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

[Zardnaar]

XYZ encounters per day was a bad idea in 3E as well. Idea hung around for to long.

 

[GrimCo]

XYZ encounters per day was a bad idea in 3E as well. Idea hung around for to long.

Only difference is, in 3e, leveling by xp was kind of still norm. In 5e, people switched to milestones for the most part. When you level by XP you are more incentivised to fight, to squeeze extra encounter or two in a day so you can hit those last few XP's you are short of level up (cause leveling characters mid game is waste of time). It punished you for creatively resolving problems without use of violence. Milestones puts story first. If you can hit your story objectives without fights, great, you still get level up reward.

Example: You had rolevplay heavy session resolving courtly intrigue to gain favor of local noble
3e - 0 fights=0 xp, depending on the mood, DM might give you some xp for "good role play". You are step closer to achieving story goals, but not any closer to gaining that sweet level.
5e - 0 fights. But you moved story forward in impactfull way. You are step closer to achieving your goal in story, but also step closer to gaining that sweet new level.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would say that “easy mode” was the secret sauce that made 5e so attractive to casual gamers. They wouldn’t have taken up D&D if they were dying on a regular basis.

Sure, hardcore gamers are going to grumble about it, but commercially they don’t really matter (and if they are really as hardcore as they think they are they should be capable of fixing it themselves).

Or playing a different game that doesn't assume they don't know what they're doing. Would have been nice if the books said any of this though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Only difference is, in 3e, leveling by xp was kind of still norm. In 5e, people switched to milestones for the most part. When you level by XP you are more incentivised to fight, to squeeze extra encounter or two in a day so you can hit those last few XP's you are short of level up (cause leveling characters mid game is waste of time). It punished you for creatively resolving problems without use of violence.

I don't know if that's true. You still get xp for overcoming encounters even if you don't kill the monsters.

 

[Parmandur]

Serendipity. The game proved easier than the designers originally intended, and that was popular, so everyone kept quiet about it.

And a tighter design might disrupt that whole spectrum.

 

[BenjaminPey]

Or playing a different game that doesn't assume they don't know what they're doing. Would have been nice if the books said any of this though.

The book is super clear about its expectations, though, as repeated as nauseam in this very thread: the average group can handle 6-8 medium to hard encounters a day. The way to go from there to a statisfying 1-3 encounters model is a bit convoluted, but still there: via the daily XP budget. It says as much.

They tried to highlight that method in Xanathar's a first time, but it wasn't that intuitive still.

The new encounter difficulty model in 5e24 is as good as any to follow in order to obtain a good game built around 1-3 interesting encounters a day.

Said "easy mode" — ie playing a 1-3 encounters a day without retroengineering the daily XP budget to come up with a more accurate deadly threshold — wasn't thought as a feature, it's rather a coincidence born from the cross-over between their 6-8 encounters model and a new generation of players more aligned with the 1-3 model.

 

[Zardnaar]

Only difference is, in 3e, leveling by xp was kind of still norm. In 5e, people switched to milestones for the most part. When you level by XP you are more incentivised to fight, to squeeze extra encounter or two in a day so you can hit those last few XP's you are short of level up (cause leveling characters mid game is waste of time). It punished you for creatively resolving problems without use of violence. Milestones puts story first. If you can hit your story objectives without fights, great, you still get level up reward.

Example: You had rolevplay heavy session resolving courtly intrigue to gain favor of local noble
3e - 0 fights=0 xp, depending on the mood, DM might give you some xp for "good role play". You are step closer to achieving story goals, but not any closer to gaining that sweet level.
5e - 0 fights. But you moved story forward in impactfull way. You are step closer to achieving your goal in story, but also step closer to gaining that sweet new level.

Yup xp matters as well.

When I went back and played 2E abd C&C I started giving out large cp rewards for non combat. Its right there in the rules to do that but vague.

Broadly speaking xp for gold, combat, roleplaying, quest reward, magic items and skill use/ability checks.

Also handed it out as they did the action.

Leveled up slower than 5E bit faster than back in the day. Probably close to 3E leveling rates.

Thief picks lock 100-300 xp. Roleplay as scene 100-300 xp each. Explore a hex 300 xp etc.

Milestones skip that. Convenience vs xp tracking pros and cons.

Once a PC gets close to leveling up they start actively looking for xp hit.

 

[Staffan]

Only difference is, in 3e, leveling by xp was kind of still norm. In 5e, people switched to milestones for the most part. When you level by XP you are more incentivised to fight, to squeeze extra encounter or two in a day so you can hit those last few XP's you are short of level up (cause leveling characters mid game is waste of time). It punished you for creatively resolving problems without use of violence. Milestones puts story first. If you can hit your story objectives without fights, great, you still get level up reward.

Example: You had rolevplay heavy session resolving courtly intrigue to gain favor of local noble
3e - 0 fights=0 xp, depending on the mood, DM might give you some xp for "good role play". You are step closer to achieving story goals, but not any closer to gaining that sweet level.
5e - 0 fights. But you moved story forward in impactfull way. You are step closer to achieving your goal in story, but also step closer to gaining that sweet new level.

That is not true. The 3.5e DMG had about two pages about both ad hoc XP rewards and story-based awards, both for non-combat encounters and for achieving mission goals, and also discussed the need to adjust treasure rewards accordingly to make sure a big XP boost doesn't come without the appropriate amount of treasure, leaving you underequipped when you level up.

Heck, even 2e went into some detail on how to award story-based XP. I think it had a note about how available story XP generally shouldn't be more than available monster XP. I'm not really sure how this compared to 1e – I believe the intent for story XP was to replace 1e-style XP for gp (which was around in 2e as an optional rule, with a great big signpost saying "don't use this"). On one hand, from what I understand of 1e gold-based XP was generally intended to be much larger than monster-based XP, with some talk about how that rewards getting the treasure without getting into a fight with its guardians. On the other hand, monster XP is generally higher in 2e because special abilities count as extra HD rather than being a flat bonus. So for example, the 1e bulette is worth 2300 XP + 12 XP per hp, for an average of ~2780 XP. In 2e, they clock in at 4000 XP, almost twice that. So 2e awarded more XP for monsters than 1e did, but recommended a cap of non-combat XP equal to the potential value. I don't know if 1e had a similar recommendation, but I did find a note in Basic D&D that treasure was supposed to be "3/4 or more" of total XP.

On the whole, I think it's fairly likely that neither Gary Gygax, Frank Mentzer, or Zeb Cook spent a whole lot of time crunching the numbers on how much XP should be coming from where and making sure the game stats reflected that, but rather that they had a more vibe-based approach. This in comparison to 3e which specifically pulls the curtain back and talks about how the game is built around 13 1/3 equal-level encounters per level (which in turn is based on playing weekly and having 3-4 encounters per session, which will lead to 1 level/real-world month).

 

[Stalker0]

Did WotC make a design mistake with 5e's encounter balance? Yes. Is it their fault if people ignore the stated design and run the game incorrectly? No. WotC made the mistake of designing in the balance in a way that a lot of people don't like, but people are responsible for their own choices. That makes their CHOICE to run the game contrary to the design intent their fault, not WotC's.

If a sizable portion of your player base is not playing the game to your settings....than yes that is a design flaw.

For example, in boardgame design one of the most important elements is blind playtesting. Where you watch the players play with 0 interaction (and sometimes you don't even want that, and maybe take reports from them when there was no recording, just to ensure they are playing 100% the way they would if you weren't there).

If you find that players are consistently ignore rules or playing in a way you did not expect....you HAVE to take that into account. Either you need to accept that, and decide the game will work that way....or you have to change rules, guides, whatever to curb that behavior. While of course there will always be a few outliers, again if your seeing a CONSISTENT deviation from your design expectations....if you don't account for that you are setting up your project for failure.

 

[Maxperson]

If a sizable portion of your player base is not playing the game to your settings....than yes that is a design flaw.

That's what it means when I say they made a mistake, yes. What is not their fault, is people CHOOSING not to follow the design. WotC is not responsible for your(general you) choices.

There's fault on both sides of this.

For example, in boardgame design one of the most important elements is blind playtesting. Where you watch the players play with 0 interaction (and sometimes you don't even want that, and maybe take reports from them when there was no recording, just to ensure they are playing 100% the way they would if you weren't there).

If you find that players are consistently ignore rules or playing in a way you did not expect....you HAVE to take that into account. Either you need to accept that, and decide the game will work that way....or you have to change rules, guides, whatever to curb that behavior. While of course there will always be a few outliers, again if your seeing a CONSISTENT deviation from your design expectations....if you don't account for that you are setting up your project for failure.

We don't know if the playtesters consistently ignored the rules or not on this.