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

[Minigiant]

Which ones? Spellcasting is basically 500 features in 1.

Wizard has the fewest I can think of, and it has. I'm using the 5e version since I don't have the 5.5e PHB.

Spellcasting(dozens of subfeatures inside of it, so it's really not one).
Arcane Recovery
Spell Mastery
Signature Spell
Tradition Feature 1
Tradition Feature 2
Tradition Feature 3
Tradition Feature 4

That's 8 features, one of which is dozens more.

Not all the subclass features use resources.

The idea is to rejigger PCs to be slightly stronger but lock 25% of their power behind a multi day gate.
THEN
Make current monster stat be their 75% form and let them get 20-50% stronger if you take that multiple day rest.

If a table wants to just run fully stocked PCs, the DM has the option of fully stocked monsters to meet them.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Just make long rests restore only a fraction of resources, somewhere between 0% and 30%, depending on conditions.

That is 1e wizards all over, needing days to refresh their spells over a couple of days. If that's your yum, plenty of OSRs and heartbreakers. But the game left that behind in the last century and that genie is never going back in that bottle.

 

[Parmandur]

That is 1e wizards all over, needing days to refresh their spells over a couple of days. If that's your yum, plenty of OSRs and heartbreakers. But the game left that behind in the last century and that genie is never going back in that bottle.

Yeah, but it probably isn't moving away from the attrition design, either.

 

[guachi]

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.

Need to be? No. I've run a variant of one-week long rests and the major benefit is for narrative purposes. It's often irrelevant as the PCs might take 3-7 days to travel from point A to point B and then spend a few days in town. Maybe more. Some of the PCs in my current party (we're playing Level Up) have abilities that only really function in towns or cities so being forced to spend time there is not really seen as a negative.

 

[tetrasodium]

Not the only option.

1. Emphasis living world/dont play that way.
2. Back to pre 3E
3. Ditching dailies in a new edition.
4. Double damage or double encoubter size.
5. Go with it we actually like it.

Mearls isnt doing a D&D he has more options. I suspect he will go with 3.

his patreon touched on them like 2-3 months ago . I'll look in the morning but he wrote about resting maybe 2-3 months ago knocking them for being too reliable and giving too much. iirc he's keeping the two rest types(8hrs)10min) but adding some modifiers for how hp are recovered based on rest quality (are you comfortable/did you feel like you need a guard/etc) and how much hp could be recovered given enough time

 

[kigmatzomat]

My thinking is they expect too little from DMs. They constrain the number of foes because they think it makes games unplayable, while they ignore the slog of BagOHitPoint monsters. And when you add lair/legendary actions, its like adding more NPCs as its more DM actions, except you usually can't eliminate them on their own.

5e is kind of boringly consistent. 1e was wildly inconsistent. We need enough variation that its "spicy" but not so much that TPKs happen frequently

Thinking back to 1e, players hit harder. D8+4 Went a lot farther before hit point inflation. IIRC, 1E dragons inflicted (their current hitpoints) as their breath weapon. A 100hp dragon was a terror. Sure, each lightning bolt/fireball took off a big chunk of their life, but you had to live to land it and kill it before it breathed a second time. But when you did hit it, it got progressively weaker, which doesn't happen in 5e.

So can keep Legendary Resistances but IMO, replacing 1 Legendary/Lair Action with 2 mooks is about right (think half the CR of the boss). It starts off as more actions, but they should be cleared out before the GMs gets brain-strain.

Yeah, but it probably isn't moving away from the attrition design, either.

I agree, but this changes it from "one immutable foe you attrit" to "attrition of numbers, causing a change in the tactical landscape."

Mooks will often be in other rooms, sleeping, etc, so they (or the boss) may be 1-3 rounds later to the fight, which adds some more flavor. Yes, fights would take longer but it would not be a slog. And it gives bosses and/or mooks opportunities to escape. Recurring villains are fun.

And then plan for, and foreshadow, "mostly dead" PCs. I mean, 5e has introduced a number of "not entirely dead" recovery spells and mechanisms. Let "mostly dead" be something that happens every other boss fight.

I think hit point deflation combined with bringing back mooks/minions (lower level enemies that die relatively quickly but add tactical benefits and action economy changes) would make the encounters spicier but take off the slog because the action economy changes as mooks (and PCs) are dropped.

I'd also want to bring back PCs running away. It seems to be a lost art. That might me a bridge too far. My players know that sometimes, run away is the right course of action. Don't be a treant fighting a wood chipper with their bare...branches. Run away and come back with a hunk of iron you lob into the chipper.

 

[Zardnaar]

his patreon touched on them like 2-3 months ago . I'll look in the morning but he wrote about resting maybe 2-3 months ago knocking them for being too reliable and giving too much. iirc he's keeping the two rest types(8hrs)10min) but adding some modifiers for how hp are recovered based on rest quality (are you comfortable/did you feel like you need a guard/etc) and how much hp could be recovered given enough time

Cool see what he comes up with. Its the old simple-complex thing.

 

[M_Natas]

Yeah, you can come up with something, but it will feel kludgy, And I'm sorry, but yours does. Not that it could be helped, the system obviously is not designed for this. The spell recovery in particularly feels inelegant. I can buy it as feature of arcane expert class, so that they can choose which specific slots to recover (and I don't really like it there either) but as general mechanic for all classes it just feels wrong. And of course then there are all sort of other resources to deal with.

That's the problem of 5e.
There can be some more elegant solutions like, recover the lowest 1 or 2 spent spellslots (or number of spellcasting modifier) and put all other ressources lkle KI, Rage and so on on a long rest recovery.
That would be actually simpler.

Time to work on V.2 of the Gradual gritty realism rest .

 

[kigmatzomat]

Another variant of attrition is losing Legendaries. So a 200hp baddie is dropped to 150hp and loses 1 Legendary Action & Resistance. Lose another at 100hp and then again at 50hp.

This changes the "boring" part of bag o' hitpoints. Normal baddie are unchanged until they pass out. This one is too injured to swallow PCs whole, or can't use wing buffet or whatever.

It should also go along with "baddie surrenders or flees". Powerful monster says "Enough! Have this hoard and I'll leave this land for a thousand years if you cease. But if you make this a fight to the death and I live, I shall hunt your bloodlines to extinction!" Weaker bosses "Enough! We yield! Make us your slaves, have our treasure and our weapons! Better a live slave than a dead tribe!"

I mean, if it has 400hp but runs away or gives up at 200hp....do those other hit points matter? Well, yes, when the PCs need a lesson, but that should only be once, maybe twice before the Players learn.

 

[M_Natas]

Yeah, you can come up with something, but it will feel kludgy, And I'm sorry, but yours does. Not that it could be helped, the system obviously is not designed for this. The spell recovery in particularly feels inelegant. I can buy it as feature of arcane expert class, so that they can choose which specific slots to recover (and I don't really like it there either) but as general mechanic for all classes it just feels wrong. And of course then there are all sort of other resources to deal with.

So, I did the math for a simpler more elegant solution, used by all casters, putting them.in a long rest shedule:

When you finish a long rest, you regain a number of expended spell slots equal to your spellcasting ability modifier (minimum of one). You must restore lower-level expended slots before higher-level ones. You can’t exceed your normal maximum for any slot level.

For any full caster which starts with a +3, gets +4 on level 4 and +5 on level 8 that means (not taking into account lifestyle adjustments):

100% Restoration on levels 1 and 2, 50% restoration levels 3 and 4, 33% restoration at levels 5 to 10. 25% restoration at levels 11 to 18. And 20% at levels 19 and 20.
Except for the first 4 levels that is similar to the formula I used in my gritty gradual rests.

If you use proficiency bonus instead of spellcasting ability modifier, it goes quicker to 25%, but stays there:

If you add in living conditions (poor or squalid gives -1 spellslots recovered per long rest), it would look like this:

And wretched (-2 spellslots recovered per long rest) conditions would look like this:

On the math side, I prefer the proficiency bonus for the full casters. That would also deal with multi-classing shenanigans. On the other hand, the spell-casting-ability modifier makes more ingame sense and also would be better for balancing halfcasters and thirdcasters.