probably another 2 or 3 or 5% out there who died trying.

Lanefan

This is exactly what I'm getting at. Sure the overall averages are going to favor the more naturally talented, but there are interesting stories to be told about those adventurers who didn't have the natural talent but found success anyhow. And in 5e, class level far, far outweighs ability scores. A level 10 fighter with 8s across her abilities is always, always going to beat a level 1 fighter one on one even if they had 20s in everything. It will be much more challenging to achieve that level in the first place, but the power curve in D&D will allow it, I'm just not sure how extreme I can push the low end before the low ability scores will prevent success. I have a sense that all 6s would still give a reasonable chance of survival.

The legacy array I didn't intend to be more difficult than legendary, I added that specifically because the swingyness can be a fun and unique challenge to overcome and, again, leads to different and interesting stories. Obviously this requires players who can accept doing less damage in combat than others at the table, but that doesn't mean that everyone doesn't contribute in a meaningful way.

 

[abirdcall]

I think most of the 'it's too easy' crowd take a lot of long rests.

I've seen people describe the published adventures as too easy and others describe them as unfair or too hard.

Another common complaint is that classes like Paladin are too good which is also tied to taking too many long rests.

Then you have the DM factor of not allowing the antagonists to defeat the PCs. I remember one poster saying that a certain encounter in a book was way too easy and said they played the opposing creatures as fiercly as possible. When probed for details it turns out that instead of casting Insect Plague on the party (which would have wiped them out) they had the main baddie cast Levitate to make herself an easy target. Then there are the many threads about how Strahd is way too easy to defeat even though the book has specific instructions on how to play him. He is capable of dismantling a party without ever getting into an actual toe to toe fight using hit and run tactics. He is supposed to know the party's weaknesses and use them against them in the best way he can. Instead DMs have him approach the party and punch them.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Adventurers are outstanding individuals, maybe 1% of population in fantasy setting goes to be adventurers, and that is usually top 1% of that population.

I'm going to have to totally disagree with you here. Adventurers are just greedy individuals who have no problem killing things and taking their valuables. Adventurers are mercenaries who would prefer to go into that ruined keep via a "job" from the local lord who is paying them a pretty copper to do it...rather than just go in their and do it anyway (it's like getting paid twice for your job ). Adventurers travel into the deepest, darkest places to fight horrible creatures that would wipe out entire villages before it gets killed or driven off. Adventurers are the ones who go into the goblin caves and kill all of them...find the map to the goblins 'Forbidden Cave of Kurtlemak', travel there, kill everything there (including the warlock using the goblins), and discover that the warlock was sending messages and treasure to a nearby keep...travel to the keep and fight there way past undead creatures to the top, kill the demon and the sorcerer who had summoned it...step into the mystic circle and find themselves on the first plane of the Abyss with a looming pyramid of bone and still-living-faces.

That's what kind of individuals adventurers are. At least, that's what they envision themselves as. Usually they end up getting to the second room of the goblin caves and get themselves killed by some goblins and their pet forest-wolf...and become dungeon dressing (re: "The cave is littered with the bones of those who have ventured here before..." <-- the PC is the "bones"). It doesn't take "outstanding" ability scores to be crazy enough to go into a goblin-infested cave and get yourself killed. It also doesn't take "outstanding" ability scores to be crazy enough to go into a goblin-infested cave and kill all of them and become rich. It takes a LOT of luck, and a LOT of "on the job training" that doesn't kill you.

Yes, I'm an "old school" DM (been doing this for 37'ish years). IME, the players ability to piece together clues as to what is actually going on, and use that information to make careful choices, is what keeps a PC alive. Nice stats help, sure, but poor stats are less of a hindrance to a good player. Of course, as I said, I'm "old school". So when the PC's are presented with a riddle on a magical barrier, it's up to the PLAYERS to figure it out; so no, your wizard with a 20 Int does not simply get to make an "Int check" to figure it out. Likewise, your Int 5 character can blurt out "A butcher knife?", and have the barrier fall. It's easy enough to come up with believable in-game reasons for why the 20 Int failed and the 5 Int succeeded. And, to me at least, that's a HUGE part of RP'ing; taking the game situation and RP'ing the why's and wherefore's
as to what's going on. (see LotR, door into Moria; Gandalf was failing at opening...and the uneducated halfling inadvertently says something that is, essentially, the answer...which Gandalf then 'translates'....POOF! In-game RP'ing rationalization that makes sense and is memorable).

So, no. Adventurers aren't required to be "super" nor are they required to be "heroes". They are simply required to venture into places where any sane person would avoid with a VERY wide berth... (oh, and not die in the process of course ). Good Stats? They are way, way, way​ down the list.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As part of yet another GWM discussion in another thread, the concept of the base difficulty level of 5E has come up once again. I've made the argument for quite a while that 5e is designed to be more like the Uncharted series that the Dark Soul series of video games, in that it's default difficulty is geared more towards casual rather than expert level gamers.

But one of the great things about Uncharted (or Dragon Age or Fallout or a host of others) is that difficulty level can be set to match your ability very easily. Now, of course 5e can always depend on the DM to do this, or, as I have argued, players can self police their ability choices to purposefully nerf themselves to greater challenge, but it got me thinking that there may be an easy way to standardize some difficulty settings so that players can still have the joy of doing all they can to optimize while not making the DM have to rewrite pre-published adventures to accommodate. Thus, my proposal below for a set of starting ability arrays to mimic the difficulty settings in modern video games. I plan to test these out with my group for TftYP, but would love to get the communities thought on if this will have the intended effect.

Narrative Array - 18, 18, 17, 16, 14, 12
Easy Array - 17, 16, 15, 14, 12, 10
Standard Array - 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8
Average Array - 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10
Hard Array - 13, 12, 10, 8, 8, 8
Legendary Array - 11, 10, 9, 8, 8, 6
Legacy Array - Roll 3d6 in order

What I'm hoping Hard and Legendary accomplish is to make the ability decision tree much more complicated. For example, GWM is really -6/+9 until you get to 20 STR, which would take until your 4th ABI with Hard or 5th on Legendary (assuming maxed racial bonus), but in choosing to go after that feat, you are also leaving yourself vulnerable on a host of saves. Party synergy, spell selection and combat tactics should all get more critical to overcome baseline challenges.

At the end of the day, 5e is about creating exciting stories about bold adventurers facing deadly perils. What better story is there than those adventurers who weren't born for greatness, but through courage, luck and determination found glory anyhow!

It's an interesting idea with real elegance to it. The main problem I see is that you'll simply wind up encouraging non-ability-dependent builds and tactics, but it doesn't actually make the game any harder. For instance, even with a Legendary Array, taking the Mobile feat will allow even a first-level wizard to trivialize many standard encounters (especially if he also learns Expeditious Retreat). Moon Druids with wildshape are basically immune to stat pressure, so you'll see a lot of those too. Ditto Necromancers. You'll see less multiclassing, but some types of multiclass (e.g. Sorlocks, possibly Paladorlocks) are attractive enough that even with Legendary, you'd probably just pay the feat tax to boost your secondary attributes high enough to enable the multiclass.

My prediction would be that the game will be more uniform (you won't see many monks) but not actually much harder. You'll still be killing Pit Fiends by 9th level; you'll just do it differently than you would with high stats.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Then he is an exemption that confirms the rule.

Apropos of nothing:

"The exception that proves the rule" is using "prove" in the archaic sense which means "put on trial." It's an exception which stress-tests the rule to the point of (possibly) breaking. If the rule can handle the exception, it can handle all the non-exceptions.

If it can't, then the rule isn't really a general rule.

 

[OB1]

It's an interesting idea with real elegance to it. The main problem I see is that you'll simply wind up encouraging non-ability-dependent builds and tactics, but it doesn't actually make the game any harder. For instance, even with a Legendary Array, taking the Mobile feat will allow even a first-level wizard to trivialize many standard encounters (especially if he also learns Expeditious Retreat). Moon Druids with wildshape are basically immune to stat pressure, so you'll see a lot of those too. Ditto Necromancers. You'll see less multiclassing, but some types of multiclass (e.g. Sorlocks, possibly Paladorlocks) are attractive enough that even with Legendary, you'd probably just pay the feat tax to boost your secondary attributes high enough to enable the multiclass.

My prediction would be that the game will be more uniform (you won't see many monks) but not actually much harder. You'll still be killing Pit Fiends by 9th level; you'll just do it differently than you would with high stats.

Very interesting observations. I think you are right that it will lead to a small number of optimal builds. I see the problem with the Legendary Array having the 11 as the high allows for multi classing a Sorlock happen from the start. May need to lower that to 10 so that 5th level becomes the earliest one can multi class with legendary.

Interestingly enough, the same may be true in video games when you play at Hard or Legendary. You have to start being very precise about what you take on the skill tree in order to keep up at higher levels.

I think a few more small tweaks might help. For Legacy, I actually thought that I would disallow ABIs and instead require feat selection. Perhaps the same requirement would be good for Legendary. Also thought to require multi class builds have to stay within 1 level of each other or you lose any class features associated with the lower level class.

What I hope is achievable is a straightforward, elegant package of difficulty levels that can have some real bragging rights associated with them. My party beat Forge of Fury using the Legendary Array! Or, We beat Dead in Thay on Legacy difficulty!

Only way to see for sure is to test it!