D&D General Is WotC's 5E D&D easy? Trust me this isn't what you think... maybe

[Shardstone]

“Balanced encounters” are balanced around the assumption of resource attrition over the course of a 6-8 encounter day. If you follow that assumption, balanced encounters are not individually challenging, but surviving the whole adventuring day is. However, if you do want each encounter to be a challenge on its own, yeah, you do need to shoot well above the party’s level, and the party will consequently be able to handle far fewer of them in a day.

I disagree. I run 2-3 encounters a day, up to 4 at most. I've never had an issue with swinginess, and my encounters are such that people often get their spotlight and feel cool. I honestly, truly believe that if you do 6-8 medium encounters, you are running a boring combat game and you aren't actually playing the system to its strengths. 5E is surprisingly (and imo, unintendedly) good at making players think they will die when they actually aren't in mortal danger, so long as you don't run balanced encounters.

 

[ezo]

There is system design aspects and setting implications involved here, but you dont like what you dont like.

Yep. I know why the game was designed as it was. And, as a game, I've played it RAW, and it's fine, just not what I prefer.

We've collectively been working on an OSR/ AD&D version but with 5E classes, features, etc. Needless to day, a daunting task. We've tested/ reviewed dozens of OSR systems, but nothing is ever quite right for what we want.

 

[Shardstone]

I feel like this thread is more about DM’s struggling to change 5e encounters in a meaningful way. It is tough because CR has always been bad, and monster design hasn’t kept up with optimized character options.

IMO this is just another symptom of people trying to play 5E balanced. Playing 5E with level appropriate CRs means having boring fights you already know the end of. They exist as rollercoaster rides where you see the littl egoblin do its cool thing and move on. But when you say screw it, we're getting serious, start using +3 to +8 CR for solos or team ups etc, you start getting some meaningful encounters.

In my Monday night game, my players had a boss battle where one of the two creatures had two health bars, then they had an extended hunt, got ambushed by a huge raiding party, fought another boss immediately after that also had two health bars, and then are about to fight a final, one health bar boss battle. The CR gap has ranged literally from +2 to +5 for these combats and it has been stellar.

Once a DM stops treating their players like they're fragile dolls, you can really get the most out of 5E.

 

[overgeeked]

one thing that stuck in my mind is that in AD&D you could have high AC but low HP. This was the balance. You DIDNT want to get hit.

5th ed, you get high AC and high HP.

Why even waste an action attacking the 20 AC fighter with 30 HP when your goblin with a +4 (need a 16 or better) to hit does a whole d6 which thanks to all of the available curing they easily shake off

Yep. Smart monsters target the obviously more squishy PCs. Why waste your attack on the guy in plate when you can maybe one shot the wizard or sorcerer in robes?

 

[overgeeked]

I disagree. I run 2-3 encounters a day, up to 4 at most. I've never had an issue with swinginess, and my encounters are such that people often get their spotlight and feel cool. I honestly, truly believe that if you do 6-8 medium encounters, you are running a boring combat game and you aren't actually playing the system to its strengths. 5E is surprisingly (and imo, unintendedly) good at making players think they will die when they actually aren't in mortal danger, so long as you don't run balanced encounters.

So are your 2-3 medium encounters or deadly encounters? At a guess deadly, because if they were medium, the PCs would stomp everything thrown at them and it would get boring fast.

 

[Shardstone]

So are your 2-3 medium encounters or deadly encounters? At a guess deadly, because if they were medium, the PCs would stomp everything thrown at them and it would get boring fast.

By DMG guidelines, they are deadly or deadly+. I personally believe that "deadly" in the DMG doesn't truly mean deadly. So if I do a non-boss fight, its usually "deadly;" if I do a boss fight, its always deadly+.

The main thing that allows characters to really push on is the ability to yo-yo healing without any consequences. Because you have so many resources, especially from 5th level onwards, it means that so long as you can keep yourself from actually flat-out dying, you can usually keep pushing on. And I'm not dropping players every combat either, but they certainly feel the pressure that they COULD be dropped, and that goes a very, very long way in keeping combat fun in my eyes.

I also personally feel like,, why make interesting stat blocks and then only use them for narrow range bands? Other games have easier to modify stat blocks; in 5E, though, I realized I didn't need to modify, I just needed to be more liberal with when I was using them.

My level 5 players killing a CR 9 boss last Monday after an extended series of encounters (the aforementioned double boss into hunt into raiding party into CR 9) was such a thrill. It gave me (and them, their own words) the same vibes as Dark Souls or Elden Ring where its really hard at points (for the players) but so rewarding to come out on the other end. It has also made me really appreciate 5E combat a lot more then I used to.

 

[tetrasodium]

Well, with a single Goblin you wouldn't. If you have dozens of Goblins however...

No a dozen goblins in an encounter thrown at a group with enough* levels that it is not guaranteed to tpk

will be deleted by deliberate design and still be unable to hit the PCs without higher than average rolls

*Ie 5 or so and up

 

[overgeeked]

By DMG guidelines, they are deadly or deadly+. I personally believe that "deadly" in the DMG doesn't truly mean deadly. So if I do a non-boss fight, its usually "deadly;" if I do a boss fight, its always deadly+.

Yeah. When I was still running 5E deadly was the baseline for me as well. Anything less seemed like a waste of time.

The main thing that allows characters to really push on is the ability to yo-yo healing without any consequences. Because you have so many resources, especially from 5th level onwards, it means that so long as you can keep yourself from actually flat-out dying, you can usually keep pushing on. And I'm not dropping players every combat either, but they certainly feel the pressure that they COULD be dropped, and that goes a very, very long way in keeping combat fun in my eyes.

Right. But that pressure comes at the end of the adventuring day, not the start. You have to be 3-5 fights in before those resources start to become scarce. That’s where the players sweat and that’s where the fun begins.

I also personally feel like,, why make interesting stat blocks and then only use them for narrow range bands? Other games have easier to modify stat blocks; in 5E, though, I realized I didn't need to modify, I just needed to be more liberal with when I was using them.

I ended up treating named monsters like supervillains. I had a spreadsheet for their stats but let them do whatever made sense in the moment based on their powers. It’s too tedious to make detailed stat blocks. This one controls weather, that one’s a telepath, the other one’s super-strong, go.

My level 5 players killing a CR 9 boss last Monday after an extended series of encounters (the aforementioned double boss into hunt into raiding party into CR 9) was such a thrill. It gave me (and them, their own words) the same vibes as Dark Souls or Elden Ring where its really hard at points (for the players) but so rewarding to come out on the other end. It has also made me really appreciate 5E combat a lot more then I used to.

How many encounters between long rests? Sounds like more than the 2-3 you suggested earlier.

 

[Shardstone]

Yeah. When I was still running 5E deadly was the baseline for me as well. Anything less seemed like a waste of time.

Right. But that pressure comes at the end of the adventuring day, not the start. You have to be 3-5 fights in before those resources start to become scarce. That’s where the players sweat and that’s where the fun begins.

I ended up treating named monsters like supervillains. I had a spreadsheet for their stats but let them do whatever made sense in the moment based on their powers. It’s too tedious to make detailed stat blocks. This one controls weather, that one’s a telepathy, the other one’s super-strong, go.

How many encounters between long rests? Sounds like more than the 2-3 you suggested earlier.

To the bolded part, I think that is only true on the DM's side of the screen. I run my games by the adage that, the start of your session should be some of the strongest content. It should be snazzy, dangerous, and set the tone for everything else, and its ok if its the best fight of the night too (so long as the others are good). I try to impress upon my players that they will need to burn some good resources early on, then I'll dip the difficulity of the next 1-2 encounters, and then spike it up.

I usually do 2-4 encounters per long rest; I said 2-3 earlier but 2-4 is closer to accurate. But I usually strive to hit 3-4 specifically; if I do 2, its because its a big climactic battle and I want them to go in full strength so I can have full permission to throw a bunch of insanity for it. These ultra-battles tend to last like 2-3 hours, an entire session for me, but I've ran these for all levels of D&D noobies and have had pretty consistent results But my typical encounter days are 3-4 encounters and all of them are deadly minimum.

If I ever run something other then deadly, its part of a challenge of some sort, or I'm running a very short combat to give my players a win to feel powerful (some of my players have specifically requested this kind of dopamine hit, and I find it important since most of my encounters are so wild). Also, I'll usually do a medium-hard encounter at the VERY start of the campaign to let players get used to their character sheets, kinda' like a tutorial in a video game, and then I'll quickly give them a strong boss early on for similar reasonings, and to set the tone for the rest of the game (don't want them thinking we'll be spending 30 minutes a session fighting something easy).

EDIT: Also +1 to the named monsters as supervillains; I have my named monsters flee all the time, get into skirmishes, etc. Its really fun stuff, and I make a Threat List of all of my antagonists so I can keep up with them. If I have a really good stat block, I usually don't want to use it just once, I want to have fun with it, hence me needing to treat antagonists as semi-recurring instead of always one-offs (though some are one-offs).

 

[MichaelSomething]

No a dozen goblins in an encounter thrown at a group with enough* levels that it is not guaranteed to tpk

will be deleted by deliberate design and still be unable to hit the PCs without higher than average rolls

*Ie 5 or so and up

Once you get to higher levels, you should add an s to that dozen. And use the daily allotment of exp. If a party can fight 240 goblins in a day, 8 encounters of 30 goblins each would be a slog. But 2 encounters of 120 goblins each may not be.