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

[Crimson Longinus]

Videogamey is good,

No. Like Max alrady said, there already are video games for that. Tabletop RPGs are different medium, and have to work differently.

keeping DnD's main inspiration still being Conan and LotR is just kinda sad.

They're the classics! But I did not necessarily mean the overall thematics, merely the level of groundedness. I want the things to be fantastic, but still feel real. Video gamey mechanics are the polar opposite of feeling real as they usually are pretty disconnected even from the story the game tries to present. Like in the fiction of Warcraft, the same set of heroes probably did not try to beat the Lich King dozens of times, get wiped and then run back from the graveyard to try again.

 

[GobHag]

Some people are easy to please, I guess. Here, take +1000 non-points! I never understood the appeal, it seems pointless in video games as well. Grind for bigger numbers, but nothing actually changes. I get the appeal to being able to easily beat the same foes that were difficult earlier, so some scaling has to happen. And I really like "zero to hero" but I feel the characters should grow thematically and conceptually rather than just numbers getting better. Even purely mechanically, it is far more satisfying to be able to do things you previously couldn't, instead of just doing the same things but with bigger numbers.

Ahhh but here's the thing, the average enemy's hit comparatively is the same but the average enemy isn't a goblin at that level--it's a well trained soldier/hellhound/lesser sapient demon whatever. And the goblins? The goblins are mooks, scenery, an explanation for difficult terrain

This can create frankly ludicrous damage to versimilitude-- a level 10 wizard can just wade into a level 1-2 village and crush everyone's head there with his barehands--but that's a price I'm more than willing to pay. I see verisimilitude as a clown I trot out, not a respected wiseman.

I mean a PF2 character do get to do things that they previously couldn't every other level with class feats, whereas a non-caster 5e character have much less new action provided to them as they level up. So in Pf2 I get both Numbers Go Up and mechanical action growth.

 

[Zardnaar]

Some people are easy to please, I guess. Here, take +1000 non-points! I never understood the appeal, it seems pointless in video games as well. Grind for bigger numbers, but nothing actually changes. I get the appeal to being able to easily beat the same foes that were difficult earlier, so some scaling has to happen. And I really like "zero to hero" but I feel the characters should grow thematically and conceptually rather than just numbers getting better. Even purely mechanically, it is far more satisfying to be able to do things you previously couldn't, instead of just doing the same things but with bigger numbers.

Usually its grind for numbers that actually matter.

Crit builds. Crits become closer to 100% of the time.

Defeat the boss in 1 round

Deal 100+ damage. Per hit.

Things like tgat in 5E terms.

If youre playing a pvp turn based or grand strategy game tech rushing is often popular. Or tech rush+ economy.

The aggressive player needs to kill the tech rusher before they get buried in super duper battleships, nukes, ninja stealth bombers with phase matter weapons.

Or you conquer 34s of the world best knights in game and then one of the remains players introduces you to their M1 Abrams tanks. That can teleport.
So you make actual progressive or you outstrip the built in treadmill.

 

[Parmandur]

It's a crap compromise though, and I think the core cause of most of these issues. And it is absurd. You can be laying dying in the pool of your own blood, but as long as you do not die you're fine the next day. And not sure it is cinematic, except in the most cheesy superhero nonsense way. Even if we don't go full GoT, then at least LotR or Conan. It is just videogamey now.

You know what people also enjoy, beyond action movies...? Video games.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You know what people also enjoy, beyond action movies...? Video games.

Yes. And most probably play videogames for that itch.

 

[Campbell]

It always feels to me that the mandatory +1/level bonus from Pathfinder Second Edition is its biggest flaw. It makes the range of monsters much more narrow that are viable as enemies, and seems to serve no further purpose. If you ignore it, what's left is basically 5E proficiencies, as you go from Trained over Expert to Master, and very, very few ways to boost your numbers otherwise.

I would not call it a design flaw as much as the point of the design. Pathfinder Second Edition is trying to model the sort of fiction where you go from collectively struggling to take down a single basilisk to being able to confront several at once. It's pretty much its reason for existence. A fair number of games accomplish this by changing stat blocks to accommodate the changes in fiction (at higher levels you might represent several creatures as a single stat block) but PF2 is trying to do it in a mostly simulationist way and relying on the way level is expressed to get the job done.

Whether or not that sort of fiction is appealing to you is another matter. But that was a central pillar of the design from the beginning. They want some enemies to be insurmountable and others to be trivial. It's the foundation of the game.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes. And most probably play videogames for that itch.

I mean, I'm not sure why video games and TTRPGs would have to be different here...? Plenty of video games have long recovery times within a fiction, it is neither here nor there, it is not inherent to either mediun.

 

[GobHag]

Fair enough. I think most of those on the attrition is bad side aren't in that same place, though. At least those of us in this thread.

Are you also for unlimited spellcasting, or is spell attrition based on slots okay? What about hit point attrition throughout the day? Is that bad? Can your PCs walk forever without sleep, or does fatigue(energy attrition) set in?

My point with those questions is to show that attrition is going to be there, and that really only the degree of attrition and how you handle it varies. I'm betting you are okay with most or all of the above attrition and don't view it as bad, but just want it restored after a rest.

Oh missed this question, really better formatted.

1. I hate spell slots so goddamn much like you would not believe.

2. In D&D and Pf2 as it is now I don't like it, so prefer just making the baseline be that you're at full-health throughout the day. DS! fixes this with Victory and Icon has Resolve/Limit Break--tl;dr, HP drain is strictly stick in both systems so I need some carrots to consider it 'good'

3. I just don't like travel as a challenge to the point that I either turn those times to be Slice of Life sessions withou mechanical impact or skip them to the location with a montage.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean, I'm not sure why video games and TTRPGs would have to be different here...? Plenty of video games have long recovery times within a fiction, it is neither here nor there, it is not inherent to either mediun.

I am not quite sure what you mean here...

 

[Parmandur]

I am not quite sure what you mean here...

Just because some video games also do things this way doesn't mean a TTRPG cannot, and not all video games have easy recovery necessarily. Both TTRPGs and video games are a spectrum, this is just where D&D has come down.

Interestingly, I just checked, and...gritty realism alternate rules for resting are gone in 2024. There is some vague advice about pacing and how you can do it differently, but the specific mechabical suggestions from 2014? Gone.