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

[Undrave]

I do that a lot in my games, but I have serious doubts whether I can call it "role-playing" when that's just me doing what I want to do, anyway.

Eh, a little of column A, a little of column B.

 

[tetrasodium]

In other words, the challenges are more like illusions that they've successfully disbelieved.

"oh man, Alice burned up 4 of the 6 charges on my wand of $whatever, Bob's staff of resist energy is dust, & this is going to murder that cure light wounds wand we found for cindy a couple weeks back" hurt far more than "meh my wand of whatever is at 1/7 charges, bob's resist energy staff is at
4/7 charges, and we need to rest for an hour or get a good night's sleep now"

 

[Oofta]

I do that a lot in my games, but I have serious doubts whether I can call it "role-playing" when that's just me doing what I want to do, anyway.

What's really bad is when the Cleric with a 20 wisdom pulls that kind of stuff.

 

[Helldritch]

What's really bad is when the Cleric with a 20 wisdom pulls that kind of stuff.

Low intel can play that way too... a dumb ass is a dumb ass.

 

[fearsomepirate]

At my table, if you are moving slowly through the dungeon, whoever is in front is looking for traps and ambushes, and whoever is in back is keeping an eye out for rear-facing attacks. I will tell you to roll Perception when and if you come across a trap, and if you fail, the trap is sprung. This speeds things up quite a bit.

A full investigation of a door, chest, or other object takes a full 10 minutes, so the party may elect not to do so if wandering monsters are a concern.

 

[Helldritch]

You're doing exactly what I've been doing for over 38 years...

 

[fearsomepirate]

I'm not much over 38 years, so I'm catching up yet.

 

[Weiley31]

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.

Insert scene where dog lights flammable monster on fire and then proceeds to light the black powder keg next to the group of unsuspecting Zhentarim soldiers.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The Tomb is extremely challenging, only in a different way than usual: the challenges are tricks, traps and puzzles (i.e. challenging brains) rather than monsters and combat (i.e. challenging brawn).

What also makes the Tomb differen (and gives it its well-earned reputation) is that in many cases the result of failing a challenge is death: you don't get a second chance or a do-over.

And yet, someone else thought that my referencing that dungeon was a poor choice because it was designed as a grudge dungeon.

Opinions obviously differ on the dungeon, but I think the point still stands.

Or find another way of dealing with them that doesn't involve front-line fighters or melee combat.

Sometimes you really do need magic to get the job done, and while some see this as a problem, I don't. Have a Cleric handy to turn them, then blast away with ranged spells or even ranged missiles. But yes - in fact the very thing to learn from them is don't fight them hand-to-hand.

Okay... but ideally you would never fight any foe hand-to-hand, especially one that lacks ranged weapons. Ideally any undead creature should be fought by a cleric, any incorporeal creature with magic.

So actually, they probably didn't learn anything because calling a cleric to deal with undead is 101 adventuring. You don't even need to fight a wraith to know that.

Heck, "don't get hit" is pretty much as basic as it gets for fighting, do you have to get hit by a wraith to know you don't want to get hit?

Nothing wrong at all with developing SOPs for common situations.

Of course she will.

But giving clear specifics as to what you're doing, be it case-by-case or as a SOP, informs the DM exactly what you're touching or not, where you're checking and what for, and so forth; all of which may modify your roll for better or worse.

It also removes the burden of assumption from both sides and thus proactively ends the following needless argument before it begins:

Player: "I check the door for traps."
DM: "Good. Saving throw as you find the contact poison the hard way."
Player: But I wouldn't have touched it!"
<argument ensues>

The second a player says "I wouldn't have...", you have a problem. A big problem. And a completely avoidable problem had the player taken the time to be much more specific, in this case as to her search sequence.

But this has absolutely nothing to do with challenge whatsoever. In fact, the very nature of an SOP is to remove challenges. So relying on them would make the game easier.

Agreed. It's not unfair at all.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought 5e didn't have 'surprised' in its lexicon. So how is your 5e situation possible, where the Goblins get two complete rounds of firing before the party can react?

B/X and 1e certainly do, and yes: in those systems with unlucky rolling it's entirely possible that a party could be wiped out by ranged ambushers using poison without ever knowing what hit them. Further, surprised characters don't get shield or Dex bonuses to AC, making them easier to hit.

I have surprise rounds, I don't remember if it is official or not. Probably not, I think officially you just don't get to act on your turn if you are surprised, so it is still possible for the enemy to get two rounds if they beat your initiative and surprise you.

No, you're describing the ideal outcome you're attempting to achieve. The DM then rolls to see if you achieved it or not.

So, rolls still happen. Which, in the post I was responding to, seemed to be abnormal for them. They seemed to be suggesting that a player rolling the dice is asking to fail, so they should interact with the environment in a clear way to prevent rolling and therefore not fail.

You seem to have a different take on what actually happens than they do.

Turning around and bailing on the mission is always a valid choice; be it to come back later with more and-or better resources, or to pass the mission on to someone more qualified, or to just head south for the winter.

Nowhere is it written that the party have to always succeed on what they're doing.

Sure, you never have to succeed.

But sunk-cost fallacy and all that means that after adventuring and grinding for a few game sessions, players are going to be mighty peeved if half the party decides to no longer risk it and decide to leave.

So, when you are in the final treasure room, and you open the tomb, how likely was it that instead of doing that you decided to turn around and leave, failing the mission right then and there?

That is why, again, it is important to make clear what we mean by important decisions. Deciding to open tomb you were sent to open isn't a major decision when the only other option is to call the entire mission a waste of time. Most groups will open that sucker one way or the other, because they lost too much getting it to simply say "that was fun, guess we fail."

Prior to 2e, for sure.

In 1e hit point gain sharply slowed down after 'name level' (around 9th-11th depending on class), and while the game in theory was open-ended as to levels it got wobbly enough in the very low teens that very few played beyond that.

This is one specific instance where another edition (4e) is specifically less challenging than 5e, as 4e characters tend to have more h.p. on average particularly at low levels; and similar specific examples abound when comparing small bits in isolation between 5e and another edition, whatever edition that might be.

Those isolated examples still don't change the overall trend, which says 5e is the least challenging of the editions thus far.

It's like looking at a bad sports team at the end of the season. The fact that you won 12 games this season, some of them convincingly, doesn't do much to mask the fact that you also lost 45 and managed to eke out ties in 6.

I'm not convinced yet that 3.5 and 4e are clearly more challenging than 5e. Especially since we seem to have debated it down to "but instant death could happen"

But, again, you can't say "DnD 5e is the least challenging version of DnD because you gain hp after level 9" when that is true for the majority of DnD games. It is similar to saying DnD 5e offers superior options to every version of DnD because Elf and Dwarf are no longer classes. They weren't classes in most of the other versions of the game either, so that isn't a point in 5e's favor.

I think you've kind of answered that question in the previous paragraph: you've done a good job of instilling fear and caution into your players/PCs. (or, they're just a naturally cautious bunch).

Perhaps again it's the players: those who aren't cautious and just wade in maybe aren't paying the same price they would have in older editions. They're not dying, they're not losing levels, etc.; meaning in 5e fortune really does favour the brave.

In other words, the challenges are more like illusions that they've successfully disbelieved.

That is a compelling theory except for one problem.

It seems to be the groups calling out for more threats to instill cautious play that are having the hard time. Are 2e players who are used to dying from opening a door wrong really charging headfirst into the fray without a care in the world?

I doubt it, and I doubt that the challenges in 5e are just illusions that have no real substance.

So do this once or twice in detail and then establish it as SOP for that character.

After that, when you check a door all you need to say is "I Thief over it"* and the DM knows what you mean, and what you're doing.

* - that's our standard term here for door-check SOP: Thief over it.

Then what's the point?

"oh man, Alice burned up 4 of the 6 charges on my wand of $whatever, Bob's staff of resist energy is dust, & this is going to murder that cure light wounds wand we found for cindy a couple weeks back" hurt far more than "meh my wand of whatever is at 1/7 charges, bob's resist energy staff is at
4/7 charges, and we need to rest for an hour or get a good night's sleep now"

Considering that the wand, staff and cure light wounds wand were probably bought in bulk from a magic shop while the items with charges are a fairly unique set of items that the players fought and bled for.... no, I don't think those hurt more than the other.

 

[Weiley31]

And here on the other side, my old group still tells the story of that time our paladin paid to have his horse mount resurrected...using up the last funds we had, meaning we couldn't afford to raise the halfling rogue who died in the same fight.

I mean, OOC the player who played the halfling was ready to roll up something new, and told everyone he'd rather just do that than get rezzed. In character though it was a hilarious move for a character who already had a reputation for being a bit lawful stupid.

Technically, if I'm playing a character with an animal companion, then the character will be, roleplay wise, more concerned for the animal companion than a bunch of people said character barely knows. And PVP will happen if the party tries to force the animal companion to be a trap tester. And if an almost TPK happens and the character with the animal companion is the only said survivor of the PVP, well screw that party then.

Now if the party know each other well, then the outcome will be better.


What I'm trying to say is... DON'T DUCK WITH MY ANIMAL COMPANION!