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

[Charlaquin]

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.

Oh, I see what you mean, thank you for clarifying.

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.

Sure, in which case they’ll feel like they’ve earned the fights to come being easier because of the work it took to get the rest, which I’m fine with.

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?

Yes, I explain my system for random encounter checks as a part of session zero. Rolls are made at least once per hour in dungeons and at least once per day during overland travel, but I’ll make additional ones when the PCs take especially noisy or otherwise attention-attract actions. The chances of a random encounter occurring get higher the more time has passed since the last check. Specifically, every 10 minutes in the dungeon or every 4 hours overland, I add a d6 to a tension pool. When it gets up to 6 dice, I roll them all, and if any come up a 1, there’s a random encounter, then I remove all the dice from the pool and start over. That’s approximately a 66.5% chance each hour/day if nothing triggers an additional roll. Risky actions that might attract unwanted attention like trying to break down a door instead of taking the time to pick the lock, or traveling through monster-infested areas trigger a roll of however many dice are currently in the pool, which does not reset the pool. So, that can be anywhere from a 16.7% chance of an encounter to a 61.5% chance, with the risk increasing the closer you are to time for a natural check.

During a long rest, it’s unlikely that the PCs will be taking risky actions, unless they for some reason decide not to post a watch or something. So, it’s mostly just that 61.5% chance per hour. Over eight hours, that’s something like a 0.05% chance of no random encounters, so players should expect a non-zero number of random encounters to occur if they try to take a long rest in a dungeon. In fact, odds are they’ll probably get about 5 in that time. However, since it takes an hour of combat to interrupt a long rest in the original 5e rules, and in the revised rules an interruption only takes one round but adds an hour to the required time to rest rather than ruining the rest completely, it’s mostly a matter of, do you have enough resources to survive those 5-ish encounters. Or, more like 9 in the revised rules. And, if you’re already considering resting to avoid having to do more encounters at your current resource level… chances are you aren’t going to want to take that risk. Better to go back to somewhere safer first.

 

[overgeeked]

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.

They're separate issues. How the designers assumed people would play and how people actually played.

The design of 5E is largely a massive rejection of 4E design with several elements from 4E "hidden" in 5E's design. 4E was an encounter-based minis skirmish game. Lots of people loved it, more people hated it. So 5E returned to the notion of the day as the power focus, instead of the encounter. D&D has been a monster-fighting game since at least 2E, if not AD&D. So the focus on combat isn't a mystery. So the designed a monster-fighting game where you had enough resources to last a full adventuring day. Having a 5-minute workday is a problem as old as D&D, which 4E solved, which 5E embraced. So here we are.

If people actually played 5E as an endless string of combats, as it was clearly designed to do, then we wouldn't have had the troubles we've had since launch. See the post from one of the lead designers in the OP and the immediate flood of "I don't want 6-8 encounters per day" or "I don't want ~20 rounds of combat between long rests." But most people playing don't do that. Why? Because the overwhelmingly vast majority of players are new to D&D with 5E thanks to Critical Role and Stranger Things. CR rather famously focuses on story over combat, despite having plenty of combat. So the overwhelmingly vast majority of players play the game as a more story-focused game...which it isn't and certainly wasn't designed to be. They do 1-2 fights per day and...surprise...steamroll those combats.

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.

They designed the game as a daily-recharge dungeon crawler. The design choices, the math balance, etc all point to that. About 90-95% of the game's mechanics are focused on combat. Exploration and social interaction are almost vestigial afterthoughts and there are many, many options in the game that give the players skip buttons for those scenes...either finishing them with a single roll or simply pointing to a feature on their sheet which ends the non-combat scene, all this pushes the game back to combat.

Sure, you can try to focus on non-combat stuff, but the game fights you. See the hundreds of threads on beefing up exploration and social encounters over the last decade.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Sure, you can try to focus on non-combat stuff, but the game fights you. See the hundreds of threads on beefing up exploration and social encounters over the last decade.

I’m going to disagree here a bit. I could see arguing that it doesn’t help you, but I don’t think it fights you. We run social encounters wonderfully with the RAW tools. I realize not everyone can do that, but I can’t see how it fights you.

I have no comment about exploration as that is not a big part of most of our games

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

Big influx of newer players vs the feedback designing 5E.

They did ask how many encounters. I suspect DMs got out voted. Player voted for more encounters not realizing how that would need to be executed. Iirc I voted for 4 encounters.

Most people don't do deep dives into mechanics. We are the oddballs doing that.

 

[Iry]

Rolls are made at least once per hour in dungeons and at least once per day during overland travel, but I’ll make additional ones when the PCs take especially noisy or otherwise attention-attract actions. The chances of a random encounter occurring get higher the more time has passed since the last check. Specifically, every 10 minutes in the dungeon or every 4 hours overland, I add a d6 to a tension pool. When it gets up to 6 dice, I roll them all, and if any come up a 1, there’s a random encounter, then I remove all the dice from the pool and start over. That’s approximately a 66.5% chance each hour/day if nothing triggers an additional roll.

Do you count these deaths towards depletion of enemy forces, or some other form of progress? The overland certainly has no limit to the critters you can encounter, but a dungeon or other area probably has finite enemies, and there's a big risk of players feeling like their time is being wasted if the monsters are being created ex nihilo for the sake of having encounters.

Also, do you use XP or milestone leveling?

 

[overgeeked]

Over eight hours, that’s something like a 0.05% chance of no random encounters, so players should expect a non-zero number of random encounters to occur if they try to take a long rest in a dungeon.

Yeah, you might as well not bother. There's no real choice there as it's not a risk of an encounter, it's a guarantee. It's a quantum ogre with extra steps. Just roll 1d8 for which hour of the rest the encounter happens. After the first encounter, roll your 1d8 again and if they're still resting after than many hours, they get a second encounter. Lather, rinse, repeat.

ETA: I just ran that through anydice. It's the equivalent to asking the players to flip 11 quarters and if any of them come up tails, they have an encounter. Not really what I'd call a fair ask.

 

[tetrasodium]

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.

I don't think that is the catch-all weasel wording you are making it out to be because the return is still full total and complete restoration of combat nova power. All it does is set up an adversarial arms race between how much table time the gm is willing to let the players unhappily waste on poisonous behavior attempting to force calm and relative safety with barricading or whatever.

The missing possible partial rest and trivial bar to kick off a death spiral where more is lost than gained were important and critical components to the negotiation over how low the bar can be for just enough for French high jumpers to clear the bar. Without those elements the gm has only "no because fiat is absolute here", "I'm going to troll you till one of us gives up", and","fine whatever I fold and don't care that you will vaporize§ every encounter"

§as mearls put it

 

[mamba]

Specifically, every 10 minutes in the dungeon or every 4 hours overland, I add a d6 to a tension pool. When it gets up to 6 dice, I roll them all, and if any come up a 1, there’s a random encounter, then I remove all the dice from the pool and start over. That’s approximately a 66.5% chance each hour/day if nothing triggers an additional roll.

So if I understand this correctly, there is a 2/3 chance per hour for an encounter in a dungeon, so 8 hours of uninterrupted rest are essentially never happening?

Given that no fight should take that long, does it take 3 fights or so before the rest is ruined?

It’s mostly a matter of, do you have enough resources to survive those 5-ish encounters

guess not then, suppose they do decide and rest, they are rested afterwards, assuming they survived. Given your approach I doubt many will try to rest though

 

[tetrasodium]

"relative calm and safety" is also in the wrong end of the decision. Unlike in the past where you needed a "good" night's sleep and certain metrics of time o day/uninterrupted/etc study prayer etc it's a bell players can try to ring before the gm gets to adjudicate the completed rest. The players get to invert FAFO find out before they start the rest they shouldn't have rather than needing to complete the rest first

 

[Parmandur]

So if I understand this correctly, there is a 2/3 chance per hour for an encounter in a dungeon, so 8 hours of uninterrupted rest are essentially never happening?

Given that no fight should take that long, does it take 3 fights or so before the rest is ruined?

A single fight ruins the rest, by the rules, even though it will probavly be over in 12-18 seconds.

To be 100% honest, we have never had to even resort to soft sticks like that? I don't think my friends and family have a concept of a five minute work day, or if they do they don't try.