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

[Paul Farquhar]

It is possible that with all of the testing WOTC did in the early days of 5e, they just did not know people played 1-2 encounters per day instead of 6-8.

I think people are largely unaware of how many encounters they have, and how many rounds of combat. And it clearly is going to vary depending on what kind of adventure (dungeon, wilderness, urban, political, horror, etc) is being played. Which in turn depends on what sort of adventures the group likes, etc.

But the idea that you can "balance" a game around any particular number of encounters per day was always wrong-headed. The difficulty of an encounter depends on the tactical skill of the players (and the DM) far more than it does stat blocks. If that wasn't the case you might as well be playing Snakes and Ladders, where only the dice rolls determine the outcome.

 

[GrimCo]

And it clearly is going to vary depending on what kind of adventure (dungeon, wilderness, urban, political, horror, etc) is being played. Which in turn depends on what sort of adventures the group likes, etc.

And that is design problem of a game that tries to do all. It's mediocre at best in many things. While people blasted 4e, it had clear game play style in mind and was designed for that specific style and it did it pretty good. 5e was designed to cover as many styles as possible, but to accommodate it, they had to do many compromises.

 

[tetrasodium]

Need to be? No. I've run a variant of one-week long rests and the major benefit is for narrative purposes. It's often irrelevant as the PCs might take 3-7 days to travel from point A to point B and then spend a few days in town. Maybe more. Some of the PCs in my current party (we're playing Level Up) have abilities that only really function in towns or cities so being forced to spend time there is not really seen as a negative.

That was 100% my experience as well. In past editions when natural recovery took days to recover from low and the party accelerated hit by saying "each day $healer casts their cure spells as needed to or whatever " it wasnt the time down that made resting up in dangerous areas dicey. That knife's edge came from the fact that it was trivial for any encounter to erase or backslide progress and the party couldn't risk blowing all of their cure spells on healing when those casters are still needed for any encounters. Even back then when carry capacity was much tighter and ration tracking very much expected it was rarely "what will we eat if we keep going" type questions that pushed the party back to town to rest up over days weeks or "however long it takes for natural+cure spells to recover everyone"

I think that there are a lot of people unaware of why it worked and just assume that making it take longer than 8hr is all that is needed to bring back the results of those risky resting in those editions unless the gm is a point of failt.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And that is design problem of a game that tries to do all. It's mediocre at best in many things. While people blasted 4e, it had clear game play style in mind and was designed for that specific style and it did it pretty good. 5e was designed to cover as many styles as possible, but to accommodate it, they had to do many compromises.

It's a problem that the game has to handle, because it's D&D's USP. By specialising, you have a far smaller market, and WotC is too big a company with too many overheads to be a niche company.

 

[MichaelSomething]

And that is design problem of a game that tries to do all. It's mediocre at best in many things. While people blasted 4e, it had clear game play style in mind and was designed for that specific style and it did it pretty good. 5e was designed to cover as many styles as possible, but to accommodate it, they had to do many compromises.

So anyone here want to come to the "D&D should oppress the playstyle of others so that more focus can be spent on my playstyle" club??? I'm still taking applications.

 

[GrimCo]

It's a problem that the game has to handle, because it's D&D's USP. By specialising, you have a far smaller market, and WotC is too big a company with too many overheads to be a niche company.

Remember back in the days of D&D Next, there was big talk about modularity? Well, with good rules modularity, you can go wide. But, with 5.5 they even went further away from modularity and went more into streamlining and unification.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Remember back in the days of D&D Next,

Nope, I wasn't there, having given up on D&D years earlier.

there was big talk about modularity? Well, with good rules modularity, you can go wide. But, with 5.5 they even went further away from modularity and went more into streamlining and unification.

The current rules seem to be full of creative vaguery to me. Very much in the spirit of 1st edition.

 

[Zardnaar]

Remember back in the days of D&D Next, there was big talk about modularity? Well, with good rules modularity, you can go wide. But, with 5.5 they even went further away from modularity and went more into streamlining and unification.

The modularitybis there. Hard core forum users didnt like it.

They heard what they wanted to hear.

5.5 not so much.

 

[GobHag]

But the idea that you can "balance" a game around any particular number of encounters per day was always wrong-headed. The difficulty of an encounter depends on the tactical skill of the players (and the DM) far more than it does stat blocks. If that wasn't the case you might as well be playing Snakes and Ladders, where only the dice rolls determine the outcome.

This is like saying that you can't ever know the ETA of going from Town A to Town B because some people run slower or faster, or that some use cars or bikes, not to mention traffic. Just make an assumption on what the encounter should be like, and if the assumption is too inaccurate then change the assumption and redo the balance.

Like your argument could just as well say that two goblins in a barren field is a good challenge for a level 12 party because they might be able to crit with every attack while the players miss each time they roll. That's the issue here, WotC made a wrong assumption on what their balance should be based on and just let it be.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

some use cars or bikes

This is the key phrase. You cannot “average out” cars and bicycles and expect to get an outcome that is useful to either motorists or cyclists, never mind pedestrians.