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

[Garthanos]

I'd really like encounters to be balanced more around the individual encounter. Removing as many daily resources as possible, and having spells, combat manoeuvres etc all function like Tome of Battle in 3.5, or force powers in SWSE; per encounter abilities.

That would be my preferred direction as well... but we have a reversion instead.

 

[tetrasodium]

Have you actually run a game and experienced balance issues from not running 6-8 encounters?

Yes... that was the reason I & others have mentioned it as a problem that occurs when you actually do things like use the crude & imprecise tools left in 5e to just make it harder or shift the encounter numbers.

 

[billd91]

I'd really like encounters to be balanced more around the individual encounter. Removing as many daily resources as possible, and having spells, combat manoeuvres etc all function like Tome of Battle in 3.5, or force powers in SWSE; per encounter abilities.

That's just me though probably.

It's not just you, but it's definitely not me. I can see how balancing things around the encounter level makes game design easier - but it also elevates the constructs of the game that enhance game play at the expense of simulating a setting or genre. And that just jars the hell out of me with RPGs. It undermines my sensation of playing a character with a character's perspective and enhances my sense of playing a pawn on the board.

I recognize that there are some abilities that can orient themselves really well around an encounter but there are others that I feel don't and I really bristle at trying to push them to that level.

 

[jmartkdr2]

That would be my preferred direction as well... but we have a reversion instead.

What I'd really love is a fantasy rpg with no 'daily' or even 'once per encounter/X minutes" resources. Have a primary limit not rooted in attrition, like "you may only have one active spell at a time." So if you want to cast fireball - you have to give up mirror image. Or whatever kinds of spells the game/setting uses.

Obviously such a game would play very differently than DnD, however.

 

[Oofta]

What I'd really love is a fantasy rpg with no 'daily' or even 'once per encounter/X minutes" resources. Have a primary limit not rooted in attrition, like "you may only have one active spell at a time." So if you want to cast fireball - you have to give up mirror image. Or whatever kinds of spells the game/setting uses.

Obviously such a game would play very differently than DnD, however.

Wouldn't spell points come close to that? Or maybe not.

A lot of fantasy is more flexible. It's not that you can't cast fireball and mirror image, it's just that they each cost a certain amount of power and that power (however it's explained) is a limited resource.

I played with that a bit in an edition long ago and far away that had an option for spell points. Basically you had a mana pool and if you were really desperate you could always spend HP.

It guess it might make the 15 minute work day even worse for some people, and I get that spell slots are a balancing factor and simplification. It just never sat well with me is all.

 

[tetrasodium]

.

What I'd really love is a fantasy rpg with no 'daily' or even 'once per encounter/X minutes" resources. Have a primary limit not rooted in attrition, like "you may only have one active spell at a time." So if you want to cast fireball - you have to give up mirror image. Or whatever kinds of spells the game/setting uses.

Obviously such a game would play very differently than DnD, however.

That would produce problems of its own. If you look at the concentration mechanic & how it moves a bunch of spells that were formerly pretty decent staple things consuming spell slots into things that are never cast because it's not $betterSpell. Such a change would basically either remove any buff spells from consideration or require them to be extremely powerful. Rather than someone who reacts to the situation & casts the spells needed casters would become a dispenser of spells that make the party able to meet the "you must be this tall to ride" bar.

 

[Garthanos]

. Have a primary limit not rooted in attrition, like "you may only have one active spell at a time."

That could be a point system where you allocated attention to things and you were always using immediate resources changeable as soon as your next round. Its all effectively an action economy system.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I disagree that 5e is “easy mode” because I feel the question is meaningless.

What some people mean when they say that 5e is easy-mode is that 5e is easier than AD&D all else being equal.

To me, it is the all else being equal that is meaningless. All else is not equal and can never be equal.

Take GM Jim and GM Bob. If GM Jim runs both a AD&D campaign and a 5e campaign, Jim’s two campaigns will probably resemble each other more (including in difficulty) than Jim and Bob’s campaign.

To give a specific example, my teenaged AD&D campaign ended at 9th level with one character who was a Titan and one who had a sentient artifact that was subservient to him. They also had like 1 million gp. So far, nothing like that has happened in any 5e game I have run.

 

[Umbran]

Here is the argument from the other side and the one you insist on defending: One cast's a cantrip and one's long rest is interrupted.

Yep. This seems to you more nonsensical than saying you need an entire hour of combat, to break a rest, when no darned combat we ever run takes an hour in-game-time?

Though, honestly, my basic point isn't that one reading is superior to the other. My basic point is that the RAW technically supports both the very permissive, and very strict versions of what breaks a rest, which makes pointing to long rests as RAW support for Easy or Hard a weak proposition.

Or, we can be... maybe more sensible and remember this is the "rulings not rules" edition, and take the language to be... suggestive, rather than proscriptive. So, mayb ethe GM will allow cantrips. Or rituals. Or some spell-casting outside of combat...

 

[Oofta]

To give a specific example, my teenaged AD&D campaign ended at 9th level with one character who was a Titan and one who had a sentient artifact that was subservient to him. They also had like 1 million gp.

At least they didn't have a pet dragon that had been "subdued". They called it Timmy.