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

[overgeeked]

Sounds like you are reading the list as follows:
"Interrupted by a period of strenuous activity - at least 1 hour of

• walking
• fighting
• casting spells
• or similar adventuring activity"

I read it as:
"Interrupted by a period of strenuous activity -

• at least 1 hour of walking
• fighting
• casting spells
• or similar adventuring activity"

Note the change in emphasis - I'm emphasizing "strenuous activity" while you are emphasizing "1 hour" - I do happen to think the punctuation (with the dash indicating the beginning of the list, with commas breaking off individual items) favors my reading of the text. I also think common sense favors my version since when is the last time you saw a combat (fighting) go at least 60 rounds?

Yeah. It’s always been a ridiculous read to say it takes 1 hour of combat to interrupt a long rest. Yet another thing the designers got wildly wrong. See the OP again.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I never roll for random encounter, I always choose to have one prepared in advance because I use VTT and I need time to make tokens before any combat.

Couldn't you create a random encounter table and make tokens for every creature on it?

 

[DinoInDisguise]

I think if you want to define “quantum ogre” in such a way that random encounter rolls for the definition, it’s no longer a useful term.

I think I misread or was just not writing clearly. Ignore this post.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Does anyone here miss the five minute adventuring day???

 

[Zardnaar]

Does anyone here miss the five minute adventuring day???

Most modern D&D is technically less than 5MWD with 6 second rounds.

 

[Scribe]

I must be losing it. I actually don't even know where to begin.

So are we really at the point where drawing little boxes around our prep is some magic bullet? Some glossy silver bullet that protects all agency? Are we really saying that calling out tables as violating agency somehow makes the term “useless”?

Why not just call it what it is? Moving prep in front of players. It doesn’t matter what we move. Quantum ogre. Quantum toothbrush. Quantum table. It got moved. It stripped meaning from the players’ choice. What’s so hard about calling it what it is?

Maybe now’s when the knights of good ride down on their polka-dotted horses to teach me a lesson. To show me the light. To explain how the dice cannot trample on agency. How naive of me to think otherwise. I should have learned by now that if something happens by chance, my choice still mattered.

Maybe those knights on their horses of orange and green will enlighten me. Maybe they’ll explain to my simple little brain why the players at that fork in the road, whose choices all lead to the same table, still have meaningful agency. Maybe they can fill my stupid little noodle with wisdom unknown to mortals. Maybe they can explain how that’s any different from an ogre.

Maybe those knights, on their great winged steeds of many dots, can educate the masses. Maybe they can teach us why tables being included makes the term “useless,” but tables not being included doesn’t. Maybe they can show us how these magic contraptions we call tables are above reproach. How rolling dice on a table I made, filled with encounters I chose, is somehow different from me just picking an encounter.

Maybe these knights in their armor, all shiny and bright, can tell us mortals why we don’t just play Yahtzee. Because if every choice comes down to a table, a dice roll, a random chance, then my choice never mattered. All that mattered was the dice and the DM’s prep.

To me, it all smells like ogre.

 

[Charlaquin]

I must be losing it. I actually don't even know where to begin.

So are we really at the point where drawing little boxes around our prep is some magic bullet? Some glossy silver bullet that protects all agency? Are we really saying that calling out tables as violating agency somehow makes the term “useless”?

Why not just call it what it is? Moving prep in front of players. It doesn’t matter what we move. Quantum ogre. Quantum toothbrush. Quantum table. It got moved. It stripped meaning from the players’ choice. What’s so hard about calling it what it is?

Maybe now’s when the knights of good ride down on their polka-dotted horses to teach me a lesson. To show me the light. To explain how the dice cannot trample on agency. How naive of me to think otherwise. I should have learned by now that if something happens by chance, my choice still mattered.

Maybe those knights on their horses of orange and green will enlighten me. Maybe they’ll explain to my simple little brain why the players at that fork in the road, whose choices all lead to the same table, still have meaningful agency. Maybe they can fill my stupid little noodle with wisdom unknown to mortals. Maybe they can explain how that’s any different from an ogre.

Maybe those knights, on their great winged steeds of many dots, can educate the masses. Maybe they can teach us why tables being included makes the term “useless,” but tables not being included doesn’t. Maybe they can show us how these magic contraptions we call tables are above reproach. How rolling dice on a table I made, filled with encounters I chose, is somehow different from me just picking an encounter.

Maybe these knights in their armor, all shiny and bright, can tell us mortals why we don’t just play Yahtzee. Because if every choice comes down to a table, a dice roll, a random chance, then my choice never mattered. All that mattered was the dice and the DM’s prep.

To me, it all smells like ogre.

 

[jayoungr]

I fugred out my own explanation why bosses die too easily.

Because there is no scenario in which focusing fire on the boss is not the optimal strategy.

You're not wrong. Best way around this I can think of is to make the boss inaccessible or impossible to damage until some other threat(s) has been dealt with, effectively chaining two fights together. Bonus points if the boss can damage the party while they do this.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

View attachment 419234

Maybe I totally misread the conversation. In which case, I apologize. Or maybe my late night crazy made my post make no sense. Hm. Carry on

 

[M_Natas]

You're not wrong. Best way around this I can think of is to make the boss inaccessible or impossible to damage until some other threat(s) has been dealt with, effectively chaining two fights together. Bonus points if the boss can damage the party while they do this.

Taking out the boss is a valid strategy.
Intelligent Boss monsters also know this and prepare for it.

So,

• they are in another room while their Minions fight the Party.
• The 5 enslaved wizards all cast warding bond on the BBEG giving him +5 to AC and Saving Throws and resistance to everything.
• The BBEG is protected by a force field that is powered by Crystals protected by Quantum Orges, that need to be destroyed first.
• Use a Goblin Boss with redirect attack.

Or just double the HP of the Boss and give him higher AC.