D&D 5E (2024) Mike Mearls explains why your boss monsters die too easily

[Crimson Longinus]

1. Practically yes. The medicine skill and per-encounter powers like Lay On Hands means that post-battle healing is cheap(and in battle healing is powerful to balance out swingy damage can be in PF2)

2. The reason some people do 'useless' combat is because PF2 combat is fun even outside of per-day/longterm resource management thinking--one plays PF2 to fight; thinking of action economy, positioning, small-scale resource management... those are a hundred times more exciting than rationing health and spells over the day.

But I though you said having to think is bad? But now it is good? And do you actually need to think if the fight is so easy that victory is guaranteed or are you just going through the motions? I would imagine that in a tactics game fun comes from the challenge, which means that there is real and significant chance of losing. If you cannot lose you cannot truly win either.

3.Yes. Horrific, mengenaskan, kohutav, and a hundred other terms. I'm thankful that pathfinder now at least has a 3pp alternative for vancian in magic+.

That allow you to cast unlimited amount of magic so that you do not need to think whether casting the spell is worth it?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's fair. For me, though, the improvements to the game present in 3e-5e outweigh the negative here. Even with these issues, the game is still very much better in my opinion.

On balance I certainly agree with this. But I also feel that along the way something important was lost, and I wish we could bring some of that back whilst keeping the modern mechanical structures.

 

[M_Natas]

TL;DR: Mearls and other design team members were doing a game (recorded for a livestream or podcast, can't remember which) as a promo for 5e. They had a basic but decent party and took on like three ghouls vs their IIRC five characters.

The ghouls absolutely slaughtered them, completely taking all of the designers by surprise. They somehow had not figured out that ghouls inflicting a save-vs-paralysis with every single attack could, possibly, be a problem. Again IIRC, they genuinely got a TPK during a game that was supposed to be showing off what the system was like.

The end result was that they hastily added saving throw proficiencies to every class. Because prior to that surprise, your saving throws were just your ability score mod, no other bonuses.

Oh, cool. I didn't know that story. I started D&D way after the 5e playtest.

Yeah, I can totally imagine, without saving throws, 3 Ghouls (DC 10 paralyse) would paralyse approximately 1,4 PCs per turn. That would get nasty very quickly.

 

[Maxperson]

On balance I certainly agree with this. But I also feel that along the way something important was lost, and I wish we could bring some of that back whilst keeping the modern mechanical structures.

5e for me has been in a knock down, drag out, scrappy fight with 2e for my 2nd favorite edition since I first started playing it. I keep going back and forth between the two. 3e is handily in 1st place.

 

[mamba]

I'm not saying they won't do refreshes, similar to 2024: they do that with Monopoly, Risk, and Clue as well.

yes, I understood that. I am saying they do those with Monopoly etc. because it keeps selling. They will do the same as long as 5e keeps selling. Once it does not however, I expect a bigger overhaul, see (2e to) 3e to 4e to 5e, and I for one do not think 5e will keep selling indefinitely

 

[GobHag]

But I though you said having to think is bad? But now it is good? And do you actually need to think if the fight is so easy that victory is guaranteed or are you just going through the motions? I would imagine that in a tactics game fun comes from the challenge, which means that there is real and significant chance of losing. If you cannot lose you cannot truly win either.



That allow you to cast unlimited amount of magic so that you do not need to think whether casting the spell is worth it?

Having to think over a long period of time is bad gameplay on my end. Easy fights are just pacing and to feel cool using mechanics-- and moderate fight that you'll most likely succeed as long as you aren't sleeping on the wheel so to speak; Like the reddit post said, it's tiring if every fight is a skin of the teeth so having something to break it up is nice. That's why an encounter-based balancing is good in my eyes, a moderate or easy fight doesn't lead to anxiety that a later fight during the day becomes impossible or devastatingly hard.

Let me turn this around on your end; Would it be good if at the end of each day, every PC tallies up the damage they took and depending on the amount they suffer maluses like a permanent decrease in stats, an addiction to a certain activity or subtance that's mechanized as a gold drain, losing access/nerfing class features(Decreased aura range, having 1 less resource like Ki or superiority dice, etc, etc) to the point that it's a genuine possibility that you'll be weaker overall at level 7 then when you were at level 1.

In Magic+, you need to build up to your higher ranked spells. So you have to cast a level-2 spell this turn to cast a level-1 spell next turn to cast an on-level spell the turn after that, after that you repeat the cycle but with an extra bonus like having buffed saves or spells doing more damage. Long term out of combat spells decreased the max level of the spells you can cast so there's no way to gain unlimited pre-buffing on the party.

 

[Parmandur]

yes, I understood that. I am saying they do those with Monopoly etc. because it keeps selling. They will do the same as long as 5e keeps selling. Once it does not however, I expect a bigger overhaul, see (2e to) 3e to 4e to 5e, and I for one do not think 5e will keep selling indefinitely

People turn 12 every day.

 

[GobHag]

On balance I certainly agree with this. But I also feel that along the way something important was lost, and I wish we could bring some of that back whilst keeping the modern mechanical structures.

I'm the person that think that the thing we lost should stay lost. I know it's value, I don't want it.

 

[mamba]

Yeah my specific bugbear is that I detest 'per-day' kind of attrition, I prefer a more intense 'attrition' that happens in one to three encounters.

day vs 3 encounters is just a matter of how many encounters per day there should be. I agree that the 6-8 from 5e are too many

1 encounter per day is no attrition however, either you survive or you don’t, that is it

 

[mamba]

People turn 12 every day.

that was true throughout the past 50 years too and yet 1e to 4e invariably declined