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

[DEFCON 1]

I prefer the RP part too personally. But technically the G is just as important.

Eh... I dunno... the G is only 1/3rd of 'RPG'. So it's probably only 33% as important.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There is also a baby and a bathwater scenario here. Its important to drill in on what people didn't like about the 4e solution.

1) Is it that they didn't like 4e in general, and so the fixes here (which were "good") were tossed out?
2) Is it that people like the mechanics and flavor of encounter and daily abilities? (this is often one that gets noted about fighters, why does a fighter have a "daily")
3) Is it because the solution didn't actually work? (people still feel they have to nova and rest after each encounter)

etc etc.

True. And I think there certainly were some viable babies in that 4e bathwater.

I think the core of what was done is the correct approach. Again, the game should be encounter based, not attrition based on a day of time. Now maybe 4e got some things with that model right and so things wrong, but that shift in the focus is what is important and should be reiterated on. 5e tossed that out the window to its determint imo.

However, I really do not think making everything encounter based is good direction. It has a lot of issues both from gameplay and verisimilitude perspective. Like I said before, without attrition only cost fights can have is death, and once you can resurrect characters, a TPK. And if you don't want super lethal game where characters die every sessions, most fights become meaningless. You roll dice use abilities that do not cost longer lasting resources and then you win. So what was the point? It also has the weirdness keying things to "an encounter" that is really not qualifiable in-universe, and that cause issues with verisimilitude.

 

[nevin]

Wow, 20 rounds of combat between long rests, with combats assumed to last about 3 rounds means they were expecting approximately 6 or 7 combats between long rests.

Which is what the 2014 DMG recommended.

Which is what a lot of us have been saying for the past 10 years.

Yep. Which to me just logically goes back to daily resets for abilities instead of long and short rests. You could even have weekly abilities at mid to hig level.
Or (cough). Less abilities and let DM control special powers by handing out magic items. (Cough)...

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yep. Which to me just logically goes back to daily resets for abilities instead of long and short rests. You could even have weekly abilities at mid to hig level.
Or (cough).

So daily and weekly abilities. Just like with 5e gritty rests...

 

[zakael19]

Ehh, you might think so, but the people that hated 4e are a much smaller portion of 5e’s audience than people who never even played 5e. It therefore doesn’t really hold up to assume that those new players specifically appreciate the design choices that were made in reaction to 4e’s reception. Indeed, many of the things 5e players say they wish 5e did differently, are things 4e did, and appreciate in the design of 5e-adjacent systems like Draw Steel are directly inspired by 4e design.

Not to mention a lot of the adjustments to this very topic in 5.24 (along with other design choices) also bring things back towards the 4e style of encounter design.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not to mention a lot of the adjustments to this very topic in 5.24 (along with other design choices) also bring things back towards the 4e style of encounter design.

Yep, cause 4e was designed excellently. Just presented in a way that turned a lot of players off.

 

[Parmandur]

If they had instead kept it balanced the way 1e to 3e were

Minor point of order:

3E wasn't balanced the way 1E and 2E were, that's where the issue started.

 

[Eric V]

The result is an absolute boatload of money. Wide audience = lots of purchases.

Even if they create gameplay problems in the process, D&D fans who actually care enough about those problems to notice them are more likely to buy product and complain than abandon the brand and play something else.

D&D makes a ton of money. There is no problem to be fixed.

 

[Stalker0]

However, I really do not think making everything encounter based is good direction. It has a lot of issues both from gameplay and verisimilitude perspective. Like I said before, without attrition only cost fights can have is death, and once you can resurrect characters, a TPK. And if you don't want super lethal game where characters die every sessions, most fights become meaningless. You roll dice use abilities that do not cost longer lasting resources and then you win. So what was the point? It also has the weirdness keying things to "an encounter" that is really not qualifiable in-universe, and that cause issues with verisimilitude.

I will quote myself from earlier in this thread.


"In a nutshell, the dnd encounter model is backwards.


The model should assume that a party is at 100% juice for every encounter. And the system should be designed so that abilities mostly reset per encounter. 4e did it right in that regard.

And then....attrition is a function of the encounter itself. Take the mummy for example. You get cursed, and now you can't heal. Oh no...suddenly hp attrition goes from a non-factor into a major deal. Aka attrition should be the spice a DM can throw in, they can set an encounter with the idea "ok today I want my players sweating about hp over the day", and they can add in encounter elements that create those attrition effects. But the core game should assume minimal attrition, because that is the only way to balance the game for 1 fight a day or 10 fights a day. Make that the core....and give the DM the tools to add in attrition when they want that to be a factor in their encounters."

So you can have attrition, it just becomes a lever that the DM consciously chooses to pull, rather than the expectation they have to use all the time. Also the nature of an encounter is fairly easy to define. You could leave it nebulous if you wanted to, but a lot of people the notion of a "5 minute rest". Ok whatever happens right now is the encounter. Once I get a chance to take a 5 minute breather, the encounter is over. Its as simple as that.

 

[CreamCloud0]

True. And I think there certainly were some viable babies in that 4e bathwater.



However, I really do not think making everything encounter based is good direction. It has a lot of issues both from gameplay and verisimilitude perspective. Like I said before, without attrition only cost fights can have is death, and once you can resurrect characters, a TPK. And if you don't want super lethal game where characters die every sessions, most fights become meaningless. You roll dice use abilities that do not cost longer lasting resources and then you win. So what was the point? It also has the weirdness keying things to "an encounter" that is really not qualifiable in-universe, and that cause issues with verisimilitude.

didn't (most methods of) healing in 4e burn your healing surges to function? so while most encounters are self contained ultimately they ARE grinding down your resources, as well as any dailies you burn.