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

[Don Durito]

Not by much.... These are only "medium" encounters

• For a party of 5 level 10 characters: 30 goblins or 10 goblin bosses, 6 hobgoblin captains is a medium encounter, or 6 veterans.
• If those characters are level 12: it's a little over 70 goblins or 15 goblin bosses, 8 hobgoblin captains, or 8 veterans
• If they are 15: it's a bit over 100 goblins or over 25 goblin bosses, 10 hobgoblin captains, or 10 veterans before it jumps to "hard".
• and you still have 5-7 more encouners for the 6-8 encounter notch

Sure you could use stronger humanoids or an apocalypse engine class reality warping horror or three.

Use KFC to check if you doubt me

I'd very much doubt that the encounter maths are meaningful against that many enemies.

Personally I'd do 100 goblins as a swarm in any edition.

Something like:

Goblin Swarm 200hp.
Containable: If PCs are able to hold a line, or block a passageway, then the swarm is considered contained. All pcs facing the swarm are attacked for 2d8 damage.
Rush: (Once per round) The Goblin war leader blows his horn and orders his followers forward. All pcs facing the contained goblin swarm make a Strength saving throw (or something similar). If more than half fail then the PCs are now enveloped.
Envelope: The Swarm attacks all PCs who are enveloped. It gains +2 to hit and does 4d8 damage. All movement is halved for enveloped PCs and they must make a strength save or have their speed reduced to 0.
Vulnerable: Area of effect attacks do double damage to the swarm.
Dispersable: If the Swarm is reduced to a below 100 hps, it must make an immediate morale save or disperse. From that point another morale save must be made for each 10hp threshold passed.
If dispersed the Swarm disappears and it replaced by 1d4 goblins for every 10hp remaining. Unless prevented these goblins immediately attempt to flee in all directions.
Rally (once per encounter - may only be used if the swarm has less than 100hp): The goblin war leader sounds his horn and attempts to rally the horde. Roll 4d10 and add this to the goblin swarm's hit points. All swarm attacks this round use d12s for damage rather than d8s.

 

[Garthanos]

I'd very much doubt that the encounter maths are meaningful against that many enemies.

This ... who's going to actually make 100 archery rolls against the lead fighter from a largish platoon of Orcs, what is the chance to hit again?

 

[Don Durito]

This ... who's going to actually make 100 archery rolls against the lead fighter from a largish platoon of Orcs, what is the chance to hit again?

Let's say they hit on a 16.

So 5-25 attacks will hit. For average, I don't know let's say 8 damage?
So damage would be 30 - 150 damage.

So you don't need to make attack rolls just roll 10d12+ 20 damage.

 

[Oofta]

Let's say they hit on a 16.

So 5-25 attacks will hit. For average, I don't know let's say 8 damage?
So damage would be 30 - 150 damage.

So you don't need to make attack rolls just roll 10d12+ 20 damage.

That sounds about right. There are detailed rules on running mobs in the DMG, although I like your detailed write-up above.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not by much.... These are only "medium" encounters

• For a party of 5 level 10 characters: 30 goblins or 10 goblin bosses, 6 hobgoblin captains is a medium encounter, or 6 veterans.
• If those characters are level 12: it's a little over 70 goblins or 15 goblin bosses, 8 hobgoblin captains, or 8 veterans
• If they are 15: it's a bit over 100 goblins or over 25 goblin bosses, 10 hobgoblin captains, or 10 veterans before it jumps to "hard".
• and you still have 5-7 more encouners for the 6-8 encounter notch

Sure you could use stronger humanoids or an apocalypse engine class reality warping horror or three.

Use KFC to check if you doubt me

Okay, but you are taking my example out of context.

You mention DnD 5e "rocketed past mythic". Five near max level characters fighting 100 of the weakest tier of enemies is not "mythic"

A single individual fighting 100 mid-tier enemies is "mythic".

After all, Ninjas from "The Hand" are not street trash, they are highly deadly and trained individuals, Iron Man or Captain America can still take out hundreds of them in a single night. They attack castles full of them, by themselves.

DnD characters can't do that.


DnD fighters can't swing their swords fast enough to create a vacuum that cuts steel.
DnD barbarians can't crush mountains in a single punch
DnD wizards can't make entire worlds.

There is a mythic scale, and DnD is not it

 

[tetrasodium]

Okay, but you are taking my example out of context.

You mention DnD 5e "rocketed past mythic". Five near max level characters fighting 100 of the weakest tier of enemies is not "mythic"

A single individual fighting 100 mid-tier enemies is "mythic".

After all, Ninjas from "The Hand" are not street trash, they are highly deadly and trained individuals, Iron Man or Captain America can still take out hundreds of them in a single night. They attack castles full of them, by themselves.

DnD characters can't do that.


DnD fighters can't swing their swords fast enough to create a vacuum that cuts steel.
DnD barbarians can't crush mountains in a single punch
DnD wizards can't make entire worlds.

There is a mythic scale, and DnD is not it

Your right that I did, but the kinds of & volume of things you need to send at players as they advance combined with the ability to erase the consequences of resource expenditure and attrition from combat shifts towards that direction. Take the earlier example that @Man in the Funny Hat made about a group fighting off waves of vampires with the gm remarking in astonishment at how much the group could dish out & shrug off as an example.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Your right that I did, but the kinds of & volume of things you need to send at players as they advance combined with the ability to erase the consequences of resource expenditure and attrition from combat shifts towards that direction. Take the earlier example that @Man in the Funny Hat made about a group fighting off waves of vampires with the gm remarking in astonishment at how much the group could dish out & shrug off as an example.

I would have had to have been there when the "waves" were happening to see what the DM was doing to make a determination.

I nearly wiped a party with 6 Vampire Spawn. If @Man in the Funny Hat was referring two or three waves of 6 or 7 spawn, maybe that would be impressive but certainly not what you are claiming. And between auto-grapples, regeneration, and blood drinking I'd be shocked that the players survived that in any decent shape unless they had a major terrain advantage.

If they went to six or seven waves of a dozen spawn plus a real Vampire, I'd have to wonder what the heck happened, since the Vampire has legendaries and I can't imagine any party surviving that without losing members, and most likely it would be a full retreat or a TPK.

And frankly, I think you rather consistently underestimate just how many individuals would be in a location, since you seem to constantly think that we are stretching the bounds of reasonably numbers. The DMG lists that a large castle would have 200 skilled and 100 unskilled individuals to run it. It further says that the bulk of the skilled workers are soldiers and guards for the castle.

So, a Vampire castle to run would need approximately 125 guards (more than half but not by much) then the vampire would have pets in the menagerie, any experiments, and then just the court and "favored lieutenants" who aren't actually neccessary for the daily running of the place and are just there. You can easily fight over 200 individuals taking on a full castle. And this makes sense, castles were huge and required a lot of manpower to run. They are essentially small towns in and of themselves.

A ship has a crew of 20 with 20 passengers, so a pirate crew could easily by 30 individuals in a fight.

This numbers aren't super inflated or way out there, they are actually decently reasonable estimates of the numbers of fighting men in a location.

 

[tetrasodium]

Okay, but you are taking my example out of context.

You mention DnD 5e "rocketed past mythic". Five near max level characters fighting 100 of the weakest tier of enemies is not "mythic"

A single individual fighting 100 mid-tier enemies is "mythic".

After all, Ninjas from "The Hand" are not street trash, they are highly deadly and trained individuals, Iron Man or Captain America can still take out hundreds of them in a single night. They attack castles full of them, by themselves.

DnD characters can't do that.


DnD fighters can't swing their swords fast enough to create a vacuum that cuts steel.
DnD barbarians can't crush mountains in a single punch
DnD wizards can't make entire worlds.

There is a mythic scale, and DnD is not it

Your right that I did, but the kinds of & volume of things you need to send at players as they advance combined with the ability to erase the consequences of resource expenditure and attrition from combat shifts towards that direction. Take the earlier example someone made about a group fighting off waves of vampires with the gm remarking in awe at how much the group could dish out & shrug off as an example.

I would have had to have been there when the "waves" were happening to see what the DM was doing to make a determination.

I nearly wiped a party with 6 Vampire Spawn. If @Man in the Funny Hat was referring two or three waves of 6 or 7 spawn, maybe that would be impressive but certainly not what you are claiming. And between auto-grapples, regeneration, and blood drinking I'd be shocked that the players survived that in any decent shape unless they had a major terrain advantage.

If they went to six or seven waves of a dozen spawn plus a real Vampire, I'd have to wonder what the heck happened, since the Vampire has legendaries and I can't imagine any party surviving that without losing members, and most likely it would be a full retreat or a TPK.

And frankly, I think you rather consistently underestimate just how many individuals would be in a location, since you seem to constantly think that we are stretching the bounds of reasonably numbers. The DMG lists that a large castle would have 200 skilled and 100 unskilled individuals to run it. It further says that the bulk of the skilled workers are soldiers and guards for the castle.

So, a Vampire castle to run would need approximately 125 guards (more than half but not by much) then the vampire would have pets in the menagerie, any experiments, and then just the court and "favored lieutenants" who aren't actually neccessary for the daily running of the place and are just there. You can easily fight over 200 individuals taking on a full castle. And this makes sense, castles were huge and required a lot of manpower to run. They are essentially small towns in and of themselves.

A ship has a crew of 20 with 20 passengers, so a pirate crew could easily by 30 individuals in a fight.

This numbers aren't super inflated or way out there, they are actually decently reasonable estimates of the numbers of fighting men in a location.

There you go, every butler is a literal demon like sebastian from black butler, former SIS like Alfred, every maid a literal dragon like tohru, everyone in the kitchen is choji, & everyone else is secretly an almighty janitor. 5e is setup to enforce that.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

We are kind of back tracking on the thread here. the speed that power levels scale up into mythic levels not seen by anything but the greek & roman gods is problematic to 5e.

I think you're going to have to go into more detail here about your party and what they ran into.
I've found that a 5e party doesn't tend to be able to handle the level of threat that a 3.5e party could for example.

Not by much.... These are only "medium" encounters

• For a party of 5 level 10 characters: 30 goblins or 10 goblin bosses, 6 hobgoblin captains is a medium encounter, or 6 veterans.
• If those characters are level 12: it's a little over 70 goblins or 15 goblin bosses, 8 hobgoblin captains, or 8 veterans
• If they are 15: it's a bit over 100 goblins or over 25 goblin bosses, 10 hobgoblin captains, or 10 veterans before it jumps to "hard".
• and you still have 5-7 more encouners for the 6-8 encounter notch

Sure you could use stronger humanoids or an apocalypse engine class reality warping horror or three.

OK. And how would those encounters stack up against a party of characters in 3.5?

 

[Lanefan]

This ... who's going to actually make 100 archery rolls against the lead fighter from a largish platoon of Orcs, what is the chance to hit again?

I would, if that was the situation I found myself in as DM.

I'd probably average out their initiatives so a vaguely equal number would fire on each segment (I use 6-segment rounds); unless they were under command in which case they'd more or less all fire at once.

I'd make each roll mostly because I'd want to know how many critted and how many fumbled, and what the consequences of said fumbles were; and partly to get a sense of when the target went down if at all. (relevant if the archers aren't all firing at once, when can they switch to another target?)