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

[Not a Decepticon]

Until NPCs with dispel magic turn up.

Isn't it also open from the bottom? Any enemy with burrowing speed can bypass it.

Also, by the time PCs exit, there should be an ambush waiting for them.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Otherwise, you could never ever have any challenge connected to any kind of time limit

Which is something I try to avoid. I usually have Indiana Jones style time pressure. The door takes exactly as long to descend as it does for the PCs to get under it, plus time to grab a hat.

“Challenge” is not the purpose of playing. The purpose is to give people who hate small talk something to fill empty air in a social situation.

 

[pemerton]

Some people are going to be good with lots of pressure almost all of the time. Some are going to be good with extreme pressure in bursts. Some, a slow and irregular oscillation. Some, a fast oscillation.

But I think it's reasonable to say that, because pacing is of vital importance to the play experience, there do need to be some moments without pressure. Hence, the pressure cannot be truly constant. There need to be moments where it ramps up, and moments where it ramps down--occasionally to zero.

<snip>

If there are people out there who can truly handle 100% constant pressure all the time that they're playing, I would be very surprised. That doesn't mean it can't happen! But I'm not really sure what to make of "no, I definitely actually need to be experiencing consistent pressure in every moment of play".

Your last para moves from "can"/possibility to "must"/necessity - which are not the same thing.

But anyway, in D&D there is always a degree of relaxation of pressure, at least in combat: namely, when it's not your turn. And there are other ways in which RPGs typically dial back the pressure for the players, at the table even if the game situation is one in which the players (because of the circumstances of their PCs) are under pressure.

I don't know if you looked at the posts I linked to upthread, which have 4e actual play reports. Those are pretty typical of my 4e experience. At the table, of course there are moments of relaxation - as a result of turn-taking, time being spent setting up an encounter map, conversation drifting away from the topic of the game, etc, etc. But the game consists primarily of the players being required, by the ingame situation, to make decisions for their PCs. I as GM am bringing the action to them. I'm not giving them a quest, placing some potential action in between them and their goal, and then hoping that they tackle all that action without declaring a long rest on the way.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Which is something I try to avoid. I usually have Indiana Jones style time pressure. The door takes exactly as long to descend as it does for the PCs to get under it, plus time to grab a hat.

“Challenge” is not the purpose of playing. The purpose is to give people who hate small talk something to fill empty air in a social situation.

I just would not be able to accept as realistic a world where nothing ever has a time limit on it.

Again, I'm coming from a position where I'm very specifically saying: "Constant pressure is bad, it would upset most people."

But just as I would be surprised at someone genuinely wanting to have actually constant pressure, I would be very surprised to meet someone who genuinely never wanted to have even the tiniest bit of pressure ever.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Your last para moves from "can"/possibility to "must"/necessity - which are not the same thing.

But anyway, in D&D there is always a degree of relaxation of pressure, at least in combat: namely, when it's not your turn. And there are other ways in which RPGs typically dial back the pressure for the players, at the table even if the game situation is one in which the players (because of the circumstances of their PCs) are under pressure.

I don't know if you looked at the posts I linked to upthread, which have 4e actual play reports. Those are pretty typical of my 4e experience. At the table, of course there are moments of relaxation - as a result of turn-taking, time being spent setting up an encounter map, conversation drifting away from the topic of the game, etc, etc. But the game consists primarily of the players being required, by the ingame situation, to make decisions for their PCs. I as GM am bringing the action to them. I'm not giving them a quest, placing some potential action in between them and their goal, and then hoping that they tackle all that action without declaring a long rest on the way.

Then I guess my response to that is: I know what I want out of pacing, and I, personally, cannot want "constant" pressure in the way you're describing it, where your only outlet is "it's not your turn".

I know you've spoken previously about how "color" scenes are extremely important--and that you were not in any way trying to deprecate them, because you enjoy such things too. That's what I'm talking about when I say times without pressure.

People love to disparagingly compare TTRPGs they don't like to "supers", but this is a space where I think it's extremely useful to draw a comparison. In most stories, moments of action, of crisis, are where we get to see a person's true character revealed. With superheroes...moments of action and even crisis are their bread and butter. Those moments definitely still do plenty of character development and new revelations etc. But because the moments of quiet are so rare and so difficult to pursue for these characters, those moments are often much, much more revelatory than they normally would have been.

"Color" moments aren't incompatible with pressure. But they are incompatible with constant pressure, where the group is always rushing from scene to scene, from battle to battle, never doing anything but resolving the most recent crisis.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I GMed 4e D&D with the same group for something like 150+ sessions (the full 30 levels, over nearly 8 years). These rest issues didn't come up.

I can think of two main reasons for this:

(1) There was no intra-party tension, because everyone was on the same schedule.

(2) The players understood that a big part of the game (from the technical/tactical perspective) is cleverly rationing your daily resources. They enjoyed the challenge of eking out their last ounce of ability; and If they acted a bit wimpy, I (as GM) would make fun of them!

Here's an example that shows what I mean: The PCs defeat Calastryx (and get up to some other hijinks)

I guess if there are 5e players who just aren't interested in the challenge aspect of the game, then the challenge-oriented aspects (including the resource-and-rest framework) will be a bit of a fizzer . . .

One difference between 5e and 4E experience would be that even if the players in the 4e game were acting "wimpy" and demanding regular rests, it would impact the power level of all characters the same, because they all have dailies and encounter powers, and they aren't overtly different in strength. Combats would be easier, obviously, but no one really gains from it. (I would say that such a strategy might still cause some different build choices - for example, you don't really want a lot of Daily powers that need to be sustained in such a game, since the action ecomony wouldn't work out, it's easier if you can focus to sustain only one spell per encounter. Not that different from concentration spells in 5E in that regard, I suppose)
In 5e, it's clear that a Wizard or Cleric has a ton more to gain from spending a night of rest compared to a Fighter, and they will shine a lot more in a singular encounter where rest before and afterwards is possible without further or only easy combats. (and it is not just the Wizard or Cleric that gains from this - obviously the Fighter likes his Cleric to be fighting alongside him and healing him, or the Wizard taking down a group of mooks with a well-placed fireball that would take the Fighter several turns to take out one by one, giving him the chance to focus on the bigger threats. But if the Wizard then also debilitates the bigger singular threats in the next turn because he can afford to cast more of his powerful spells, it might leave the fighter asking what he was needed for...)

 

[pemerton]

One difference between 5e and 4E experience would be that even if the players in the 4e game were acting "wimpy" and demanding regular rests, it would impact the power level of all characters the same, because they all have dailies and encounter powers, and they aren't overtly different in strength. Combats would be easier, obviously, but no one really gains from it. (I would say that such a strategy might still cause some different build choices - for example, you don't really want a lot of Daily powers that need to be sustained in such a game, since the action ecomony wouldn't work out, it's easier if you can focus to sustain only one spell per encounter. Not that different from concentration spells in 5E in that regard, I suppose)
In 5e, it's clear that a Wizard or Cleric has a ton more to gain from spending a night of rest compared to a Fighter, and they will shine a lot more in a singular encounter where rest before and afterwards is possible without further or only easy combats.

Sure, I mentioned this upthread.

But the same techniques that can be used in 4e to maintain pressure on the PCs, so that the players can't just rest at will, seem like they should be usable in 5e. It's basically about brining the action to the PCs, rather than hoping they will follow bread crumbs to action without resting along the way.

 

[James Gasik]

I've called this out myself, very recently, within the last couple weeks at most. I was dismissed with, in brief, "It's in our imaginations, so that doesn't matter." I found that an unproductive, thought-terminating response, but I didn't see much point in digging further on that specific thing.


Depends on exactly what definition of "hemisphere" you're using. The usual definition--as a special case of the "spherical cap"--actually does include a flat floor. Because a spherical cap is defined as all of the surface bounded by a sphere on one side of a flat plane which intersects the sphere, along with that plane itself. If that flat plane contains the sphere's center, then the spherical cap is a hemisphere. (It is also a special case of a spherical wedge, which is likewise defined as a spherical lune between two congruent semidisks, which are an angle a apart from each other; when a is π radians, the two semidisks are parallel and thus become a single disk.)

I suppose that's fair. I thought of it like taking a hollow glass sphere and slicing it in half.

 

[James Gasik]

Isn't it also open from the bottom? Any enemy with burrowing speed can bypass it.

Also, by the time PCs exit, there should be an ambush waiting for them.

Well that was my thought, when a random encounter with incorporeal enemies came up. But Jeremy Crawford says otherwise, apparently, and I was at the time forced to accept his "ruling".

EDIT:

As for the ambush, well, consider that while the sphere grants you and your party total cover, you can see outside of it just fine. The spell only ends when the caster steps out of it, and nothing stops them from casting a new one if they see a mass of enemies forming.

So the ambush would require the whole party to not notice the enemies massing until the ritual ends, because otherwise, they have a perfect defensive position to work with. Further, any wise Wizard will also stock alarm. My Wizard PC does, and used both just in case (I might have issues with LTH, but as a player, I'd be an idiot not to use it).

 

[Parmandur]

Sure, I mentioned this upthread.

But the same techniques that can be used in 4e to maintain pressure on the PCs, so that the players can't just rest at will, seem like they should be usable in 5e. It's basically about brining the action to the PCs, rather than hoping they will follow bread crumbs to action without resting along the way.

Yes, and it isn't really at all difficult or awkward in practice.