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

[Scott Christian]

I would kinda love to know what percentage of monster in this game have dispel magic. I'm not gonna count, but I'd assume the amount is absolutely tiny.

It was never about dispelling LTH. It was about how many monsters have a reasonable intelligence to understand that invaders into their lair are holed up in a seemingly magic bubble. Those monsters can do many many things in eight hours. And the answer to how many, approximately 3/4 of the monsters the MM.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So, this actually happened in our last session.

I offered the PC (through the fiction, via an NPC) the opportunity to Short Rest since they had been up the whole night through to the following morning. Had they taken it the opportunity, it would have led to their 3rd failure in the Skill Challenge, thus failing it completely.
Instead, they got an auto success (3/2) for remaining vigilant. Player was unaware of this auto success.
They opted to stay awake and see the next person who was brought in for questioning, which after a further 2 successes noticed something was off about the guard escorting the witness (5/2).
With some assistance they orchestrated an easy enough distraction (6/2) and were able to intercept an assassination attempt and through combat stop it.

I'm still surprised the player denied the Short Rest to refresh their abilities, but it worked out great in the fiction.

I would never keep the stakes from being explicit, but the use of the SC is cool. I've very rarely seen anyone use them in 5e. I really don't do 'free checks' anymore in any D&D-like that I run. You want to achieve a goal, that IS an SC, by definition.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I would kinda love to know what percentage of monster in this game have dispel magic. I'm not gonna count, but I'd assume the amount is absolutely tiny.

Priest at CR2 is a pretty common "monster" which has Dispel Magic.

Most other monsters which have Dispel Magic would generally be found in specific locations - it is commonly found on Devils, Demons, Drow, Hags, Liches, Mummies, Sphinxes, but those aren't going to be wandering around the forest very often compared to a generic Priest.

 

[overgeeked]

Fiction emerges from play but I can't cast my Fireball on the first round because of? Why do I need to wait till x round to cast it? That's rules messing with my fiction.

I'm all for gamist mechanics that help to inform or facilitate fiction (minion mechanic) but this mechanic limits fiction for purely gamist reasons. I'm not a fan of those types of mechanics.

Rather just say a Fireball has a casting time of x rounds. Better rule IMO.

Yeah.

You could easily switch casting times to costing X actions where X is the spell level. Fireball costs three actions, etc.

It would help to drop things like bonus actions and switch to 2-3 actions per round.

 

[M_Natas]

Yeah.

You could easily switch casting times to costing X actions where X is the spell level. Fireball costs three actions, etc.

It would help to drop things like bonus actions and switch to 2-3 actions per round.

I was toying with the Idea of switching to seconds. A round for a character is 6 seconds. Actions as normal are 4 seconds, bonus actions would be turned into 2 seconds.
Then for martials, instead of extra attack, an attack action drops from 4 to 3 seconds, then to two seconds (and maybe 1? at very high levels).
But transforming all the possible actions PCs can do with action, bonus action and free action in 5e into seconds or a point/x actions system creates some quirks.
Similar to spells, that can get granular different castings time ranging from 1 seconds to 12 or 18 seconds for normal action and bonus-action spells.

 

[Maxperson]

Id say that the biggest problem is that the dmg section quoted by @Maxperson really only applies to tier1 PCs and breaks down as players move through tier2 into tier 3 levels.

@Maxperson mechanics that support the GM in limiting excess and the advice is pointless because of the reasons described above. The rest rules themselves provide extreme support in resisting a gm who is unreasonably restrictive but when it comes to the idea of players with short rest classes having an unreasonable expectation class design wotc & the ruleset itself does not even acknowledge it as possible for the players to have an expectation of excess.

The games I ran all went to between 15th and 20th level and I had no issues with 2 short rests per day. The same with the games I played in that went up that high, which was most of them.

During those games, not a single class went unrepresented. That means that if you are seeing these problems, but I am not, it's far from being some sort of absolute thing. When something is a problem for some groups, but not for others, it's usually a problem for reasons other than the rule itself.

 

[Maxperson]

Priest at CR2 is a pretty common "monster" which has Dispel Magic.

Most other monsters which have Dispel Magic would generally be found in specific locations - it is commonly found on Devils, Demons, Drow, Hags, Liches, Mummies, Sphinxes, but those aren't going to be wandering around the forest very often compared to a generic Priest.

The spell lists in the monster books are just examples of the spells some of those creatures have handy. The books tell DMs to feel free to swap out spells as they see fit. A lot more creatures than you are listing can and do have access to dispel magic if the DM wants to change things up.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I would never keep the stakes from being explicit, but the use of the SC is cool. I've very rarely seen anyone use them in 5e. I really don't do 'free checks' anymore in any D&D-like that I run. You want to achieve a goal, that IS an SC, by definition.

I struggle a little with that sometimes.
I know SC in 4e are explicit with the stakes declared upfront but in this retaliation (assassination attempt) was a consequence which would have been unknown to the PCs (and by extension the players).

If I was transparent with it, the fiction is known upfront and the revelation feels like it becomes subdued as it plays second fiddle to the mechanics.
It's this odd balance I find myself in between old school and new school, wanting to surprise players and having everything out in the open.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I was toying with the Idea of switching to seconds. A round for a character is 6 seconds. Actions as normal are 4 seconds, bonus actions would be turned into 2 seconds.
Then for martials, instead of extra attack, an attack action drops from 4 to 3 seconds, then to two seconds (and maybe 1? at very high levels).
But transforming all the possible actions PCs can do with action, bonus action and free action in 5e into seconds or a point/x actions system creates some quirks.
Similar to spells, that can get granular different castings time ranging from 1 seconds to 12 or 18 seconds for normal action and bonus-action spells.

I'm always amazed at the amount of innovative fixes that exist for the system and creative narrative behind it.
Enworld is a great suppository for these.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm always amazed at the amount of innovative fixes that exist for the system and creative narrative behind it.
Enworld is a great suppository for these.

Speaking of malapropisms...