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

[Chaosmancer]

It is more complex, but the overtall average would still suggest it is the least challenging.

We seem to be in dispute about the average.

And this brings up another aspect of adventuring as a profession: sometimes you're going to get lucky and kill the monster, other times it's going to get lucky and kill you. Luck is a huge factor.

And here you've taken one of the few truly threatening things left in 5e and decided not to use it. This doesn't help your case.

Luck is a factor, but it is a boring factor.

Taken to an extreme, it is a dungeon that says "roll a die, if you roll an even number, you live move on to the next room and repeat. If you roll an odd number you die"

There is no challenge, and it gets kind of boring. Sure, a monster that has the ability to kill you in a single attack is "threatening" but it isn't "interesting" or "challenging". It is just RNG, do you die this attack or not.

We have enough luck in the game with attack rolls and damage rolls making lots of variable outcomes. I much prefer to have skill and planning come out rather than rely on more luck.

Why not?

Or, return to the patron and say "You'd better equip us better"; or return to the patron after doing some research and say "We can't fight Ghouls as we are; give us some Elves and we'll get right on it". I have no problem at all with this sort of thing, as not every mission should be a guaranteed success.

Who said anything about a guaranteed success? I certainly don't want it to be a guarantee, if it was I'd do a cutscene not an adventure.

But, if the players are supposed to be so scared of a monster they don't want to fight it.... then what use is the monster's combat abilities?

And, what equipment counters ghouls? I'm not familiar with anything, but if it exists.. why bother? If the good part of ghouls is that their touch is so scary you don't want to fight them, why give an item out that cancels that effect. Seems to completely negate your position. Then it is just pay to win. Rich parties will always succeed because they can buy the answers to the problems.

Finally, complete tangent I know, I hate that elves are immune to the Ghoul touch, especially with the 5e lore about the Ghoul King. Ive excised that from my game because it is just too stupid. So, without the lore reason in 5e, I saw no reason to keep Elves immune to ghouls. (Yes, if it ever comes up I'll tell my players, but I've never had an elf PC when they fight ghouls anyways, so it is a moot point)

Unless they have a second PC in the party (which I always allow, in large part for just this reason); or unless there's a party NPC they can take over; or - in some situations - unless that player can somehow become a co-DM for a while - there's always options.

And some of those options work well for certain groups. I certainly could never get some of my players to play two PCs, they have a hard enough time running one. And they'd never be able to run the monsters. Others could, but not all of them.

And frankly, it seems like you created a problem, then needed to create a solution to that problem that you created. Why not just avoid the problem in the first place? Which is what RAW 5e does?

Different perspective, I suppose.

I see playing a character as somewhat similar to playing a Rogue-like computer game: you go as far as you can but sooner or later you're gonna die. Sometimes you can save-restart with the same character (raise dead etc.); other times you start with a new character at the save point (bring in a new PC).

The fun comes from seeing how far you can get.

Definetly a different perspective. Myself and my groups prefer creating a narrative, interacting with NPCs and forming relationships. It is more interesting for us to see how a character grows and changes than just to see how far we get before dying.

Sure, they might die, but I've often found that my players have more fun with me doing things to them through the medium of the story than killing them. A dead character has very little future potential after all.

 

[Garthanos]

Luck is a factor, but it is a boring factor.

Taken to an extreme, it is a dungeon that says "roll a die, if you roll an even number, you live move on to the next room and repeat. If you roll an odd number you die"

There is no challenge, and it gets kind of boring. Sure, a monster that has the ability to kill you in a single attack is "threatening" but it isn't "interesting" or "challenging". It is just RNG, do you die this attack or not.

We have enough luck in the game with attack rolls and damage rolls making lots of variable outcomes. I much prefer to have skill and planning come out rather than rely on more luck.

If I recall my game theory the term is "Faux Challenge" Basically the term for just upping the numbers so its chancier and swingier is a fake challenge.

Effectively when one activity is an actual challenge and another is faux the functional effect is to encourage treating the activity as a mistake in the first place ie simplistically in early D&D "fighting evil" was a bad idea and grabbing them by the ahem gold was the encouraged thing.

 

[Lanefan]

Luck is a factor, but it is a boring factor.

Taken to an extreme, it is a dungeon that says "roll a die, if you roll an even number, you live move on to the next room and repeat. If you roll an odd number you die"

There is no challenge, and it gets kind of boring. Sure, a monster that has the ability to kill you in a single attack is "threatening" but it isn't "interesting" or "challenging". It is just RNG, do you die this attack or not.

At the extreme, yes; but before that extreme is reached there's all kinds of ways to sway the RNG results toward what you want.

What I don't want is the random factor removed entirely. The difference between dying on a 2 or only dying on a 1 is IMO massively less than the difference between dying on a 1 and not being able to die at all.

Who said anything about a guaranteed success? I certainly don't want it to be a guarantee, if it was I'd do a cutscene not an adventure.

Well, you kind of did, in that you didn't want to see the PCs going back to their patron and saying in effect "Hey, we just can't do this".

But, if the players are supposed to be so scared of a monster they don't want to fight it.... then what use is the monster's combat abilities?

The same use they've always been - they're the threat the PCs don't want to face. Analgous to the weapon you never have to fire.

And, what equipment counters ghouls? I'm not familiar with anything, but if it exists.. why bother? If the good part of ghouls is that their touch is so scary you don't want to fight them, why give an item out that cancels that effect.

Doesn't have to be something that cancels it entirely; even improving the odds would help. Or, something that generates bright light which Ghouls tend to avoid. Or something that boosts a Cleric's turn ability (or at the extreme, provide a Cleric if the party ain't got one!).

Finally, complete tangent I know, I hate that elves are immune to the Ghoul touch, especially with the 5e lore about the Ghoul King. Ive excised that from my game because it is just too stupid. So, without the lore reason in 5e, I saw no reason to keep Elves immune to ghouls. (Yes, if it ever comes up I'll tell my players, but I've never had an elf PC when they fight ghouls anyways, so it is a moot point)

In 1e they're not completely immune; they have something like 90% resistance - way better IMO, as it means nothing's guaranteed.

And some of those options work well for certain groups. I certainly could never get some of my players to play two PCs, they have a hard enough time running one. And they'd never be able to run the monsters. Others could, but not all of them.

And frankly, it seems like you created a problem, then needed to create a solution to that problem that you created. Why not just avoid the problem in the first place? Which is what RAW 5e does?

In part - wait for it - realism.

Combat as sport isn't realistic or believable in a world where things really are out to eat you (and if they're not really out to eat you, what's the point?). Thus, combat is war; and in war people die or have all sorts of other bad things happen to them. This isn't a problem in and of itself.

The problem arises at the table level; and here I'd rather bend the table to accommodate the fiction rather than bend the fiction to accommodate the table.

Definetly a different perspective. Myself and my groups prefer creating a narrative, interacting with NPCs and forming relationships. It is more interesting for us to see how a character grows and changes than just to see how far we get before dying.

Don't get me wrong, that all happens too, and we enjoy it. But it's always against a background of friendships may be fleeting (particularly at low levels), and set to the larger background of the party narrative which invariably outlasts that of any individual character. It's also against a background of slow but steady character turnover (not always due to character death) and - sometimes - player turnover.

My go-to analogy is a sports team: the team as a whole invariably outlasts any one of its players. Some players play for the team for 20 years and are hailed as stars; others play just a few games at some point and are never seen again.

Same holds true of a long-term party or campaign. Some PCs last for ages and become, during their run, the backbone of the party; others last for maybe one combat at some point and are never seen again.

I don't run hard AP-style games where the characters that start it are expected to finish it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

At the extreme, yes; but before that extreme is reached there's all kinds of ways to sway the RNG results toward what you want.

What I don't want is the random factor removed entirely. The difference between dying on a 2 or only dying on a 1 is IMO massively less than the difference between dying on a 1 and not being able to die at all.

I think there is plenty of luck with all of the dice rolling in the game already. Randomness is still alive and well in many aspects of the game. We don't need random deaths on top of it.

Well, you kind of did, in that you didn't want to see the PCs going back to their patron and saying in effect "Hey, we just can't do this".

You just finished pointing out that there is a massive difference between "dying on a 2 or on a 1" and "dying on a 1 or not at all"

The players being too scared to fight an enemy and never even trying is vastly different from saying they can never fail. In fact, making it so they will at least attempt would seem to make things more likely to fail than if they retreat from every threat they are not confident they can face.

Doesn't have to be something that cancels it entirely; even improving the odds would help. Or, something that generates bright light which Ghouls tend to avoid. Or something that boosts a Cleric's turn ability (or at the extreme, provide a Cleric if the party ain't got one!).

"Go clear out the graveyard it is full of ghouls"
"Give us better equipment, ghouls are scary"
"Here, take this bright light, ghouls will avoid it and not fight you"

More seriously, you could get similar items for similar reasons in 5e. Ghoul paralysis is still scary in 5e, trust me, I've seen people freak out over it in a 5e combat. I would think it would show somewhat that the difference in deadliness isn't so great if players would still want counter-measures either way.

In part - wait for it - realism.

Combat as sport isn't realistic or believable in a world where things really are out to eat you (and if they're not really out to eat you, what's the point?). Thus, combat is war; and in war people die or have all sorts of other bad things happen to them. This isn't a problem in and of itself.

The problem arises at the table level; and here I'd rather bend the table to accommodate the fiction rather than bend the fiction to accommodate the table.

Okay, but you don't need to mimic the horrors of war to get Combat as War. I've played in a 5e game utilizing that philosophy, in fact myself and the DM asked the other players if they would be okay with it, explained what we meant, and have gone forward with it.

And we did not need instant death effects to make it feel scary. We have not needed to have enemies who can permanently maim us. In fact, we have had a maiming. We just had a character lose a hand to a trap. Our monk touched something they shouldn't have and lost their hand to it.

But, that was a very rare occurance, the first time anything like that has happened in over a year. Beyond that we have simply fought for our survival and done a heck of a job dealing with enemies who are usually much scarier than us, until we out think and out fight them.

Realism is a fine goal, but you don't need to have permanent effects on PCs to achieve Combat as War, it is a mind-set not a series of abilities.

Don't get me wrong, that all happens too, and we enjoy it. But it's always against a background of friendships may be fleeting (particularly at low levels), and set to the larger background of the party narrative which invariably outlasts that of any individual character. It's also against a background of slow but steady character turnover (not always due to character death) and - sometimes - player turnover.

My go-to analogy is a sports team: the team as a whole invariably outlasts any one of its players. Some players play for the team for 20 years and are hailed as stars; others play just a few games at some point and are never seen again.

Same holds true of a long-term party or campaign. Some PCs last for ages and become, during their run, the backbone of the party; others last for maybe one combat at some point and are never seen again.

I don't run hard AP-style games where the characters that start it are expected to finish it.

A sports team is an interesting analogy, and I can see it. I disagree with it as a full approach though, because the characters are the story. And so, if they move to a different team, their story follows that new path.

For me, a campaign is more about the characters in it than the party. A story changes drastically when a character of importance leaves it, and I don't want to encourage that loss. Because it leaves behind it unwalked paths and stories that can now not be told that the players wanted answers to, but now cannot because those were the stories of a person who died and is no longer part of the narrative.

 

[Undrave]

-Lots of good stuff snipped for space-

Totally agree.

Reading about 3.X, it feels like a lot of 'challenges' could be overcome with good spell choice and preparing items in advance and maybe some good build choice.

In other words, challenges in 3.X existed to showcase who had the most system mastery. The system mastery needed to do well in 5e is just lower, which for some is considered easier, but I think it's just more approachable and leads to different design.

In 4e the spotlight went to tactical mastery, and in older edition where you had insta-kill traps? It was on who could be the most paranoid.

Challenges take on different forms over the years is all. It's different.

 

[tetrasodium]

Counter to a ghoul in 3.5 was either hero's feast, certain PrC's that change how you react to fear, or high ac plus an ally paying attention to make sure you aren't left high & dry subject to a cou de gras (instant kill as a full round action) if you fail your save...

Totally agree.

Reading about 3.X, it feels like a lot of 'challenges' could be overcome with good spell choice and preparing items in advance and maybe some good build choice.

In other words, challenges in 3.X existed to showcase who had the most system mastery. The system mastery needed to do well in 5e is just lower, which for some is considered easier, but I think it's just more approachable and leads to different design.

In 4e the spotlight went to tactical mastery, and in older edition where you had insta-kill traps? It was on who could be the most paranoid.

Challenges take on different forms over the years is all. It's different.

While it could be, your getting a bad impression because certain people are arguing in bad faith acting like they needed to be countered 100% every time. A lot of the creatures being discussed forced the group to work together in coordination as a team. The wraith could decimate a plate & shield wearing fighter tank type yes, but a dex build like many rogues & rangers who would get torn apart by things that had a chance of hitting that tank would have a decent chance of avoiding a goo percentage of the attacks & shine at it because everyone else is terrified of it.... Once it was over, or even in the middle if things got bad a support class type could shine by doing things to mitigate the problems. Sure it might be painful to do, but sometimes the fact that it was painful was the reason the gm pulled out those critters.

What it all comes down to is that 3.5 had a lot of monsters, spells, & effects that could trigger a near rock papers scissors matchups. The system mastery problem you note wasn't really an issue there because a lot of them were low level even if there were higher cr versions (many did). The first time you encounter those creatures you might be thrown for a loop & it's up to the gm to make sure they don't over do it too early. The challenge those creatures presented was that the group needed to shift gears & switch up the strategy (possibly on the fly in the thick of things) instead of 5e's faceroll through yet another fight just as they did every one of the couple hundred bodies they left behind over the last week.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Counter to a ghoul in 3.5 was either hero's feast, certain PrC's that change how you react to fear, or high ac plus an ally paying attention to make sure you aren't left high & dry subject to a cou de gras (instant kill as a full round action) if you fail your save...


While it could be, your getting a bad impression because certain people are arguing in bad faith acting like they needed to be countered 100% every time. A lot of the creatures being discussed forced the group to work together in coordination as a team. The wraith could decimate a plate & shield wearing fighter tank type yes, but a dex build like many rogues & rangers who would get torn apart by things that had a chance of hitting that tank would have a decent chance of avoiding a goo percentage of the attacks & shine at it because everyone else is terrified of it.... Once it was over, or even in the middle if things got bad a support class type could shine by doing things to mitigate the problems. Sure it might be painful to do, but sometimes the fact that it was painful was the reason the gm pulled out those critters.

What it all comes down to is that 3.5 had a lot of monsters, spells, & effects that could trigger a near rock papers scissors matchups. The system mastery problem you note wasn't really an issue there because a lot of them were low level even if there were higher cr versions (many did). The first time you encounter those creatures you might be thrown for a loop & it's up to the gm to make sure they don't over do it too early. The challenge those creatures presented was that the group needed to shift gears & switch up the strategy (possibly on the fly in the thick of things) instead of 5e's faceroll through yet another fight just as they did every one of the couple hundred bodies they left behind over the last week.

Yep, you are completely right. When the low-dex fighter in plate is being targeted by dex saves from spellcasters, we just keep going on like normal with no change in tactics. When the party is being attacked with mental saves from psionic creatures, just keep on doing the same thing. When you get creatures like cloakers which grapple, suffocate, and share damage you just keep doing the exact same thing with no change in strategy.

You've pegged us Tetrasodium there is absolutely no need for any 5e party to change tactics or work as a team ever. Heck, even that ghoul fight when I mentioned the party scrambling to protect a paralyzed tank and have new people get to the front lines, that was just a lie, we just have the tank stay on the front and take hits like they always do. Never do anything different, that is definitely how we play.

Heck, we never even use support classes to cast all of those spells that make our characters better or safer. Or healers either, no need for those to take care of injuries. Just face roll to victory.

(The above was sarcasm, I should think it is obvious why and how varied a fight can be. And that there are many classes which can approach many different fights in different ways using their abilities and scores.)

 

[JeffB]

So is the question Least Challenging (as written) ? That was what I thought, and that's why I answered the way I did.

Any DM worth a damn can make any D&D system more or less challenging (or deadly, as the case may be).

e.g. In 13A/4E, I regularly run/ran situations where recoveries/ healing surges were burned up either by extreme physical activity or specific monsters (using Healing Surge drains as similar to Level drain). That makes the game get deadly real quick.

Not written that way, but.

A few house rules in 5E can make it as deadly as any other game. But yeah, by the book not so much.

 

[Lanefan]

I think there is plenty of luck with all of the dice rolling in the game already. Randomness is still alive and well in many aspects of the game. We don't need random deaths on top of it.

Not on top of it - as an integral part of it.

You just finished pointing out that there is a massive difference between "dying on a 2 or on a 1" and "dying on a 1 or not at all"

The players being too scared to fight an enemy and never even trying is vastly different from saying they can never fail. In fact, making it so they will at least attempt would seem to make things more likely to fail than if they retreat from every threat they are not confident they can face.

Well, chances are they'd attempt once in any case, if only to find out what they were up against.

It'd be the survivors who went back to town to report failure.

Okay, but you don't need to mimic the horrors of war to get Combat as War. I've played in a 5e game utilizing that philosophy, in fact myself and the DM asked the other players if they would be okay with it, explained what we meant, and have gone forward with it.

And we did not need instant death effects to make it feel scary. We have not needed to have enemies who can permanently maim us. In fact, we have had a maiming. We just had a character lose a hand to a trap. Our monk touched something they shouldn't have and lost their hand to it.

But, that was a very rare occurance, the first time anything like that has happened in over a year. Beyond that we have simply fought for our survival and done a heck of a job dealing with enemies who are usually much scarier than us, until we out think and out fight them.

Realism is a fine goal, but you don't need to have permanent effects on PCs to achieve Combat as War, it is a mind-set not a series of abilities.

To me, the threat of permanent effects is the main contributor to that mind-set.

If the only threat is death from loss of hit points, it becomes a rather dull probability and numbers game - I've got 40 hit points left, this guy's getting me for about 8 per round, so I've very likely got three clear rounds to finish him off before I have to think about bailing - which is pretty much sport until I get down itno single-digit h.p.

But tack another threat on there and suddenly my thinking changes: every round becomes a question of whether to stand in for one more go and risk some permanent effect, or bail now and hope there's another way to deal with the foe be it now or later. Now it's war.

A sports team is an interesting analogy, and I can see it. I disagree with it as a full approach though, because the characters are the story. And so, if they move to a different team, their story follows that new path.

The characters' stories are threads in the parties' stories, which in turn are threads within the story of the campaign. All three are important.

The individual players' career stories are threads within the stories of the team(s) they played for, which in turn are threads within the history of the league.

For me, a campaign is more about the characters in it than the party. A story changes drastically when a character of importance leaves it, and I don't want to encourage that loss.

Most of the time I don't find this. Characters come and go all the time - not always from death; often it's from player choice that characters are cycled in and out (this is always allowed), but the party story - whatever it may be and however it may be generated - rolls on regardless.

Because it leaves behind it unwalked paths and stories that can now not be told that the players wanted answers to, but now cannot because those were the stories of a person who died and is no longer part of the narrative.

Yeah, this happens. I've had characters who I had grand plans for fail to make it out of their first adventure. I just take this as a realistic fact of adventuring life: it's a bloody dangerous occupation, and regardless of any future plans if you're not prepared to die then why are you in the field at all?

That, and if whatever ideas I had in mind were worth worrying about I can always reskin them later in a different character (but never in the very next one; when I lose a character I almost never come right back with the same thing again even if what I lost leaves a hole in the party makeup)

 

[Chaosmancer]

To me, the threat of permanent effects is the main contributor to that mind-set.

If the only threat is death from loss of hit points, it becomes a rather dull probability and numbers game - I've got 40 hit points left, this guy's getting me for about 8 per round, so I've very likely got three clear rounds to finish him off before I have to think about bailing - which is pretty much sport until I get down itno single-digit h.p.

But tack another threat on there and suddenly my thinking changes: every round becomes a question of whether to stand in for one more go and risk some permanent effect, or bail now and hope there's another way to deal with the foe be it now or later. Now it's war.

I find I disagree with that being the source of the mindset. Again, I've had that mindset in a game without those effects. To me, Combat as War is all about not fighting fair. Taking out a Goblin Camp by sneaking in and poisoning the soup pot instead of fighting them head-on. Luring the enemy into an ambush where two dozen crossbowmen pepper them with bolts, and the fight becomes 5 on 2 in your favor.

I don't feel like, and it hasn't been my experience, that adding in "any attack could ruin my character" adds to the experience.

I would also add, that knowing you can hold an enemy safely for three more rounds, and using that tactically to mean other things on the battlefield, can also be part of that process. It is more about the tactics you employ than whether the PCs are scared of fighting the monsters.

Most of the time I don't find this. Characters come and go all the time - not always from death; often it's from player choice that characters are cycled in and out (this is always allowed), but the party story - whatever it may be and however it may be generated - rolls on regardless.

Yeah, this happens. I've had characters who I had grand plans for fail to make it out of their first adventure. I just take this as a realistic fact of adventuring life: it's a bloody dangerous occupation, and regardless of any future plans if you're not prepared to die then why are you in the field at all?

That, and if whatever ideas I had in mind were worth worrying about I can always reskin them later in a different character (but never in the very next one; when I lose a character I almost never come right back with the same thing again even if what I lost leaves a hole in the party makeup)

I've rarely had people change characters if it wasn't for a new campaign. Most campaigns end within a year as well, which might have something to do with that.

And, I think you misunderstood what I was referring to with regards to your last paragraph. I meant plans as a GM.

For example, I just had a player who had to quit due to a new baby on the way. There was an antagonist I was building up, specifically because of his backstory, that the party had gotten hints of. Now that he is gone, and I told the party his character is acting to counter that villain at the moment. They have no interest in that villain. It doesn't connect to their stories, so the entire plot line is now dead.

They cared previously, because their ally cared, but now that their ally isn't there, they don't care about this thread. Maybe it is just a nature of my storytelling, but if I build a line because of a character, and that character is removed from consideration, a lot of plot threads involving that character die too. To take a classic example from movies, Darth Vader would still be a villain for the Rebellion, but without Luke his story would lose almost all of its impact. No one would care, because the character it is most meant to effect isn't there to provide the context.

The Cult of Baphomet can still be a villain for the party, but without the daughter of a former cultist to provide a foil for the story, they are just demon worshipping maniacs that the party will slaughter. There is no pathos to enrich the story.