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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6789788" data-attributes="member: 6677017">Thanks for adding a different perspective!I will say that one of the most difficult things for me in running my beloved 5e is keeping the balance of party power vs. believable challenges interacting properly.5e characters are powerful compared to most editions of the game. Sure, at 1st (and maybe at 2nd) level they are pretty squishy. But 3rd level feels like 5th level from 1e-3e as far as power level.And most of the monsters--even classic ones that used to be scary challenges (including many undead) are now low CR creatures. Solo fights don't really work, so that means you need minions for your opponents. The difficult part is when minions don't make sense.Take, say, the banshee. In 3e their CR was 17. I don't recall how strong they were in AD&D, but based on my recollection of other undead, I'm guessing they were pretty tough customers.In 5e their CR is 4. That means a party of 4th-level characters should have no problem with them. A party of 3rd-level characters can probably also take them out, and a party of 2nd-level characters might even be able to pull it off with some losses.So how am I supposed to use a banshee as a higher level threat? Either I can artificially inflate stats (which I hate), I can give her class levels (better, but I don't like it being a required modfication), add some minions that might even be more powerful than she is, and/or make it so that the actual confrontation with the banshee isn't the hard part--it's finding her and getting to that confrontation in the first place.Now sure, this sort of thing isn't a problem if you don't mind being absurd and throwing a half dozen banshees instead of one at your mid to high level party--and my guess is that some DMs run their campaigns exactly like that. But for me, the world has to make sense. Rare sounding creatures are rare. Creatures that tend to be unique individuals rather than parts of groups generally are so.I'm just not into the idea of using methods that strain suspension of disbelief to increase the challenges as the party advances. I prefer adventures that simply deal with more powerful foes in the way that makes sense for those foes. Since 5e downgraded the power level of so many foes (though granted, the stats make a lot of sense for many of them--and that is something I find to be a good thing), it makes it require a lot more creativity as a DM to give play-style satisfying challenges to higher level parties.It still ends up that I like 5e the best, and am willing to creatively deal with that issue rather than the issues of the other editions.As an aside, it doesn't sound like 5e is working for you, but for others who might like it but have problems with too much healing (I know I do), I'd recommend using both the Healer's Kit Dependency and Slow Natural Healing variants from the DMG. That generally means that a character who has used up all their health resources (including hit points and HD) will take 5 to 7 days to fully recover without magical healing. I'd also recommend changing the fighter's Second Wind to temporary hit points, and not let them activate it until they are at or below half hit points (since Second Wind is fine when everyone regains all hit points each morning, but is absurd when everyone else takes a week to recover). You might want to disallow or nerf the Healer feat also. Those rules should get you down to 3e non-magical healing levels or slightly less, which I find acceptable.</blockquote>

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