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

[hawkeyefan]

I posted this battle as an example of how awesome things can be in D&D.

Since then the discussion has moved on.

Okay...so are you satisfied with the results of the encounter?

If so, then great.

If not, then my recommendation would be to first look at what you could have done differently to make the encounter more satisfying before looking to modify monster abilities or game mechanics.

 

[Helldritch]

You are having issues because youre doing it wrong.

In your post above you let the MC Fighter Ranger stack extra attack.

Nope. The ranger has taken horde breaker. That skill let you attack an other target if it is within 5' of your original target. Nothing to do with extra attack.

But I do agree that multiclassing can be abused without some restrictions that are (players and DM) approved. If you go no holds barred, then the DM will have a bit more work to do to make things right/challenging/fair for everybody.

Again, by using optional rules, the basic game gets bonked with a loud thud. It is to the DM to make thing even out by slightly altering some monsters or the CR ratio needed to challenge the PCs.

 

[knasser]

Because that's what I keep hearing from folks like CapnZapp. The refusal to put in the work required (and I'm not talking hours "perfecting the evil overlord's plan") of a DM is NOT a failure on the design team, like you keep saying.

I've been reading through this thread and it's moving quickly so I'm not replying to most things because they're already far behind where the thread is at. But the above I feel compelled to comment on. It's the antithesis of where I'm coming from and makes a virtue out of difficulty. It is not that some DM's live on a lower moral plateau than others and deserve a worse game (presumably their players inherit the sins of their "father" too) because he or she "refuses to put in the work required". Whilst of course effort should be rewarded, it's not a good thing if the finite effort a busy, adult DM has must be directed to compensating for published materials' short-comings rather than designing exciting maps or enticing atmosphere details. The points CapnZapp are raising would be valid to criticise if they came at a cost elsewhere in the system. But they've have provided multiple examples (I especially like the Jubillex one) where a little thought provides a lot more viability to out of the box encounters without over-powering the monster or requiring fiddly details. Their theory seems very solid to me.

But the main point is that I can't avoid pitfalls like this thread is revealing to me by just "putting in the work". Because I'm a new DM who has never run a game at these levels and would require extensive ability to learn the sort of things that CapnZapp is explaining analytically in this thread. I require the game designers (who should be the most familiar with game theory for their rules system of all) to do that for me. If there is a weakness in the published materials - and it seems there is - I need someone else to fix that for me. At the end of the day of work and social commitments, I do not have time to re-design the creatures from the MM or the depth of understanding necessary to do so.

And as regards the six encounters a day not being a problem / being a problem, that is obviously going to depend on the type of stories a GM chooses to tell and thus is inescapably subjective. But what is not subjective is that it is undeniably a constraint. And if something is a constraint then that is a negative unless removing the constraint would cause a different and significant other problem. So the question then becomes could something be changed to remove that constraint (i.e. make games work that leaned towards one or two encounters a day) without causing problems elsewhere. I think it can be conclusively shown that this is possible because whilst changing the rules would alter other factors (e.g. viability of six encounter grind playing), changing monsters does not. This is because choice of monsters is inherently optional. You can have monsters that work for lesser / numerical encounters and monsters that work for big solo fights and the presence of one doesn't preclude the presence of the other. And I believe that was CapnZapp's original line of exploration - how to create monsters that worked better as high level solos.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I've been reading through this thread and it's moving quickly so I'm not replying to most things because they're already far behind where the thread is at. But the above I feel compelled to comment on. It's the antithesis of where I'm coming from and makes a virtue out of difficulty. It is not that some DM's live on a lower moral plateau than others and deserve a worse game (presumably their players inherit the sins of their "father" too) because he or she "refuses to put in the work required". Whilst of course effort should be rewarded, it's not a good thing if the finite effort a busy, adult DM has must be directed to compensating for published materials' short-comings rather than designing exciting maps or enticing atmosphere details. The points CapnZapp are raising would be valid to criticise if they came at a cost elsewhere in the system. But they've have provided multiple examples (I especially like the Jubillex one) where a little thought provides a lot more viability to out of the box encounters without over-powering the monster or requiring fiddly details. Their theory seems very solid to me.

But the main point is that I can't avoid pitfalls like this thread is revealing to me by just "putting in the work". Because I'm a new DM who has never run a game at these levels and would require extensive ability to learn the sort of things that CapnZapp is explaining analytically in this thread. I require the game designers (who should be the most familiar with game theory for their rules system of all) to do that for me. If there is a weakness in the published materials - and it seems there is - I need someone else to fix that for me. At the end of the day of work and social commitments, I do not have time to re-design the creatures from the MM or the depth of understanding necessary to do so.

It is not a failure of the game designers to not do everything for you. I'm sorry, but that's an impossible task. Everyone plays differently for one, and thus has different expectations. Seriously, this attitude of "well, it's not to MY liking must mean the designers are failures" needs to end. 4e wasn't designed to my liking AT ALL, but does that mean I can sit here and say the 4e designers are failures? Of course not. The game is designed for the masses, not just you, or me, or any other individual, and the sooner we get past this sense of entitlement, the better as a whole.

Running a game is like running anything else that you're in charge of. It requires preparation and time if you expect to have the best possible result. This is not rocket science, and is true whether it's an RPG, band session, fundraiser, convention, whatever. And we're not talking about rewrites here. We're talking about things like it not being good enough that a monster's stat block has the spells it knows listed, but those spells need to be repeated in greater detail further down in the statblock. It's your job as the DM to know what the abilities your monster has. And yes, it is a detriment to everyone else because it takes up more page real estate, which means higher costs and/or elimination of other material because the page count needs to be managed. We're talking about things like the OP saying how his group had an utter cakewalk (and later using that as a reason to show why the rules are broken) when the OP completely neutered the way he ran his NPCs. That's a player issue, not a game design issue.

CapnZapp's original line of exploration - how to create monsters that worked better as high level solos

They would have worked WAY better if he bothered to play them up to their capabilities. There is no need to change the rules or design. He just didn't bother to try, to either be familiar with their capabilities, or to roleplay them in accordance with their attributes (them being highly experienced geniuses and all that). Again, not a high level design problem, but a player problem.

So I'm sorry. If your (general you, not you specifically) position is that you want to run a social game and not put in any prep work, then maybe D&D isn't for you. At least not DMing one. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that if I'm joining a group and the DM feels like they shouldn't have to prepare beforehand? That's a million times worse than the player who shows up and feels like they didn't need to bother reading up on what their character does. Almost always it results in a bad gaming experience.

 

[knasser]

Sacrosanct, there's a lot of rephrasing in your post which isn't a supportable reading of what I wrote. "do everything for you," "best possible result," "get past this sense of entitlement," "not put in any prep work". None of that is what I wrote.

I have finite time to prep a game. I said I would rather devote that time to improving other things than compensating for pitfalls in the game or monster design. That's very different to not willing to put in any time at all which is how you keep casting me. I'm not setting impossible standards that something must be the best it could ever be, I do want things to work well out of the box without me requiring huge amounts of experience such as CapnZapp has to be able to spot buried traps in the rules. Sense of Entitlement? I'm not demanding I be given anything for free, I have spent a substantial amount of money on this product and the game designers are FAR better placed than myself to understand the implications and gotchas of any given design decision. Ergo, the onus is on them to do so. That's what I'm paying them for. Of course you can argue that our standards are too high and we should be happy with a lower level of quality if you wish, but at least say so rather than attack people for it with comments about getting past themselves or D&D isn't for you.

The game is designed for the masses, not just you, or me, or any other individual, and the sooner we get past this sense of entitlement, the better as a whole.

How is wanting the game to have better designed solo monsters making the game about me, rather than for the masses? Don't the things being suggested make the game better for "the masses", too? If a constraint can be removed without negative effects elsewhere - such as the Jubilex example earlier - how is that not a better thing all round? If solo monster staples of D&D (such as dragons) no longer work well, isn't that a negative for everyone? How do you interpret objections about these things as the voicer wanting to make everything about themselves?

We're talking about things like it not being good enough that a monster's stat block has the spells it knows listed, but those spells need to be repeated in greater detail further down in the statblock. It's your job as the DM to know what the abilities your monster has. And yes, it is a detriment to everyone else because it takes up more page real estate

That was one thing that was mentioned, but the wider discussion encompasses much more. The parts I was talking on are to do with monster design and "instawin" abilities.

We're talking about things like the OP saying how his group had an utter cakewalk (and later using that as a reason to show why the rules are broken) when the OP completely neutered the way he ran his NPCs. That's a player issue, not a game design issue.

They would have worked WAY better if he bothered to play them up to their capabilities. There is no need to change the rules or design. He just didn't bother to try, to either be familiar with their capabilities, or to roleplay them in accordance with their attributes (them being highly experienced geniuses and all that). Again, not a high level design problem, but a player problem.

I disagree. They seem to have been played appropriately to their knowledge at the time. However, CapnZapp will make that case far better than I will (and indeed, already has). My concern is more the constraint on the type of stories that can be run. My gaming runs heavily to the story, atmosphere and realism. All those lend themselves naturally towards a small number (maybe one) of encounters rather than a drip drip of smaller ones. I'm starting to find (and others including yourself are backing me up on this conclusion) that this doesn't work very well out of the box. Additionally, I don't think my players would enjoy attrition-based challenge. I think that would go for most players, honestly. If the challenge of a combat is to get through it without using up more than the minimum resources necessary, I struggle to find that an interesting combat. Any story-focused game is going to find its pacing and drama weighed down and sapped by derailing into low-consequence encounters all the time.

If D&D can be made to work well for low numbers of big encounters without detracting elsewhere, then that is a positive thing to ask for.

Additionally, something else I am noticing is the minimal differentiation between many of the monsters. Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Skeletons... They're all very minor variants on the same statistics. A great deal more variety of play could be introduced here, imo.

 

[Eric V]

Sacrosanct, there's a lot of rephrasing in your post which isn't a supportable reading of what I wrote. "do everything for you," "best possible result," "get past this sense of entitlement," "not put in any prep work". None of that is what I wrote.

I have finite time to prep a game. I said I would rather devote that time to improving other things than compensating for pitfalls in the game or monster design. That's very different to not willing to put in any time at all which is how you keep casting me. I'm not setting impossible standards that something must be the best it could ever be, I do want things to work well out of the box without me requiring huge amounts of experience such as CapnZapp has to be able to spot buried traps in the rules. Sense of Entitlement? I'm not demanding I be given anything for free, I have spent a substantial amount of money on this product and the game designers are FAR better placed than myself to understand the implications and gotchas of any given design decision. Ergo, the onus is on them to do so. That's what I'm paying them for. Of course you can argue that our standards are too high and we should be happy with a lower level of quality if you wish, but at least say so rather than attack people for it with comments about getting past themselves or D&D isn't for you.




How is wanting the game to have better designed solo monsters making the game about me, rather than for the masses? Don't the things being suggested make the game better for "the masses", too? If a constraint can be removed without negative effects elsewhere - such as the Jubilex example earlier - how is that not a better thing all round? If solo monster staples of D&D (such as dragons) no longer work well, isn't that a negative for everyone? How do you interpret objections about these things as the voicer wanting to make everything about themselves?



That was one thing that was mentioned, but the wider discussion encompasses much more. The parts I was talking on are to do with monster design and "instawin" abilities.



I disagree. They seem to have been played appropriately to their knowledge at the time. However, CapnZapp will make that case far better than I will (and indeed, already has). My concern is more the constraint on the type of stories that can be run. My gaming runs heavily to the story, atmosphere and realism. All those lend themselves naturally towards a small number (maybe one) of encounters rather than a drip drip of smaller ones. I'm starting to find (and others including yourself are backing me up on this conclusion) that this doesn't work very well out of the box. Additionally, I don't think my players would enjoy attrition-based challenge. I think that would go for most players, honestly. If the challenge of a combat is to get through it without using up more than the minimum resources necessary, I struggle to find that an interesting combat. Any story-focused game is going to find its pacing and drama weighed down and sapped by derailing into low-consequence encounters all the time.

If D&D can be made to work well for low numbers of big encounters without detracting elsewhere, then that is a positive thing to ask for.

Additionally, something else I am noticing is the minimal differentiation between many of the monsters. Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Skeletons... They're all very minor variants on the same statistics. A great deal more variety of play could be introduced here, imo.

This was a great response [MENTION=65151]knasser[/MENTION]; sorry to hear you're being misrepresented in your arguments. It happens around here. Just know that not everyone was mis-reading you that way.

You are absolutely right: D&D is a game. There's really only so much time that can be invested in a game. All games (board, party, rp, etc.) should make it as easy as possible to get to the fun; the designers themselves acknowledged this when they said speed of character creation was one of their goals. After that, any additional complication has to be worth it in terms of added fun. So, a game can be complex and fun, as long as each additional complexity adds to the fun instead of detracts it. It's why our group switched to 5e from 4e for example: the added complexities in 4e were no longer giving out the expected increases in fun.

Having more detailed statblocks for the monsters definitely lets people get to the fun faster; it's bizarre to argue otherwise. If one likes researching all the spells, there's nothing stopping them from doing so; having the most common ones available with all their attendant rules does not interfere with that at all. The D&D team knew this at one point (4e) so it's disappointing to have to go back to a less efficient version.

As a game to play with friends around the table, the gaming experience isn't enhanced by lack of description for the monsters' most common attacks. It is diminished, either because 1) The DM had to pause the game to look up the particulars of a specific spell; or 2) The DM had to commit the spells to memory or otherwise write down all their relevant details, time that could be better spent either on other more fun aspects of the game or personal life, etc.

And yeah, better solos would make the game work better for everyone. I have no idea why one would argue otherwise. All that does is open up more options for fun. However, as you may have noticed, some people just don't want other people to have official options in their game (see any thread about including the warlord in 5e). I have absolutely no idea why.

I sort of agree with you re: your last point, but you may find it disappears after multiple encounters with the same opponent. Having one encounter with gnolls and another with orcs may not feel different, but multiple of each, and you'll definitely have players remembering (fondly?) that "orcs are the ones that rush us" and "gnolls get extra savage when they take us down!" and "Don't let hobgoblins double-team you!" It's true that 5e monsters sometimes suffer from "bag o' hp" syndrome, but sometimes the differences are there and just need to be teased out more.

 

[Helldritch]

The game was designed with an emphasis on 4 players and the levels that are actualy played. This means 1 through 15. The closer you get to the top limit, the more the DM has to do some preperation time. It was true in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.x, 4th and it is still true right now. Some Epic campaigns I did in 3.5 and in 4th were quite "swingy" that I had to add to the stat blocs since all my groups are usualy at 6 and not 4 players.

The way I design campaings is through a reversed synopsis. I know how it will end. But I don't know how it will start nor do I know how it will go there. I write the main story line, the kind of magic that will/should help and fill in the details as the campaign grows.

It can go a bit like this.
Level 18-20

Now the players have to attack the ancient arch devil's sanctum. A direct assault is out of the question and they will require an angelic army to help create a diversion. If the archdevil's plans goes into fruition, he could even become a god in his own right. That diversion, will buy the players about 1 hour to 1 and a half hour of time. Enough to disrupt the archdevil's plan but it will be close as the devil's sanctum is deep within the forteress. Fortunately, the imp's informations and all the scrying made will help the players go through the escape route the old arch devil had designed so long ago. Traps and hazard will be present along the way as well as some guards. All other routes are too dangerous to take.
​

With that end adventure in mind, I need a hook.
Level 10 to 12

The Scourge lord undead army has grown quite large by now. All these undead that have flocked to his old fortress in the mountains are a formidable force to reckon with. The Scourge Lord is currently tapping some of Myrkul's power to fuel is undead creating rituals. The Dracolich and Death knight servant will make it hard to get to whatever is the Scourge Lord. Lich? Quasi deity? or is he entirely something new?
​

Level 1 to 3

A tribe of kobold are threatening a small village. Players are asked to find what happened to a few caravans. They will stumble upon some advanced scout from the main tribe. The kobolds are afraid and want to move south. They were chased off from their caverns by "big tusky uglies" (orcs) that have normaly no interest in kobold caves. The players will encounter a few undead moving northward.
​

At this stage I don't know what kind of characters the players will make. I will only write up the next adventures as I learned the PC's goals, hopes and tastes. I would probably put that adventure in the Vilhon Reach, but the Silver Marches or the Galena mountains north of Damara could work out fine too. It all depends on what kind of characters the players will be doing.

With only these guidelines I get sure that I won't railroad the PC (at least it will be subtle). And with a foreknowledge of what is to come I will be able to prepare and to improvise on what is to come if needed. Obviously I will try to stay ahead of the players with at least 2 to 3 sessions that will have a semi-write up. Usualy some plans, a few planned encounters with new and old NPCs in mind depending on which one the players liked the most. The rest can be improvised on the spot as needed.

All that to say: Over preparation is not good. Underpreparation is worst. You need to find a middle ground that will respect players, DMs and the game itself alike.

 

[knasser]

I sort of agree with you re: your last point, but you may find it disappears after multiple encounters with the same opponent. Having one encounter with gnolls and another with orcs may not feel different, but multiple of each, and you'll definitely have players remembering (fondly?) that "orcs are the ones that rush us" and "gnolls get extra savage when they take us down!" and "Don't let hobgoblins double-team you!" It's true that 5e monsters sometimes suffer from "bag o' hp" syndrome, but sometimes the differences are there and just need to be teased out more.

Thanks for the response in general and especially this last part. This is good to hear. I've only just started playing 5e and I'm glad if the differentiation emerges with more play. Following this thread and a growing familiarity with the rules, I'm starting to toy with the idea of changing things around a little and comments like this are helpful. For example, it was mentioned earlier that one thing 4e did a lot more was to target particular defences rather than just AC all of the time. That might be something that could be added back into 5e with variant monsters. (Maybe - I'm still getting a feel for the system).

 

[OB1]

All those lend themselves naturally towards a small number (maybe one) of encounters rather than a drip drip of smaller ones. I'm starting to find (and others including yourself are backing me up on this conclusion) that this doesn't work very well out of the box.

Knasser - this is the heart of the argument. You are correct that 5e does not support this style out of the box. 5e is designed around adventurers facing several smaller challenges throughout the day rather than one large one. Additionally, 5e is designed so that the challenge is appropriate for casual players and therefore does not require system mastery.

Asking for more detail in monster stat blocks is reasonable (though it might come at a cost of fewer monsters or a more expensive book, since it would take up more room), but changing the adventuring day or system mastery assumptions, as you, [MENTION=6779717]Eric V[/MENTION], and [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] are arguing for, is not directly compatible and would require massive changes in assumptions to the game. You can't have a monster that, out of the box, is both an acceptable challenge at the end of a 5-6 encounter adventuring day and at the start of one. You can't have a monster that requires system mastery for a party of 4 to defeat and can also be taken down by a party of first time players with 15's in their combat stats and the linguist feat.

So the designers created a rule set that skews heavily to new and casual players, and gave the tools necessary to challenge veteran and system mastery players to the DM of such a group. And even here, as long as you are willing to follow the encounter guidelines, challenging a group with system mastery requires nothing more than adding a few encounters straight out of the box until you get to the level of challenge necessary. Thanks to the emphasis on narrative combat, adding encounters is much simpler in 5e than some previous editions.

But if you want to challenge players with system mastery and have just a single encounter in a day? Now you are going to have to put a ton of work in as DM, in the same way that you would have to put a ton of work in to make the ruleset work as a SciFi setting or Modern setting.

That said, I think there is an opportunity for a great 5e campaign setting focused on Epic Fantasy style play, where the rules that you and capnzapp and others crave could be fit without disrupting the game. In it's own campaign setting with it's own monsters, you could easily flip the assumptions of 5e on its head, and simply leave a warning that the monsters are not directly compatible with other 5e settings. I'm not sure if there is enough demand for such a product, but if not, perhaps a group of like minded players could come together on these boards to create one of their own. There are a lot of great, creative minds on these boards, and I'm sure you would find a ton of support for creating such a setting and tweaking the rules to get out of them what you want. Who knows, if it proves popular enough, perhaps one day WotC would adopt the setting and make it an official one!

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sacrosanct, there's a lot of rephrasing in your post which isn't a supportable reading of what I wrote. "do everything for you," "best possible result," "get past this sense of entitlement," "not put in any prep work". None of that is what I wrote.

I have finite time to prep a game. I said I would rather devote that time to improving other things than compensating for pitfalls in the game or monster design. That's very different to not willing to put in any time at all which is how you keep casting me. I'm not setting impossible standards that something must be the best it could ever be, I do want things to work well out of the box without me requiring huge amounts of experience such as CapnZapp has to be able to spot buried traps in the rules. Sense of Entitlement? I'm not demanding I be given anything for free, I have spent a substantial amount of money on this product and the game designers are FAR better placed than myself to understand the implications and gotchas of any given design decision. Ergo, the onus is on them to do so. That's what I'm paying them for. Of course you can argue that our standards are too high and we should be happy with a lower level of quality if you wish, but at least say so rather than attack people for it with comments about getting past themselves or D&D isn't for you.

There are some flaws with the game. There are with any game. [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]'s example should be taken as one anecdote about possible concerns. His concerns seem to largely come from player proficiency. His players are clearly experienced players who know how to optimize game mechanics and character options in order to create ultra-potent player-characters. That's simply not the default assumption of the game design. Nor should it be...since more players are likely to play at a level closer to the middle when it comes to proficiency rather than to the expert level.

When players do indeed play at that level, adjustments need to be made. Or depending on the desired result, adjustments are more likely to be needed. Some folks may be perfectly happy to let things play out as they will.

How is wanting the game to have better designed solo monsters making the game about me, rather than for the masses? Don't the things being suggested make the game better for "the masses", too? If a constraint can be removed without negative effects elsewhere - such as the Jubilex example earlier - how is that not a better thing all round? If solo monster staples of D&D (such as dragons) no longer work well, isn't that a negative for everyone? How do you interpret objections about these things as the voicer wanting to make everything about themselves?

The game does allow for this. Use legendary monsters for solo monsters. Take whatever creature you want as a solo boss and add legendary resistance and legendary actions. This is the exact purpose of the legendary creature design. If it's is not used, is that the fault of the game system?

I disagree. They seem to have been played appropriately to their knowledge at the time. However, CapnZapp will make that case far better than I will (and indeed, already has). My concern is more the constraint on the type of stories that can be run. My gaming runs heavily to the story, atmosphere and realism. All those lend themselves naturally towards a small number (maybe one) of encounters rather than a drip drip of smaller ones. I'm starting to find (and others including yourself are backing me up on this conclusion) that this doesn't work very well out of the box. Additionally, I don't think my players would enjoy attrition-based challenge. I think that would go for most players, honestly. If the challenge of a combat is to get through it without using up more than the minimum resources necessary, I struggle to find that an interesting combat. Any story-focused game is going to find its pacing and drama weighed down and sapped by derailing into low-consequence encounters all the time.

If D&D can be made to work well for low numbers of big encounters without detracting elsewhere, then that is a positive thing to ask for.

Additionally, something else I am noticing is the minimal differentiation between many of the monsters. Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Skeletons... They're all very minor variants on the same statistics. A great deal more variety of play could be introduced here, imo.

The game can be made to allow for lower amounts of encounters. However, because the game was designed with a multiple encounter day in mind, adjustments are needed to make it work in another way. And here's the thing...they know people may want to play different ways, with different styles or areas of focus. That's why there is a huge section of the DMG about making changes to the game, and alternate systems that can be implemented. Do these options address every possible issue a given group may have? No...but that would be impossible. Instead they serve as a stepping stone to making the game work for you.

You said that you're a new DM. That's awesome. What I would say is to not worry so much about potential issues you read about online. Yes, they may come up in your game at some point. I would say wait until they do. When an issue of some kind comes up, that's when you can best decide how to handle it. Because the way problems are handled will vary from table to table just like the problems themselves vary.

So perhaps [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION]'s advice was put a bit harshly, but that doesn't change its accuracy. Sometimes, you'll have to do a little work as the DM to get the game to do what you want. Work beyond the standard amount of creating a story and locations and monsters and so on. However, the kind of effort I'm talking about often goes so hand in hand with the other aspects that given some time you'll be doing it all at once and it won't drastically increase the amount of preparation you need to put into the game.