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

[GrimCo]

When you look at it like a feature, not a bug, life becomes easier. Sure, sometimes my players steamroll boss in 1-2 rounds. Good for them, if they enjoyed it, i see it as a success. If they want to go nova every encounter and have 5 minute work day, sure, i let them have it (unless story dictates otherwise). My imperative is having fun. We play 5e cause it allows for fun, fast combats, even if fast part comes at the expense of challenge. For more challenging in depth combat, with meaningful tactical decisions, i wouldn't use 5e at all ( 4e and PF2 do that way better since they are designed for that kind of combat).

 

[Charlaquin]

Random encounters work as good time pressure tools in OSR games since any encounter is likely to cause one or more PC deaths. In more modern play culture it’s generally considered bad form for a PC to die to a random encounter. Notably, the 2014 DMG specifically tells the DM to avoid doing this on page 87.

I build most random encounters to Easy difficulty. They’re still an effective deterrent for players wasting time in the dungeon because they tax resources, and because as previously noted, 5e has a way of making players feel like their characters are in more danger than they really are.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I've given up on 5E for a lot of the above reasons. My last 5E game used the poorly-named "Gritty Rest Variant" that should have been called the "Cinematic" or "Epic Rest Variant" of 8 hour short rests and 1 week long rests. I can't recommend it enough for the majority of D&D campaigns.

8 hours short rests make sense given it's your overnight sleep but do long rests honestly need to be a whole week to serve their function in the recovery schedule? i feel like you could make them 48 hours and that'd serve as enough as a narrative speedbump to function just as well as weeklong rests.

 

[tetrasodium]

Eh. Tracking 20 encounters on top of everything else isn’t one more thing I want to do as a dm.

Some people just want less of the meta. Or tolerate different meta.

It’s not really that simple.

Rounds not encounters 6-8 encounters with most encounters averaging around 3 rounds give or take. Coincidentally it also aligns well with a big standard 3-5 room dungeon.

 

[Seramus]

8 hours short rests make sense given it's your overnight sleep but do long rests honestly need to be a whole week to serve their function in the recovery schedule? i feel like you could make them 48 hours and that'd serve as enough as a narrative speedbump to function just as well as weeklong rests.

Just making Long Rests a "Place of Calm and Safety" goes a long way.

I definitely fall into the crowd of people who tends towards a few narrative fights per day. I wasn't about to change my style to force 6-8 encounters, so I looked at resting options instead.

A week from the gritty realism variant rule was too long - the bbeg was going to complete his ritual, and whole armies could force march!

So making long rests only available in calm and peaceful places was my solution. It meant I could maintain some narrative tension if the story required rushing, or do hex crawls, etc.

There's also merit in the 13th Age system, where long rests just happen after a set number of combats. Just getting a "second wind" essentially. That works well too, but doesn't always line up with the narrative.

Your suggestion of 48 hours should work fine. It's short enough to maintain some narrative tension, still enables hex crawls, etc.

 

[tetrasodium]

Just making Long Rests a "Place of Calm and Safety" goes a long way.

I definitely fall into the crowd of people who tends towards a few narrative fights per day. I wasn't about to change my style to force 6-8 encounters, so I looked at resting options instead.

A week from the gritty realism variant rule was too long - the bbeg was going to complete his ritual, and whole armies could force march!

So making long rests only available in calm and peaceful places was my solution. It meant I could maintain some narrative tension if the story required rushing, or do hex crawls, etc.

There's also merit in the 13th Age system, where long rests just happen after a set number of combats. Just getting a "second wind" essentially. That works well too, but doesn't always line up with the narrative.

Your suggestion of 48 hours should work fine. It's short enough to maintain some narrative tension, still enables hex crawls, etc.

Imo don't think that rest duration is as much of the problem's root cause as the fact that they are almost guaranteed successful barring overt fiat and because they effectively§ have a full total recovery or nothing recovering there is no death spiral risk with calling the GM's bluff to go all the way to tpk if they say resting is a bad idea because $reasons. 5e was the first and only edition I've seen where the players almost never seriously try to negotiate enough of a rest if they x&y because p&q or whatever.... It's just straight combat ends ->let's take a (usually) short rest before even caring to check the bodies for treasure or whatever with an outraged we do it anyways as almost the norm

§yes short rests can be a partial recovery but short rest classes are far too recovered from a short rest to be anything other than effective total recovery with yoyo death save empowered wackamole absent draw steel style victory scaling

 

[Seramus]

Imo don't think that rest duration is as much of the problem's root cause as the fact that they are almost guaranteed successful barring overt fiat

Resting in a "Place of Calm and Safety" probably qualifies as overt fiat, but I try to be somewhat liberal with it. Yes, the inn back at town counts. So might the hermit's hut in the deep of the forest you discover while hexcrawling. That ruined shrine you find in the second level of the dungeon? Restore it and the room is blessed for a single night.

I always loved places of peace ever since Quest for Glory, where you find Erana's Peace. Just this tranquil tree and grave site in the middle of the forest.

 

[overgeeked]

I’m not sure what you mean.

It’s only a real choice if there’s a chance they can successfully rest. Saying they have a chance but the chance really being zero means it’s not really a choice. It’s a quantum ogre.

The risk will be enough to prevent the players from trying to long rest in a dungeon most of the time.

Alternately, the possible reward is so overwhelmingly great, i.e. a bog standard long rest, that they’ll simply stop and fortify until they can successfully complete the rest. Hold out for an 8-hour rest and all your damage is healed, all your conditions go away, all your powers come back.

They might still try it if they’re desperate, but in that case the odds of going 8 hours without a random encounter will prevent them from finishing a long rest most of the time. On the rare occasion that they both take the risk and get lucky enough to finish the long rest, sure, they’ll have an easier time with the rest of the dungeon than expected. That’s fine. Some encounters being very easy for the players can be a good thing, especially when they feel like they earned that easy win through their good decision-making.

It all depends on what their chances are and if they know them.

What are the chances of your random encounters in a dungeon and how often do you roll? Do the players know these numbers?

 

[Rainbow Scissors]

I understand that the assumptions do not align with how people are playing the game. Okay, understood.

What I do not understand is how those initial assumptions became the underlying assumptions of the game, upon which to design the game, because the resulting design noticeably does not align with those assumptions.

I am not saying that the assumptions are or were bad. I am also not saying that resulting game was or is bad.
I am saying that I do not understand how there is any coherent relationship between making those assumptions and then making design choices that do not appear to reflect those assumptions.

 

[Seramus]

It’s only a real choice if there’s a chance they can successfully rest. Saying they have a chance but the chance really being zero means it’s not really a choice. It’s a quantum ogre.

It's essentially asking if you randomly lose 10-15 minutes of valuable gameplay time. Then it's on the DM to make that 10-15 minutes of random encounter as entertaining as possible.

And DMs often succeed in doing so! Not always though.