D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[Hussar]

The same goal you have when you tell people repeatedly how much you like something, I guess. Recognition and exposure.

Can you show me where people repeatedly tell you how much they like something? When it's not in reaction to unrelenting negativity that is?

I guess I just have had more than enough of people widdling in the swimming pool because they're not getting what they want. The unrelenting negativity has just never, ever stopped and I find it so tiresome. No matter what comes out, you have (more often than not) the same people coming out of the woodwork to declare to all and sundry that D&D is dead to them, everything WotC does sucks and why oh why can't someone who actually understands D&D not be at the helm.

It's been the better part of twenty years of that crap and it needs to die in a fire.

 

[Hussar]

Just a point about attacking monster. Note that @overgeeked's example relies on monsters not having multiple attacks or area attacks.

Beyond about CR 1/2, how often are either of those true. Pretty much any monster has at least two attacks, and many have three. Lots of monsters have area attacks as well.

I mean, I'm running an encounter with 2 driders (among other things) right now. Six attacks per round between the two of them, and one is a Drider Variant, so I've got cleric spells on top. Granted, that's a pair of CR 6 critters, so it's a fairly serious baddy, but, certainly something that you would face with a 7th level party. My 7th level party has about 40 HP per PC, give or take. A good round from both Driders and I can drop a PC. In fact, over the course of the fight, I managed to drop 3 PC's (none dead, by at least knocked them down) killed the artificers pet and we're still not done. Granted fair enough, there was a LOT of other baddies in the fight.

This idea that combat is so easy is just not my experience at all. The previous encounter, in the same adventuring day, was a pair of Galeb Duhr. Between their animated boulders, I managed to put a pretty serious beating on the party. Sure, with a cleric, a bard and an artificer in the party, they were back to full HP PDQ, but, it still ate up resources, which was the point.

If your combats are boring or easy, there are all sorts of things you can do to spice things up.

 

[overgeeked]

Just a point about attacking monster. Note that @overgeeked's example relies on monsters not having multiple attacks or area attacks.

I don’t believe I gave an example.

Beyond about CR 1/2, how often are either of those true. Pretty much any monster has at least two attacks, and many have three. Lots of monsters have area attacks as well.

Most monsters above that have multiattack, sure. Some have AoE.

I mean, I'm running an encounter with 2 driders (among other things) right now. Six attacks per round between the two of them, and one is a Drider Variant, so I've got cleric spells on top. Granted, that's a pair of CR 6 critters, so it's a fairly serious baddy, but, certainly something that you would face with a 7th level party. My 7th level party has about 40 HP per PC, give or take. A good round from both Driders and I can drop a PC. In fact, over the course of the fight, I managed to drop 3 PC's (none dead, by at least knocked them down) killed the artificers pet and we're still not done. Granted fair enough, there was a LOT of other baddies in the fight.

Sounds like you’re running a more than deadly fight, by xp and CR. How many other fights did they have in the same day?

This idea that combat is so easy is just not my experience at all. The previous encounter, in the same adventuring day, was a pair of Galeb Duhr. Between their animated boulders, I managed to put a pretty serious beating on the party. Sure, with a cleric, a bard and an artificer in the party, they were back to full HP PDQ, but, it still ate up resources, which was the point.

And for that encounter to matter in regards to resources you had to include another encounter. Because resources are so easy to come by.

If your combats are boring or easy, there are all sorts of things you can do to spice things up.

Always true. Like running more combats in a day to bring in resource management. Run higher and higher CR creatures. Run more creatures. Run creatures who specifically test the PCs’ weaknesses. Use secondary objectives. Throw traps, skill challenges, or environmental hazards at the party, etc.

 

[Ovinomancer]

All your points, taken individually, you are perfectly right. 5ed is however, the result of all its components. It is the fact that the combat is less developed than before (but more than some other games) that it can be so able to be generic. Most mechanics of 5ed have been epurated, expunged of a lot of over complicated rules and systems in favor a rule light system. This a case where the results is way greater than its parts.

To see things as I do, you can't take one aspect and analyse it the way you do. You have to take the whole into account. The same goes with 4ed. The combat part was so well developed compared to the rest, that it was taking all the space available.

My responses are to your claims. The reason they were specific is because they were addressing your specific claims. If you wanted to make a general claim, okay, generally 5e is not generic. It's not more generic than prior editions, for sure. The main claim of being generic is always that you can ignore or replace the rules provided, which is a silly thing to credit to the rules you've replaced or ignored.

5e does D&D. There are a few ways to do D&D, sure, but they're are fairly tightly clustered within how the GM exercises their near universal authority over game processes. That's not generic, it's just spinning some dials on a rather small set of scales. I mean the arguments between sandbox and railroad are degrees on how the GM uses their authority. Get out and find some games that really change the authority landscape before claiming D&D is generic. It's not, it's its own thing.

 

[Hussar]

Always true. Like running more combats in a day to bring in resource management. Run higher and higher CR creatures. Run more creatures. Run creatures who specifically test the PCs’ weaknesses. Use secondary objectives. Throw traps, skill challenges, or environmental hazards at the party, etc.

So, if this is always true, then why the argument that 5e combat is not lethal enough? I'm kinda confused.

And, remember, the point of combat is not to kill PC's. It never was. Killing PC's is easy. Threatening PC's just enough to make the combat interesting without killing them is the trick.

To me, this goes right back to the point I made earlier about choice and the differences between editions. In earlier editions, PC death was largely a matter of luck. The dice gods declare you dead and you die. In 5e, that's rarely true. It's not easy for the dice gods to kill a PC in 5e.

But, it is easy for the DM. That means that the DM, at the table, has to turn to the player and deliberately declare that the DM is trying to kill that PC. For years, we've been taught as DM's that that's a bad thing. You're never supposed to try and kill someone's character. If the character dies in the course of adventuring, well, that's fine and dandy. But we're DM's. We're supposed to be neutral (or at least not antagonistic). And it's really hard not to take it as antagonistic when the DM deliberately tries to whack your character.

It really is a major shift in how the game works. Moving from "the dice determine outcomes" to "the DM has to choose an outcome" is a big change.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So, if this is always true, then why the argument that 5e combat is not lethal enough? I'm kinda confused.

And, remember, the point of combat is not to kill PC's. It never was. Killing PC's is easy. Threatening PC's just enough to make the combat interesting without killing them is the trick.

To me, this goes right back to the point I made earlier about choice and the differences between editions. In earlier editions, PC death was largely a matter of luck. The dice gods declare you dead and you die. In 5e, that's rarely true. It's not easy for the dice gods to kill a PC in 5e.

But, it is easy for the DM. That means that the DM, at the table, has to turn to the player and deliberately declare that the DM is trying to kill that PC. For years, we've been taught as DM's that that's a bad thing. You're never supposed to try and kill someone's character. If the character dies in the course of adventuring, well, that's fine and dandy. But we're DM's. We're supposed to be neutral (or at least not antagonistic). And it's really hard not to take it as antagonistic when the DM deliberately tries to whack your character.

It really is a major shift in how the game works. Moving from "the dice determine outcomes" to "the DM has to choose an outcome" is a big change.

Not my experience, either. I don't specifically target PCs to kill them, I create situations and the resolution of them occasionally kills PCs. My players HATE ghouls because ghouls have a nasty habit of trying to eat fallen PCs. Beasts tend to try and drag fallen PCs off. Smart enemies double tap when they can. Enraged enemies tend to keep pounding the target of their rage even when the go down. Clearly telegraphed dangers, and the dice decide.

 

[Hussar]

Not my experience, either. I don't specifically target PCs to kill them, I create situations and the resolution of them occasionally kills PCs. My players HATE ghouls because ghouls have a nasty habit of trying to eat fallen PCs. Beasts tend to try and drag fallen PCs off. Smart enemies double tap when they can. Enraged enemies tend to keep pounding the target of their rage even when the go down. Clearly telegraphed dangers, and the dice decide.

I don't think we're really disagreeing here. You, as DM, decided that ghouls try to eat fallen PC's. Or that Beasts drag off fallen PC's. Or Smart enemies double tap. That's your decision as the DM.

Granted, it's perfectly reasonable one and certainly justifiable within the fiction of the game. But, at the end of the day, YOU decided that. You didn't have to. A beast might decide to turn on the the present danger that's still moving. A smart enemy might do so as well. So on and so forth.

Not that I disagree with your interpretation mind you. But, unlike earlier D&D where killing PC's was more often than not a quirk of the dice, you have deliberately chosen to try to kill a character.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't think we're really disagreeing here. You, as DM, decided that ghouls try to eat fallen PC's. Or that Beasts drag off fallen PC's. Or Smart enemies double tap. That's your decision as the DM.

Granted, it's perfectly reasonable one and certainly justifiable within the fiction of the game. But, at the end of the day, YOU decided that. You didn't have to. A beast might decide to turn on the the present danger that's still moving. A smart enemy might do so as well. So on and so forth.

Not that I disagree with your interpretation mind you. But, unlike earlier D&D where killing PC's was more often than not a quirk of the dice, you have deliberately chosen to try to kill a character.

No. This fails logically. You cannot say that encounters I present are lethal because I chose to present those encounters and then disclaim the exact same choosing of encounter to present for earlier editions. This is a pretty bald example of special pleading!

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I think the impression is that pre 5E it was a lot easier for a DM to kill a character without intending to. Now you pretty much always know whether the character will die outright when the attack is being made.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think the impression is that pre 5E it was a lot easier for a DM to kill a character without intending to. Now you pretty much always know whether the character will die outright when the attack is being made.

Again, not really my experience. When the troll attacks the wizard (prior to stoneskin) in 2e that's usually a done deal. In 3e, I always had a good idea of directing an attack was in the red zone. Here, in 5e, I'm not secretive about monster behavior. I overshare. So going down in front of ghouls is a known hazard. I've already disclaimed that decision making.