D&D General DM Says No Powergaming?

[FrozenNorth]

Dragon attacks at night burns down a few houses and sods off.

Wash rinse repeat.

Actually, the dragon flies in, sets a quarter of the town on fire with 2 or 3 uses of its breath weapon, flies off.

30 minutes later, while the villagers are desperately trying to keep their houses from burning down, it flies back and kills the survivors.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Or a couple of town bowyers who have time to make them for free from the plentiful wood to be found. Sell to the outsiders to get coin and arm your friends and family so that you survive.

So the town the villagers live in is made of flammable wood? As a dragon, that is good to know.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I think the complaint is that RAW its even possible to happen.

Not a criticism against you, but I always get a kick of the fact that RAW isn’t defined in the PHB, and therefore, isn’t RAW.

Most RAW arguments, this one included, tend to require that old engineering joke “ assume a spherical cow”.

 

[Maxperson]

Ah, yes, I forgot. These are commoners whi are spending every moment of every day with their longbows in their hands, readying their actions against a dragon attack.

The dragon wins without doing anything: the villagers all starved to death years ago from being unable to harvest or even feed themselves.

Nice Strawman there. That isn't what I said. All it takes is one guy in a watch tower to ring the dragon bell while the dragon is still miles away. Hell, they don't even have to be warned. As long as they all eventually get to the dragon area and get their shots off, it still dies or runs away.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Trading one problem for another really - some of those wizards will surely turn evil and become villains.

True, but arming your entire village of peasants with longbows is a good way to be overthrown as baron, particularly when you raise taxes astronomically to pay for them.

 

[tetrasodium]

This is a good post, and highlights an interesting point in encounter design: in small parties, throwing a large number of monsters works very well to challenge the group, but as you reach larger party sizes, it can seriously slow down combat (even moreso online where combat is slower than in person).

100%accurate. Four or five monsters against a party of two might work great. Twenty or twentyfive of the same monsters against a party of five is both a slog or a compete waste of everyones time. Either the monsters are slaughtered with such ease that they never stood a chance of doing anything or they cross the magic line and use the razor's edge to massacre pcs who never stood a chance

I think that the lengths that 5e goes to twisting itself in knots trying to support & enforce that 4-5vrs2 to the exclusion of all else makes it more difficult for a gm to tune encounters for players & groups of different optimization levels or size. Too much of 5e loops back to "well be a better gm with two players who really liked things like the actor feat" and it really starts breaking apart when exposed to an acid test like the hypothetical one this thread was started with.

 

[Oofta]

True, but arming your entire village of peasants with longbows is a good way to be overthrown as baron, particularly when you raise taxes astronomically to pay for them.

There were laws in England dating back to at least the 13th century that required men under 40 to practice archery. They even went so far as to ban other games so that people wouldn't "waste" their leisure time on other activities. Where do you think the king got armies? It's not like they had a standing army, they wanted people to be trained for combat so they could be called upon to defend their country.

 

[overgeeked]

Plus NPCs won’t crit in One D&D so that changes the damage calculations.

Really? We know that already?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Dragon attacks at night burns down a few houses and sods off.

Wash rinse repeat.

it depends on the dragons goals... if it is to cause terror, that works. Especially if you never know when or where it is coming from... I can see a board with "9 days since last black dragon fly over" getting erased and 0 being written after such a thing...

If the Dragon want to wipe out the town or if the Dragon wants to kill a target in the town that isn't very viable... if the dragon uses that to force a negotiation maybe.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Nice Strawman there. That isn't what I said. All it takes is one guy in a watch tower to ring the dragon bell while the dragon is still miles away. Hell, they don't even have to be warned. As long as they all eventually get to the dragon area and get their shots off, it still dies or runs away.

So they have a watchtower, with one guy keeping watch for dragons, and presumably other threats.

He sees a dragon: 3 miles away. Dragon’s speed is 80’, so at double move, it takes it 10 minutes to reach the centre of the village (As a DM, using round by round moves probably isn’t appropriate outside of combat, but whatever). The 90% of able-bodied population who is working the fields? Doesn’t have time to run home, get their longbows and assemble anywhere in 10 minutes.

Dragon is in town centre. Only 10% are close enough to home to be able to run home and grab a longbow. Of course, not all of them are brave enough to take potshots at a dragon, and of course, some may want to take extra time to ensure their families are safe, so, only 7% of the able-bodied population is armed and able to attack.

That population is spread out around the town. Partially, this reflects that people live all around the town. Partially, this reflects that bunching together is a good way to perish in flames. So at any given moment, 25% of the population doesn’t have line of sight to the dragon.

Dragon breathes fire a couple of times, sets the wooden town aflame, flies off. If particularly sadistic, takes a short rest, then flies back and kills the survivors will they are still putting out the flames on the smoldering wreckage of their town.