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

[Undrave]

You bring up another reason 5e is less challenging. Every character race except for 2(?) have Darkvision. It is another change that reduces challenge and makes the game easy. When you are delving into the dark dungeons of the world, light should be a sacred resource. Try walking around in an unknown environment in pitch black.

To be fair, nobody follows the ACTUAL Darkvision rules that impose disadvantage on perception checks and give you -5 on passive perceptions.

Torches are an interesting challenge because running out of them is a death sentence. Torches take up weight and space. They last only so long. You only have so many of them. They are objects that can be lost, blown out by wind, disarmed, etc. Managing light is an important challenge.

I agree in principle, but the truth is that tracking where light shines or not is actually really difficult. Especially if you use (AUGH!) "Theatre of the Mind" (I swear I can only read those words in a snooty accent). And since not every campaign happens in dark dungeons, the game can't devote TOO many rules to it. It's a tough balancing act.

Yes, I do consider attrition beyond the base Unit of Challenge of one day. I made a mistake in arguing the idea of a unit of challenge. It is a ludicrous position that challenge is portioned out in discrete chunks. Challenge is something that develops organically over time during the course of a campaign.

Again: there's no standard campaign length so it's difficult to design. And don't kid yourself, previous edition did have Unit of Challenges (i.e. which we'll define as a period time between two instances where you are at Full Ressources), they just different from one character to the next and one mechanic to the next. The idea of a unit of challenge is made clear because 5e streamlines it all. In previous edition the recovery of spell slots was the rhythm setter and the real thing that determined what length the unit of challenge would be.

Looking back at previous editions where HP recovered at 1 per day, it would mean that if the Wizard (with 10 HP) and the Fighter (with 30 HP) were both at 1 HP, it would take the guy with more health and physical strength LONGER to recover his full HP than the weakling, and the only way to speed it up? Magic.

Scenario B doesn't really happen often, except in very poorly built parties. You're unconscious, the cleric casts healing word and you are no longer unconscious. Done.

What's the Cleric's initiative though? Would someone have a chance to attack before the cleric acted?

And even if you're not longer unconscious, you're still prone (AKA attacks have advantage), presumably within striking range of the guy who brought you to 0 in the first place with a pitiful amount of HP. You're not out of the fire.

I disagree. A wizard who uses a crossbow is still a wizard. Doing magic all the time makes magic less impactful, it makes it routine. I think of cantrips as just crossbows, but worse. They are boring. They are default actions that are predictable and require very little thought or consideration to use. The exact opposite of magical. The act of deciding to expend a limited resource to create a magic spell effect is what makes magic interesting and compelling.

What about the non-damage cantrips? Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, Druidcraft, Minor Illusion, Dancing Light, Mage Hands, Mold Earth, Shape Water, Control Flame, Gust, Mending, etc?

Personally I think you're just too used to Vancian casting, that's why rarity of magic feels important to you.

5E removes this by making magic ubiquitous, which allows players to approach such monsters in the same way as any other. There is no challenge because these monsters don't force a change in approach.

See, you think of this is a player character design problem, I see it as a MONSTER design problem. If magic is no longer rare, then why the heck are we still building monsters like it's rare?! Why are monsters built using outdated concepts from previous edition instead of adapting the monsters to the design philosophy of character design in 5e?

It's why I oppose the idea of just 'reintroduce stuff from old editions' instead of trying to find new ways to challenge players that work with the current PC design.

In that respect I think 4e was way better at adapting monster design to the idiosyncrasies of its own design style.

Fair enough. I regret buying into the concept of a unit of challenge. There should just be campaign time with a sensible recovery per day/month/year mechanic. It should be organic and logical and clear and not based on an arbitrary game mechanic

Again: people who play roleplaying game don'T like to think of their roleplaying game as a GAME. But it is and there's a balance to be had between game concept and simulation of a world AND the simulation of a narrative storyline.

But recovery in other editions was just as arbitrary, they just had a stretched out length of time and you just liked it better. Plus spells could drastically reduce the recovery time of OTHER ressources so as long as you could reduce your spells the recovery time of the other resources didn't actually matter.

The biggest difference is, again, that 5e streamlined all the recovery to the same time period. If they had went with 'long rest equal a week' as standard (recalculating everything in the process, mind you) you'd probably complain about spells not recovering fast enough and that being arbitrary.

I still don't think recovery time has anything to do with challenge level. Just the type of challenge. Circling back to Pokémon... when you do online battles you can't use items, your Pokémon are fully healed automatically AND everybody's Pokémon is set to the same level. Yet they can still be incredibly challenging if your opponent knows what he's doing, even if there is no lingering consequences. Because the game is dialled for that unit of challenge of 'one combat'. So I believe DnD could be challenging even if a short rest recovered every ressources you have, it'd just be a question of turning the right dials. But it would certainly be a very different kind of game.


So in short: 5e is not the kind of challenge you want and that's fine, but I don't think it's because it's the LEAST challenging edition, even if it can be pretty easy (ease of approach). If anything, once you 'solve' for the perfect build (i.e. work away from the table) I think 3.X is the least challenging edition, even with save or suck, save or die and all the ability drain you can shake a stick at. The CharOp puzzle minigame can obviate the actual game at the table in a way you can't quite do it in 5e. I also think the reason it feels easy is that the monsters aren't properly tuned in to the new PC design philosophy.

 

[tetrasodium]

To be fair, nobody follows the ACTUAL Darkvision rules that impose disadvantage on perception checks and give you -5 on passive perceptions.



I agree in principle, but the truth is that tracking where light shines or not is actually really difficult. Especially if you use (AUGH!) "Theatre of the Mind" (I swear I can only read those words in a snooty accent). And since not every campaign happens in dark dungeons, the game can't devote TOO many rules to it. It's a tough balancing act.

I can assure you that I & my players put zero effort into tracking it.but if you are not in [psession of such tools, here is a great suppliment for 5e that includes rules for light & shadow based on the number & size of light sources against the size of a room that is trivially easy to use without needing to give darkvision to nearly every race... except oh yea, almost every race has darkvision so you need to change that before using said rule & there is a section of those light & shadow rules almost as long if not longer devoted to altering darkvision so once again 5e's overly simplified baselines make things more difficult.

 

[Undrave]

I can assure you that I & my players put zero effort into tracking it.but if you are not in [psession of such tools, here is a great suppliment for 5e that includes rules for light & shadow based on the number & size of light sources against the size of a room that is trivially easy to use without needing to give darkvision to nearly every race... except oh yea, almost every race has darkvision so you need to change that before using said rule & there is a section of those light & shadow rules almost as long if not longer devoted to altering darkvision so once again 5e's overly simplified baselines make things more difficult.

How do you usually deal with shadows?

 

[tetrasodium]

How do you usually deal with shadows?

did you not click the link? I replaced my battlemat with a tbox (see pic) running arkenforge about 1-2 years ago & haven't looked back. The only hassle is that 5e's effective range bump for PCs regularly results in combat spread over absurd distances like 200-300+ feet rather than a squiggly line representing a couple hundred feet to be filled by ToTM when outdoors

 

[Undrave]

did you not click the link? I replaced my battlemat with a tbox (see pic) running arkenforge about 1-2 years ago & haven't looked back. The only hassle is that 5e's effective range bump for PCs regularly results in combat spread over absurd distances like 200-300+ feet rather than a squiggly line representing a couple hundred feet to be filled by ToTM when outdoors

Yeah that’d definately be easier to handle

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah that’d definately be easier to handle

even in past editions it wan't hard either. Alice & Bob are holding torches because Cindy & Dave need both hands for sword & board/bow Dave has darkvision out t N feet but the others don't. if anything is more than 4 squares from Alice or Bob, then Alice Bob & Cindy can't see it. Dave can see anything AB&C can see plus anything out to N feet from him if it's nor in the light shed by A&B.

 

[Lanefan]

You can have traps provide interesting choices without resorting to pixel-ing or chronic searching. You just provide information that can be acted on. Describe hints and clues to the existence of traps and allow players to interact with the environment.

Good post mostly but I disagree with this bit: oftentimes the whole point of a trap is to catch the target unawares. Dropping hints and clues means there's hints and clues to drop, which by extension means the trap constructors didn't do a very good job.

And yes, this means a paranoid party will be (or should be) searching all the time, or sending summoned monsters ahead as trap-detectors, or - as I've seen parties do now and then - saying damn the torpedoes and plowing ahead to intentionally set off whatever traps might be present!

I guess we are at odds here because I don't see the value of comparing D&D to video games. But yes, if you deal with a hallway filled with traps and you solve it, then of course the next time it is boring and you repeat the steps. This is the reward for solving it in the first place. You can easily pass through that hallway.

Exactly. Why would anyone think this is bad?

Scouting ahead, checking for traps, interacting with the environment using role-playing (don't just rely on the die rolls) will in general improve your chances of survival in ways that are challenging. Just rolling dice and getting high numbers or picking powers out of a list don't provide a challenge.

Ayup.

Problem is, says the curmudgeon, that players (and some DMs) these days just aren't willing to slow down and take the table time required to do this sort of thing.

 

[Helldritch]

Trap disabling one o one for dummies.
Summon monster or animal. Send the critter ahead. Watch the show. No summon? Send the charmed orc (or make the suggestion that it is vital to run down the weird corridor.). Done.

 

[Undrave]

Problem is, says the curmudgeon, that players (and some DMs) these days just aren't willing to slow down and take the table time required to do this sort of thing.

It is pretty boring to check everything and describe in detail what you do. There is nothing more annoying than a dungeon where you open a door only to find an empty corridor with yet more door and NOTHING happens in 95% of the rooms. Augh. I don't play regularly as it is, I'm not gonna waste my precious gaming time saying "I check the floor in front of the door for a weird crack, then I check the door frame for weird symbols, then I check knob for tiny holes where a poison needle would spring out." every. damn. time. Only to find NOTHING all the time.

 

[Oofta]

Trap disabling one o one for dummies.
Summon monster or animal. Send the critter ahead. Watch the show. No summon? Send the charmed orc (or make the suggestion that it is vital to run down the weird corridor.). Done.

I had a dwarf once that had animal handling and trained a dog to fetch. He then got a stick with continual flame cast on it.

Quite handy in dungeons for detecting traps and random monsters.