D&D 5E (2024) Is 5E better because of Crawford and Perkins leaving?

[Maxperson]

Nevermind

 

[AlViking]

Well +4 wisdom saves on black abashed, AC 15 and 58 hit points. Dhergoloth shouldn't be hard either. Neither one hits very hard.

This was supposed to to be a fairly easy encounter, I put it on the low end because the monsters could see in darkness and I knew the combat was going to start with a darkness spell being cast. yes, the Black Abishai only has an AC 15 but it can fly and hide in the darkness as a bonus action. So fly in, attack with advantage, fly away. No opportunity attacks because no one could see it, most spells nerfed because they couldn't be targeted directly. The Dhergoloth just kept running around in the darkness, the flailing claws did 22 force damage for each monster more than once on multiple targets. If I had been mean, they would have teleported away, waited for their flailing claws to reset and kept going at it. Both monsters have resistance to magic. You can't always judge difficulty by CR.

I almost took out the cleric, the barbarian was at low double digits and the wizard was badly hurt by the time the encounter was done.

Other than that I have no idea what you're talking about for the +4 wisdom save, they have a +6 to wisdom saves if they could have been targeted by a spell that required it - they weren't - and they don't have any attacks that rely on wisdom. Monsters are much more dangerous if you play them to their strengths and they don't just stand their like punching bags.

 

[Lanefan]

This is what I mean by you just reading to argue and not understand. And I quote..........................again!

"you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises."

Do you understand what "such as" means?


And I quote.......................again!

"An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

Don't ask me to quote it again. I'll just tell you to go look yourself.

No, it's bad because it contradicts other RAW.

The problem isn't that you're quoting the rules and using them to defend your position.

The problem is that the rules you're quoting are themselves awful, which completely undermines your position before you start.

 

[Lanefan]

It's a pretty common trope that the protagonist is about to be killed in their sleep and for some reason it doesn't happen. They wake up at the last moment, the blade slips, gets deflected by a lucky McGuffin or some other reason. The characters the PCs play are the heroes, they're not supposed to be easy to kill once they've established that they're the heroes.

Yet when NPC adventurers of the same capabilities are the PCs' foes those NPCs should be easy to kill?

No. What works for one works for the other.

If this is something that happens in your game, you an always implement something like coup de grace from 3e

Coup de Grace​

Description: A character can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless foe. A character can also use a bow or crossbow, provided the character is adjacent to the target. The attacker automatically hits and scores a critical hit. If the target survives the damage, the target must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die.​

Applicable vs. PC and NPC alike, sure. This is one really good 3e idea that subsequent editions abandoned in their quest to have nothing ever bypass hit points.

The only problem with it as written is there should be something in there about familiar anatomy. As in, you probably can't coup-de-grace an ooze or a purple worm even if you've rendered it helpless as you don't know where best to hit it.

 

[Lanefan]

i know there's the death spiral argument but do you think DnD ought to try implement anything that curbs the 'the only hit point that matters is the last one' mentality where you run at 100% effectiveness right up until you're making death saves.

IMO death spirals should very much be a thing. The most important hit point to preserve shouldn't be the last one you lose, it should be the first one you lose: going from full to one less than full should have impact.

 

[Lanefan]

Going by the latter=last rormer=first rule of thumb people often forget, ugh.... An idea like "A PC 'bloodied' mechanic in a similar vein of exhaustion inflicting distinct penalties" feels like it's oozing with the kind of cognitive dissonance and cross purpose design that you get when the "theater geek" side of the hobby tried to design a mechanic to suit their personal "I'm a R O L E RoLePlAyEr not a [dirty] R O L L rollplayer" mindset because they think doing so can also happen to fit the exact letter of a complaint they think that the wargaming side of the hobby has voiced without actually impacting elevated species of RoLePlAyEr's in with BadWrongFun. I say that because such a mechanic would either be completely pointless with no meaningful impact or so impactful that nobody can use it without some kind of extreme meat grinder vibe becoming the primary theme and tone of the game

The game could use more meat-grinder in its theme, even without it becoming primary.

More to the point, death-spiral mechanics would force players to think twice before engaging in combat and look for other solutions first. Such mechanics would also force parties to be more cautious (which is, if nothing else, realistic) and make sure they stay cured up.

 

[Lanefan]

Again you avoid posting what you are actually claiming. Being injured and showing signs of injury are not the same thing, no matter how many times you post this over and over again.

Also the wording is actually contradictory to your claim. You claim is only the hit that causes 0 hps does actual damage, yet any hit point that takes you to 50% would cause you to show cuts and bruises. Are cuts and bruises not "actual damage"?

How do explain cuts and bruises on someone who has taken no damage?

How can something be "bloodied" when it has taken no actual damage?

The damage caused by a Mind Flayer still exists, only it's internal and thus not visible to an observer.

The damage caused by a Red Dragon's breath weapon might not be "cuts and bruises" specifically, but the burns and singes and and char marks would be pretty much the same as.

And the answer to "are cuts and bruises not actual damage?" is both yes and no at the same time. They are damage in a narrative sense - an observer in the fiction can see and react to the victim's clearly-worn-down condition; they are not damage in a game-play sense - they don't affect the victim's game-mechanical ability to operate or function.

2. How does a spell like Magic Missile actually miss you when the spell says it strikes a target?

Curious on this one as well, I thought Magic Missile couldn't miss.

 

[Maxperson]

The problem isn't that you're quoting the rules and using them to defend your position.

The problem is that the rules you're quoting are themselves awful, which completely undermines your position before you start.

They aren't the best, but I wouldn't call them awful.

The main problem, though, is that I have someone who outright refuses to understand what is being said to him. If he and his group want to play a game where they ignore where something is said 5 times to point at one time where it's said a bit different and say, "Aha, because it was said one time a different way the other 5 times don't matter, so we can cheese this rule!," then more power to them. When he tries it here it just makes him look bad. It's bad faith discussion.

 

[tetrasodium]

The game could use more meat-grinder in its theme, even without it becoming primary.

I agree, it was notable though because the thing described was more an excuse to continue justifying the elimination of death spiral by hp loss with a likely unworkable "optional" mechanic almost guaranteed to to nothing or merit or be so burdensome nobody wants to use it.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I think we also experience a not-insignificant number of posters who do not actively play the D&D game they are actively complaining about. Yet its hard to parse that out since they don't necessarily identify themselves as such.

Those other communities just don't seem to draw D&D fans intent on yucking their yum in the same way. Maybe its just the size of the flame that draws the most moths? And some moths are happy moths and some, not so much.

I lot of those games are specifically marketed to D&D players that are disillusioned with the game, rather than people new to TTRGs. As such, people who have moved to another game are people that that game suits better than D&D did, and are thus not only happier, but aware that worse exists. That's a recipe for satisfaction.
On any gaming forum beyond a certain size there are people who doomsay, criticise the creators, or actively try to sabotage it. Its not unique to D&D at all: The bigger the company, the more it and its products are acceptable targets.

Yet when NPC adventurers of the same capabilities are the PCs' foes those NPCs should be easy to kill?

No. What works for one works for the other.

Applicable vs. PC and NPC alike, sure. This is one really good 3e idea that subsequent editions abandoned in their quest to have nothing ever bypass hit points.

The only problem with it as written is there should be something in there about familiar anatomy. As in, you probably can't coup-de-grace an ooze or a purple worm even if you've rendered it helpless as you don't know where best to hit it.

IMO death spirals should very much be a thing. The most important hit point to preserve shouldn't be the last one you lose, it should be the first one you lose: going from full to one less than full should have impact.

While that might scratch a specific "realism" itch, I believe that these mechanics were not included in the game very deliberately.
If you think that D&D has an issue with people going nova, or just deleting monsters with "save or die" equivalent spells, I think that it is a given that these will become even worse if these two concepts were introduced.
If it is reasonably possible to bypass a monster's hit points, then manufacturing a situation where you can do so will become the optimal strategy for killing them.
Likewise introducing death spiral rules pushes parties into the nova strategy even harder, as every combat becomes a race to push the other side further down the death spiral before they get the chance to respond and start pushing the party into theirs. The party will be even further incentivised to ensure that the DM gets to actually act as little as possible.

The emphasis on ambushes and surprise attacks that this would lead to was just viewed as a tactical exercise when a lot of D&D was about exterminating your way through an area, killing the inhabitants as you come across them. However the general slant of D&D has changed, and many groups will try to talk before resorting to combat, which is likely to be fewer and more difficult set-piece encounters rather than lots of more minor ones degrading the party through attrition.