D&D 5E Is 5e really that different?

[Asisreo]

The Tarrasque can be killed by a 5th level wizard with acid splash and flight.

I can assure you that my challenge could not. The DMG's estimation of the tarrasque is probably involving the straightforward fight strategy.

 

[dave2008]

Yeah, but the DMG kinda implies pretty heavily that DMs shouldn't go past deadly via the description of "deadly" encounters.

"A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat."

That SOUNDS pretty nasty and like you probably shouldn't go any harder than that.

Not if your looking for a challenge IMO. If an encounter "could be lethal for one or more players..." that doesn't sound like a challenge to me. But I understand everyone is different. To me a challenge (or hard) encounter would be an even match, one where every player has a 50% chance of dying. That is not an encounter difficulty described in the DMG IMO. So using the DMG parlance I would describe a challenging encounter like:

A harrowing encounter is likely to be lethal for half or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks complete defeat or death.

So, IMO, the DMG never describes a truly challenging / hard encounter in its tables and descriptions. However, it does give you the tools to build such an encounter.

But I agree the default advice in the DMG is indeed easier, which I understand, but I also feel like it tells you that. Unfortunately it is obscure behind language like "hard" and "deadly." I just also think the existing math of the game and RAW "dials" as you say allow for the game to much more challenging. Hard mode, if you will, is built right into the game.

What the DMG does fail to do, IMO, is help DMs adjust the encounter guide for different types / skills of players. The game allows for it, and to me it is easy to see how to do that, but I can also see how that could be difficult for inexperienced DMs.

 

[Hussar]

yes and no. It's only 3e in that it has something called feats which are an optional rule that are not a necessary part of the game unlike 3e. It's a stealth 4e in the healing with short rests, long rests, hit dice to heal, ritual magic, a more customizable Vancian magic system though lifted from Arcana Unearthed. And it's like 2e in that sub classes are very much like kits in the same way that they are similar to Prestige Classes without the requirements.

In fact, when you turn off the optional feats you get a game much more similar to 1e, 2e and B/X than we've seen since they ended and as much of a successor and natural evolution of 1e and 2e and B/X as 3e seemed to be, if not more so. It's a compromise in that it is a simpler version of the game, making for a better introduction than any other edition. Even bounded accuracy is much closer to older editions than the escalating math of 3 and 4e. Harkening to 1e and 2e where the D20 represented 5% chance to per pip with armor modifying that chance. Characters accelerate in power faster but it isn't as reliant on equipment to define your character like earlier editions so... they aren't really that much more powerful, they just don't have equipment that defines that power. Extra healing means less healing potions and scrolls etc. than we used to dole out. So is it... all that much more or less? I don't think so. Just different.

See, this I don't get. I really don't.

In what way is 5e like AD&D? The classes aren't even remotely close. What we call a fighter in 5e would be completely unrecognizable on a table playing AD&D. He still uses a sword? Maybe? Virtually none of the mechanics of AD&D exist in any shape or form in 5e. Right from the stat bonuses all the way through, nothing of AD&D, other than maybe proper nouns, exists in 5e.

Bounded accuracy is identical to how 4e's escalating numbers worked. All bounded accuracy is, is 4e math without the level bonuses. And, in AD&D, that never happened. In AD&D, you went from very low chances of success to virtually guaranteed success as you advanced levels. Since AC was (more or less) static, and your THAC0 increased by level, your characters were going to hit more and more often as they gained levels. In 5e, because of bounded accuracy, your chances of success remain largely static at any level.

Heck, look at how thief skills worked. At 1st level, you were going to fail far more often than you succeeded. By high levels, the reverse was true. The task never actually mattered. You opened a lock, full stop. The idea that one lock would be a different difficulty than another didn't exist in AD&D. You opened a lock X% of the time, dependent on your character's level.

It absolutely baffles me when people try to link 5e to AD&D. There's just virtually no commonality.

 

[dave2008]

In 5e, because of bounded accuracy, your chances of success remain largely static at any level.

This is not my experience. In 5e AC is very static and players get better at hitting just because of proficiency bonus. Then if you add in ASI and magic items. It increases further. So you are going from a +5 or so to hit to a potentially +14 to hit ( a delta of +9) versus monster ACs which don't change (if the same monster) or go up by +4 or so at most if they are different monsters. Fighters in 5e clearly get better at hitting IME, and that is because of BA (at least partially).

For example:
Low level boss threat: Orc War Chief, AC 16

High level boss threat: Orcus, AC 17 (20 with wand of Orcus)

That is a 1-4 AC spread across a +22 CR spread. Level appropriate players are definitely hitting Orcus more often than they are the Orc War Chief!

 

[Nebulous]

The last new version I learned to run was 4e. I wasn't bad, thought I still prefer earlier editions. Why does 5e make so many people upset?

I don't know which people you are referring to, but every edition has made a particular subset of gamers furious. 5e is nothing new. It is probably also the most popular edition of D&D the past 50 years and still growing in popularity, if that is any indication of how many haters it has.

 

[Hussar]

This is not my experience. In 5e AC is very static and players get better at hitting just because of proficiency bonus. Then if you add in ASI and magic items. It increases further. So you are going from a +5 or so to hit to a potentially +14 to hit ( a delta of +9) versus monster ACs which don't change (if the same monster) or go up by +4 or so at most if they are different monsters. Fighters in 5e clearly get better at hitting IME, and that is because of BA (at least partially).

For example:
Low level boss threat: Orc War Chief, AC 16

High level boss threat: Orcus, AC 17 (20 with wand of Orcus)

That is a 1-4 AC spread across a +22 CR spread. Level appropriate players are definitely hitting Orcus more often than they are the Orc War Chief!

That's also a bit cherry picking as well though. An Ancient Blue Dragon has an AC of 22 for example.

Sure, the characters are getting better to hit. I agree. But, in AD&D, you go from barely hitting at all, to never missing, or only missing on a 1. A 20th level AD&D fighter has a THAC0 of 1. That means anything with a 0 or worse AC, which is 99% of the monsters, is an auto hit. Even the hardest to hit monsters in the AD&D Monster Manual are hit on around a 5 or better.

That's significantly different from 5e. 5e is far closer to 4e here actually. Where a high level fighter will hit more than other characters because high level fighters get bonuses to hit that other characters don't. But, overall, the range of "hits a lot" and "hits a little" in both 4e and 5e are pretty close, whereas the range in AD&D is "hits a little" and "never misses".

 

[Oofta]

+1 for to easy.

Fail THREE saves to turn to turn to stone. That’s insane. And of course Death Saves

Sleep fixes 99% of issues. Raise dead at 3rd level spell (Revivify). And don’t get me started on the over abundance of healing spells.

I've always made games as lethal as the group wanted, 5E is no exception. Back in OD&D, we always started a new "day" at full health. In 5E I use the gritty rest rules and after a while the casters are running nearly on empty. As a DM I have infinite dragons, not to mention attacking PCs that are unconscious (auto crit, crit causes 2 failed saves). Then drag the body off or just eat it.

We've always had raise dead. Revivify just lowers the amount of time a player has to sit out the game. In my experience people always wanted to go into combat fully charged, with the base rules it's just a matter of pacing.

 

[Jer]

Bounded accuracy is identical to how 4e's escalating numbers worked. All bounded accuracy is, is 4e math without the level bonuses.

Close - you get bounded accuracy on combat rolls here by the realization that you can decouple AC from level as well - I think this is where folks who think it's like AD&D are getting that feeling (otherwise I agree with you that it doesn't resemble AD&D at all - either 1e or 2e). So you have attacks that increase with "level" (i.e. proficiency bonus increases at roughly 1/4 level) but AC that remains uncoupled from level.

AD&D didn't escalate AC the way that 3e and 4e did for monsters or PCs (or I guess "de-escalate" technically since AC went down?). And in retrospect that's actually a good idea because you're already adding hit points to monsters and so if you do scale AC with level damage has to scale fairly precisely with level as well or you run into problems. 3e and 4e both had that math problem to work out, but 5e actually doesn't really because damage can scale only a little bit with level and since AC doesn't scale combat doesn't slog on the larger hp values.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To be fair... sleep fixed 99% of issues in every edition.

To be even more fair, natural healing in 1e and 2e was quite slow.

 

[dave2008]

double post