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

[TheSword]

my solution is to make ‘dungeons’ smaller. 3-4 encounters in a 5 room-ish dungeon format where each combat is relevant and matters. The location is dynamic and it would be counter intuitive for the party to stop to long rest half way through.

Dungeons of Drakkenheim is a good example of this in practice.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The only problem is for people who want challenging, intense individual fights without the attrition. But I'm not sure D&D ever did that well, frankly, and WotC seems to have successfully ignored that entirely for 11 years now.

Yeah... because 5E isn't a wargame and anyone who tries to run 5E in that way is using the wrong tool for the job. And which is why WotC's never went out of their way to try and help those people.

If a company makes umbrellas and then finds out people are trying to use them as parachutes when jumping off of houses... the last thing that umbrella company should be doing is wasting their time trying to help those people not break their legs by adjusting how their umbrellas work, LOL!

 

[JamesLFlowers]

Are we really talking 8 combats a day or 8 combats between long rests? If you look at things through a lens of realism, you are not going to get many long rests in the "field" as you will spend part of the night on guard duty - 3 hrs sleep, 3 hrs guard, 3 hrs sleep isn't that restful. Even if you have first or last duty, sleep when you are on edge can be tough. So a true long rest really needs a 12-18 hours down period, something not likely to happen in a dungeon or other high-risk area.

One thing that lots of combat between long rests does is rebalances the game. A magic user has burned up his spells and needs a long rest, where a fighter's sword is still the same weapon it was before. Magic users are suddenly required to husband spells rather than simply nuke the bad guys and head to the bar.

 

[Xenolith234]

I use my own slightly tweaked variant of the gritty resting rules, but the fundamental issue is that the decision on long rests is something the DM should be controlling, not players. Once you do that, most of the balancing issues disappear.

How did you tweak it?

 

[Parmandur]

Are we really talking 8 combats a day or 8 combats between long rests? If you look at things through a lens of realism, you are not going to get many long rests in the "field" as you will spend part of the night on guard duty - 3 hrs sleep, 3 hrs guard, 3 hrs sleep isn't that restful. Even if you have first or last duty, sleep when you are on edge can be tough. So a true long rest really needs a 12-18 hours down period, something not likely to happen in a dungeon or other high-risk area.

One thing that lots of combat between long rests does is rebalances the game. A magic user has burned up his spells and needs a long rest, where a fighter's sword is still the same weapon it was before. Magic users are suddenly required to husband spells rather than simply nuke the bad guys and head to the bar.

20 rounds of combat a day means approximately 2 minutes of fighting in-universe time.

 

[BenjaminPey]

A topic as old as 5E, if not older. And every time I personnally struggle to see any kind of problem.

I mean, sure, if you're there for a pure tactical-puzzle solving wargame, you'd have to to follow the 6-8 encounters advice and the story might feel tedious or disjointed, but... you're not here for the story, but for the tactical-puzzle solving. So, it's all good. You can play like that, as written.

And if you don't particularly care about this and are here mainly for the story and the occasional thrill of combat and adventure, as many casual players are (and I mean casual here as in "casual players of DnD specifically", they can nevertheless be hardcore rpg players), well, who cares about the 6-8 encounters? One really tough battle once in a while will be enough, and it's trivially easy to imagine one on the DM side, especially in 5E24 whose encounter building rules seem exactly built for that; centered around a single encounter, rather than the adventuring day.

Sure, you'll have some swingy results, but isn't it best for the story, if that's what you're after? Given that 0 HP is almost never a synonym of ultimate death, given that you can always surrendrer or flee or whatever, I fail to see how this kind of outputs, the unexpected openings of surprising story paths, would be a problem — provided once again that the wargaming aspect is secondary, that you're not here, or not here exclusively, for a balanced challenge.

I'll add that is also one of the best ways, IMO, to play engaging battles:
— engaging because they will be quick, around the three rounds mark and the 20-30 minutes of play which are close to the optimum time for casual players,
— engaging because they don't have to be played to the last hit point, hence avoiding the final unintersting slog when the outcome is already known,
—engaging because they won't ever be filler battles. All will have a narrative purpose, a narrative goal and several different interesting outcomes.

 

[BenjaminPey]

(And I forgot to speak about rests. Oh well, a topic for another time. But in short: when you're here for the story, the 5 minute work day disappear completly, as it doesn't make any narrative sense. And when you're playing for the balanced challenge, it becomes one of this dial you'll have to tweak to obtain the appropriate level of challenge you're after.)

 

[Bae'zel]

Lots of food for thought here. But one question that I have:

How does a DM be more strict about the rate of Long Rests without seeming too controlling or antagonistic towards the players?

I can tell you that players are always disappointed at best, frustrated at worst, the few times that I've explained to them that "it's too dangerous to take a long rest here; you can make camp, but you won't get the benefits of a Long Rest right now".

EDIT: I've tried to explain in a "metagame" way to the players during session zero that long rests will not be possible inside of a "dungeon environment". But that's never been well received, or they've found work arounds (spells and magic items that let them long rest anywhere that they damn well please).

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Wow, 20 rounds of combat between long rests, with combats assumed to last about 3 rounds means they were expecting approximately 6 or 7 combats between long rests.

Which is what the 2014 DMG recommended.

Which is what a lot of us have been saying for the past 10 years.

Game designers clearly present how to run the game in the guide on how to run the game->Players ignore the guide on how to run the game->Game doesn't work. The mantra that "there's no wrong way to play d&d" has produced tons of mediocre games.

That's because it was designed as a dungeon crawler. Because it had to cover that aspect of play that people would certainly use. That the vast majority don't play that way apparently never occurred to the designers of the game.

Can't believe a game called dungeons and dragons works best when it involves dungeons

I would prefer the assumptions were that one adventuring day can be completed in 3 hours including all 3 pillars.

I don't understand why so many people seem to expect an adventure should last a single session. There's nothing wrong with an "adventuring day" taking 2-4 sessions.

 

[overgeeked]

How does a DM be more strict about the rate of Long Rests without seeming too controlling or antagonistic towards the players?

You can’t. A decade of most referees getting this wrong has trained a generation of players that they can long rest anywhere, anytime.