D&D 5E Lvl 14 rogue vs. (lvl 14) red dragon

[Klaus]

One compensation you may need to make. I don't believe the math is true for a "standard" creature of 14th level. I assume that in a regular fight the players will face several monsters of their level. So for a combat to last 4-5 rounds, monsters will need to die quicker than what you are supposing.

Now in the dragons' case, one of the archetypal "solo" monsters, assuming it is by itself makes a lot more sense, and your damage calculations would be more accurate.


Also, your damage model assumes a steady damage increase, which is not normally true in Dnd. Generally you have a BIG damage bonus right at the beginning (weapon + strength + initial class abilities), and then a more steady progression through later levels. For example your model assumes an average damage of 2.4 at level 1 which I think is too low. A fighter will do 4.5 (one handed weapon) + 3 (str) + 3.5 (martial damage) = 11 damage on average at 1st level. Even with a 50% attack rate that would be 5.5

Yes, my calculations are based on a set of assumptions, like how many hp a character should take off a monster's total, at what level a monster should be considered "minion", etc. And of course, the numbers would need to be adjusted for low-level, allowing for a flatter gain of hp at levels 1-5 (level 5 is usually considered the end of "low level", with the wizard's acquisition of Fireball).

We don't know how DDN will handle what 4e called "elites" and "solos". If we go by PC level = average difficulty monster (where four 14th-level PCs would have only a slight difficulty against four 14th-level monsters), then yes, each monster beeds to go down faster (with PC damage equaling 25% of the monster's hp, so a group can clean four monsters in four rounds). In this case, a "boss" or "solo" monster would simply be higher level (for the 14th-level party, a 20th-level dragon would be a solo, while a couple of 16th-level dragons would be elites).

 

[the Jester]

You one shot low level goblins, you don't single handedly take out a dragon of equivalent level. Now of you want D&D to be a solo game then fair enough but it's not.

You say this like there is only one way to play the game.

Just because it doesn't suit your tastes doesn't make it wrong. There are quite a few groups out there with a single player and dm, and for them, D&D is a solo game. And they aren't doing it wrong.

To me, the problem with the dragon was a combination of poor play (the dm played the dragon as if it wanted to die) and boring stats (the dragon should have had any number of interesting options to use).

 

[Grimmjow]

And this is supposed to be the one game that rules them all?

just because the dragons arnt good now doesn't mean they wont be fixed. The point of the playtest is to make a game the will rule them all

 

[ForeverSlayer]

You say this like there is only one way to play the game.

Just because it doesn't suit your tastes doesn't make it wrong. There are quite a few groups out there with a single player and dm, and for them, D&D is a solo game. And they aren't doing it wrong.

To me, the problem with the dragon was a combination of poor play (the dm played the dragon as if it wanted to die) and boring stats (the dragon should have had any number of interesting options to use).

Sorry but using the playstyle card doesn't excuse poor game design. You know damn well that a PC is not supposed to single handed take out a monster that is supposed to challenge 3 characters of equivalent level so please don't try and go there just to keep your argument going.

Dragons were never monster that were supposed to be taken down by a single PC, a goblin or an orc are.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

just because the dragons arnt good now doesn't mean they wont be fixed. The point of the playtest is to make a game the will rule them all

When you have something that is obviously out of whack then you would think the game designers would catch it instead of the playtesters. We are talking about a complex mathematical error that anyone other than a math major could mistake.

Is this the excuse we are going to hear from now on? It's still in the playtest.

 

[Fanaelialae]

When you have something that is obviously out of whack then you would think the game designers would catch it instead of the playtesters. We are talking about a complex mathematical error that anyone other than a math major could mistake.

Is this the excuse we are going to hear from now on? It's still in the playtest.

I don't think this is much of an issue at all. As you said, it's a playtest (alpha, at that).

I'm a software developer. We do plenty of internal QA, but there are still times that things blow up unexpectedly during the beta or even release builds. It's inevitable. We have hundreds of customers, and we simply can't account for every possible combination of settings out there, or catch every issue. If it's urgent, we rush out a fix as quickly as possible. Sometimes that fix breaks something else that we didn't expect. If it's not a high-priority issue, the customer might have to wait while we get the next build ready to go. Some issues even get pushed off by several builds because other issues and new development take higher priority. That's simply the way things work.

The high level rules are clearly still in their infancy. They may even have pushed a bit to have them ready for the holidays. If it's still an issue two or three packages from now I might see cause to worry, assuming that they revise the high-level stuff in that time.

It's pretty clear from the playtest report that the rogue got lucky. If the dragon had noticed him sneaking up, he'd never have gotten his sneak attack and would have ended up a damp stain pretty much by default. That dragon had a fairly decent shot at killing the rogue in a single round, whereas the rogue (even with sneak attack) needed a minimum of two.

At this point, I wouldn't fret that an individual monster is underpowered (or overpowered) for its level (even if it is a dragon). I don't think the rogue would have fared as well against a beholder (one level lower than the dragon), for example.

Just let them know your findings, and odds are that it'll be adjusted in the upcoming playtests. I think that right now, getting the low levels right should be (and is) their highest priority, but I'm pleased to see that they're starting to look towards the upper tiers as well. It's important to get your base models right (without a firm foundation, the rest won't be solid) but it's also important to remember that modules work as part of a greater whole.

 

[the Jester]

Sorry but using the playstyle card doesn't excuse poor game design. You know damn well that a PC is not supposed to single handed take out a monster that is supposed to challenge 3 characters of equivalent level so please don't try and go there just to keep your argument going.

Dragons were never monster that were supposed to be taken down by a single PC, a goblin or an orc are.

Who said that a single monster is supposed to challenge 3 pcs of equal level in 5e? AFAIK we haven't heard much about monster design at all yet.

I think you are assuming too much, and calling what we've seen "poor game design" relies entirely on your assumptions. Now, while you may be right that a monster of level x should be an appropriate challenge to 3 pcs of level x, we don't know that. Not only that, we don't know what an "appropriate challenge" means in 5e- is it still the 3e "use up 20% of your resources" approach? Because if so, it sounds like the fight ran a little easy, but wasn't that far from the intended difficulty. Compare a 3e 13th level pc vs. a single CR 13 monster: on average, the pc is going to win, but he'll be a bit banged up. Same result here! And yes, a CR 13 dragon is a different story, but dragon CRs were intentionally deflated in 3e to make them overpowered for their challenge rating. (This is something that has been confirmed over and over again by the 3e designers.)

So please don't tell me that I "know damn well" something based entirely on your assumptions, and telling me "please don't try and go there just to keep your argument going" doesn't back your assertions with anything more than further assumptions.

That said, if you do have a source for your assumption, I'll happily take a look at it and adjust my position accordingly.

When you have something that is obviously out of whack then you would think the game designers would catch it instead of the playtesters.

The designers design, the playtesters catch errors. You keep talking about being a playtester like all it is about is getting a preview of the game instead of actually fulfilling a meaningful role in the process. What do you think the role of the playtester is, if not to do EXACTLY what we are doing here?

Seriously, dude, you're acting like being a playtester entitles you to a finished, polished game from the first alpha version you get your hands on. It doesn't. It gives you access to the rough cut. That is explicitly what being a playtester is for. That is exactly what we are getting. Finding the flaws is exactly why WotC is giving us that access. Where you're getting the idea that this is some flim-flam job designed to lull us into accepting the blame for a bad game in the end is beyond me. Sounds like it's more work than actually, you know, listening to playtester feedback and making a great game in the end.

Playtesting is about more than giving you a free new game to play.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Who said that a single monster is supposed to challenge 3 pcs of equal level in 5e? AFAIK we haven't heard much about monster design at all yet.

I think you are assuming too much, and calling what we've seen "poor game design" relies entirely on your assumptions. Now, while you may be right that a monster of level x should be an appropriate challenge to 3 pcs of level x, we don't know that. Not only that, we don't know what an "appropriate challenge" means in 5e- is it still the 3e "use up 20% of your resources" approach? Because if so, it sounds like the fight ran a little easy, but wasn't that far from the intended difficulty. Compare a 3e 13th level pc vs. a single CR 13 monster: on average, the pc is going to win, but he'll be a bit banged up. Same result here! And yes, a CR 13 dragon is a different story, but dragon CRs were intentionally deflated in 3e to make them overpowered for their challenge rating. (This is something that has been confirmed over and over again by the 3e designers.)

So please don't tell me that I "know damn well" something based entirely on your assumptions, and telling me "please don't try and go there just to keep your argument going" doesn't back your assertions with anything more than further assumptions.

That said, if you do have a source for your assumption, I'll happily take a look at it and adjust my position accordingly.



The designers design, the playtesters catch errors. You keep talking about being a playtester like all it is about is getting a preview of the game instead of actually fulfilling a meaningful role in the process. What do you think the role of the playtester is, if not to do EXACTLY what we are doing here?

Seriously, dude, you're acting like being a playtester entitles you to a finished, polished game from the first alpha version you get your hands on. It doesn't. It gives you access to the rough cut. That is explicitly what being a playtester is for. That is exactly what we are getting. Finding the flaws is exactly why WotC is giving us that access. Where you're getting the idea that this is some flim-flam job designed to lull us into accepting the blame for a bad game in the end is beyond me. Sounds like it's more work than actually, you know, listening to playtester feedback and making a great game in the end.

Playtesting is about more than giving you a free new game to play.

Wow!

So now we are going to pretend that dragons have always been used in groups of 3 or 4 because each PC is normally able to take care of one on their own.

I'm not sure if you are just trying to "win" the argument or what.

 

[the Jester]

Wow!

So now we are going to pretend that dragons have always been used in groups of 3 or 4 because each PC is normally able to take care of one on their own.

I'm not sure if you are just trying to "win" the argument or what.

Way to put words in my mouth.

But in fact, dragons are sometimes found in numbers in adventures, especially high-level adventures. I don't know if you played the Age of Worms, but late in the adventure path- hmm, about 15th or 16th level?- the pcs encounter a war between dragons and giants.

I seem to recall Dragonlance having plenty of multi-dragon encounters, too. And I can remember a number of mated pairs with young scenarios throughout the years.

Not every dragon is meant to be a BBEG. There have been stats for hatchlings at least since the Basic set, and up through 1e some dragons had single-digit hit points. D&D in fact does support using dragons in groups of 3 or 4 and almost always has- 4e being a noteworthy exception.

Nonetheless, you are right that an equal-level dragon in the playtest is, apparently, supposed to be an average difficulty encounter for four 13th level characters. (It is worth 17,680 xp; budget for an 'average' encounter is 3900 xp per pc.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

So a case of "working as intended, but maybe not the right intent."

Unless we're supposed to put 9th-level or 4th-level adventurers against this dude. Which can make sense, but needs to be a big, explicit signpost.