D&D 5E Difficulty Settings for 5e

[Enevhar Aldarion]

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.

Actually, no. Until they are able to boost stats up to at least 13 when using the arrays that do not include a 13 to start with, there will be no multi-classing at all. So if you limit how they can increase starting stats, you delay or eliminate multi-classing. And besides, if you want to impose such limited starting stats on the characters, why even allow multi-classing at all?

 

[redrick]

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.

This. We're not a power gaming table, but I will say, the number one determinant of how "difficult" an adventure I run feels is the amount of encounters PCs need to get through between long rests. Focusing on the challenge of individual encounters just tends to oscillate between "boring" and "unfair." A group will either get wiped out by an above-deadly encounter, or get lucky and scrape through it. But throw a dozen "easy" encounters at your adventurers before they can take a long rest, and your players will think twice before tangling with that giant rat.

Adjusting the starting power level of the characters won't have much of an impact on the challenge of any given adventure, compared to how you DM it, but it could have an impact on the "challenge" of the character building game. That's not an aspect of the game we worry about much at our table, but, I could see it working for some tables. It will change the feeling of the game, for sure, because the modifiers are at least as psychological as they are statistically significant. (A +1 bonus is worth a success on 1 in 20 rolls. Until you get to level 5, I don't know that we make 20 attack rolls in a night.)

If you want a quick and dirty way to adjust the "difficulty" of a published adventure, just adjust the starting level of your characters. (And if the adventure starts at level 1 and your players want to play on Nightmare, just hold 'em back a couple levels. 900xp to get to level 2 instead of 300. Then reset and progress as normal.)

 

[LapBandit]

Rest and recovery are the most straightforward dial to turn and have the most drastic effect.

I've played everything from a Short Rest being 5 minutes to a full night's rest.
I've played long rest takes 1 night's rest and also that it takes a week.

I think my preference is somewhere in the middle: Short rest is a night's rest, long rest being a 24 hour period of little or no activity.

 

[abirdcall]

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!

That is an impossible task.

A group of level 1 characters with any stats can finish any adventure. It is all up to how the DM runs it.

 

[Flamestrike]

If you want to play on hard level, here is my own personal players companion document that details my own houserules.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1ufjiBCl

@CapnZapp that ones for you. You'll dig them the most. Drag those rules into your campaign and it'll fix all your little issues with the game.

Main changes:

1) Short rests you can only use up to 1/2 max HD.

2) Long rests restore no HP. They restore 1/2 HD. You have no limit on how many you can spend.

3) You only restore 1 slot of each of levels 1-5 on a short rest, plus 1 slot of 6th+

4) Negative HP are a thing. You die at -10 (or 1/4 your max) whichever is better. DC 15 Con save to stabilize (need three successes). Fail and lose a HP. Fail 3 and you also gain a level of exhaustion.

5) Resurrection incurs a 1 point hit to Con and possibly a Resurrection survival check (DC 5 Con).

6) Spells rebalanced. Some got better. Some got worse. Wall of force is going to set you back 500gp in Ruby dust each time you cast it. Forcecage will set you back 1500gp in ruby dust. Raise dead now costs 5,000. Revivify went up in price also.

7) Feats rebalanced. GWM and Sharpshooter 1/ attack action on your turn. Cover reduced 1 step rather than negated entirely. Archery fighting style now allows an opening volley on round 1 as enemies close to melee.

8) Smites, Stunning fist, Superiority dice limited to 1 per turn (2 for sup dice) to shut down novas.

9) Classes rebalanced (ranger buffed, sorcerer buffed, monk buffed due to reduction in stunning fist utility, champion buffed, PDK seriously buffed and refluffed as a Warlord). Lots of changes to Warlock. Bard cants pilfer spells any more (but gets a hell of a lot better at buffing the party) Rage keys off a short rest.

10) Shoving people prone gets harder.

11) A half dozen new weapons added

12) Revised and reblanced downtime rules. Consistent magic item pricing. PCs can earn points of (Grace, Combat tricks, Contacts or Lore) during downtime.

13) Ability scores are 3d6 in order. Then you get to swap one for a 13. (After racial mods plus everyone getting a feat at 1st level, guarantees you will have at least one score of 16).

Basically, im looking for an old school feel.

Im using this one for my upcoming 'old school' sandbox (in which I will plant every single on of the dungeons in TFTYP). The PCs wander about the sandbox hex crawl styple, randomly stumbling into dungeons and deciding whether they should tackle them or not.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

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!

The most straightforward way to do that is to reduce the number of players and increase the number of monsters. "We beat Curse of Strahd, on doubled monsters, with a two-man party!" But of course this leads immediately to a realization why bragging rights aren't a sensible thing: you can't tell from that statement whether the DM metagames monsters or roleplays them; you can't tell how the DM rules stealth to work, or illusions; you can't tell how tightly the pace of the adventure was controlled or what pacing mechanisms (random encounters? time limit?) were in play; you can't tell the DM's policy on character death and replacement PC levels; you can't tell which splatbooks and/or UA articles were allowed; you can't tell if the DM allows feats, and/or if the DM has nerfed Sharpshooter and GWM and Lucky and Mounted Combatant.

Legacy difficulty is of course a whole nother ballgame, because you can't even predict how difficult a given Legacy game was. All you know is that it was 3d6 in order, but that could be an array of 11/12/11/9/12/13 or it could be an array of 7/8/10/10/12/16. (Those are the first two 3d6-in-order arrays I rolled up, just now. Note that both of them are better than the Legendary array. That latter array is good enough that you could probably solo some pretty tough adventures with the right multiclass combination.) There's really no way to judge, when someone says "Legacy array", what stats they rolled and how well the party synergized.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Actually, no. Until they are able to boost stats up to at least 13 when using the arrays that do not include a 13 to start with, there will be no multi-classing at all. So if you limit how they can increase starting stats, you delay or eliminate multi-classing. And besides, if you want to impose such limited starting stats on the characters, why even allow multi-classing at all?

Racial bonuses. 11 + 2 = 13.

 

[CapnZapp]

The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 3 characters

 

[OB1]

The most straightforward way to do that is to reduce the number of players and increase the number of monsters. "We beat Curse of Strahd, on doubled monsters, with a two-man party!" But of course this leads immediately to a realization why bragging rights aren't a sensible thing: you can't tell from that statement whether the DM metagames monsters or roleplays them; you can't tell how the DM rules stealth to work, or illusions; you can't tell how tightly the pace of the adventure was controlled or what pacing mechanisms (random encounters? time limit?) were in play; you can't tell the DM's policy on character death and replacement PC levels; you can't tell which splatbooks and/or UA articles were allowed; you can't tell if the DM allows feats, and/or if the DM has nerfed Sharpshooter and GWM and Lucky and Mounted Combatant.

Legacy difficulty is of course a whole nother ballgame, because you can't even predict how difficult a given Legacy game was. All you know is that it was 3d6 in order, but that could be an array of 11/12/11/9/12/13 or it could be an array of 7/8/10/10/12/16. (Those are the first two 3d6-in-order arrays I rolled up, just now. Note that both of them are better than the Legendary array. That latter array is good enough that you could probably solo some pretty tough adventures with the right multiclass combination.) There's really no way to judge, when someone says "Legacy array", what stats they rolled and how well the party synergized.

Yeah, bragging rights are probably not a good goal here other than within a single gaming group. Still, a standard set of "difficulty" settings could at least lead to a basis of comparison among similarly styled DMs as to how the game plays at base level for certain player abilities without massive changes to the game.

Legacy isn't supposed to be more difficult that Legendary, it's supposed to be more random, encouraging players to either play classes they wouldn't otherwise try because of how they rolled or to play a class without a perfect set of stats to back it up. So more fun rather than more difficult

 

[OB1]

If you want to play on hard level, here is my own personal players companion document that details my own houserules.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1ufjiBCl

@CapnZapp that ones for you. You'll dig them the most. Drag those rules into your campaign and it'll fix all your little issues with the game.

Main changes:

1) Short rests you can only use up to 1/2 max HD.

2) Long rests restore no HP. They restore 1/2 HD. You have no limit on how many you can spend.

3) You only restore 1 slot of each of levels 1-5 on a short rest, plus 1 slot of 6th+

4) Negative HP are a thing. You die at -10 (or 1/4 your max) whichever is better. DC 15 Con save to stabilize (need three successes). Fail and lose a HP. Fail 3 and you also gain a level of exhaustion.

5) Resurrection incurs a 1 point hit to Con and possibly a Resurrection survival check (DC 5 Con).

6) Spells rebalanced. Some got better. Some got worse. Wall of force is going to set you back 500gp in Ruby dust each time you cast it. Forcecage will set you back 1500gp in ruby dust. Raise dead now costs 5,000. Revivify went up in price also.

7) Feats rebalanced. GWM and Sharpshooter 1/ attack action on your turn. Cover reduced 1 step rather than negated entirely. Archery fighting style now allows an opening volley on round 1 as enemies close to melee.

8) Smites, Stunning fist, Superiority dice limited to 1 per turn (2 for sup dice) to shut down novas.

9) Classes rebalanced (ranger buffed, sorcerer buffed, monk buffed due to reduction in stunning fist utility, champion buffed, PDK seriously buffed and refluffed as a Warlord). Lots of changes to Warlock. Bard cants pilfer spells any more (but gets a hell of a lot better at buffing the party) Rage keys off a short rest.

10) Shoving people prone gets harder.

11) A half dozen new weapons added

12) Revised and reblanced downtime rules. Consistent magic item pricing. PCs can earn points of (Grace, Combat tricks, Contacts or Lore) during downtime.

13) Ability scores are 3d6 in order. Then you get to swap one for a 13. (After racial mods plus everyone getting a feat at 1st level, guarantees you will have at least one score of 16).

Basically, im looking for an old school feel.

Im using this one for my upcoming 'old school' sandbox (in which I will plant every single on of the dungeons in TFTYP). The PCs wander about the sandbox hex crawl styple, randomly stumbling into dungeons and deciding whether they should tackle them or not.

Wow! Just got through the companion document and have to say this is an incredibly well thought out set of changes to both increase the challenge and give the game that old school feel (other than allowing the 13 swap during initial roll up).

After I test out my quick and dirty version on a few of the chapters of TftYP, I'm going to try your rules out on either Against the Giants or Dead in Thay.

Amazing work flamestrike