D&D 5E last encounter was totally one-sided

[CapnZapp]

Jubilex, a Diviner or an ArchDruid are not only a block of stats.
They lived in a world, have minions, allies, goals, enemies.
Of course you can throw them in a combat just to test their stat block,
but it would be more fun to build a story and a setup around them.
It is the way that 5ed have taken.

Thank you for your reasoned reply.

My comment is:

If 5E truly have abandoned support for solo boss fights, that needs to be more discussed, more widely known.

 

[CapnZapp]

I love when the advice in pre-written adventures includes how npc/monsters will act for the encounter or the first 3 rounds,etc. This is a great help. But maybe that type of advice belongs in the adventure itself rather than the monster Manuel/base stat block. Actions of most creatures are influenced by setting/environment/situation. That said, having guidelines in the monster Manuel might be nice, but the extra space required would limit other entries.

Sure.

Do note however I wasn't talking about a general "Tactics" section.

I was merely suggesting that for the times you use the monster "off the shelf", you would get three common cast spell actions, right there in the stat block.

That would add a bit of text to perhaps 10% of all monsters. It's especially egregious for spellcasting NPCs. Why waste space on a melee weapon entry, for instance? How come nobody is questioning the use we get out of that?

A three round casting repetoire would help immensely with making spellcasting monsters just as plug and play as other monsters. Because it is a definite deficit, the way you're expected to have memorized the PHB spells each time you pull out a Mage or (now, with Volo) a Diviner.

When the monster/NPC is your big bad, it's a different matter. Then it's quite possible you will finetune its tactics, even switch out individual spells.

I'm not talking about when the statblock is used to its full evil genius/overlord potential. I'm talking about when you just need a spell lobber, so you pull out, say, the Evoker or Kraken Priest NPC stat block to pad the ranks.

That's right - I don't treat spellcasters as anything special. They're just a statblock just like a Bugbear or Genie. Sure they're more flexible than a Bugbear, and they're more believable as an Evil Genius/Overlord, but they deserve to function as run of the mill plug and play artillery mobs too.

The way monster stats are presented in 5E, this is a large step backwards from 4E. Say what you want about that edition, but it sure was more immediately playable. (I want both the ease of play with prepackaged spellcastings like 4E AND the full repertoire of a real spell list like 3E).

 

[CapnZapp]

Capp is an excellent watchman for the tactical aspect of the game. But obviously designers have other concerns and dispatch their time and skill on others aspect of the game.

Sure.

But that's exactly the kind of accepting and permissive response I want to present an alternative to!

 

[CapnZapp]

Capp propose good things about tactical combat and challenge. If you break down stat block in action, reaction, priority spell, you are not so far away from 4ed stat block. It was an easy shot.

Don't let me interrupt your conversation, but I need to clarify something right away:

I am in no way shape or form advocating a return to 4E's mechanics.

If anything I want its presentation.

But still presentation on top of the 5E rules engine. I consider 5E great because I consider it to be a streamlined and heavily upgraded d20 engine. But what's good can be bettered, and what better start than to point out where D&D actually took a step backwards compared to 4E...

 

[CapnZapp]

3e is the outlier here, where it tried to make every encounter this "dangerous" encounter. You really do have to adapt a different mindset when running 5e. 3e style encounter pacing just doesn't work.

If this really were that simple....

I'm not convinced you're right, but for the sake of argument let's assume you are:

Then what you are saying is that WotC for all its promises actually does not offer backwards compatibility with d20?

 

[CapnZapp]

It sounds to me like everyone had fun, so that's the most important thing.

The encounter seems mostly to have been so one sided for a couple of reasons. First, everything seemed to work out for the PCs; every spell and stunning fist worked because saves were failed. The monsters barely got a chance to even really do much. But the dice are the dice and sometimes that's what happens. It could have just as easily worked the other way.

But beyond the dice, it does seem like some of the monster abilities were ignored or not utilized anywhere near to full effect. For instance, the diviner could have likely avoided the stun for himself or the Druid by swapping a die roll out.

Thank you (I'll stop you right there).

Yes, the monk rolled very high on both his initiatives (he went first both against the archdruid, and later the post-forcecaged Death Knight). That's a huge win for the party.

As for the stun, the Diviner (whom I will call Master Thalder from now on, since he was a dragon cultist first and foremost, and only used the Diviner stat block because I liked that one better than, say, Evoker or Conjurer) did use Portent on himself. Or tried to, anyway.

Making a DC 18 Con save is extremely hard for regular humanoids that aren't supernaturally strong.

Even if you have a reroll, and even if you had had advantage (somehow), you still need to roll 18 on one out of three d20 rolls. That still only happens less than 40% of the time.

I think people (that criticize the way my NPCs acted) are seriously selling player character heroes short in this edition.

To assume a humanoid NPC can resist a Monk stun is to seriously underestimate just how supremely superpowered WotC has made player characters in this edition, compared to monsters and NPCs.

NPCs just don't have the numbers they would need to compete. Take the Blackguard, for instance. Its attack bonus is +8 (I think) while the martial PCs rock at least +11 if not +13. (That archery fighting style is a serious offender in this regard)

NPCs simply does not stand a chance against player characters.

Remember that even if the Druid had resisted the first stun, the monk would just have tried again.

In this particular scenario, he jumps out from close to a hundred feet away, and still manages to get in, what, four attacks if necessary.

So even if the NPC gets three shots at saving against Stunning Fist on every attempt (which is generous), and even if I gave her AC 19 and disadvantaged attacks (which I didn't), chances are still that she would have ended up stunned when it was clear she lost initiative to the monk.

And there is the explanation for why Master Thalder didn't Portend her stun save. He had already used it to try to gain a better initiative for himself. (She rolled 13 I believe, a roll Thalder didn't dare try to improve. He himself rolled something in the single-digits, and so he rerolled, only to still roll poorly. Not that it would have mattered, since the Monk's initiative of 21 was still almost unbeatable. Yes, obviously the Monk has the Alert feat. What did you think? )

Do the math and check it out for yourselves. The probability of making an +11 attack against AC 19 with disadvantage might sound low, but don't forget the Monk's four fighter levels. His superiority dice completely changes that equation. Adding +1d10 to your attack roll after the fact, I mean.

So I'd say it would be unreasonably optimistic to believe the Monk would not hit her at least twice. (Remember, while Shadowwalk or whatever its called takes a bonus action, he's got Action Surge for emergencies like this, so he can make four attacks even spending his bonus action on something else than Flurry)

And assuming he hits her twice (with disadvantage, against AC 19) she's got a 37,71% chance of making both DC 18 Con saves (with advantage and Portent on both rolls ).

All that speaking to her advantage and she still gets taken out two out of three times.

I'd say it speaks volumes about how exceedingly generous WotC has been in giving characters goodies. (Assuming your players know how to use them)

And not giving them to NPCs.

Reminds me of the (bad old) 3E days where the situation was the same. Only then the difference was spelled "magical bonuses".

That is, the NPCs still sucked badly compared to PCs. But to not suck even worse they had to come loaded with magical items.

Which the PCs then promptly looted, making the disparity even greater the next time. Fun times (or not)!

 

[CapnZapp]

Sorry the d10 superiority dice is what the "Ranger" and Fighter use. The monk is only a Fighter 4 and would use a lower die size

 

[CapnZapp]

I recently re-ran a stress-test scenario I GM'd during the D&D Next playtest.

The setup was like the siege in the 13th Warrior movie - around 50 peasants and the 11th level party against 300 Gnolls and their leader (originally a shadow demon possessed ogre magi), now a Flind and his Gnoll variant buddies, who carried an artefact with them that allowed the mass raising of up to 30 Witherlings 3/day.

The group were optimised for the fight - knowing they had to save the palisaded settlement and being sent by the local ruler because of their skill-set. A Paladin, Evoker Wizard, Battle Cleric, Hunter Ranger and an Assassin Rogue.

The moment that the players realise that an encounter won't be tidily managed by their PCs cool-stuff-resource pool they start thinking harder on how to maintain the scene to their advantage - using terrain, using mundane objects etc.

In my battle, the Ranger dropped bags of flour onto Gnolls attacking through a gate giving them disadvantage to do anything and ensuring as they came out of the cloud they were easy meat for the Paladin and Assassin - allowing the peasants they were covering the time to retreat to a redoubt.

The Assassin later rolled barrels of lamp oil (with the stops taken out) down an improvised ramp made of a horse trough and the Evoker lit them up with a wall of fire strategically placed for them to roll through.

The Cleric and paladin lead and exhorted the peasants to run through chokepoints ahead of the Gnolls to draw them into deadfalls dug the day before, and past rooftops where fishing nets were dropped on groups of them. A Wand of Web was given to the leader of the settlement to defend the second gate with a few of the hunters of the settlement there with a barrel of pre-prepped fire arrows to light it up periodically.

Not one character died thanks to intelligent use of stabilisation of downed PCs and ensuring the bodies were dragged back to fortified locations where they couldn't be eaten.

As resources were expended and especially the Evoker ran out of BOOM, the tension and drama went up and up. The game was fantastic fun, and a little judicious application of brave peasant action ensured the party had holes in their defences filled at critical moments in a way which didn't detract from their accomplishments in maintaining and eventually winning the 'unwinnable' fight.

4 hours and 26 minutes later, the three players who haven't fallen are back to back in the stockade dungeon protecting a single way in via a tunnel, and finally take the Flind down, breaking the scattered remnants of the Gnoll horde and seeing them flee for the hills.

Final score - Gnoll Horde 42 (with two near PC kills): Party 254...

There is no way that the CR rules would have allowed such a battle as written... but it worked very well.

Trust your own judgement and go for it. All this agonising over this minutiae or that doesn't often lead to a better game, just more GM stress in my opinion.

That's great!

...but seeing this has little relevance to my example (its a completely different - but equally valid - playstyle after all; I would say it's a fun improvisational battle, but as such it makes for a poor stress test, since it uses ad hoc decisions that aren't reproducible), doesn't your story deserve a thread of its own?

 

[dave2008]

A three round casting repetoire would help immensely with making spellcasting monsters just as plug and play as other monsters. Because it is a definite deficit, the way you're expected to have memorized the PHB spells each time you pull out a Mage or (now, with Volo) a Diviner.

This really does make a lot of sense. We know they are built around a 3 round lifespan (per the DMG), and for most spell casters that wouldn't add to much.

 

[dave2008]

I'd say it speaks volumes about how exceedingly generous WotC has been in giving characters goodies. (Assuming your players know how to use them)

And not giving them to NPCs.

In general I think this is true (and frustrating); however, I think what is bothering people is that in this example you actually selected NPCs with a bag of tricks that could have made the fight a lot tougher for the PCs and then chose not to use them.

It depends what this tread was started for:

1) Was it to show how awesome your PCs are and how a great time was had as they wiped out an opposing force, or

2) Was it to show how overpowered the PCs are compared to the NPCs.

You have definitely discussed the 2nd situation most, but that is what most people are jumping on (despite the tone of the OP). If the 2nd was the reason, then I think it was just a poor example. Your point is still valid, it just wasn't the best combat to highlight that.

One parting point: Mike Shea (who does consultant work for D&D from time to time) also agrees with Cap on this subject and has provided at least 2 articles on making monsters tougher in his blog (vampire and lich at least). Now - I'm off to go upgrade some epic monsters!

P.S. One more parting thought: I know it would be extremely unpopular, but I wish PCs just had fewer goodies to work with. If that was changed I think there would be less of a delta between how your group plays and how my group plays and that would make it much easier to design a one size fits all monster.