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

[tetrasodium]

5e can’t be any particular difficulty, because the difficulty is left up to the dm. If the dm just coasts without putting any thought into challenge, the game is gonna be “easy” in any edition that is fairly well balanced and thought out.

In older games, a thoughtless dm blows up their own campaign. So, I guess 5e is easy more for DMs.

That whole "difficulty is left to the gm" strawman ignores so much of the reason why people call it things like easy mode/least dangerous/etc. Too many of the tools in a GM's toolbox to adjust difficulty with precision were carelessly discarded from 5e so you are left with lots of homebrew or a crude club when you were really needing a toolbox of narrowly focused tools.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Does any 1e DMs bother to use D-1 monsters against level 9 10th or 11 level pcs...in AD&D.. you are not even being touched because of the absolute of AC and your hit points are still massively more than the adversaries too. 5e intentionally wanted to make lower level enemies viable threats able to endanger you able to chip away its one of the impacts of bounded accuracy....

I do not see that as easier than the super armor classes with somewhat fewer hit points

What DM in 5E uses less than CR 1 creatures against 9-11th level PCs to any effect?

When was the last time a party of such characters really feared a band of gobins?

Finally, let's compare rest and healing: 5E full HP after 8 hours. AD&D 1 hit point per 24-hours!!

I see with such insanely fast healing 5E is much easier.

 

[Oofta]

That whole "difficulty is left to the gm" strawman ignores so much of the reason why people call it things like easy mode/least dangerous/etc. Too many of the tools in a GM's toolbox to adjust difficulty with precision were carelessly discarded from 5e so you are left with lots of homebrew or a crude club when you were really needing a toolbox of narrowly focused tools.

Just because you have difficulty challenging PCs doesn't make it a strawman. I came close to a TPK last session and it wasn't a particularly unusual occurrence.

The only rule I use to make life more difficult is the alternate rest rule because it suits the pace of my game better.

 

[Garthanos]

Finally, let's compare rest and healing: 5E full HP after 8 hours. AD&D 1 hit point per 24-hours!!.

oh right yeh the mythic we dont need a cleric group sheesh not even funny

 

[Garthanos]

What DM in 5E uses less than CR 1 creatures against 9-11th level PCs to any effect?

Squadrons could well have effect or by the numbers ... or that is the intent of BA
Actually I think any sane DM i would combine them into a mob/swarm thing and I seem to recall seeing some guidelines for doing something like that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That whole "difficulty is left to the gm" strawman ignores so much of the reason why people call it things like easy mode/least dangerous/etc. Too many of the tools in a GM's toolbox to adjust difficulty with precision were carelessly discarded from 5e so you are left with lots of homebrew or a crude club when you were really needing a toolbox of narrowly focused tools.

That is objectively untrue.

You do not need any houserules or homebrew whatsoever to make 5e deadly. You literally just build deadly adventures. You control how much damage things do, what traits monsters have, what sort of effects traps have, what enviromental hazards do, etc. 5e presents all of these things in a way that is quite easy to understand, and quite robustly balanced, so that they will usually do what you expect them to do.

The only real differences are presentation (ie, the published APs are quite easy) and the fact that in 4e and 5e the DM is much less likely to be surprised by how deadly or easy a challenge is.

To be clear, I'm not even talking about the DMG optional rules, which are absolutely official parts of 5e, they're just optional. You don't need to make healing take longer, or change what is recovered with a given type of rest. You only need those tools, which again are part of the official game and can be found in the core book that is made to help DMs run the game, if you want to challenge the players in exactly the same way as in older editions.

If you're willing to learn a new way, you don't need them at all.

 

[tetrasodium]

What DM in 5E uses less than CR 1 creatures against 9-11th level PCs to any effect?

When was the last time a party of such characters really feared a band of gobins?

Finally, let's compare rest and healing: 5E full HP after 8 hours. AD&D 1 hit point per 24-hours!!

I see with such insanely fast healing 5E is much easier.

Because there are some people in this & other threads that I don't think understand the gravity & importance of that difference I'm going to go into a little more depth with that. in 3.5 recovery was a good bit more forgiving in that you could

• you could use the heal skill (equiv to 5e medicine) to

• resting resulted in this
  
  

The result of both these things is that any attrition of hp even a couple nicks by goblins was something you didn't just shrug & roll your eyes over. Getting in a fight with the bbeg's bodyguards was dangerous even if you were fairly certain that you could nova them to dust. Compare to 5e where you rest an hour and the entire party is back to full with no need to prioritize who is getting healed through mundane means to speed things up.

Yes it was pretty much guaranteed that you would have a healer of some kind in the party, but because each spell needed to be prepared at the start of a day you did not have the 5e capability of healing spell capable casters just burning all their unused spell slots to circumvent things like slow natural healing & heal kit dependency. If the healer was going out adventuring on a normal day they were severely hamstrung by a spell list of nothing but cure spells.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

1)What DM in 5E uses less than CR 1 creatures against 9-11th level PCs to any effect?

2)When was the last time a party of such characters really feared a band of gobins?

3)Finally, let's compare rest and healing: 5E full HP after 8 hours. AD&D 1 hit point per 24-hours!!

I see with such insanely fast healing 5E is much easier.

1) I do. A horde of them will kill the PCs. It isn't the most fun way to use them, though. Instead I do what DMs have always done, and tweak things to make them more fun. I either use mooks like that to frustrate the characters and make them feel overwhelmed while something else is happening, or I turn them into effectively a high CR legendary creature with replenishing parts, because it's just easier to run and more fun for everyone. But a legendary swarm the size of half the battlefield was pretty obvious to me from day one, while others might never think of it, because people think differently.

2) Not counting goblins that aren't low CR, because the scariest "monsters" should always be humanoids? Probably since before 2e, far as I can tell. But 3 low CR goblins are equal to 1 critter that makes 3 attacks and takes at least 3 hits to kill*, so....again it's more about efficiency of running a fight than whether it's a real challenge.
*probably a bigger threat, actually, since a single hold person can't lock them entirely down without using a higher spell slot, and they have pack tactics and poison (well, my goblins often do).

3) Yep, you have to focus on different things in old school dnd vs modern dnd to get the same challenge level. That doesn't mean the game is easier.

 

[DND_Reborn]

oh right yeh the mythic we dont need a cleric group sheesh not even funny

We played AD&D without clerics before, just FYI.

So, let's dig into the old books, shall we? Let's a party of 4 PCs (simple Cleric, Fighter, Thief, and Magic-User) at 5th level. Average HP (with reasonable CONs of 15, 16, 15, and 15 respectively) would be:

Cleric: 27.5
Fighter: 37.5
Thief: 22.5
Magic-User: 17.5
TOTAL: 105 hp

The cleric will have 5, 5, 2 spells per day. If he used them all for healing, that is 12 cure light wounds for a total of 54 hp on average, barely HALF the total HP of the party.

In 5E, just sleep for 6 hours and a couple hours light activity and poof full HP without any spells. Easy-peasy.

 

[tetrasodium]

.

That is objectively untrue.

You do not need any houserules or homebrew whatsoever to make 5e deadly. You literally just build deadly adventures. You control how much damage things do, what traits monsters have, what sort of effects traps have, what enviromental hazards do, etc. 5e presents all of these things in a way that is quite easy to understand, and quite robustly balanced, so that they will usually do what you expect them to do.

The only real differences are presentation (ie, the published APs are quite easy) and the fact that in 4e and 5e the DM is much less likely to be surprised by how deadly or easy a challenge is.

To be clear, I'm not even talking about the DMG optional rules, which are absolutely official parts of 5e, they're just optional. You don't need to make healing take longer, or change what is recovered with a given type of rest. You only need those tools, which again are part of the official game and can be found in the core book that is made to help DMs run the game, if you want to challenge the players in exactly the same way as in older editions.

If you're willing to learn a new way, you don't need them at all.

No, it's 100% correct, you are myopically ignoring the complexities, ignoring the kinds of tools formerly available, or just unaware of them. Here's anm example I put together recently.

a simple group of fighter rogue cleric ranger wizard

Spoiler: skeletons

View attachment 119311

Let's say they are lowish level & the rogue is plowing through the bbeg's kobold/goblin/human/living creature (mook) guards with sneak attack while the ranger is doing an ok job of picking things off from range because they are his favored enemy & her animal companion is helping. The wizard & cleric have wisely been holding back on precious spell slots other than some light healing & using their sling/quarterstaff/mace without doing too much to help but the third or fourth encounter has a mook necromancer who opens a trapdoor with a "bunch" of skeletons in it. A bunch because I'm not calculating a proper encounter for all these examples. I'm deliberately keeping the examples cliche for simplicity rather than describing carefully planned one off encounters & story built specifically for a group that doesn't exist
Immediately this comes into play

Spoiler: Sneak attack

View attachment 119313

Not to mention the fact that the rogue is using a slash/pierce dagger & the ranger a piercing bow. The fighter is using a heavy flail though so immediately takes the spotlight thanks to how far the damage die plus his combat feats put him above the cleric's mace. The fighter has two light maces in his backpack that the rogue/ranger could use, but taking them out would subject him to opportunity attacks & these are just skeletons so should we do that after?... well hmm there are quite a bunch of them, mybe we should eat the AoO for you to throw your bag so we can paw through t & help, decisions decisions?... Even though these are all "trash monsters" not even worth spell slots the party had to shift tactics while the necromancer henchman is running off with the macguffin through that trap door the party has learned the importance of having more than one damage type handy.

• Later the party has learned to keep 2-3 damage types handy even if two of them are dagger(slash pierce) or morningstar(bludgeon/pierce) simple weapons. The party had no trouble chewing through
  
  Spoiler: zombies

  View attachment 119317
  The rogue has been considering one of the many ways to sneak attack undead rather than his original plans because the gm has warned them this will continue to be an undead heavy campaign a few times over the last few levels. The ranger's +2 flaming longbow is at a disadvantage because the 1d8+2 shaves off the first 5 points so he needs to roll 4 or better to do even 1 point there, but the 1d6 of fire damage is doing great against those distant skeletons on ledges & stuff shooting down at the party. Meanwhile, the fighter puts away his +2 icy burst heavy flail & pulls out his mere +1 longsword to deal with the zombies here at the gatehouse.
• Things are a little too easy though & that rogue is feeling a bit off kilter as noted & three more zombies charge in with a wooden crate they immediately smash a couple squares from the fighter & gate guard zombies. Inside the crate is.....
• Spoiler: drumroll!

  View attachment 119318
  [*]View attachment 119319
  Immediately the fighter & cleric take some opportunity attacks because he was running away faster than the pee was streaming down his leg. The rogue steps in with her leather armor & proceeds to save the day & be awesome in the spotlight by beating it mercilessly with her sap because the cleric is about to follow the fighter. Luckily now with the rogue in place the fighter & cleric can scoot around the back to carefully attack the bunch of zombies but can't just use their full movement to get into the most opportune position beating on the necromancer because they previously learned how terrifying that single
  
  Spoiler: ghoul

  View attachment 119320
  beside him is heading up to his tower because moving through that many threatened squares would be pretty deadly from opportunity attacks. Sure he wizard considered zapping him from range, but scorching ray only had a range of25ft+5ft/2 levels & his fireball would have ought his allies so was a nonoption.
• Having recovered from the most frightening things of the day, the party has a few wounds but nothing serious they make their way to the top of the necromancer's tower but he's had ample time to get his ritual rolling because "omg there was a wight y0!" plus a bunch of
  Spoiler: lemeure's

  View attachment 119321
  were along the way. Killing them wasn't so bad, but having to use silvered daggers or just rely on the elemental components of their weapons slowed things down. As expected, the crit fishing rogue chewed them up... the wizard got in a few good scorching ray/fireball/etc to speed things up at a couple points that looked a little hairy so it was good he didn't waste his spell slots on trash earlier.
• Having thwarted the necromancer & killed him off, the party is later hired to deal with a problematic crypt recently uncovered in the swamps. Being in the swamp, the party can expect some
  Spoiler: trogs

  View attachment 119322
  so lready the difficulty is going to be turned up a notch, especially for the non-fighter types with a poor con save. Once they fail to save againsta single trog's stench it will be there for the next day so even the fighter has a decent chance if they encounter enough compared to 5e where they save each round & it lasts only till their next turn with immunity for one hour once they save.
• By this point, the party is in no way lowish or mid level... Even though the party mowed through the trogs with nearly no use of resources because their full weapon damage plus elemental addon damage was available including all of their class abilities like sneak attack they have some weights on them in the form of being sickened but that's not a huge deal for them & deal with the remaining trogs in the crypt without much issue but because of sickness have a couple close calls & have a great time.
• By now the fighter has switched to +3 plate +3 shield & a 1 handed weapon for irrelivant reasons making his AC is so high that he ractically could have taken a nap among the trogs. He's really been feeling awesome out there like colossus or juggernaut from xmen, till after they find what the trogs living in the crypt unsealed & start fighting through the various irrelevant undead down in that ancient sealed part of the crypt, even the trogs didn't come down here & survive... out comes a
  Spoiler: wraith

  View attachment 119323View attachment 119324
• That -2 from sickness suddenly matters a whole lot more.... Instantly the fighter looks to the rogue & ranger with good dex as he just lost a bunch of HP & con, the wizard burns his backup mage armor slot on the ranger & tries to scorching ray it, but both rays missed the incorporeal check. so the group does what it can to pull together & is able to eat through the wraith's 32 hp, but without sneak attack & every attack having a 50% chance of doing nothing even if it hits the fight is not easy. Both the fighter & ranger have some con damage but the cleric only has one lesser restoration prepared so the party needs to think if they cast it & on who or if they wait in case they encounter another waith or something.
• With the ranger low on hp due to con damage & fighter not much better, the wizard is feeling a lot more pressure to burn spell slots on things he previously wold not waste them on Unfortunately for him, all of the things in this subcrypt have been tweaked by the gm to have
  Spoiler: spell resistance

  View attachment 119325
  until the party can find & destroy or deactivate the artifact the trog's turned on so he too is really feeling that sickened state.

Now you don't need to be confused on what people are doing, at no point were the melee types simply helplessly waiting for casters to solve the problem, & thanks to a competant gm+ luck of the dice the wizard was just as if not more hand tied as the martial in many of those situations. All of the martials encountered one or more situations that hit their strong point in ways that made them shift strategies and/or hand the spotlight baton to a different martial too. While 5e has analogue's to some of those like sickened to poisoned, too many of the foundational elements are missing even though a couple variant rules to simplify AoO's touch ac & other stuff could have accomplished the overly simplified streamlined baseline that 5e has. Those are the types of tools that existed in prior editions that no longer exist in 5e