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

[Yaarel]

You can't design anywhere near an entire game by consultation and the 70% mark. It's inevitable that you will get individual things that get to the 70% mark, but when put together make both worse or are downright incompatible. There's a reason that Design by Committee is a well known bad way to design things.

For example, nobody asked if 70% liked Fighters, Rangers, etc. Those were decided upon by the designers. We only got a bit of input on particular abilities, and even then a lot of those abilities were set in stone as part of the class and we only got to influence the shape of the abilities.

Ultimately, we did FAR less to design 5e than the designers did.

Sure. Most of the survey fillers arent designers. They rely on specialists to do the design work. The WotC designers then adjust their products according to survey feedback.

 

[Yaarel]

Sure, going to be an unbalanced easy mode, but no reason not to if it is fun.

Heh, I tend to beef up the bosses. But yeah, fun is the goal, when powerful player characters at full strength have a climactic boss fight.

 

[Parmandur]

My take has always been that you cant meet encounters and adventure day minded folks in the middle. That is the real conflict in ideals of D&D pacing. The 5E result is a really long adventure day (6-8 encounters) which doesnt match up narratively to the adventure stories a lot of folks want to tell/experience.

I think this gets right to the heart of the matter, and is correct: it is not possible to really provide both experiences in the same ruleset, at least not and fo both tight and challenging. 5E works fine for telling less combat heavy stories, as long as nobody at the table cares about a tight tactical challenge (see again, Critical Role: nearly every fight is a foregone conclusion cakewalk but the players haven't figured that out in a decade of playing).

D&D is the game that provides the John Wick/Rambo Dungeon clearing experience. There are other games (Cosmere RPG, for one) rocking ghe Encounter centered experiences (Cosmere even manages to put Social or Exploration "Scenes" on equal footing with combat).

 

[Parmandur]

no idea what their current sales numbers are. I was not interested in most of their recent offerings, but that means nothing to WotC

I was talking design more than sales, but that seems fine too.

 

[payn]

I think this gets right to the heart of the matter, and is correct: it is not possible to really provide both experiences in the same ruleset, at least not and fo both tight and challenging. 5E works fine for telling less combat heavy stories, as long as nobody at the table cares about a tight tactical challenge (see again, Critical Role: nearly every fight is a foregone conclusion cakewalk but the players haven't figured that out in a decade of playing).

D&D is the game that provides the John Wick/Rambo Dungeon clearing experience. There are other games (Cosmere RPG, for one) rocking ghe Encounter centered experiences (Cosmere even manages to put Social or Exploration "Scenes" on equal footing with combat).

Its always going to be a rub, but at the end of the day I dont blame the designers for what we have. There is absolutely no right answer to this (despite folks thinking there is). What they have done is given us a middle of the road system on a easy to mod/hack system to make it work the way you need to. Which is right in line with D&D legacy. Most folks never notice or learn to articulate how it works. Either it works as intended, or they make it work for them.

 

[tetrasodium]

Do we have an idea as to why designers make monsters on the easier side?

Unlike Payne, I think that it's a case too down from corporate hardcore Dunning Kruger and the fact that it took a former wotc employee to look into what has been pointed out by looking into the math well into their track on the "former" part at another company for over a decade supports that.if corporate is absolutely positive that the current state is perfection and must not be touched [or else?] By wotcstaff it creates a situation where nobody with pull is willing to even bring up the fact that some of the criticism is reasonable enough to look into or even address

 

[Yaarel]

Its a complicated answer. I think folks have moved from old school survival sim where death is just a likely outcome of any particular adventure, and a more narratvist take in which the PCs are main characters of a story and if they die easily its not for the betterment of the game. The middle ground is folks still want an engaging game and challenge, but the outcome of character death needs to be less common, and the player needs more control over conditions which lead to PC death. thus, monsters teeth are a little less sharp individually.

This conversation is deceptive becasue the problem isnt boss monsters being too easy, its not following the adventure day design to bring about the right challenge level. Some folks are arguing that doing the adventure day right needs to be more clear and folks need more experience in doing it. Others, want the adventure day taken out of the game and replaced with an encounters model that places challenge into each individual combat. My take has always been that you cant meet encounters and adventure day minded folks in the middle. That is the real conflict in ideals of D&D pacing. The 5E result is a really long adventure day (6-8 encounters) which doesnt match up narratively to the adventure stories a lot of folks want to tell/experience.

Its always going to be a rub, but at the end of the day I dont blame the designers for what we have. There is absolutely no right answer to this (despite folks thinking there is). What they have done is given us a middle of the road system on a easy to mod/hack system to make it work the way you need to. Which is right in line with D&D legacy. Most folks never notice or learn to articulate how it works. Either it works as intended, or they make it work for them.

I think this gets right to the heart of the matter, and is correct: it is not possible to really provide both experiences in the same ruleset, at least not and fo both tight and challenging. 5E works fine for telling less combat heavy stories, as long as nobody at the table cares about a tight tactical challenge (see again, Critical Role: nearly every fight is a foregone conclusion cakewalk but the players haven't figured that out in a decade of playing).

D&D is the game that provides the John Wick/Rambo Dungeon clearing experience. There are other games (Cosmere RPG, for one) rocking ghe Encounter centered experiences (Cosmere even manages to put Social or Exploration "Scenes" on equal footing with combat).

I wonder if it is possible to thread the needle for pacing between encounter and daily.

Switch all class features to encounter powers and at-wills, for better math and robust balance.

Then add "rituals". These rituals are magic items, that then have specific requirements to fulfill in order to perform. So there can be big powers that get exhausted, but the DM has more say if, when, and how they happen. The DM can more easily account for such novas.

Also narratively, this combination of reliable encounters plus special big rituals is how most stories about magic work.

 

[Minigiant]

Unlike Payne, I think that it's a case too down from corporate hardcore Dunning Kruger and the fact that it took a former wotc employee to look into what has been pointed out by looking into the math well into their track on the "former" part at another company for over a decade supports that.if corporate is absolutely positive that the current state is perfection and must not be touched [or else?] By wotcstaff it creates a situation where nobody with pull is willing to even bring up the fact that some of the criticism is reasonable enough to look into or even address

They knew the problem with them.

The reason why nothing was changed was because they found out the issue after they created the books and those books were selling like hotcakes.

They did not want it errata something that was selling so well so they waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited until they can find an excuse (50th anniversary) to print out a new version with the correct math.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure. Most of the survey fillers arent designers. They rely on specialists to do the design work. The WotC designers then adjust their products according to survey feedback.

Yes, but my point is that they are only adjusting a small portion of it. Most of the work is set in stone before it ever gets to us. Basically, they're building the car and we are picking what color we want and whether we want air conditioning or navigation.

 

[Yaarel]

Yes, but my point is that they are only adjusting a small portion of it. Most of the work is set in stone before it ever gets to us.

In playtesting phase that preceded 2014 and 2024, some of the designer proposals were radical. It was often the survey feedback that prevented their implementation. Once everything is in place it is more difficult to significantly change, but surveys were part of how they arrived in the first place.