D&D General DM Says No Powergaming?

[Maxperson]

Why doesn't he just fly away until his breath weapon is recharged? Seems like a dragon should have figured that bit out.

Yep. That's why it takes a large town worth of people The bows will kill the dragon unless it runs away, but the repeated breaths kill a ton of them.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

No, not really - players used to be more cautious in older editions. I find in 5E that a lot of players are overconfident that their abilities will get them out of any sort of jam they fall into. Too many times I've seen PCs leap into combats or other situations where they were waaay over their heads that a 1E/2E party would have been looking for a way around, mitigate or avoid altogether.

And, yet, players seem to be absolutely reluctant to allow an enemy an Opportunity Attack against their PC, IME. Even when the more interesting and/or tactical choice would be to move away and risk it, they choose to stay put. Even when that enemy is likely going to take a swing at them anyway on the next turn. Anyone other DMs experiencing this?

 

[Greg Benage]

The bows will kill the dragon unless it runs away

It's not "running away." It's strafing.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not "running away." It's strafing.

It will eventually die, though, unless it runs. There are enough commoners in a large town to do that. Hell, they get to shoot first every time since they are readying actions.

 

[Greg Benage]

And, yet, players seem to be absolutely reluctant to allow an enemy an Opportunity Attack against their PC, IME. Even when the more interesting and/or tactical choice would be to move away and risk it, they choose to stay put. Even when that enemy is likely going to take a swing at them anyway on the next turn. Anyone other DMs experiencing this?

Used to, but recently my players have gotten more comfortable with taking an AoO to gain a tactical advantage, and I'm really grateful for it. Makes combat much more dynamic.

 

[Redwizard007]

I mean, it's harder than it used to be, right? We used to have to house-rule the game to keep PCs alive...we really don't have to do that anymore.

Sure. Its harder than 1&2e, but if your baseline is still "housecats are deadly," then I can't really help you.

In every edition since, PCs have been far more resilient. In 3e they weren't quite as hard to kill in a vacuum, but healers were far more proficient at actual healing. In 5e we get whack-a-mole. 4e... well, I can't remember a ton of TPKs, but we really didn't play it for long.

So, 5e PCs are tough. That's a given, but its not a problem with no solution. More combats is an easy fix, but can be unwieldy in lots of campaign types. Gritty realism alternative resting rules work great, but again, not a great fit for everyone. Not using feats & multiclassing, or limiting magic items is allegedly an option, but... well, it's not my game. One thing that does work IN EVERY SINGLE CAMPAIGN, is just using more difficult encounters. 2-3 slightly deadly encounters per day is a nice sweet spot for me, but a single uber-deadly nova fest isn't out of the question, and I don't need to force encounters on the party that don't advance a story.

 

[payn]

I've never really understood why an entire town/city being able to kill a dragon has been a problem? I mean, they will lose 80% of folks, so they are not likely to do it, and instead hire somebody capable of doing it for them.

 

[Greg Benage]

It will eventually die, though, unless it runs. There are enough commoners in a large town to do that. Hell, they get to shoot first every time since they are readying actions.

Do they ever sleep? What if the dragon chooses to attack the other side of town? Are your cities ringed by unsleeping bowmen with readied actions? Even then, an adult red dragon has AC 19 and 256 hit points, so you'd better get a lot of shots on target.

 

[Maxperson]

I've never really understood why an entire town/city being able to kill a dragon has been a problem? I mean, they will lose 80% of folks, so they are not likely to do it, and instead hire somebody capable of doing it for them.

It's a problem because it shouldn't be possible. These are ancient dragons. It should take a city to have a chance. Anything smaller than a city should just kiss itself goodbye. 5e changed that. Accuracy was bounded too much.

 

[iserith]

I've never really understood why an entire town/city being able to kill a dragon has been a problem? I mean, they will lose 80% of folks, so they are not likely to do it, and instead hire somebody capable of doing it for them.

I'm told it's also incredibly expensive to equip enough commoners with crossbows or longbows to be able to manage this, and they may not even been proficient. An incredible number of them will die which makes it hard to gather the crops in the fall. It's way better to subcontract it out to adventurers.