D&D 5E (2024) NPCs, and the poverty of the core books

[ECMO3]

Those encounter difficulties were thresholds, not hard numbers. At 1st level medium isn't 50. It's 50-74. Deadly isn't 100. It's 100+. So a deadly encounter by the 5e rules could easily result in a TPK. This is especially true since encounters were so easy the DM had to go past the thresholds by a significant margin to actually challenge a decent group.

I don't think they will often result in a TPK unless the DM is purposely trying to kill a party.

You say it can easily result in a TPK, how many of those have you seen in play and more importantly how many that you saw were due to a custom monster more powerful than the DM thought and not one of the other things I mentioned?

I can say in well over 1000 sessions I have never seen a TPK in play in 5E because the DM made an overtuned custom monster

That means proficiency with encounter creation and the ability to recognize when you are approaching that razor thin line are a must if the DM wants to challenge a decent group and not TPK them.

We are not talking about encounter creation, but rather monster creation. Those are two different things and we are presuming that said DM does understand how to create encounters of the appropriate difficulty if the monsters are appropriately speced.

 

[TiQuinn]

I’ve only ever had one TPK. A party of 4th level players were attacked by a spellcasting Drider. It went first and were all bunched up. It fireballed them. They all stayed in the same position. It fireballed them again. Unlucky saves and a good roll for damage. Game over.

The medusa in Tomb of Annihilation wiped our party of 3 (we were one player short). Two people failed their saves, rolled badly, and it became academic at that point.

 

[Lanefan]

The game designers don't even get spells right.

This idea that somehow an arcane spell is sacrosanct (irony!) the moment it appears in a PC playable species only (weird) repertoire is fundamentally flawed. The GM is not there to provide you the perfect experience. They are there to play the game with you. And it is, above all things, a game.

Precedent is vitally important for internal consistency, which in turn is beyond essential for a coherent setting.

All of these are needed before the 'game' part ever leaves the ground.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm fascinated with this. There is no ability an NPC can have that a PC cannot? No Vistani with the gift of plot device prophecy, no dragonslayer or witch finder with abilities to hunt certain monsters at the cost of others? All offshoot subraces (drow, derro or Cynidicean) must be PC options?

No. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Drow, not being a PC-playable option, might very well have inherent abilities that non-Drow don't have e.g. better dark vision, better ability to move over poor terrain underground, etc.

But the moment they start casting arcane spells they're using the same system everyone else is; analagous to the moment you start driving a car you're using the same road system as everyone else. And while Drow may very well have developed different and heretofore unseen spells, once the PCs find and decipher and successfully study their spellbooks those spells become available for the PCs to cast as well.

There are no ancient magics beyond the ability of PCs, no ancient artifacts they cannot use or weild? Unless it's tied to a specific monster type, everything from anti paladins to witches is in the table for PCs?

Yes, exactly. If a class exists and isn't ties to a specific species or culture (mostly seen as Cleric variants among different monster cultures), it's in theory PC-available; in practice there's some non-adventuring classes that would be extremely dull and boring to play - you sit in town while everyone else goes adventuring - but you still can if you really really want to.

 

[Reynard]

Precedent is vitally important for internal consistency, which in turn is beyond essential for a coherent setting.

All of these are needed before the 'game' part ever leaves the ground.

I can't imagine being forced to spend years vetting everything that could possibly appear in the game before I am allowed to start the campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

What if I say they have notes about how they did it but they're the indecipherable, idiosyncratic scrawlings of a singularly gifted savant?

I get wanting consistency but there are some things PCs just shouldn't have access to. Just as there are PC abilities that NPCs shouldn't get, if for no other reason than because the DM only has so much mental bandwidth and needs to run ever other monster.

Perhaps to no surprise, I don't agree with the bolded piece either.

 

[Lanefan]

If the A5E berserker in my Age of Worms game was ever turned against the rest of the party, they'd have zero chance. Fortunately for them he has proficiency in every mental save and a helmet that gives a bonus vs such things

In the game I play in there's one such character in our adventuring company, invulnerable and capable to the point where a few of us have even had quiet in-character discussions as to ways and means of (maybe!) taking her down should she ever get turned against us.

 

[Lanefan]

I can't imagine being forced to spend years vetting everything that could possibly appear in the game before I am allowed to start the campaign.

Before the campaign starts you only have to vet the low level stuff - things the PCs can do and things they're likely to face. I'd assume this to be SOP; just because professional game designers made the game doesn't mean it's gonna be anywhere near perfect, plus tweaking to suit your own preferences and-or those of your table.

After that, you vet on the fly: as levels advance you make sure things make sense and aren't broken before they enter play. Then, if something does get into play that's faulty or broken make notes to fix it for the next campaign while living with it in this one.

My current "notes to fix later" list has got to the point where a full reboot is starting to look appealing.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think they will often result in a TPK unless the DM is purposely trying to kill a party.

You say it can easily result in a TPK, how many of those have you seen in play and more importantly how many that you saw were due to a custom monster more powerful than the DM thought and not one of the other things I mentioned?

I can say in well over 1000 sessions I have never seen a TPK in play in 5E because the DM made an overtuned custom monster

It happened to me a few times when I first started playing 5e. After those few times, not so much. I learned from my mistakes.

We are not talking about encounter creation, but rather monster creation. Those are two different things and we are presuming that said DM does understand how to balance encounters.

Tomato, tomahto. Both of those things require pretty much the exact same skills for the purposes of this discussion. You need the ability to look at a monster with it's AC, hit points, saves, specials, etc. and be able to accurately compare those things to the party make-up and player skill of your players.