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

[el-remmen]

One thing will add is that sometimes seeming easy can be a danger if the PCs approach other combat encounters or challenges with that mindset - though I am not sure that is a specifically 5E thing and is more like an over-confidence in tactics thing.

In my last session the party paladin made himself open to taking 12 arrow attacks on the same turn (twice!), dropping him. Only a well-placed entangle spell from the druid kept the enemies from reaching him to finish him off or to drag him into the tower the PCs were trying to get into and use as a hostage. The first go round he was lucky that he only suffered two hits giving him false confidence, but the second time he suffered five.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A lot of people like to say it's either "too easy" or "Super lethal". Can't there be a middle ground?

Not really, because the decider is usually early advantage. So a fight might well feel "too easy" or "impossible" based on the outcome of one roll of the dice (especially the initiative dice). So even when you are exactly in the middle ground, it won't feel like that to the players.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

When I build combat encounters I generally take stock of each party member's strengths and weaknesses, then tailor the encounter to suit them by including enemies that some PCs will be ill-suited to challenge while others will have the tools to beat more easily. This way combat essentially becomes a puzzle of the party trying to match their PCs to the appropriate enemies.

For example, one encounter design rule I generally try to follow when I have a rogue in the party is to have one or two targets that can deal a lot of damage or inflict a debilitating condition. The rogue can of course attack whoever they want, but their high single-target damage could be used to impose a difficult concentration check on an enemy spellcaster restraining the fighter with Hold Person, for example.

For monks I get a bit more elaborate with not only a larger number of minions to dispatch with flurry of blows, but also longer distances and terrain like cliffs and bodies of water that the monk can traverse easily.

 

[tetrasodium]

Official material has to be balanced around.

1. New players.
2. New players who have no clue how to optimize.
3. New players who dont optimize and are just stumbling around.

There are no 'difficulty settings'. Its not a video game.

Short answer: Yes.

That doesn't mean that they should be designed around a group of new players who rolled low on stats and put them in a brain meltingly zany arrangement while building deliberately unoptimized PCs. At a certain point they won't be new might roll better & might put a little more thought into not sabotaging their PC for the lulz

 

[Oofta]

A lot of people like to say it's either "too easy" or "Super lethal". Can't there be a middle ground?

I think you can find a middle ground. Unless I've really screwed up I don't change the encounter details once it's started and I always roll in the open, but I will change tactics if things are really going south for the group. Maybe I ignore a recharge ability, I generally don't double tap downed PCs (again, based on player preference), delay the second wave by a round or just change focus on which PC is being attacked. Along with that, I make sure the PCs have magic items that are useful but not overwhelming. I'm particularly hesitant to have things that give PCs sky-high ACs for example.

But all of this has always been a DM balancing act in every edition. You're less likely to unexpectedly kill off PCs than you were back in the day and back in the day of Save or Die with OD&D, we just all agreed to never use those things. But even with all that some encounters will be more or less difficult than expected, there are just too many variables when you

 

[SteveC]

I think the design for adventures from WotC is done with the intent to give people what they want. This is a hot take mind you, and doesn't apply to everyone (many of the folks on this very site) but I'd say the goal of 5E (and PF2 as well) is to eliminate death from the game without officially taking it out.

That's certainly not how everyone plays, but I think people want to still have death in the game (I've heard "if you can't die, why are we even playing?") but also not have it really be anything but a frightfully small chance of happening.

I know there are some counterexamples at lower levels, but I'd say that's when losing a character matters the least, since they're easy to replace.

Let me clarify the hot take: I'm not saying everyone, and some of the people I talk to a lot on Enworld very much don't have that attitude.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think you can find a middle ground. Unless I've really screwed up I don't change the encounter details once it's started and I always roll in the open, but I will change tactics if things are really going south for the group. Maybe I ignore a recharge ability, I generally don't double tap downed PCs (again, based on player preference), delay the second wave by a round or just change focus on which PC is being attacked. Along with that, I make sure the PCs have magic items that are useful but not overwhelming. I'm particularly hesitant to have things that give PCs sky-high ACs for example.

But all of this has always been a DM balancing act in every edition. You're less likely to unexpectedly kill off PCs than you were back in the day and back in the day of Save or Die with OD&D, we just all agreed to never use those things. But even with all that some encounters will be more or less difficult than expected, there are just too many variables when you

Yup.

Though I still use Save or Die and old school energy drain in my old school games. I generally signpost/telegraph the hell out of them, so the players can get scared knowing what threat they're facing, and choose to run or otherwise mitigate the threat before diving headfirst into it.

 

[payn]

I think the design for adventures from WotC is done with the intent to give people what they want. This is a hot take mind you, and doesn't apply to everyone (many of the folks on this very site) but I'd say the goal of 5E (and PF2 as well) is to eliminate death from the game without officially taking it out.

That's certainly not how everyone plays, but I think people want to still have death in the game (I've heard "if you can't die, why are we even playing?") but also not have it really be anything but a frightfully small chance of happening.

I know there are some counterexamples at lower levels, but I'd say that's when losing a character matters the least, since they're easy to replace.

Let me clarify the hot take: I'm not saying everyone, and some of the people I talk to a lot on Enworld very much don't have that attitude.

ehhhh not exactly in the case of PF2. I think the challenge was shifted from singular death to TPKs which result from a bad read on the situation to poor tactics. The playstyle is much more team focused than prior editions.

 

[overgeeked]

If something is so easy, from skill checks, to saves, to combat, why even roll? Just save time.

Exactly. There’s no point rolling for like 90% of things in 5E. The odds are already stacked so wildly in the PCs favor, and the system gives them dozens of ways to stack the odds even more in their favor, the “game” becomes pointless.

But why roll in 5E? To maintain the illusion that it’s possible to challenge the PCs. If the players were told straight out they’d just win all the time, no one would want to play. If the game hides that info and shields the players behind lots of pointless mechanics, everyone can have fun pretending they’re playing a “challenging game”.

Anyone else find this to be true most of the time?

Basically 100% of the time. The names of the encounter difficulties were shifted at the last minute. Medium was called easy, etc. And most fights in official 5E products are laughable cakewalks. Following the official combat encounter design only reinforces this. 5E was designed to be non-challenging but provide the illusion of challenge.

 

[Lazybones]

I haven't played all of them, but it hasn't been my experience that they're super easy, at least at the lower levels. Someone already mentioned the initial goblin encounter in Lost Mines, and Cragmaw is pretty lethal as well, with a boss that can easily one-shot any first level character (and insta-kill on a crit). Dragon of Icespire Peak is also quite deadly for low level characters; the scaling system creates some fairly difficult challenges, such as putting first-level characters up against two ochre jellies (manageable if the players are veterans and know how to kite the monsters, but if they just rush in to melee, character deaths are quite likely). It's been a while but I seem to recall the initial low-level components of Storm King's Thunder also being rather challenging.