76512390ag12
First Post
Because it's not Science.
It's Craft.
Craft is using approximation and design, a little math, an algorithm or two.
It might be engineering, it might be design.
It's not Science.
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D&D 5E How viable is 5E to play at high levels?
- Thread starter Tobold
- Start date
Because it's not Science.
It's Craft.
Craft is using approximation and design, a little math, an algorithm or two.
It might be engineering, it might be design.
It's not Science.
Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk
Rofel Wodring
Explorer
The 'fix' of the 6-8 encounters in an adventuring day misses the mark. Yes, if your view of an adventure is a dungeon crawl, that 'works' so far as not letting players recharge, but that paradigm fails on a basic storytelling principle:
The basic structure of most action-adventure stories don't fit the 6-8 encounters. Seriously, think of all of the comic books and fantasy stories. There are very few in which a hero is expected to overcome that many obstacles on one tank of gas. Just going with Batman, off of the top of my head there's Knightfall and that's about it. And even in Knightfall Batman got to replenish his utility belt. What's more, a lot of stories also allow their protagonists to recharge in a day, maybe a couple if they're seriously gassed. Not a whole friggin' week unless they're completely totaled. Because while a lot of stories don't start new adventure arcs on the very same day, a lot of them only give the hero one or two days.
Rather than doing narrative violence by forcing the game and story to fit around this arbitrary paradigm, why not instead just, you know, reduce the encounters between rests?
The basic structure of most action-adventure stories don't fit the 6-8 encounters. Seriously, think of all of the comic books and fantasy stories. There are very few in which a hero is expected to overcome that many obstacles on one tank of gas. Just going with Batman, off of the top of my head there's Knightfall and that's about it. And even in Knightfall Batman got to replenish his utility belt. What's more, a lot of stories also allow their protagonists to recharge in a day, maybe a couple if they're seriously gassed. Not a whole friggin' week unless they're completely totaled. Because while a lot of stories don't start new adventure arcs on the very same day, a lot of them only give the hero one or two days.
Rather than doing narrative violence by forcing the game and story to fit around this arbitrary paradigm, why not instead just, you know, reduce the encounters between rests?
Or use the alternate rest rules. Or increase the threat level. Either (or a combination of the two) works.
Helldritch
Hero
The goal of the 6-8 encounter is exactly to let players recharge short rest powers while forcing "daily" powers to be withheld for a crucial battle. That forced management of resource ensures a few things
1) Players will tend not to nova.
2) Classes with short rest regen powers will be able to compete and cope with nova style classes.
3) You no longuer needs only deadly encounters type to challenge your players. 2 to 3 hard encounters in a row can be a real tax on the resources of a party.
You have many ways to ensure the 6-8 encounters per day.
1) Make them happen by adventure design. Be it a time limit or Be it the total number of encounter in the adventure
2) Make less true encounters and add in random encounters. Again these random encounters can be prepared or not.
3) Make the world more alive. Players are resting after a foray in a dungeon? May be the leaders should search for the players. The world should not be static.
4) Not all encounters should be combat, traps are there too and can be quite a drain on resources. Novae are useless against traps...
5) Do all of the above.
As for encounter building a few reminders.
1) A party is 4 adventurers. More that this and the CR system must be adjusted accordingly. Unfortunately it we are more or less left in the dark in that case. The DMG says to reduce the exp multipliers for monster by one category but it is (sometimes) not enough. I do increase the number of required monsters for a multiplier by 2 for each additionnal players. That works out a bit better, not perfect but still.
2) Feats are not taken into account in CR of creatures. At level 4, I add one monster per PC with feats. These monsters are not factored in the exp multiplication budget. I don't take into account any ASI.
At level 8-12, I consider monsters to be one CR category lower.
At level 12+ I consider monsters to be two CR category lower.
This can lead to more monsters in an encounter of stronger ones.
3) Really powerful magic items force me to consider carefully their impact on an encounter. If the magic items would have a significant impact on an encounter, I consider to lower by one the CR of the affected creatures. (a flame tongue against undeads/trolls...) This could lead to either more monsters or stronger ones. This has the advantage of not lowering the efficiency of the magic items in questions and thus the players are quite happy to see that the magic items is not ampered articificially by me. (How come we see so much fire immune monsters/ennemies now that I have a staff of fire?)
4) Some monsters are bound to be modified, either by giving them either better armor or better weapons. Sometimes both. Foes will use magic items if there are some in the treasure. If a monster is modified, I raise back its CR by one for each modifications.
As you can see, I modify the exp encounter building budget system to suit my needs. I have two groups of 6 players. Both are optimizers. So far these methods are working out quite fine. But though the exp encounter building budget system is modified, I still use it.
The more options you add to the game, the more you have to "adjust" the game. Without options, the game works out quite fine.
1) Players will tend not to nova.
2) Classes with short rest regen powers will be able to compete and cope with nova style classes.
3) You no longuer needs only deadly encounters type to challenge your players. 2 to 3 hard encounters in a row can be a real tax on the resources of a party.
You have many ways to ensure the 6-8 encounters per day.
1) Make them happen by adventure design. Be it a time limit or Be it the total number of encounter in the adventure
2) Make less true encounters and add in random encounters. Again these random encounters can be prepared or not.
3) Make the world more alive. Players are resting after a foray in a dungeon? May be the leaders should search for the players. The world should not be static.
4) Not all encounters should be combat, traps are there too and can be quite a drain on resources. Novae are useless against traps...
5) Do all of the above.
As for encounter building a few reminders.
1) A party is 4 adventurers. More that this and the CR system must be adjusted accordingly. Unfortunately it we are more or less left in the dark in that case. The DMG says to reduce the exp multipliers for monster by one category but it is (sometimes) not enough. I do increase the number of required monsters for a multiplier by 2 for each additionnal players. That works out a bit better, not perfect but still.
2) Feats are not taken into account in CR of creatures. At level 4, I add one monster per PC with feats. These monsters are not factored in the exp multiplication budget. I don't take into account any ASI.
At level 8-12, I consider monsters to be one CR category lower.
At level 12+ I consider monsters to be two CR category lower.
This can lead to more monsters in an encounter of stronger ones.
3) Really powerful magic items force me to consider carefully their impact on an encounter. If the magic items would have a significant impact on an encounter, I consider to lower by one the CR of the affected creatures. (a flame tongue against undeads/trolls...) This could lead to either more monsters or stronger ones. This has the advantage of not lowering the efficiency of the magic items in questions and thus the players are quite happy to see that the magic items is not ampered articificially by me. (How come we see so much fire immune monsters/ennemies now that I have a staff of fire?)
4) Some monsters are bound to be modified, either by giving them either better armor or better weapons. Sometimes both. Foes will use magic items if there are some in the treasure. If a monster is modified, I raise back its CR by one for each modifications.
As you can see, I modify the exp encounter building budget system to suit my needs. I have two groups of 6 players. Both are optimizers. So far these methods are working out quite fine. But though the exp encounter building budget system is modified, I still use it.
The more options you add to the game, the more you have to "adjust" the game. Without options, the game works out quite fine.
The issue with this one is that random encounters just take up too much precious game time. My players only have so much time to game...and I don't really want to spend it on encounters that aren't really going to challenge them. Now...once in a while I think its important to make them feel powerful, but consistently as just a means to consume their resources is not my cup of tea.
Helldritch
Hero
Again, these are mere suggestions. You may use one, some, all or none at all. You can do whatever you want. It is your table and you will know what works out best for you and your friends.
As I said, if you use 5e without any fluffs it will work at all levels. Even multiclassing is a fluff. The more the options you add in, the less stable the system becomes. I play with almost every options in the DMG and in the PHB. In some adventures I use all of the above, in others, I use only certain parts. The only true way to ensure that an encounter will be to make some simulations with copies of your players' character sheets. Even that is not a sure thing but it works out almost every time.
As I said, if you use 5e without any fluffs it will work at all levels. Even multiclassing is a fluff. The more the options you add in, the less stable the system becomes. I play with almost every options in the DMG and in the PHB. In some adventures I use all of the above, in others, I use only certain parts. The only true way to ensure that an encounter will be to make some simulations with copies of your players' character sheets. Even that is not a sure thing but it works out almost every time.
CapnZapp
Legend
Helldritch
Hero
Well, feats and many options are crunchy don't you think?
CapnZapp
Legend
Rofel Wodring
Explorer
And I'm telling you, designing an adventure to fit the 6-8 encounters a day paradigm is a genre violation of action-adventure fiction. Not only does it lead to fourth-wall breaking events such as random encounters and Ninjas In The Night, but it's a pacing unnatural to stories. Even games that explicitly seek to challenge you by stretching out limited mundane resources like Torchbearer and Mouseguard don't do that many.
Seriously, when was the last time in a movie or a comic or a cartoon a team of people with diverse abilities fought 7 discrete (let alone challenging) encounters between downtime? Even LotR didn't do more than three combat encounters between climaxes.
It's a specific invention of 5E D&D. It should be gotten rid of because it's too easy to wreck the difficulty curve and when you do adhere to it you often do violence to the narrative. I support giving noncasters (many) more daily use abilities and cutting down the encounters-per-day to a more reasonable 3-4. You can also give out fewer daily abilities (to include, but not limited to spells) and class abilities, like 4E D&D did.
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