D&D 5E How Important is it that Warlords be Healers?

[D'karr]

Part of the problem here is that while D&D may give the DM tools to ascertain the difficulty of an encounter, it offers no such aid to the players, who ultimately have to decide whether or not to pick a fight with a given group of foes.

That is one of the reasons why the game has a DM. The DM is the "interface" for the characters to the world. If something is overwhelming the DM should describe it as such, and also give the players warning as their characters would get a "sense" if something is overwhelming. That is why I mentioned that I don't "surprise" my players. That is where I take the time to help them understand their odds. The same way that I take the time to help them understand their sense of the odds of a particular action they want to attempt.

If after explaining the odds they want to take the risk, then they were forewarned and the chips fall where they may.

I'm hoping that D&DN will make monsters a little more consistent, and maybe include a "monster lore" check that would give you a rough idea of a new monster's power level.

The monster knowledge check fills that role in 4e, and it's a good start.

I speak to the PCs in their senses (they feel this might be a bad idea), and why. To the players I don't use coded language. If something is overwhelming they will know it because I will tell them "this is overwhelming, and your characters can clearly sense that this is overwhelming."

 

[Dausuul]

Eh, 4e has a perfectly good simple answer for that, the Monster Knowledge check, which can be supplemented by more specific lore. I mean, sure, I can see in theory where you can think this is a problem, but was it any different in 3e where every monster could have class levels etc, and CR was super random? The whole IDEA of the game IMHO is the players going into the unknown and figuring it out. Even OD&D had 'dungeon level' to insure that the weaker party wouldn't stumble into a suicidal situation.

My recollection of Monster Knowledge checks was that it gave you tips on their weaknesses and abilities, but no information on how powerful they were. Of course you could always house-rule that in without much trouble, but I was thinking of something a bit more defined.

And no, it's certainly not unique to 4E, but my experience was that the problem was worse in 4E, perhaps simply because of the greater abstraction of the rules.

 

[Gorgoroth]

Monster Knowledge gave you all their name, their powers and exact effects, their level, their HP, vulnerabilities etc, if you rolled well enough, I believe. Quite a bit too much information if you ask me, no mystery. I'm a powergamer, but even I don't read the monster stats directly from the book unless I DM. Of course, if you do, then there's no point in knowing anything but the monster's name, because you can just look it up on your laptop across from the DM. Another reason to ban computers at the gaming table.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My recollection of Monster Knowledge checks was that it gave you tips on their weaknesses and abilities, but no information on how powerful they were. Of course you could always house-rule that in without much trouble, but I was thinking of something a bit more defined.

And no, it's certainly not unique to 4E, but my experience was that the problem was worse in 4E, perhaps simply because of the greater abstraction of the rules.

Yeah, well, level isn't specifically mentioned as a piece of information in the RC version of the Monster Knowledge Check mechanic, but it kind of stands to reason that it would be generally part of what you learn, in some fashion. A lot of the stuff is couched in very narrative terms. It says you "learn what the monster's powers do" for instance, but that can be interpreted many ways. WotC even wrote a Dungeon article on the subject back 3-4 years ago where they basically said "we left if vague, the DM should decide how he does that stuff".

 

[pemerton]

4e does have daily buffs, which will last 5 minutes, but there aren't a ton of them that you want to use before a fight. That role is played more by potions than anything else in 4e. That and some rituals. You'd also use story means (getting some allies, setting an ambush, etc).

I have also allowed preparatory activities like setting traps to turn a situation in dramatic ways

In one of the early sessions of my 4e game the PCs had to defend a homestead against goblin assailants. The PCs set traps of various sorts to delay the charge of the wolf riders.

They also have at least two party-wide buffs - the paladin daily that adds CHA to damage, and the cleric encounter power that adds a surge's worth of temp hp.

They tend not to use many potions for buffing.

I'm hoping that D&DN will make monsters a little more consistent, and maybe include a "monster lore" check that would give you a rough idea of a new monster's power level.

4e has a monster lore check that will gives powers, and hence (at least at my table) attack bonuses, and hence (by easy inference) level.

 

[Jester David]

The same is true for MM1 solos. I actually ran an MM1 adult white dragon fight early on, and it was pretty good. I threw in a bunch of chillborn zombies and stuff like that and had them frozen in ice pillars that would get smashed during the fight, there was glare ice, and pieces of roof that would fall.

This amused me.
"I ran a MM1 solo fight that was good. I had a bunch of other monsters as back-up and three separate terrain set-pieces!"
Which certainly takes a LOT of pressure off the solo to be good.

Eh, I dunno, when I did Caves of Chaos we didn't literally just run in, we snuck up, ganked the outdoor kobolds, avoided the orc cave trap, chose a direction that had seemingly less orcs and just went for it. We'd barge a door and just take them. That was the first playtest packet, so maybe it was different later. It wasn't quite totally mindless charging in, but IME that isn't a real winner in 4e either. Triggering 2 encounters at once is bad news. See the famous Iron Tooth encounter in KotS where you get ganked for that right quick.

This is one of those things that varies amazingly depending on your group. Some players will be crazy cautious even if you're designing strictly by the book and not using too many high EL/xp fights. Others will zerg rush even if you ignore the rules and plant what would be a "realistic" number of goblins for a small settlement in the cave including women and children.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This amused me.
"I ran a MM1 solo fight that was good. I had a bunch of other monsters as back-up and three separate terrain set-pieces!"
Which certainly takes a LOT of pressure off the solo to be good.

Well, put it this way, IIRC the encounter totaled Level + 4 or something like that. The dragon was actually only an at-level creature, so I used a bunch of stuff with it. Sure, it makes things work better, but so? The solo dragon was still the star of the fight. As I recall it was pretty fun. It devolved down to the dragon was beat up quite badly and the party was beat up quite badly, and the zombies were dead, so the party cleric negotiated. The dragon agreed to do something for them and the PCs were happy to get out of their with their main strategic objective met and damn all the treasure. I think it was basically down to whoever got lucky and landed a blow next won. lol.

This is one of those things that varies amazingly depending on your group. Some players will be crazy cautious even if you're designing strictly by the book and not using too many high EL/xp fights. Others will zerg rush even if you ignore the rules and plant what would be a "realistic" number of goblins for a small settlement in the cave including women and children.

yeah, that's for darned sure!