D&D 5E Is 5e "Easy Mode?"

[Garthanos]

Fantasy Vietnam? does that get to be oh so neutral too? OSR a that game encourages trivial characters without depth you can make one in 12 seconds and who die easily to random chance could also be in less than 1 second encouraging greed (the only way to advance) and cowardice at every turn (once you enter a fight you have already failed chortle chortle).... yup totally neutral language use.

 

[Garthanos]

I think it largely depends on what we may have to suck.

raspberry lollypops for Morris's Grandmas sake

 

[Sadras]

You aremissing my point on base assumptions.
You can play the game any way you like. But the base game has a different assumption of what you are. Therefore the DM might have to change rules and run different to play different from the base assumption.

In 4th edition, the base assumption is a 1st level PC is a fully trained veteran.
In 5th edition, 1st level is mostly trained apprentice.
In 3rd edition, 1st level PC is a half trained ameteur.
In OSR, 1st level is a barely trained newbie.

Apologies, didn't mean to ignore/miss your post.
How do any of these base assumptions make 5e not an easy mode of D&D?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Who says 5E is easy? It can be. It can also be as deadly as I want. It just puts the intent to be deadly more in the hands of the DM. Any time a PC is at 0 in 5E they're just two hits from dead. Revivify is great, but it's easy enough to block access to the body. Raise dead has always brought back PCs. Want to kill PCs in 5E? Double tap. Throw more monsters. Run monsters intelligently. Don't have 15 minute work days.

I frequently find myself pulling back on difficulty because my players don't want a super deadly game. In older editions of the game I had players with similar preferences and we added in a bunch of house rules and I avoided whole categories of monsters to make dying accidentally less likely.

How deadly you want a game to be is a group preference.

Yeah, I wrote about the DM's prerogative to make the game harder in my other posts in case you missed it.

We've gone over this ad nausem. I have no desire to cast revivify on this particularly dead horse.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, I wrote about the DM's prerogative to make the game harder in my other posts in case you missed it.

We've gone over this ad nausem. I have no desire to cast revivify on this particularly dead horse.

At this point we'd probably need reincarnate. Maybe a miracle.

 

[Minigiant]

If you find it so, you are also taking it personally. If you feel like you are playing an easy game and that is somehow bad or makes you feel insulted, you should try to be objective about it.

I see it as completely neutral and non-insulting. I can't help it if you feel that way. If you do, I am sorry for it.

In gaming, the term "easy mode" is a pejorative. The neutral term is "roleplaying mode"

Apologies, didn't mean to ignore/miss your post.
How do any of these base assumptions make 5e not an easy mode of D&D?

Because it has nothing to do with ease.

John McClane was a veteran NYPD detective and he barely defeated Gruber.
Harry Potter in the first book/movie is a green first year wizard and has a challenging adventure.

The point is the different editions have a different assumption of base PC competency and narrative relevance. This is because of changes on what types of challanges the intended default audience see as important.

In OSR, dying before getting the BBEG is fine.
In 5e, you are supposed to make it to the BBEG and the condition you arrive is what matters.

It's a different challenge.

 

[DND_Reborn]

In gaming, the term "easy mode" is a pejorative. The neutral term is "roleplaying mode"

Well, I am glad you appear to be the expert.

"Roleplaying mode" is meaningless. Your table may, or may not, roleplay any edition of a D&D game. That is solely determined by the table, not the rule set.

Again, just in case this got lost somewhere along the way, for myself when I say "easy mode" I am only talking about the survivability of characters given the default design of the game. I am not discussing rules complexity, "fun-ability factor", or anything else. Learning the game isn't "easy". And some people think that "easy mode" implies a simpler or even "dumber" game which is why they seem to be taking it personally. That was never my intent and I thought that was clear from my posts.

I play 5E more than anything else right now and generally have a lot of fun. Our CoS game is more "over-the-top" than I prefer, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it. But for the first several months of our main game we played strictly RAW, and I found it to be a more survivable (i.e. "easier") game than AD&D. Frankly, the RAW and designed style of the game support it. Nothing wrong with that, it is just different. It doesn't appeal to us (our table) as much, which is why we've house-ruled it heavily.

 

[Minigiant]

Well, I am glad you appear to be the expert.

"Roleplaying mode" is meaningless. Your table may, or may not, roleplay any edition of a D&D game. That is solely determined by the table, not the rule set.

Again, just in case this got lost somewhere along the way, for myself when I say "easy mode" I am only talking about the survivability of characters given the default design of the game. I am not discussing rules complexity, "fun-ability factor", or anything else. Learning the game isn't "easy". And some people think that "easy mode" implies a simpler or even "dumber" game which is why they seem to be taking it personally. That was never my intent and I thought that was clear from my posts.

I play 5E more than anything else right now and generally have a lot of fun. Our CoS game is more "over-the-top" than I prefer, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it. But for the first several months of our main game we played strictly RAW, and I found it to be a more survivable (i.e. "easier") game than AD&D. Frankly, the RAW and designed style of the game support it. Nothing wrong with that, it is just different. It doesn't appeal to us (our table) as much, which is why we've house-ruled it heavily.

I'm talking about all gaming. Pen and paper, board gamagin, minis,console video games. PC games, arcade games.

Game devs of most stripes have abandoned the term "easy mode". Because "people see is an insult, play harder modes, lose, and give bad reviews.". You only see it in game where survival is the top focus in gameplay.

"Roleplaying mode" means "I can focus on roleplaying and not survival."

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm happy to share, and have quite a few times. PM me if you'd like.

The problem right now is that it's morphed into something a bit different. Especially magic/spellcasting since we were looking for something quite different. So I've really got to fork the design at an earlier point in the design. We also have a different class system too. Each has some defining features, and everything else is chosen by the player as you progress, with far fewer super-heroic options (although those would be easy to add). I'm not a fan of dozens of classes and archetypes, other than helpful pointers on how to mix things together to your liking. So we have three base classes, Expert, Spellcaster, and Warrior, which are based on their historical focus (although as I noted in the original post, in AD&D clerics were better at combat than rogues (theives). In our case, the idea is that it takes a lot more time to learn spellcasting, so they are the worst at combat, experts are better, but primarily have the most skills, and warriors are the best fighters (which was lost in 5e with the use of the proficiency bonus, since every class at a given level has the same chance to-hit provided equal ability scores).

Like AD&D, I'm not concerned with whether there are "trap" features or unbalanced things. If you have a group that doesn't like role-playing and character (as in personality) development, then you just don't use the skills/feats that speak to that.

The adventuring/combat/equipment/skills portions are the easiest to drop into an existing campaign right now.

The general feel that we're looking for is based around the classic definition of heroic - an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. @Minigiant expressed that in a different way in this post above.

I'm not sure I'd say Old School is built to kill PCs, rather than to encourage other solutions to problems than a straight frontal attack for every encounter. We tend to stay at 4th level (low level campaign) or 8th level (high level campaign) for years. We want the overall challenge (not necessarily every encounter) to be beyond the capability of the PCs. That is, they can't just fight, rest, fight, rest. They have to play, come up with creative solutions, look for ways to avoid the danger rather than taking it head on, enlist help, etc.

Death really has never been a common thing in our campaigns, in part because resurrection magic was always largely unavailable in our campaigns. So if you wanted to keep using a PC, you have to keep them from dying. Probably one of the main reasons we misread the DMG 0-hit point rule (although it seems to me that if the rule was written for exactly 0 hit points, it should have just said, "if a character is reduced to exactly 0 hit points...")

Regardless, I'm glad we interpreted it the way we did. Because it added a lot to our game. Trying to avoid being killed, combined with real, in-story consequences.

To us it still feels like D&D, or at least what we thing D&D should feel like. I've shared it with a number of people inside and outside of my groups. I either get feedback that says it's amazing and it's how they play now or no feedback at all.

That does sound interesting. I like 5e a lot, but I’m always looking to expand on it.

And like I said, old school D&D was Built to “challenge you by not caring if your character dies”. IOW, the system doesn’t care. It’s then up to players to avoid the system killin‘ ‘em.

 

[Monayuris]

You aremissing my point on base assumptions.
You can play the game any way you like. But the base game has a different assumption of what you are. Therefore the DM might have to change rules and run different to play different from the base assumption.

In 4th edition, the base assumption is a 1st level PC is a fully trained veteran.
In 5th edition, 1st level is mostly trained apprentice.
In 3rd edition, 1st level PC is a half trained ameteur.
In OSR, 1st level is a barely trained newbie.

When you only have 1 or 2 spells or fail most skill checks and die for 1 cut, you can run Big Dang Heroes but you won't be playing like them.

If'n you can't survive an explosion, you can't play John McClane no matter what the quest says.

Your comparisons are out of context.

It is difficult to make a comparison with 4E and 5E because their systems don't utilize the same rules between player characters and NPCs.

It is a little easier in 5E if you compare a 1st level fighter to a Guard NPC character. In such a comparison 1st level 5E characters start at more capable than a typical town guard or soldier.

3rd edition 1st level characters are similar due to comparing a player character class to the npc classes (which were lower in power to PC classes). So a 1st level fighter would be superior to a 1st level warrior by that nature.

OSR games, 1st level characters are Veterans. There is a reason they fighter class has a level title. If you compare a 1st level fighter in B/X or similar to a typical mercenary or 'Normal Man' type, they have superior hit points, better attack and saving throw progressions. A 1st level OSR fighter is a veteran soldier who has lived through several battles and is hand above a typical soldier.

I don't understand the idea of OSR characters being barely trained newbies. The farmboy with a sword would be an unclassed "Normal Man", not an actual player character.

You are comparing the capabilities of a 1st level OSR character to the capabilities of a 1st level 4E character (or any other edition), which are different games based on different power levels.