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

[jayoungr]

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.

So are you complaining because the encounters have to be deadly or because they don't have to be deadly?

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

My advice, if you want to embrace 5e’s attrition model of difficulty without having to cram 6-8 encounters into one day, is to change up the rest and recovery mechanics. Some folks have had good results with using the one day short rest and one week long rest. Personally I’m not a big fan, but it seems to be a pretty popular option. Alternatively, you could leave short rests as-is and change long rests to require downtime.

 

[Neonchameleon]

So are you complaining because the encounters have to be deadly or because they don't have to be deadly?

I'm complaining because there should be 6 to 8 of them per day - which does odd things to worldbuilding. And because we know so few of them are going to be lethal which takes the tension out of them. The average challenge is brought down and the stories and settings that work are starkly limited by this. 3.X and 4's 4 per day was too many IMO - unless you want to play "Fantasy Professional Wrestling Vietnam" where attrition is the name of the game, most of the enemies are jobbers, and most of the matches are iron man matches.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

Yeah, but I've never really understood the appeal of systems where every blow has the potential to immediately kill your character and ruin a year's worth of story either.

Balances need to be struck.

 

[prabe]

Yeah, but I've never really understood the appeal of systems where every blow has the potential to immediately kill your character and ruin a year's worth of story either.

In the games I've played where the combat mechanics allowed for quick kills, we usually played the games to avoid combat as much as possible, and set as many ambushes as possible. If you were in a straight-up fight, chances were something had gone substantially awry. The appeal was seeing your plans (setting the ambush) work. The downside, of course, was what could happen if they didn't. Obviously, not everyone is going to derive pleasure from that.

 

[Stoutstien]

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.

This is the flaw of challenge = deadliness as a design principal. Challenge should be based on the consequences of failure and while death is a pretty big one it's not the only option.

 

[Oofta]

In the games I've played where the combat mechanics allowed for quick kills, we usually played the games to avoid combat as much as possible, and set as many ambushes as possible. If you were in a straight-up fight, chances were something had gone substantially awry. The appeal was seeing your plans (setting the ambush) work. The downside, of course, was what could happen if they didn't. Obviously, not everyone is going to derive pleasure from that.

For me always avoiding combat/attempting to ambush would get boring and one-sided. I like a variety of encounter types and goals.

 

[prabe]

For me always avoiding combat/attempting to ambush would get boring and one-sided. I like a variety of encounter types and goals.

When I was playing those types of games, there were other types of games that we rotated among. Also, in the games I was playing (as we played them) setting up an ambush, say, would be in service of some other goal, and "avoiding combat" was only part of the non-combat interactions we had with characters. We got our variety fix, one way or another.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For me always avoiding combat/attempting to ambush would get boring and one-sided. I like a variety of encounter types and goals.

And most of these games are a lot less combat-centric than D&D is, thus having a wider variety of encounter types and goals. And when combat happens it's fast, scary, and brutal.

 

[Oofta]

When I was playing those types of games, there were other types of games that we rotated among. Also, in the games I was playing (as we played them) setting up an ambush, say, would be in service of some other goal, and "avoiding combat" was only part of the non-combat interactions we had with characters. We got our variety fix, one way or another.

That's fine, different games have different goals and design concepts. Not really sure what that has to do with this thread topic so I was confused. Which honestly isn't all that difficult.