D&D 5E My biggest gripe with 5e design

[Sacrosanct]

And I'm not arguing that a DM just can't boost 5e monsters. (I hope this means people will stop making those arguments)

To give a similar threat in 5E I'll just throw 2 orcs. The DM still controls the threat level.

I guess not

 

[5ekyu]

So I did some comparisons. Earlier I said that AC values in 1e were overall higher than their counterparts in 5e, and Hussar laughed it off. So I pulled some of the most common monsters and sample size (did not cherry pick). Every time there is a blue highlight, that means the 1e monster has a higher AC than it's 5e counterpart (naturally converting the descending AC in 1e to ascending).

View attachment 115831

Also, I ran comparisons for the core classes re: hit points, bonuses to hit, and total available hit points in a 24 hour period (1 day). I've often heard the "well, but 5e increased monster damage a lot". Looking at the above, if you compare monster damage and to hit bonuses by monster hit dice (you can't really compare monster vs same monster name, because some monsters like orcs were bumped up. I.e., in 1e, an orc was a pretty close to a 1st level character, while in 5e, it's equivalent to a 2nd level character). So monster hit dice is a better comparison. When you compare by hit dice, there isn't any real difference in 5e monsters being able to have a higher to hit bonus. And damage is only slightly higher.

But higher damage doesn't equal more danger more lethality because 5e PCs have a LOT more hit points available to them in any given adventuring day (not just with higher hit dice, but with having hit dice to heal up every short rest, and getting all base hp back after a long rest).

Note: For simplicity, I did not count any ability bonuses to hit or for extra HP. If I did, 5e would have an additional benefit because you increase your core abilities in 5e and you do not in 1e, and every class can benefit from high CON when in 1e, non fighters were capped at a +2 bonus.

So what does that look like?

To hit bonuses: 5e PCs gain a better bonus to hit at lower levels (everyone starts with a +2 prof bonus, and 1e doesn't have this). At mid levels, the fighter begins to outpace the 5e bonus to hit counterpart. Clerics also being to outpace at mid to higher levels. Magic users are always way behind in their basic bonus to hit. High level fighters way outpace their 5e counterparts in core bonus to hit (doubling up even). When you add ability modifiers, this evens out considerably (as without magic items, most 1e fighters with a 16 STR will only have a +1 to hit with melee weapons, while a high level 5e fighter will have a 20 STR with a +5 bonus.

Hit points are significantly different. again, not counting ability modifiers (which make 5e version even better, not just for higher ability scores that can grow, but because you stopped getting CON bonus for HP after level 9 in 1e), the 5e fighter has about 20% more base hp than the 1e fighter. The 5e wizard has double the hit points of a 1e MU. For comparison, at 10th level:

1e fighter: 53. 5e fighter: 64
1e thief: 33, 5e thief: 53
1e MU: 24, 5e MU: 42
1e Cleric: 46, 5e cleric: 53

At 20th level, the 1e fighter will have 83 hp and the 5e version will have 124. The MU has 34 hp and the 5e one has 82.

But wait, there's more!

When you factor hit dice healing (1 HD per level), and gaining full hp after a long rest, while a 20th level fighter in 1e has 84 total hit points available in an adventuring day (83 plus the one for resting overnight), the 5e fighter has 348 total hit points available. Core 124, plus 20d10 hit dice, plus the core again that can get healed completely after a long rest (a heck of a lot more if you factor in CON bonuses)

So, even though 5e monsters can do a bit more damage per hit dice, the actual net affect is less because non-magical healing and total available hit point resources are so much higher. Eg. monster A in 1e might average 10 points of damage a round, and the 5e hit dice equivilante might do 15. That 10 points is more devastating to the 25 hp MU than 15 points is to the 42 hp MU.

Once again, I am not arguing that 1e is better in any way, shape or form. And I'm not arguing that a DM just can't boost 5e monsters. (I hope this means people will stop making those arguments) But it's clear that looking at how each edition was designed, even if you totally ignore save or die, or level drain, or long term conditions, and only look at the core damage, 1e is still significantly more lethal/dangerous to PCs. To argue otherwise just seems like a silly position. All of the evidence points otherwise.

Ok, first point...

"you can't really compare monster vs same monster name, because some monsters like orcs were bumped up. I.e., in 1e, an orc was a pretty close to a 1st level character, while in 5e, it's equivalent to a 2nd level character)"

Why doesnt this apply to all aspects of the comparison? Why is AC highlighted by name to name differences fine and not subject to this same caveat?

Second, one key difference in 5e to 1e is the deliberate design effort to pile and focus more of what a character needs to survive on the character, not in items. 5e has attunemrent restrictions. 5e was designed to not depend on magic items. Meanwhile 1e was not alone but a classic origin for the Christmas tree of magic items meme - ages before memes were called that.

So, when we compare character to character "without items" it's an obvious mismatch slanting the outcomes.

Third, in 1e, what was an adventuring day? How many encounters were its baseline? Was it six, two, twenty compared to 5e 6-8? Without knowing what the expected baseline was for a 1e game - how can any conclusion about the merits of the data to lethality based on an adventuring day be made?

Finally, if this list was not cherry picked, why are there basically no casters? It seems mostly just sluggers. That was by accident?

 

[Oofta]

I guess not

I simply don't know what you're arguing any more. Is the game different? Yes.

Want to discuss options like how to make undead more deadly? We can discuss if the HP drain makes sense and workarounds to make it more dangerous. For people that don't run long rests like I do I think maybe there needs to be something other than a long rest, but as others have pointed out Restoration is a really, really high bar. Maybe a single long rest doesn't do it, maybe it takes hit dice to recover and the number of hit dice available are also reduced? I don't know because you won't discuss.

But without discussing specifics you're just saying "the games are different". So?

 

[5ekyu]

I always forget about that secondary bonus from chill touch. I really need to utilize that more from the rank and file evil necromancers, it's scary. Not being able to heal at a crucial moment is great drama.

Absolutely it did in my games. Honestly, a thing my players have realized is the threat a low level apprentice adds to an encounter with a high level caster. Not just casual things like chill touch but quick obscuration effects that for instance, prevent counter-spell when the "master" gets ready to cast due to the counterspell "you see" trigger. Silent image, fog cloud etc from the minion really stumps those counterspellers.

 

[5ekyu]

I simply don't know what you're arguing any more. Is the game different? Yes.

Want to discuss options like how to make undead more deadly? We can discuss if the HP drain makes sense and workarounds to make it more dangerous. For people that don't run long rests like I do I think maybe there needs to be something other than a long rest, but as others have pointed out Restoration is a really, really high bar. Maybe a single long rest doesn't do it, maybe it takes hit dice to recover and the number of hit dice available are also reduced? I don't know because you won't discuss.

But without discussing specifics you're just saying "the games are different". So?

I agree.. when I saw "All of the evidence points otherwise." I think it only showed that the difference between data and evidence was being lost. The data provided did not seem to support any conclusion about 1e vs 5e actual gameplay other than different.

Lists of monsters keyed by one stat vs another stst (named or hd, labelled by CR or HD, etc) dont show anything about gameplay especially "over an adventuring day" when iirc there was no std adventuring day in one vs the other.

Moreover, 5e CR is used to "rank" its threats, and it uses a variety of things - HD and AC can be all over the place for a relative brute vs a caster) so to use a selected group of critters by name then key them to HD and try to draw some conclusions other than "different" is a dubious beginning at the most generous.

Claim this as evidence is gonna draw challenge - imo rightfully do.

 

[NotAYakk]

No, this isn't true. There was no CR until 3e. In 1e, HD was the mechanic you used. It determined a monster's attack bonus, and even on the very vague dungeon encounter rules in the DMG, was used to populate the tables of what typical monsters would be encounter for each dungeon level. As for 5e, as you can see, the hit dice of the monster is also correlated with the attack bonus and average damage of the monster (in general, the to hit bonuses and damage increase as the monster's HD increased). It's the best like vs like comparison we can make.

Yes, HD was how hard a monster was in 1e. It was a rating that determined how challenging it was. Monsters with HD and a star where extra hard for their HD.

The first monsters a party would meet as new adventurers should be HD 1 or lower monsters in 1e. In 5e, they should be CR 1 or lower monsters.

There is a strong association between 1e HD and 5e CR. There is next to no association between 5e HD and 1e HD. Nobody should ever use 5e HD to determine how tough a monster is, if it should be on the "first level of a dungeon" or not.

There is correlation between HD and HP, and correlation between HP and CR, and correlation between CR and ATK bonus and Damage. Comparing 5e HD to 1e HD is an absolutely horrible comparison method, as someone who has played both 5e and 1e.

The monster building guidelines of 5e have you derive HD from how many HP you want it to have, its size, and its constitution bonus. Larger monsters use larger HD and hence have fewer of them, smaller monsters have smaller HD and hence have more of them.

This is why an Orc has 2 HD and so does a Kobold; the Orc has a high con (+3) and is medium sized, so has 2d8+6 = 15 HP. The Kobold has -1 Con and is small, so rolls d6 HD -- 2d6-2 is 5 HP. If the Kobold had -2 Con, it would have 3 HD and 5 HP. If it had -3 Con, it would have 5 HD ... and 5 HP. Nothing else about the monster would change, because HD is a derived stat in 5e, not the start of building a monster.

On the other hand, comparing 5e CR to 1e HD is a decent comparison method. They both are a way of measuring how tough a monster is.

Go and do your comparison of 1e monsters by HD vs 5e monsters by CR. The Orc is a half level threat in 5e, and yes it has more HP than a level 1 PC and does more damage. That is why people are saying monsters in 5e ... have more HP and deal more damage than 1e ones did.

The Kobold has 2 HD, but is a 1/8 CR threat. It is 4 times weaker than an Orc.

HD, on a monster in 5e, means next to nothing. It exists pretty much only to make people who are used to HD-centric editions of D&D feel surface fuzzies.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There is a strong association between 1e HD and 5e CR.

No there's not. A 1 HD creature in 1e isn't close to a CR 1 creature in 5e. There is literally no correltation there. Do you know what there is a strong correlation of?

There is next to no association between 5e HD and 1e HD.

Yes there is. It's literally in the table above. IF you graphed out those values, you'd see a very strong correlation between the HD of a creature, and it's to hit bonuses and average damage for both editions. That's how statistics works. You look at the stronger correlations. Is it perfect? Of course not. They are completely different systems. But it's the closest thing we have because the correlations match.

Comparing 5e HD to 1e HD is an absolutely horrible comparison method, as someone who has played both 5e and 1e.

Congratulations. So has pretty much everyone here. I played AD&D from 1981 to 2012, and 5e since, and I disagree. Your attempt at appeal to authority is noted and disregarded.

 

[Lanefan]

This drow priestess cast harm on one player. Harm back then required a melee touch hit and was reducing the player to 1d4 HP LEFT plus a disease.

Harm is nasty, to be sure, but not easy to pull off for one simple series of reasons:

a) it requires a melee touch attack
b) to be within reach to make said attack when the spell resolves you by default have to have been casting it within melee range of the target (unless the target is approaching you and you're very lucky with the timing)
c) casting in melee in 2e is either super-easy to interrupt or cannot be successfully done at all, depending on the DM's rulings.

Now if the DM is being (overly!) generous and allowing a caster to resolve the spell and then move in for the attack, or to attack with it in a later round, that's different; but the way I've always seen it for any touch spell the attack happens right when the spell resolves.

 

[NotAYakk]

I haven't seen you do any correlation math, so I assume you are using correlation in the "not the math word" way.

A 1 HD creature in 1e isn't close to a CR 1 creature in 5e. There is literally no correltation there.

First, I said association. Second, [citation needed]. Of course there is a correlation there -- as one varies so does the other.

I described what the association is between 1e HD and 5e CR. They are both used as a measure of monster difficulty. 5e HD is not used as a measure of monster difficulty.

I believe HD correlates with damage, because I know HD correlates with HP (as it is derived from HP, and monster size, and monster con bonus), and HP correlates with CR, and CR correlates with Damage. But starting with HD is frankly ridiculous given how the DMG describes how to build monsters.

Possibly the monsters in the MM where not built using the method described in the DMG. But it sure looks like they where. Kobolds have 2 HD not because someone thought "Kobolds should have 2 HD", but because they are small (so their HD are d6s), and because they wanted them to have [g]negative con[/b] and about 5 HP. So 5/(3.5-1) = 2, so they have 2 HD.

They are CR 1/8, so they have a proficiency bonus of +2. They use Dex to attack, and they should be Dexterous -- but not too far, they are low-CR monsters. So 15 Dex (+2). From that you get an attack bonus of +4.

Given that attack bonus and a target low-CR, they get 1d4 damage weapons. So they hit for 1d4+2 at +4 to hit. This gives you an offensive CR.

AC wise, with 15 dex they have 12 AC. There isn't an obvious reason to penalize this; you could give them a bonus, but we'll pass.

From 12 AC and 5 HP you get a defensive CR, from +4 ATK and 1d4+2 damage you get an offensive CR, you average them and you get a CR of 1/8. This matches the designers concept of a weak humanoid foe!

Do the same with an orc, and because they are medium (d8 HD) and the concept has them with high constitution (+2) for a low-CR monster, and HP in the 10 to 20 range, we get (10 to 20) / (4.5+2) is 2ish or 3ish HD. Etc.

Make a creature that is identical to an orc, but small and has -1 con, and it has 6 HD. Its attack bonus and HP and CR remain unchanged (moving con from +2 to -1 isn't a large enough change to trigger a CR change likely).

The reason why HD correlates is that the other stuff -- size, con, etc -- is semi-random, if slightly increasing with monster CR, and CR is how tough a monster is, and how tough a monster is in 5e correlates with how tough it is in 1e.

 

[Weiley31]

So to you being heroic means having lucky dice?

Technically the Dice is THE TRUE CANON protagonist of DND. It's just piloting a Fantasy Hero Paper Suit composed of 12 different classifications. And the true final boss is it's evil twin brother Ecid.