D&D 5E Every Fight a Nova: Consequences and Considerations

[Reynard]

There are plenty of reasons not to do it. Not all classes have Nova buttons to mash for starters, and not all Nova buttons are equal. So it creates a huge gap between certain classes (independent of the encounter they face).

The effects on class balance when either running a game with single Deadly+ encounters per long rest, as opposed to half a dozen Medium-Hard encounters per long rest (broken up by a short rest every 2 encounters) is massive.

Putting class balance to one side, there is also the issue of the game lacking any strategic and tactical complexity. It devolves into 'win initiative and mash buttons' rocket tag.

This is sort of an aside, but if there is inherent class imbalance with single nova encounters then there must be inherent class imbalance with multiple medium encounters. No one seems to talk much about that issue (that I have seen).

 

[Jer]

I was actually thinking this morning that one might want to only allow half casters in a game of this type. Everyone is likely to release their big guns initially, but full caster big guns pretty much dwarf everyone else's.

After playing the game for a while I've generally come to the conclusion that the 5e devs didn't take into account attack cantrips scaling or ritual casting when they decided how many spell slots to hand out to full casters. They have way too many at pretty much every level except possibly the first 3. IMO the full caster progression should max out at 2 slots per spell level up to 5th level and then 1 slot for each of levels 6-9 or follow some other formula along those lines to give them roughly around half of the slots that they have. Attack cantrips just reduce the need for so many spell slots in the progression that even going full-on nova a full caster at mid-or-higher levels might end up with leftover slots when the battle is done.

So if I wanted to run a campaign where the presumption is that the players would always be able to go nova and there's generally only going to be one major fight, I'd probably try to get buy in from my players to reduce the number of spell slots that full casters get by about half but in exchange use the faster Epic Heroism healing rules from the DMG as compensation for it so they can recover those slots quicker. I don't know if I'd get buy in, and I'd have to give more thought into how doing something similar would impact the half-casters, but that's where I'd start.

 

[Reynard]

More importantly, the question should be 'why do it'?

What reasons could you want to do it? What does it add to your game?

An even more important question might be "Why try and derail a discussion that otherwise has no impact on your personal gaming fun."

 

[Reynard]

Actually, the expectation value is 1/p.
So woth 5% chance of TPK, the average survivability is 1/0.05 = 20. And 1/0.25 = 4.

I don't know what the standard deviation is from the top of my head, but the chances of a TPK after 10 encounters is probably not too close to zero.

Why are we expecting a 5% chance of TPK for a Deadly encounter?

 

[Helldritch]

@Flamestrike is perfectly right on that. The nova style is good once in a while but short rest classes can under perform when a fight drags on for more than 10 rounds. And big deadly fights with waves just exa rebate this fact.

We added ki and sorcery point and it worked out for us as fights are often in the 6 to 8 rounds and short rest classes had struggle with the second and third fight (if no rest after the second) as their ressources were depleted by the middle of the second fight. Nova type classes struggle only around the third fight or round 16 of a really big fight as their nova potential is often used on the biggest threat on the board and not before. Short rest classes often need their ressources just to stay afloat during fights.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Why are we expecting a 5% chance of TPK for a Deadly encounter?

I did not. I just corrected the math based on that assumption.

 

[Helldritch]

Why are we expecting a 5% chance of TPK for a Deadly encounter?

I would go higher than that. A deadly encounter is swingy by nature. Will the dragon win the initiative and if so, will the players save against its breath? And if the breath gets available again on the second round, will that kill the whole group with two failed saves in a row? You simply can't be sure with deadly fights.

 

[Mort]

Why are we expecting a 5% chance of TPK for a Deadly encounter?

In a "standard" deadly encounter (+4 CR or so) the TPK chance is nowhere near 5%, it's closer to 0%.

BUT, since we're talking about a deadly++ encounter (overclocked enough to actually challenge a party going full on NOVA) then you're going significantly higher than just +4CR (as in blowing the entire encounter budget on one encounter) the TPK chance gets MUCH higher. Easily approaching the 5% @Flamestrike mentioned.

 

[Reynard]

In a "standard" deadly encounter (+4 CR or so) the TPK chance is nowhere near 5%, it's closer to 0%.

BUT, since we're talking about a deadly++ encounter (overclocked enough to actually challenge a party going full on NOVA) then you're going significantly higher than just +4CR (as in blowing the entire encounter budget on one encounter) the TPK chance gets MUCH higher. Easily approaching the 5% @Flamestrike mentioned.

But we aren't talking about "Deadly++" encounters, especially if they don't work. Why would we continue to push an idea that inherently invalidates the play style on it's face?

Otherwise I was just suggesting with my question that there isn't any actual math people are using to get to "5% TPK chance." It's just a guess, at best.

 

[Reynard]

@Flamestrike is perfectly right on that. The nova style is good once in a while but short rest classes can under perform when a fight drags on for more than 10 rounds. And big deadly fights with waves just exa rebate this fact.

We added ki and sorcery point and it worked out for us as fights are often in the 6 to 8 rounds and short rest classes had struggle with the second and third fight (if no rest after the second) as their ressources were depleted by the middle of the second fight. Nova type classes struggle only around the third fight or round 16 of a really big fight as their nova potential is often used on the biggest threat on the board and not before. Short rest classes often need their ressources just to stay afloat during fights.

That's interesting. I never looked to see how many "points" (to use a term that really doesn't apply) the different classes had between rests. Does anyone know if the internet has produced a chart somewhere actually showing this information?