D&D 5E Is 5e the Least-Challenging Edition of D&D?

[Blue]

5e has a nice thick buffer between "players have a legitimate fear their character will die" and "character death". Which is exactly as I want it. It's not hard to instill fear of death as long as the DM goes along with the expectations they developed the system with, especially 6-8 encounters with ~2 short rests per long rest.

The problem for me is that the expectations they developed the system with don't fit my DMing style. I want to vary the pacing, and I never reach 6-8 on a regular basis, much less have as many days with more than 6-8 encounters as days with fewer than 6-8 encounters. Even when you increase encounter deadliness, it does not linearly increase (non-HP) resource attrition.

So, as running as designed 5e can instill fear of death without being too close to actual death that's one bad roll and it's over. BUT, no one runs it as designed because the assumptions are out-of-whack. So instead most games are run on easy mode without the DM even realizing they are. Even if the DM is taking steps not to, because they aren't actually tweaking the right knobs (such as fewer character resources per day) to correct it.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[prabe]

You're holding it wrong.

THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY

 

[Fenris-77]

You're holding it wrong.

People with smaller hands always seem to have trouble with inflated expectations.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[jayoungr]

In short 5e is expected that you normally have 6-8 lethal fights for the party per day to challenge them.

It doesn't say lethal; it says medium to hard.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah, unless you're running a hard AP that doesn't go on too long the system expectations and the setting ecology don't exactly mesh.

How are you arriving at "PCs may access 100% of their total hit point pool at any point in the day whenever they need it"?

Because the spells aren't their HP pool. The spells belong to the spellcasters.

Sure they can be cured up to full, but only as long as the healers have any spells left. They don't rest back much at all overnight and thus starting the day at less than full is a very possible thing. Long-term attrition works.

And long term attrition works in any version of D&D where you sufficiently pressure the players. There may be an exception for 3.5 with 8 hour rope tricks.

This comes back to whether one sees combat as sport (4e) where things are nicely balanced and the PCs are almost certain to survive*, or as war (0e) where almost any combat carried risk of one or more PC deaths and luck was much more of a factor**.

* - thus making combat the go-to answer in most situations
** - thus making combat something to be avoided if possible

As someone whose first two RPGs were GURPS and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, any game in which you can take a crossbow bolt to the face for max damage and not suffer long term consequences or shock and wound penalties you're treating combat as a sport in which the enemy are wielding nerf weapons rather than actual weaponry. MMA is no less of a sport than boxing just because the gloves are thinner and kicks are allowed. Indeed, with the longest recovery times being about as long as long term fatigue, and literally no long term consequences for things that should be fatal other than in the rare case of an accident the D&D hit point model isn't so close to MMA as it is to Professional Wrestling.

Now please stop with that smug and insulting edition warring analogy in the near consequence-free combat-as-professional-wrestling game.

 

[darjr]

Eh, I’ve tpkd tier 4 in AL, so, no. I’ve rarely had a TPK in 4e and I’ve probably only recently have caught up to the number of games I ran in 4e. OK maybe I caught up a couple years ago.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It doesn't say lethal; it says medium to hard.

And this is part of what makes it less challenging. A "medium to hard" fight in which people are fighting against you with lethal weapons and spells but have very little chance of actually killing unless someone makes a major mistake.

 

[darjr]

Uh, some monsters are horrible