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

[Zardnaar]

It absolutely had its issues. However, if you play it with people who aren't out to break the game with super uber combos and just have fun with it, the sheer number of races, classes, feats, prestige classes, etc. allowed you to very accurately create just about any character concept. 5e doesn't have nearly as many, so quite often you have to settle with kinda sorta getting close to the concept.

I suspect most games didn't go that high in level.

The big divergence between forums and IRL. People on forums often assume there opinion is correct and there way of playing is the obe true way.

Most games of 3.5 I saw weren't played by powergamers. Elements of it could creep in.

I have 50 odd 3E books. Players didn't use them that much. They didn't know to grab this item from that book add it to these 2 PrCs or they didn't hit the required levels.

Druid 6 + natural spellwas probably about the worst it got at most tables. And the Druid wasn't a popular class in 3.5.

If games ended around level 7 back then I think we have a big contributing factor to 4E tanking. As late as 2014 a Pathfinder group wasn't using wands of CLW. Online assumptions and all that.

 

[Maxperson]

I cut them late 3.X and dumped the item creation feats.

I just didn't stop the world from moving. When the rest of the group is interacting with the world, being sought out, etc. and the wizard is stuck sitting in the room at the inn enchanting his stick... Nobody stopped to make items.

 

[Zardnaar]

I just didn't stop the world from moving. When the rest of the group is interacting with the world, being sought out, etc. and the wizard is stuck sitting in the room at the inn enchanting his stick... Nobody stopped to make items.

Mine did occasionally not to the extent internet assumed.
3.0 a wizard got nicknamed Xerox as he scribed 10 haste scrolls iirc.

 

[Parmandur]

However, if you play it with people who aren't out to break the game with super uber combos and just have fun with it

Jaut to narrow it down a bit..if you have this, honestly the system is tertiary.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

But it is not a time sensitive scenario and all the players agree to it. So what's the issue? And you did not answer my question: why would the character in the setting not do this? Do the characters need to behave suicidally for the players not to be TFGs?

It makes sense from in-character perspective to do it. It makes sense for skilled play perspective to do it. And this is not some bizarre an unforeseen rule interaction, it is th result of basic functionality of the rule combined with the fictional situation the GM has presented so it is bizarre to call it an exploit. Yet it is somehow the players' fault if they do this? Not the rules writer's who created the rule so that it obviously incentivises this? Not the GM's who presented the fictional situation so that there is no in-universe reason to not to do this?

Yeah, I don't agree. I don't blame the players for bad rules and bad GMing.

You have a task to do, do you sit for 24 hours before taking a break and then doing it? Unless the character is Deadpool, I expect they do not know rules of the game, nor can they epxploit them, for them it is life and an adventure.

 

[Maxperson]

Jaut to narrow it down a bit..if you have this, honestly the system is tertiary.

I don't agree with that. Systems do very different things and some will fit a person or group much better than another system. I think that even with a group that's not out to break the game and just have fun, finding the right system is still a key decision.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't agree with that. Systems do very different things and some will fit a person or group much better than another system. I think that even with a group that's not out to break the game and just have fun, finding the right system is still a key decision.

It makes a difference, but as long as you have friends of goodwill...hard to go wrong.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Just to clarify, this isn’t about advocating for one edition over another, or claiming that any particular approach is superior. The larger point is that we all love the game, yet none of us can agree on what it should do or how it should work—because there’s only one system that can exist as the currently supported one. Every table has different expectations, playstyles, and priorities, and the design tries to serve all of them simultaneously. The friction here isn’t personal; it’s structural.

Claiming that one edition has “better” ideas or designs than another is just another example of this inherent incompatibility. Each edition emphasizes different trade-offs, and players’ preferences are naturally aligned with those differences. But because the system as a whole can only exist in a single, supported form at a time, debates about superiority or design quality become exercises in division rather than resolution. This is exactly why so many disagreements persist, even among fans who share a genuine love of the game—they are arguing within a framework that can never fully satisfy every perspective simultaneously.

You don't want to oppress the play styles of others so that yours' become the one catered to most by WOTC???

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Mearls. "It's quite likely that a semi-optimized party can vaporize boss monsters in a round or even less."

LOL.

Referees been saying that about 5E for a damn decade. But nope, it's a perfectly balanced game.

To say nothing of players optimizing to the Nth. Ugh.

I’ve never seen a single person ever claim that 5e is perfectly balanced. I’ve rarely seen anyone claim that it is even fairly well balanced.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’ve never seen a single person ever claim that 5e is perfectly balanced. I’ve rarely seen anyone claim that it is even fairly well balanced.

I think it’s the second-best balanced edition of D&D. Not a high bar, but it’s something.