D&D 5E Length of Combat

[FormerlyHemlock]

Sure. Part of that's down to relative inexperience with 5e - I hadn't realised just how long it was going to take to finish it off 'properly'.

That said, I am inclined to think there's a weakness in 5e's design - it seems that monsters have a lot of hit points, while the damage that the PCs can do doesn't seem to keep up. So while it's a good thing that they've tended to model a monster's resilience by giving them hit points (rather than high ACs or lots of immunities, as was often the case in 3e), they have perhaps gone too far. Either that, or I've been very unlucky in my selection of monsters!

Or possibly your PCs are on the weak side offensively.

Just for the sake of fun... clerics are mediocre offensively, so let's calculate the kill time for four 13th level clerics against a beholder. Let's make it two Arcana Clerics using Booming Blade, and two Nature Clerics using Shillelagh. All clerics will be using Spiritual Weapon IV and Spirit Guardians. I'll ignore the beholder's offense because we're not interested in that, and its antimagic. I'll also ignore its flight. I am not sure if you can stack radiant and necrotic Spirit Guardians with each other, or all four, but for the sake of simplicity let's just say it stacks freely so I don't have to pick another spell.

Beholder: AC 18, 180 HP, Wis +7 save.
Arcana Clerics: +7 to hit (Str 14) for 3d8+2 damage with Booming Blade (ignore the damage rider because the beholder won't trip it), +10 to hit for 2d8+5 (Wis 20) with Spiritual Weapon. DC 18 Spirit Guardians for 5d8 damage, Wis save for half.
Nature Clerics: +10 to hit (Wis 20) for d8+5 damage with Shillelagh, +10 to hit for 2d8+5 (Wis 20) with Spiritual Weapon. DC 18 Spirit Guardians for 5d8 damage, Wis save for half.
Booming Blade DPR is 8.43, Shillelagh DPR is 6.40, Spiritual Weapon DPR is 9.55, Spirit Guardians DPR is 16.87.
Total DPR is 2*8.43 + 2*6.40 + 4*9.55 + 4*16.87 = 135.34. The beholder will last less than two rounds before dying.

If this were instead of a group of GWM Battlemasters, each attacking at +5 with advantage for d12+18 points of damage per hit twice per round, they'd be doing a collective 140.65 points of damage. So, about the same damage range.

 

[cmad1977]

The way it's described, you could just take a CR and go straight across the chart. That's supposed to be the easiest way of creating a monster for a given CR.

In practice, and probably in expectation, you use those numbers as a baseline and then shift someone numbers up and other numbers down in order to customize your creation. Most of the monsters in the manual, for example, have their HP shifted down and their damage shifted up.

Yeah. For the me guidelines say
'Take your monster idea: armored Kobold.
Ok, highish AC, low hp, spear damage.
Now look at the CR chart and see where those things align.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.'




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[robus]

a big part of the issue is "number of rounds where nothing changes". If that goes on too long it becomes a slog and the DM can quickly run out of interesting ways the narrate the combat, I.e. "The monster takes more damage"

The motivation of the monster(s) has to be taken into account, not all are going to fight to the death (but most will if cornered) but what about reinforcements, changing environment, anything to give some variety to the situation and maintain player interest.

 

[delericho]

Or possibly your PCs are on the weak side offensively.

It's possible.

Just for the sake of fun... clerics are mediocre offensively, so let's calculate the kill time for four 13th level clerics against a beholder.

Single monsters make for poor encounters.

 

[knasser]

I think only legendary monsters use the straight across numbers to any degree. It makes sense. You want a solo monster to be able to take hits and threaten the whole party, but not one shot someone in the first round.

Too bad the masses said no to minion/standard/elite/solo ... *readies dodge*.

Is that why they ditched it? Public complaints? I really found the minion/standard/elite/solo approach extremely helpful and intuitive. I wish they'd kept it. Especially the way that I could represent the same creature in two different ways according to what suited their level.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Is that why they ditched it? Public complaints?

Well, public opinion more so than just the complaints - since not everyone who didn't see a need for minion/elite/solo rules was actually complaining that those ideas were implemented in the prior version of the game.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Is that why they ditched it? Public complaints? I really found the minion/standard/elite/solo approach extremely helpful and intuitive. I wish they'd kept it. Especially the way that I could represent the same creature in two different ways according to what suited their level.

Whereas Schrodinger's Monsters were precisely what drove other people nuts.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Single monsters make for poor encounters.

I did say "for the sake of fun."

In actual play I'd be running that beholder with fifty or so hobgoblin minions; the beholder's game plan would be to anti-magic the clerics while the hobs shot them to pieces; and offensive output would be irrelevant because all the clerics would be dead.

The players' job would be to retrieve the MacGuffin while preventing the beholder's game plan from occurring, e.g. by defeating the hobs in detail first.

 

[delericho]

I did say "for the sake of fun."

Yep. And your analysis was more or less fine (though it did have an issue that you chose to ignore the beholder's anti-magic when all of the attack against it were magical).

But the issue with the example was that what works theoretically doesn't always work in practice, and while the theory says that creature lasts two rounds, that doesn't match with what I've experienced in practice. And, really, it's the practice that matters.

And one of the reasons the theory doesn't match the practice is...

In actual play I'd be running that beholder with fifty or so hobgoblin minions...

Exactly this. Amongst other things, if the beholder has a bunch of allies, then those allies serve to soak up a lot of attacks, meaning that lots of that lovely DPS is 'wasted' - a 20 damage hit to a 14 damage hobgoblin 'wastes' 6 damage. Or, perhaps more to the point, it means those 20 points aren't coming off the beholder. Probably.

 

[delericho]

Is that why they ditched it? Public complaints?

I didn't really see lots of complaints about minion/elite/solo, except perhaps from people who objected to them because they were a 4e-ism.

Instead, I got the impression that they were removed because the current powers-that-be over at WotC just didn't like them - just like some of 4e's design was motivated by the then-designers personal preferences. (Which is a shame - count me as another fan of that aspect of the game, even if I wasn't a fan of 4e as a whole.)

Especially the way that I could represent the same creature in two different ways according to what suited their level.

This I didn't like. But I handled it in the easy way by not representing the same creature in different ways. A goblin minion was similar but not quite the same as a 'standard' goblin IMC (and similar for elites and solos).