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

[Maxperson]

Yes, but then you could not have expertise doubling it, and stacking guidance/bless, bardic inspiration and couple of magic items on top of it.

But I agree with you. I would have preferred slightly bigger base bonus but less crap than can be stacked on top of it.

It's not hard to make expertise a static bonus and alter a few of those others a bit.

 

[mamba]

They weren't running with an evergreen strategy, and during the 80s were foolish enough to split the game into two different product lines. And they didn't have Beyond in place.

guess we will see, an evergreen strategy only is evergreen until it isn’t. It’s not like TSR / WotC knew that what they were doing would jeopardize future sales.

I am not even sure that it would have made much of a difference if they had used a different strategy. TSR failed for a lot more reasons than pushing out products too frequently alone.

Do DDB and the release cycle help extend the edition’s lifetime, sure looks like it. The jury is still out on the evergreen part however (guess we will know in 15 or so years, at least well enough for me)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But thwt is the action movie-ish genre of current day D&D: the scale can be slid, but that "cinematic" style is just what is in: it is abstract lyrics an odd compromise between "everything resets in a new Encounter" and classic real attrition...but it hits that middle where a lot of people seem happy. There is attrition, but not too many longterm fiddliness.

It's a crap compromise though, and I think the core cause of most of these issues. And it is absurd. You can be laying dying in the pool of your own blood, but as long as you do not die you're fine the next day. And not sure it is cinematic, except in the most cheesy superhero nonsense way. Even if we don't go full GoT, then at least LotR or Conan. It is just videogamey now.

 

[GobHag]

And that the easy battle can matter that way is that makes it meaningful. I think we agree on what is happening, we merely disagree whether it is bug or a feature.



Well, that seems a tad harsh, but yes, I think overall principle has appeal. I think it is big flaw in 5e how it is basically impossible to suffer ailments that would not just be fixed by a good night's sleep. So lasting injuries and such certainly feels like an excellent idea to me. It also gives us another non-death defeat condition, which would be very welcome. Doesn't necessarily mean they could never be fixed, this being a magical world and all, but they should remain for a good while so that they actually have an impact.

I think a big issue with modern D&D (and apparently Pathfinder) is that how there really is very little mechanical consequences. Everything is so baby-proofed and there just is no feeling of danger and peril. Like whilst how the saves worked in the playtest might have had issues, the "ghoul surprise" as an even sounded pretty fine to me. They should be terrifying, and you should have to play smart and try avoid going to melee with them. Like I don't want to necessarily bring back level drain and frequent save or die, but the monsters could have a bit more teeth.

The easy battle not mattering is what makes it good yes, it's a time for you to show off and feel good stomping on gnats. Feel those weak soldier's sword bounce off your shield harmless, do a combo as a rogue with a teammate that one-turns a captain, have the cleric heal the entire party back to full health with one spell , the wizard wading into the midst of melee and then bonking people's head just for the hell of it

That's the rubs, it has anti-appeal for me. Sure an attritional few sessions can be a nice pace-breaker for me but I dislike it in my fantasy SWAT team action game as a baseline.. And Pathfinder still very much has it with things like curses and diseases but they're rarely used for a reason, an occasional spice rather than salt and pepper.

Pathfinder doesn't need long-term effects being common because the combat itself is rather intense, crit failed saves and critically hit attacks flying all over the place in encounters. We got naughty word like Lesser Death here for monster that's way more dangerous then what--Also personally I dislike low-level gotcha/crippling monsters since those levels in both 5e and PF2 are way too fragile and lacking in tools

 

[GobHag]

It's a crap compromise though, and I think the core cause of most of these issues. And it is absurd. You can be laying dying in the pool of your own blood, but as long as you do not die you're fine the next day. And not sure it is cinematic, except in the most cheesy superhero nonsense way. Even if we don't go full GoT, then at least LotR or Conan. It is just videogamey now.

I think we agree on what is happening, we merely disagree whether it is bug or a feature.

Videogamey is good, keeping DnD's main inspiration still being Conan and LotR is just kinda sad.

 

[Maxperson]

Videogamey is good, keeping DnD's main inspiration still being Conan and LotR is just kinda sad.

I have video games for when I want that. RPGs are not video games and shouldn't be treated that way.

 

[GobHag]

And D&D isn't LotR or Conan too, at least videogames are games

 

[GobHag]

It always feels to me that the mandatory +1/level bonus from Pathfinder Second Edition is its biggest flaw. It makes the range of monsters much more narrow that are viable as enemies, and seems to serve no further purpose. If you ignore it, what's left is basically 5E proficiencies, as you go from Trained over Expert to Master, and very, very few ways to boost your numbers otherwise.

I think it's good that at level 6 normal level 0 dungeon goblins are basically crippled chihuahuas to a party. And I personally suspect that last point is why the +1 for level exists, numbers go up is an instinctive pleasure that many people(Especially likely PF's audience) look for--it is true that if at level 1 you have 10 hp and the average hit deals 1 damage and at level 12 you have 120 hp and the average hit deals 12 damage then it's practically the same but by god does it feel good.

 

[Staffan]

The thing about daily attrition to me is that it feels a lot like playing the boardgame Britannia. In Britannia, you play a series of peoples all invading England/Great Britain (well, except for the peoples who are there at the start of the game in 45 AD). So each player gets a list of which peoples they are playing and when they show up. The first thing that happens is that the Romans show up and absolutely kick everyone's butt for a few rounds, score points, kick some more butt but not as intensely, and then score some more points and then they go home and get replaced by "Romano-British". So the purple (apparently yellow in more recent editions) player, who plays the Romans and the Romano-British score an absolute buttload of points at the start of the game. It's very easy to get other players to gang up on them – just look at their score, they're miles ahead! Except, once the Romans are done, the purple player only gets some bit players for the rest of the game. Other players get to play some moderately powerful nations – none as strong as the Romans, but the Saxons and Normans make a pretty strong showing toward the middle and end of the game and rack up quite a lot of points, and everyone else gets to rack'em up too.

What I'm getting at here is that the score totals in Britannia are deceptive. You need to compare them to some kind of standard in order to know whether 20 points is good or not. Attrition-based D&D does sort of the same thing. You can't just look at how you're doing right now – you need to compare it to some kind of "par," which makes it real hard to figure out how you're really doing.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think it's good that at level 6 normal level 0 dungeon goblins are basically crippled chihuahuas to a party. And I personally suspect that last point is why the +1 for level exists, numbers go up is an instinctive pleasure that many people(Especially likely PF's audience) look for--it is true that if at level 1 you have 10 hp and the average hit deals 1 damage and at level 12 you have 120 hp and the average hit deals 12 damage then it's practically the same but by god does it feel good.

Some people are easy to please, I guess. Here, take +1000 non-points! I never understood the appeal, it seems pointless in video games as well. Grind for bigger numbers, but nothing actually changes. I get the appeal to being able to easily beat the same foes that were difficult earlier, so some scaling has to happen. And I really like "zero to hero" but I feel the characters should grow thematically and conceptually rather than just numbers getting better. Even purely mechanically, it is far more satisfying to be able to do things you previously couldn't, instead of just doing the same things but with bigger numbers.