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

[Zardnaar]

This is the key phrase. You cannot “average out” cars and bicycles and expect to get an outcome that is useful to either motorists or cyclists, never mind pedestrians.

Erm the motor bike?

Dont go to Vietnam.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Like your argument could just as well say that two goblins in a barren field is a good challenge for a level 12 party because they might be able to crit with every attack while the players miss each time they roll

If the goblins are in a castle, with lots of arrows, cauldrons of boiling oil, etc, then they might pose a serious threat, but CR does not take tactical situations into account any more than it does player skill.

Or the goblins in a field might run away and alert the goblin army.

Or maybe the goblins surrender, and offer th lead the party to a great treasure. Maybe they are telling the truth or maybe they lead them into a trap.

D&D has too many options to reduce it to a single number.

 

[Staffan]

What I'm detecting in this thread is really two different schools of thought:

• Attrition is bad and we should refocus balance around one encounter and make it easier to restore full power (with the possible exception of attrition through hp reserve á la healing surges).
• Attrition is good and we should make it harder to rest and/or make rests less effective.

These two groups are likely not going to come to any form of useful agreement on things.

 

[Minigiant]

One houserules I pondered is the idea of having your magic reset would be on the same cooldown as your hit die maximum reset.

Meaning characters would have their normal maximum hit points and their hit die maximum it points. The hit point maximum would be how much hit points they had if all of the hit dies were maximum rolls. So a barbarian what is the 12 would get 12 hit points per level.

So at that time that you recharge all your fireballs and your wall spells and everything else, all The Monsters and Martials get ~40% more HP. Your monster with d8s goes from 4.5 HP per HD to 8 HP per HD.

 

[M_Natas]

What I'm detecting in this thread is really two different schools of thought:

• Attrition is bad and we should refocus balance around one encounter and make it easier to restore full power (with the possible exception of attrition through hp reserve á la healing surges).
• Attrition is good and we should make it harder to rest and/or make rests less effective.

These two groups are likely not going to come to any form of useful agreement on things.

That is true. But one group definitely has badwrongfun .

 

[EzekielRaiden]

XYZ encounters per day was a bad idea in 3E as well. Idea hung around for to long.

It's a perfectly good idea.

The system just needs to be designed to actually make doing that have three important characteristics:

1) Being fun to engage in that many combats;
2) Being reasonable (e.g. not tiring or tedious) to engage in that many combats at a regular pace; and
3) Not providing enormous incentives to do things completely differently

Of these, 5e has at best succeeded at the first point and half-succeeded at the second. Nearly every thread I see talking about encounter rate specifically mentions that they find the idea of ever running 8 combats in a single adventuring day to be an overwhelmingly huge amount that they'd never even consider doing. That makes it hard to believe that WotC actually did succeed at all with it, hence at best half-success for #2).

Everything I've seen--not even considering my own experience, just the way people talk about it--5e did not succeed at any of these points, and in particular failed spectacularly at the third point.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's a perfectly good idea.

The system just needs to be designed to actually make doing that have three important characteristics:

1) Being fun to engage in that many combats;
2) Being reasonable (e.g. not tiring or tedious) to engage in that many combats at a regular pace; and
3) Not providing enormous incentives to do things completely differently

Of these, 5e has at best succeeded at the first point and half-succeeded at the second. Nearly every thread I see talking about encounter rate specifically mentions that they find the idea of ever running 8 combats in a single adventuring day to be an overwhelmingly huge amount that they'd never even consider doing. That makes it hard to believe that WotC actually did succeed at all with it, hence at best half-success for #2).

Everything I've seen--not even considering my own experience, just the way people talk about it--5e did not succeed at any of these points, and in particular failed spectacularly at the third point.

Well thats the reason its a bad idea. Youll never get the balance right. Additionally you can't one true way everyone's different tastes. They'll just tell you to F off or ignore those rules anyway.

Best you can do is do some guidelines and offer a variety of monsters and hope your DMs not an asshat/moron.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What I'm detecting in this thread is really two different schools of thought:

• Attrition is bad and we should refocus balance around one encounter and make it easier to restore full power (with the possible exception of attrition through hp reserve á la healing surges).
• Attrition is good and we should make it harder to rest and/or make rests less effective.

These two groups are likely not going to come to any form of useful agreement on things.

I think it's perfectly possible to design a game where both concerns can work. It just has to be an active, and rigorously tested, design goal from the beginning that both attrition-focused gameplay and tactics-focused gameplay provide rich, rewarding experiences, with tools for either side to elide out the other if desired. E.g. my "Skirmish" concept; "Skirmishes" are to full combats what group skil checks are to Skill Challenges--that is, a Skirmish is light, fast, and focused on long-term costs, not round-by-round details. Obviously it's not something I've fully designed out, but there's nothing preventing such a structure.

Those who favor attrition gameplay would then prefer mostly Skirmishes, with true combats being stuff like "this is a boss battle, every blow matters". Those who favor tactical gameplay would use various bits and bobs that simplify the strategic layer of play--not totally getting rid of it, but reducing it to similarly simple choices with meaningful effects in the layer they prefer to focus on, unless something truly warrants it (like, say, what DW calls "Undertake a Perilous Journey" where you're specifically going into hostile territory and resources/supplies/safe spaces matter a whole bunch).

 

[Zardnaar]

I think it's perfectly possible to design a game where both concerns can work. It just has to be an active, and rigorously tested, design goal from the beginning that both attrition-focused gameplay and tactics-focused gameplay provide rich, rewarding experiences, with tools for either side to elide out the other if desired. E.g. my "Skirmish" concept; "Skirmishes" are to full combats what group skil checks are to Skill Challenges--that is, a Skirmish is light, fast, and focused on long-term costs, not round-by-round details. Obviously it's not something I've fully designed out, but there's nothing preventing such a structure.

Those who favor attrition gameplay would then prefer mostly Skirmishes, with true combats being stuff like "this is a boss battle, every blow matters". Those who favor tactical gameplay would use various bits and bobs that simplify the strategic layer of play--not totally getting rid of it, but reducing it to similarly simple choices with meaningful effects in the layer they prefer to focus on, unless something truly warrants it (like, say, what DW calls "Undertake a Perilous Journey" where you're specifically going into hostile territory and resources/supplies/safe spaces matter a whole bunch).

2E the only edition thats really come close to your stated goals lol.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well thats the reason its a bad idea. Youll never get the balance right.

You absolutely can. It just requires actual playtesting, not the performative nonsense that WotC (and Paizo!) have been billing as "playtesting".

Additionally you can't one true way everyone's different tastes. They'll just tell you to F off or ignore those rules anyway.

I'm not doing that, so...not a concern.

Best you can do is do some guidelines and offer a variety of monsters and hope your DMs not an asshat/moron.

That is far, far from the best designers can do. That's straight-up pretending designers are somehow utterly powerless, which is ridiculous. I know you don't actually think designers are powerless. Otherwise you wouldn't complain about design you think is bad, like silvery barbs.

2E the only edition thats really come close to your stated goals lol.

That any edition has, despite never even trying to do so, is proof enough that it is possible.