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Is 5e "Easy Mode?"
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<blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 7955096" data-attributes="member: 93670"><p>.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>a simple group of fighter rogue cleric ranger wizard</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"></li> </ul><p>[spoiler="skeletons"][ATTACH=full]119311[/ATTACH][/spoiler]</p><p>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</p><p>Immediately this comes into play [spoiler="Sneak attack"][ATTACH=full]119313[/ATTACH][/spoiler]</p><p>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.</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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<br /> [spoiler="zombies"][ATTACH=full]119317[/ATTACH][/spoiler] The rogue has been considering one of the many ways to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/4gdcyz/35_looking_for_a_feat_to_allow_sneak_attack_vs/" target="_blank">sneak attack undead</a> 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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.....</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">[spoiler="drumroll!"][ATTACH=full]119318[/ATTACH]<br /> [*][ATTACH=full]119319[/ATTACH][/spoiler] 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<br /> [spoiler="ghoul"][ATTACH=full]119320[/ATTACH][/spoiler]<br /> 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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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"][ATTACH=full]119321[/ATTACH] [/spoiler] 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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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"][ATTACH=full]119322[/ATTACH][/spoiler]<br /> 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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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"][ATTACH=full]119323[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]119324[/ATTACH][/spoiler]</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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"][ATTACH=full]119325[/ATTACH][/spoiler]<br /> until the party can find & destroy or deactivate the artifact the trog's turned on so he too is really feeling that sickened state.</li> </ul><p>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. <strong>Those</strong> are the types of tools that existed in prior editions that no longer exist in 5e</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="tetrasodium, post: 7955096, member: 93670"] . 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 [LIST] [*] [/LIST] [spoiler="skeletons"][ATTACH=full]119311[/ATTACH][/spoiler] 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"][ATTACH=full]119313[/ATTACH][/spoiler] 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. [LIST] [*]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"][ATTACH=full]119317[/ATTACH][/spoiler] The rogue has been considering one of the many ways to [URL='https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/4gdcyz/35_looking_for_a_feat_to_allow_sneak_attack_vs/']sneak attack undead[/URL] 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!"][ATTACH=full]119318[/ATTACH] [*][ATTACH=full]119319[/ATTACH][/spoiler] 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"][ATTACH=full]119320[/ATTACH][/spoiler] 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"][ATTACH=full]119321[/ATTACH] [/spoiler] 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"][ATTACH=full]119322[/ATTACH][/spoiler] 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"][ATTACH=full]119323[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]119324[/ATTACH][/spoiler] [*]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"][ATTACH=full]119325[/ATTACH][/spoiler] until the party can find & destroy or deactivate the artifact the trog's turned on so he too is really feeling that sickened state. [/LIST] 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. [B]Those[/B] are the types of tools that existed in prior editions that no longer exist in 5e [/QUOTE]
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