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

[mamba]

If players decide to set up a LTH right outside of an Adult Black Dragon's pirate bedroom after cutting a seathe through his crew...then that Adult Black Drsgon will have some surprises in store for them.

so… one monster out of the MM with 500+ in it?

 

[pemerton]

Rests opening up "hard moves" (however you want to call it) for the DM is basically what we were all saying with our "rests have narrative consequences". Time passing, random encounters, bad guys organising: all these are DM hard moves in PbtA parlance.

I mean I get that, but it takes some work behind the scenes if you want to avoid "quantum ogres"- ie, introducing problems that they wouldn't have encountered in the first place that cannot be accounted for with what's on hand.

So, one of the big issues from my perspective is that the narrative consequence for resting feel fuzzy. One way to deal with this is to have player facing clocks with explicit consequences like this is when reinforcements arrive. That way it becomes a part of the game experience rather than a GM stick that feels like random punishment.

If there is going to be a more systematic approach to consequences for resting - to reduce the "fuzziness" that @Campbell described - then that will be linked directly to "what's on hand", by use of clocks and other aspects of prep. Apocalypse World, with its rules for fronts and the way clocks work in those, provides one illustration.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It measures threat. Encounter building works like this:

If monster and PC levels are equal:

• 4 minions per PC
• 2 troopers per PC
• 1 champion per PC
• 2 PCs per elite
• 4 PCs per solo

Monsters also have XP values so you can mix and match using the DMG encounter rules.

Wait!? Haven't we seen this concept before? <Flips through 4e DMG1>. Hmmmmm!

Well, you won't find me complaining, but I will point out that the weak forms of resource management and whatnot will mean you won't get the clean implementation 4e gave.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Rests opening up "hard moves" (however you want to call it) for the DM is basically what we were all saying with our "rests have narrative consequences". Time passing, random encounters, bad guys organising: all these are DM hard moves in PbtA parlance.

Bad Forgist! Bad!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If there is going to be a more systematic approach to consequences for resting - to reduce the "fuzziness" that @Campbell described - then that will be linked directly to "what's on hand", by use of clocks and other aspects of prep. Apocalypse World, with its rules for fronts and the way clocks work in those, provides one illustration.

I know, we could invent this thing... lets call it a 'skill challenge' where you make choices and get successes or failures depending on what choices you make! (usually with dice providing a fortune element, but "rest and accrue a failure, but get your stuff back" seems like a perfectly fine trade off to offer).

 

[AnotherGuy]

Id say that the biggest problem is that the dmg section quoted by @Maxperson really only applies to tier1 PCs and breaks down as players move through tier2 into tier 3 levels.
Take the monk & warlock as the prime examples designed to enable 5mwd loops.

I've been running high level characters for a while (currently 16th level), but I do not have any monks or warlocks.
In fact I've banned monks outright, but that was a thematic preference and because the 1-time I did allow them to the min-maxer of my group, he just created the most annoying character that I just said once and for all this class will never see the light of day for players.

The warlock is an even bigger problem getting both spell slot level scaling equal to regular casters and tend to finish a long rest with slot numbers equaling or exceeding what regular casters have of that slot level as if they are pegged to the slot count numbers of ad&d2e/3.5 casters. In tier1 & early tier2 it's not a huge deal if they squeeze in an extra rest but by the time they start the day with 2-3 4th or 5th level slots and regain them each rest it very quickly becomes obvious how lacking GM tools are when players are still expecting the super generous rest availability of the early levels when PCs were killing rats in the basement equivalent quests.

I understand. Our table has HD spend which means the PCs can (and do) push and you can imagine at their level, with their amount of HD they are a powerhouse, which I do not mind for a number of reasons.

• I'm happy for their characters to shine;
• I enjoy playing the attrition game;
• Monsters are appropriately suped up and I can go hard on the PCs;
• Long Rest is 24 hours in a safe and comfortable space but more importantly the campaign fiction has a built in time constraint right now which demands players maintain a necessary pace for the storyline;
• Sanity, Lingering Injuries, Madness, Exhaustion, Traits, Touch Attacks as well as other mechanics work well to provide challenges.

House rules to fix the absolute failure of design and outright disdain wotc has shown towards the idea of supporting GMs on the matter because players with that video game mentality who believe they are entitled to generous short rests will simply view any meaningful infringement on rest availability through house rules as evidence of stereotypical evil/killer gm behavior
@Maxperson mechanics that support the GM in limiting excess and the advice is pointless because of the reasons described above. The rest rules themselves provide extreme support in resisting a gm who is unreasonably restrictive but when it comes to the idea of players with short rest classes having an unreasonable expectation class design wotc & the ruleset itself does not even acknowledge it as possible for the players to have an expectation of excess.

I can see why this is an issue.
I find this more to be a table issue than a rules issue (despite the design flaw in Rests).

There is a reason why in the 2014 DMG part 3 is called Master of the Rules.
There is a good reason why a DM gets a whole book to himself.
If you (as a player) are not willing to work with the DM for an issue that may arise then I'd boot you from the table.
If I as DM am prepared to work with the player for their character's specialness, they should meet me halfway then when it comes to rules and not act like spoilt children. And this is not to say I'm some sort of tyrant, we often make decisions as a table when something comes up - cause I'm dealing with peers and many heads are better than one when you're fixing something.
I see this very black-and-white especially because of the way you are describing it.

I count myself extremely fortunate I have amazing players with a similar outlook on the game.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I know, we could invent this thing... lets call it a 'skill challenge' where you make choices and get successes or failures depending on what choices you make! (usually with dice providing a fortune element, but "rest and accrue a failure, but get your stuff back" seems like a perfectly fine trade off to offer).

So, this actually happened in our last session.

I offered the PC (through the fiction, via an NPC) the opportunity to Short Rest since they had been up the whole night through to the following morning. Had they taken it the opportunity, it would have led to their 3rd failure in the Skill Challenge, thus failing it completely.
Instead, they got an auto success (3/2) for remaining vigilant. Player was unaware of this auto success.
They opted to stay awake and see the next person who was brought in for questioning, which after a further 2 successes noticed something was off about the guard escorting the witness (5/2).
With some assistance they orchestrated an easy enough distraction (6/2) and were able to intercept an assassination attempt and through combat stop it.

I'm still surprised the player denied the Short Rest to refresh their abilities, but it worked out great in the fiction.

 

[Parmandur]

so… one monster out of the MM with 500+ in it?

Nope, he would bring friends...lots of them, likely, as well as disrupting tge rest.

 

[Parmandur]

If there is going to be a more systematic approach to consequences for resting - to reduce the "fuzziness" that @Campbell described - then that will be linked directly to "what's on hand", by use of clocks and other aspects of prep. Apocalypse World, with its rules for fronts and the way clocks work in those, provides one illustration.

I don't think the system really needs it...most people presented with the standard scenario with a nominal narrative justification will simply take the bait, IMO.

 

[Maxperson]

The game also says that an 8 INT character is just 5% more likely to fail at an INT ability check than the average of 10-11. I think you are adding more narrative weight to the ability scores than is intended.

Not really. You can look at the animal section of the MM and see what intelligence means when compared to real life versions.

A 6 isn't just 10% lower than average. That's just a necessary mechanical evil to keep a bad stat roll or an 8 from an array from being debilitating.