D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[Zaukrie]

I think this shows why I don’t have much respect for Mearls as a game designer, compared to others in the D&D design alumni.

Legendary Resistance could be more interesting, sure, but it’s a great mechanic that adds a layer of strategy to fights that isn’t there without it, just like legendary actions and the underutilized lair actions.

I’ve recently decoupled legendary actions from a specific creature and made it a resource the whole enemy team has, and I use lair actions as they were in 2014 as simply enviromental effects, and it is awesome. The enemy leader shouts a command and the whole enemy team moves half speed imposing disad on OAs against them during the movement. The boss gets stunned? Another creature can take command of team bad guy and issue those commands now, and some legendary actions don’t even assume commands so much as just practiced tactics.

Decoupling legendary resistence from specific creatures has a similar effect, allowing the DM a small number of negations. Now, I actually have considered award inspiration to someone if LR negates an action that costs a resource, OR making it so that if the enemy uses a LR to pass the save, you don’t spend the resource.

I think those are vastly better ideas than complaining that control effects are broken.

That and give fighters legendary resistence instead of indomitable, so it’s two sided. Seriously it’s makes people who hate LR hate it less because it’s a thing that some PCs can have too.

ETA: by decoupling LR from a critter I mean that if you have a vampire in a battle you can use a LR to make any creature succeed on a save as long as it’s an ally of the vamp.

People think PCs need more power against bosses? Wow, that's a new one.

He's not "complaining". He believes they are broken, from a design perspective. And, many agree.

 

[Zardnaar]

People think PCs need more power against bosses? Wow, that's a new one.

He's not "complaining". He believes they are broken, from a design perspective. And, many agree.

Blame Mearls is convenient. He was only one guy though he's just giving insight on the process.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, well, I'm built different, I guess!

While you're happy to have one of your players sitting around on their cell phone or whatever for an hour or so while everyone else at the friend group hangout we built is having fun in a group activity, I'm trying to make sure everyone at the part is enjoying themselves.

Honestly, this conversation makes me feel like the window is shifting hard enough that within the next few years 3e is gonna be "OSR Content" 'cause this really feels like someone shouting "Life isn't fair!" and me responding "So make it fair.

In the final game of one of my DMs epic years long campaign, we fought the lich who was behind most of the campaigns machination. We were all 20th level (3.5) and the lich was built using the Epic Level Handbook. He also has a death knight bodyguard. It was supposed to be epic.

It went like this:
Lich: first round, wins initiative (some epic feat) and casts Mordenkainen's Disjunction. The fight is derailed for over half an hour as everyone who can't make a DC 30 Will save watches their entire collection of magic gear and buff spells disappear and redoes their entire character sheet to account for the loss of permanent magic items like weapons and armor. Then the rest of us get to act but the lich has a fear aura that forces the rogue (me) to flee for 10 minutes. I cannot make a DC 30 Will save as my bonus is now +6. It's roll a 20 or nothing. The lich later hold persons our ranger who also cannot make that save except for a 20. Neither of us do anything for the whole fight. The majority of the combat came from the two wizards using Summon Monsters (celestial elephants) to do trample damage and the cleric healing the fighter round after round so that the fighter could kill the lich with the cleric's magical sword (one of the only magic weapons the group has left).

My grand contribution in the finale? I kept track of intitative. For four hours. My PC showed back up after the fight was over.

That fight changed a lot of my opinions on D&D. About magic items and Christmas trees. About combat math and saves About summons (you know how many attacks 8 celestial elephants get per round?!) and about save or suck/die/cc. A very different Remathilis (literally and figuratively) walked out of that session. But the thing that stuck out to me the most was being in the finale of a decade long campaign my character being taken out before he even got to act against his archenemy.

 

[Zardnaar]

In the final game of one of my DMs epic years long campaign, we fought the lich who was behind most of the campaigns machination. We were all 20th level (3.5) and the lich was built using the Epic Level Handbook. He also has a death knight bodyguard. It was supposed to be epic.

It went like this:
Lich: first round, wins initiative (some epic feat) and casts Mordenkainen's Disjunction. The fight is derailed for over half an hour as everyone who can't make a DC 30 Will save watches their entire collection of magic gear and buff spells disappear and redoes their entire character sheet to account for the loss of permanent magic items like weapons and armor. Then the rest of us get to act but the lich has a fear aura that forces the rogue (me) to flee for 10 minutes. I cannot make a DC 30 Will save as my bonus is now +6. It's roll a 20 or nothing. The lich later hold persons our ranger who also cannot make that save except for a 20. Neither of us do anything for the whole fight. The majority of the combat came from the two wizards using Summon Monsters (celestial elephants) to do trample damage and the cleric healing the fighter round after round so that the fighter could kill the lich with the cleric's magical sword (one of the only magic weapons the group has left).

My grand contribution in the finale? I kept track of intitative. For four hours. My PC showed back up after the fight was over.

That fight changed a lot of my opinions on D&D. About magic items and Christmas trees. About combat math and saves About summons (you know how many attacks 8 celestial elephants get per round?!) and about save or suck/die/cc. A very different Remathilis (literally and figuratively) walked out of that session. But the thing that stuck out to me the most was being in the finale of a decade long campaign my character being taken out before he even got to act against his archenemy.

Ironically in 2E you woukd have most likely made the save and chewed the lich to pieces. As DM i would have let you control the summoned elephants. And wouldn't set up a 4 hour combat.

I dont remember summons as bad in 2E. PCs used them.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I guess during session zero for my next campaign, I'll just ask the players if they want "epic boss battles" or not, because if they do, I have to "cheat" to make the villains last longer than a round or two because "that's how D&D works".

Oh, DMs can get attached to NPCs. Especially dead ones. Those are the best.
Us Yellowbeards are never more dangerous than when we're dead
Dead bosses can get resurrected, turned to ghosts or other undead, get sent back from the Abyss as a half-demon, or might have started as corpses* or clones or Simulacrums. Clones & Simulacrums are great because they have no treasure or magic items of note. A 15th level (X) with mundane gear is a completely different threat to a 15th level (X) with appropriate treasure.

I think half the solution is using the same game conceits for NPCs as PCs, and the other half is leaning into the game conceits. Plan on PCs being mostly-dead after a big fight. Also plan on NPCs being mostly-dead after a big fight. If an underboss is worth 500gp to the true BBEG, they get raised. If the information they have on the PCs is worth it, they get raised.

*I had a boss-wizard make clones of underbosses, pull them from the vats so they "died", then cast True Polymorph to turn the "object" into a CR9 creature...which is the underboss. So when you "kill" the polymorph, it leaves the right corpse. They killed "Narkos the Undying" five times. After the 3rd time, they kept the corpses. Very baffling.).

 

[Scribe]

But the thing that stuck out to me the most was being in the finale of a decade long campaign my character being taken out before he even got to act against his archenemy.

That one hurts.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That fight changed a lot of my opinions on D&D. About magic items and Christmas trees. About combat math and saves About summons (you know how many attacks 8 celestial elephants get per round?!) and about save or suck/die/cc. A very different Remathilis (literally and figuratively) walked out of that session. But the thing that stuck out to me the most was being in the finale of a decade long campaign my character being taken out before he even got to act against his archenemy.

And you know what your story actually upholds of my opinion? That the D&D board game can be really stupid sometimes and being beholden to the board game rather than the story means a whole lot of crap happens that never should have. Your experience here highlights that.

That was a bad end to an epic story... resulting from a DM thinking they needed to play the board game "to win" since it was the grand finale. Because what else would a person who puts the board game ahead of the characters and their stories supposed to do? Well... we now see exactly what happens when people focus on what I personally believe is the exact wrong thing. People's memories of their time forever tainted because people were too busy "trying to win" rather than merely just experiencing a truly epic climax.

I am sorry you had to go through that. I wish your DM thought about their game a little differently.

 

[Alzrius]

In the final game of one of my DMs epic years long campaign, we fought the lich who was behind most of the campaigns machination. We were all 20th level (3.5) and the lich was built using the Epic Level Handbook. He also has a death knight bodyguard. It was supposed to be epic.

It went like this:
Lich: first round, wins initiative (some epic feat) and casts Mordenkainen's Disjunction. The fight is derailed for over half an hour as everyone who can't make a DC 30 Will save watches their entire collection of magic gear and buff spells disappear and redoes their entire character sheet to account for the loss of permanent magic items like weapons and armor. Then the rest of us get to act but the lich has a fear aura that forces the rogue (me) to flee for 10 minutes. I cannot make a DC 30 Will save as my bonus is now +6. It's roll a 20 or nothing. The lich later hold persons our ranger who also cannot make that save except for a 20. Neither of us do anything for the whole fight. The majority of the combat came from the two wizards using Summon Monsters (celestial elephants) to do trample damage and the cleric healing the fighter round after round so that the fighter could kill the lich with the cleric's magical sword (one of the only magic weapons the group has left).

My grand contribution in the finale? I kept track of intitative. For four hours. My PC showed back up after the fight was over.

That fight changed a lot of my opinions on D&D. About magic items and Christmas trees. About combat math and saves About summons (you know how many attacks 8 celestial elephants get per round?!) and about save or suck/die/cc. A very different Remathilis (literally and figuratively) walked out of that session. But the thing that stuck out to me the most was being in the finale of a decade long campaign my character being taken out before he even got to act against his archenemy.

You had two 20th-level wizards in your group, and that was the best they could do? No one cast vision ahead of time to try and figure out what they needed to be wary of? No one had a contingency spell with greater dispel magic set to counterspell? No one was willing/able to cast wish after the fact to try and make the lich, say, re-roll his initiative ("undo misfortune")?

 

[Steampunkette]

In the final game of one of my DMs epic years long campaign, we fought the lich who was behind most of the campaigns machination. We were all 20th level (3.5) and the lich was built using the Epic Level Handbook. He also has a death knight bodyguard. It was supposed to be epic.

It went like this:
Lich: first round, wins initiative (some epic feat) and casts Mordenkainen's Disjunction. The fight is derailed for over half an hour as everyone who can't make a DC 30 Will save watches their entire collection of magic gear and buff spells disappear and redoes their entire character sheet to account for the loss of permanent magic items like weapons and armor. Then the rest of us get to act but the lich has a fear aura that forces the rogue (me) to flee for 10 minutes. I cannot make a DC 30 Will save as my bonus is now +6. It's roll a 20 or nothing. The lich later hold persons our ranger who also cannot make that save except for a 20. Neither of us do anything for the whole fight. The majority of the combat came from the two wizards using Summon Monsters (celestial elephants) to do trample damage and the cleric healing the fighter round after round so that the fighter could kill the lich with the cleric's magical sword (one of the only magic weapons the group has left).

My grand contribution in the finale? I kept track of intitative. For four hours. My PC showed back up after the fight was over.

That fight changed a lot of my opinions on D&D. About magic items and Christmas trees. About combat math and saves About summons (you know how many attacks 8 celestial elephants get per round?!) and about save or suck/die/cc. A very different Remathilis (literally and figuratively) walked out of that session. But the thing that stuck out to me the most was being in the finale of a decade long campaign my character being taken out before he even got to act against his archenemy.

Yeeeeah. I think a shocking number of us have stories like that.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeeeeah. I think a shocking number of us have stories like that.

My end issue doesn't really have anything like that. TPK might be possible.

Some of the encounters leading up to them may be interesting. Marilith or Balor plus friends multiple spellcasters etc.