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

[Lanefan]

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.

That's all part of War, truen enough; but War is also about what you're risking and how easily that risk might manifest.

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.

Where to me, knowing I can hold an enemy safely for three more rounds makes those three rounds largely Sport.

It is more about the tactics you employ than whether the PCs are scared of fighting the monsters.

Should combat be the go-to means of solving problems? If they're not scared, or not often, then the answer will inevitably become yes. If they're scared, they'll at least look for other solutions...one hopes.

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.

It would.

A year around here is just nicely getting started.

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

Ah.

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.

For reasons such as this*, plus that I never really know what characters will be in play very far into the future, I rarely** tie long-term plotline to specific characters in this way. Short-term, yes: a specific PC gets given a mission and has to talk the rest of 'em into going along, that sort of thing; but even there if the character with the mission is the first one to die (or retire***), then what?

* - my more usual reason is that the key character often dies at the very first opportunity even if that's the only death in the whole adventure!
** - exception being quests or geases, which usually need to be sorted quickly.
*** - this happened in the game I play in: one of my PCs (we had two each in this party) had good reasons to retire for a while and so I parked him in town, or so I thought; little did I know that the DM had built the next adventure completely around him. First night out of town he asks for our night-watch list and notices my guy's not on it. The following conversation went something like this:

DM: "Where is he?"
Me: "He's still in town - I told you I was retiring him."
DM: "What? I didn't hear you say that!"
Me: "I've said it three times tonight..."
DM: "Bloody hell." <to the other players> "He has to come! Go and get him!"

So the party turns around, heads back to town, and uses [Suggestion, I think] to get him to rejoin them....

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's all part of War, truen enough; but War is also about what you're risking and how easily that risk might manifest.

You work to insure you are risking as little as possible and that risk cannot manifest. It shouldn't matter if the risk is great or small, you work to control and eliminate it.

Where to me, knowing I can hold an enemy safely for three more rounds makes those three rounds largely Sport.

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree. If it is three rounds where the barbarian shows off his pecs while toying with an enemy that is different to me from knowing you can last 3 rounds so the wizard better flippin' get that magical ward down soon, or you are toast.

Different feel, different tension.

Should combat be the go-to means of solving problems? If they're not scared, or not often, then the answer will inevitably become yes. If they're scared, they'll at least look for other solutions...one hopes.

Depends what we mean by combat.

Technically an ecnounter where you lure the enemy into a poisoned pit trap and fill it with 20 bolts in a single round before it can act is "combat", it just is a combat with zero risk to the party.

The difference between that and yelling into the monster's lair to challenge it to single combat is the difference I feel is between War and Sport.

 

[Ratskinner]

Well, in older editions, getting in to combat wasn't recommended. It means you already made a mistake. The trick was getting the loot without having to roll any dice at all. Dice always indicate a chance for failure.

That doesn't really get you out of it. Whatever plan you make to avoid combat is up to the DM's whimsy. He's the one that decides how the world (and hence your plan) works. There are not nearly enough mechanics to avoid it. So, if you try your clever scheme, and the DM doesn't like it....you're still rolling dice or in combat. That's not to mention the "gotcha" mechanics and monsters that are there seemingly just to make sure you don't have much of a way to avoid combat.

I realize that your position is a standard of OSR proponents, but it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny of actual play, IME.

 

[HarbingerX]

That doesn't really get you out of it. Whatever plan you make to avoid combat is up to the DM's whimsy. He's the one that decides how the world (and hence your plan) works. There are not nearly enough mechanics to avoid it. So, if you try your clever scheme, and the DM doesn't like it....you're still rolling dice or in combat. That's not to mention the "gotcha" mechanics and monsters that are there seemingly just to make sure you don't have much of a way to avoid combat.

I realize that your position is a standard of OSR proponents, but it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny of actual play, IME.

This was never true at my table in the 5 years I've run an OSR campaign. My players always found ingenious ways to avoid fights they didn't want to have, or ensure that they were on unfair terms for their opponent. Or they would beat a hasty retreat and plot their revenge. I can't recall having 'gotcha' monsters, but I suppose there were some.

 

[Ratskinner]

This was never true at my table in the 5 years I've run an OSR campaign. My players always found ingenious ways to avoid fights they didn't want to have, or ensure that they were on unfair terms for their opponent. Or they would beat a hasty retreat and plot their revenge. I can't recall having 'gotcha' monsters, but I suppose there were some.

Your particular whimsy meant their "ingenious" ways to avoid a fight were acceptable. GMs will not always agree on the realism or acceptability of any given plan, nor will they adjudicate them the same way...some calling for a roll here or there where others would not.

"Gotcha" monsters include things as simple as skeletons. You're dungeoneering, you listen at doors regularly....but skeletons don't talk, and just wait (one might say dead silent....ahem) for you to enter the room. They range up to things like earworms(?) that actually wait in the door to "punish" you for listening before entering.

 

[tetrasodium]

Your particular whimsy meant their "ingenious" ways to avoid a fight were acceptable. GMs will not always agree on the realism or acceptability of any given plan, nor will they adjudicate them the same way...some calling for a roll here or there where others would not.

"Gotcha" monsters include things as simple as skeletons. You're dungeoneering, you listen at doors regularly....but skeletons don't talk, and just wait (one might say dead silent....ahem) for you to enter the room. They range up to things like earworms(?) that actually wait in the door to "punish" you for listening before entering.

my experience was similar to @HarbingerX, especially when it comes to doing things to even the odds or come back for revenge.. That's compared to 5e where there is no reason to worry & just plow through anything not looking like it can cause death by massive damage or do save or die things like disintegrate.

 

[Ratskinner]

my experience was similar to @HarbingerX, especially when it comes to doing things to even the odds or come back for revenge.. That's compared to 5e where there is no reason to worry & just plow through anything not looking like it can cause death by massive damage or do save or die things like disintegrate.

My players did not feel the same way about 5e, but then I generally ignored the given CR/encounter rules. I don't think they're very good, and they really didn't work well with our schedule. Even so, difficulty is still not the same as deadliness, because "I kill everything" isn't necessarily the solution to an adventure. Myself, I find the "I said I was checking for traps!" style of play more tedious than difficult.

Again, though, that's your particular GM's whimsy. I've had many GMs over the years who would rule similar situations wildly differently. Just one example, I got into a group that regularly made it a point to obtain an auger (or similar tool) to drill holes in doors to improve their intelligence about the next room. It had apparently just never occurred to any of them how much noise would be created when drilling though a door. Similarly, I've had some GMs that really love over-the-top cinematic stuff and others who despise anything other than "gritty realism". You get very different answers from them about what works and what doesn't, or how NPCs react, or even what NPCs are in the game.

Because the early editions were so sorely lacking in mechanical structure in so many (non-combat) areas, a great deal was left up to the DM to adjudicate or create....i.e. whimsy.

 

[tetrasodium]

My players did not feel the same way about 5e, but then I generally ignored the given CR/encounter rules. I don't think they're very good, and they really didn't work well with our schedule. Even so, difficulty is still not the same as deadliness, because "I kill everything" isn't necessarily the solution to an adventure. Myself, I find the "I said I was checking for traps!" style of play more tedious than difficult.

Again, though, that's your particular GM's whimsy. I've had many GMs over the years who would rule similar situations wildly differently. Just one example, I got into a group that regularly made it a point to obtain an auger (or similar tool) to drill holes in doors to improve their intelligence about the next room. It had apparently just never occurred to any of them how much noise would be created when drilling though a door. Similarly, I've had some GMs that really love over-the-top cinematic stuff and others who despise anything other than "gritty realism". You get very different answers from them about what works and what doesn't, or how NPCs react, or even what NPCs are in the game.

Because the early editions were so sorely lacking in mechanical structure in so many (non-combat) areas, a great deal was left up to the DM to adjudicate or create....i.e. whimsy.

in my case it was often the party shifting roles a nbit for an odd situation or making use of the terrain/room that they needed to care about in order to get cover & circumstance bonuses among other stuff. In 5e you only see ythat kinda thing happen when the crunchy types have some life issue that causes them to miss a session leaving say a rogue & sorcerer without the usual fighter & paladin. Even then, the rogue/sorcerer quickly realize that they don't really need to bother as much as they thought they would need to.

 

[Orban Sirgen]

4e was more difficult to die in... My first 4e party had a level 1 wizard charge into melee with just a quarterstaff AND SURVIVE...

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

That doesn't really get you out of it. Whatever plan you make to avoid combat is up to the DM's whimsy. He's the one that decides how the world (and hence your plan) works. There are not nearly enough mechanics to avoid it. So, if you try your clever scheme, and the DM doesn't like it....you're still rolling dice or in combat. That's not to mention the "gotcha" mechanics and monsters that are there seemingly just to make sure you don't have much of a way to avoid combat.

I realize that your position is a standard of OSR proponents, but it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny of actual play, IME.

I've never had a problem with it. Just like in all games, I would never play with a DM who wasn't super chill or play with people who weren't super chill. Play with chill people; it solves a lot of problems.

In other words, don't play with a DM who is the type of person who would use "earworms" (as mentioned above). Moreover, play with people who have your same taste in literature. I've always found that hammers out most of the kinks.