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

[DND_Reborn]

Thing is to me its trivial to just up "deadliness" ... but making more interesting tactical choices is another kettle of fish and does not seem nearly as straightforward as rule patches in the dmg.

Oh, you're not wrong in a lot of ways. I completely agree a DM can make the game harder! I am just saying that as designed your PC is more likely to survive encounters in general in 5E.

 

[Oofta]

LOL, but still the "grittiest" option makes full HP after 7 days.

In AD&D you get 7+Con bonus hp in the same 7 days. That means a 1st-level d8-HD class or better can't fully heal in 7 days.

Well I think most people modified the game back in the day somehow. We just took a week off and assumed the party cleric prayed for spells to heal everyone every day. That and we created all sorts of "healing herbs" and other work-arounds.

But there are optional rules for slow healing similar to older editions in the DMG as well. Not the default, but the default does seem to be dungeon-crawling without requiring a cleric.

I think the main difference is that you can play D&D on easy mode out of the box. Back in ye-olden days you had to modify the system to allow for easier mode. Gygax's idea of fun promoted a very DM-player adversarial style.

 

[Garthanos]

Oh, you're not wrong in a lot of ways. I completely agree a DM can make the game harder! I am just saying that as designed your PC is more likely to survive encounters in general in 5E.

Yup survival mode is your only idea of hard i get that.

 

[DND_Reborn]

The advice of 5e is to allow rests, etc. Whether you face deadly encounters frequently is decided by how the DM builds NPCs, and how the players interact with the world. There are guidelines for making deadly encounters for a reason. If you want a deadly game, you just...use them.

I am going from the suggested 6-8 encounter adventuring day guidelines, in which case 6 difficult or deadly encounters would give more XP than the guidelines suggest.

The design of 5e is to put things like this in the hands of the DM, and to present a fun game that can be played casually to new potential players.

Again, dnd isn't a video game. You decide the difficulty. 5e is the second best edition of dnd at making it easy for the DM to accurately set the difficulty.

Out of curiosity, which is the "best edition of dnd at making it easy for the DM to accurately set the difficulty."?

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think the main difference is that you can play D&D on easy mode out of the box. Back in ye-olden days you had to modify the system to allow for easier mode. Gygax's idea of fun promoted a very DM-player adversarial style.

LOL totally agree with that.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yup survival mode is your only idea of hard i get that.

That is all I have been arguing. This entire time.

 

[Garthanos]

Funny part is Gygax and Arneson both didnt play the first several levels at their tables.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I am going from the suggested 6-8 encounter adventuring day guidelines, in which case 6 difficult or deadly encounters would give more XP than the guidelines suggest.

This misses the point. The guidelines are not the system. The guidelines are not rules. They're advice. They are only advice. You are not a new DM, you do not need to follow the advice.

Seriously, my point is not a point that can be countered by "but the guidelines", because my point includes ignoring the guidelines.

Stop building adventures using the guidelines. Instead build a world where guards are lethal, where there is a chance of a wyvern hunting the woods near the adventure site way before the PCs can handle a wyvern, and use the lingering injuries and slower healing from the DMG. Next, let the players know what kind of game they're in for, and play. Last, enjoy how the gameplay changes to something more old school, because the idea of getting in literally any fight is scary.

Out of curiosity, which is the "best edition of dnd at making it easy for the DM to accurately set the difficulty."?

4e. Barring the dice just absolutely going weird (every enemy critting while PCs roll garbage, round after round), a 4e encounter is as deadly as the DM makes it. The system for building NPCs and encounters is both robust and transparent, the levels are accurate, and the toolset is incredible in both depth and efficacy. And that's true for combat encounters, traps, hazards, and overland travel.

5e is better in some ways, with more optional rules to change how easily PCs recover, whether lingering injuries are a possibility, etc, but 4e still wins out simply for the fact that the DM can accurately predict what a given encounter will do to the party, while the PCs have no idea before an encounter begins how rough it will be.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Oh, you're not wrong in a lot of ways. I completely agree a DM can make the game harder! I am just saying that as designed your PC is more likely to survive encounters in general in 5E.

So, this is really the sticking point, here.

It's not as designed, it's as presented and advised for new groups and those who don't want to play a gritty survival game.

The actual mechanics of the game don't force 2 short rests a day with 6-8 encounters a day of generally moderate difficulty.

And sidenote, 5e is still more balanced than most editions when you ignore those guidelines. A fighter, monk, and wizard, are more balanced in a 5e day with 1 fight than in all but one other edition. You won't break the game in any way by treating all fighting creatures as potentially deadly, and thus all fights as potentially deadly, and thus dramatically reduce the frequency of fights.

 

[billd91]

Oh, you're not wrong in a lot of ways. I completely agree a DM can make the game harder! I am just saying that as designed your PC is more likely to survive encounters in general in 5E.

Maybe? But then again, maybe not. PCs may be more likely to have Con bonuses and more hit points, true. But now monsters generally have them too whereas they didn't in editions before 3e. They also crit now when they didn't in AD&D so their average damage has been ramped up. So that's probably all a wash.

There are fewer save or die effects and saving throws are generally more plentiful to mitigate them. On the other hand, there seem to be fewer ways to rack up save bonuses and they don't tend to get down to the same fail only on a 1 level as they did in AD&D.
There also seem to be fewer cases of known 'required' remedies to tote around to mitigate those occasions when the save or die was failed. So in that sense, the game is less complicated - though, again, I'm not sure I'd call that easy mode. Maybe 'less fussy' mode.

That said, having a unified table of bonuses is easier in the sense that the game is more consistent and easier to understand. So in that sense, it is easier.

I do believe there are fewer cases in which characters just fail a single roll and die. But if that's "easy mode" then let's call the previous versions "ignoble death mode" or "gotcha mode". Maybe even "random death mode"... if we're going to go all in on pejorative terms.