D&D 5E (Poll) Combat Difficulty

[Sword of Spirit]

Do you have a preference as to how many weak enemies? Say you've got 4 11th level characters for simplicity. Would you rather fight 11 hobgoblins (Easy), 16 hobgoblins (Medium), 24 hobgoblins (Hard), or 36+ hobgoblins (Deadly)?

I ask because it's hard to imagine any Gold Box fan going for less than the Medium size (4 hobgoblins per PC). I remember immense fights and (Delayed Blast) Fireballs that would take out a dozen enemies at a time, which means that dozens of enemies is pretty much a prerequisite to the experience. I suspect that my Gold Box nostalgia is one of the reasons why I give my players gigantic deadly fights.

So anyway, weak enemies, check. But how many do you like?

Edit: oh, I see you voted Medium. Hmmm, I guess that disproves my Gold Box conjecture then.

I just voted Medium because it was in the middle and I couldn't really place it on either side.

I actually think it's more about the numbers and the difficulty of the individual foes than the overall difficulty of the fight. I feel a much greater sense of accomplishment when I've wiped out scores of foes, than when I've taken down a single enemy--even if both battles were so deadly we almost lost.

 

[Yaarel]

According to the poll, players enjoy the *variety* of combat encounters ranging from Easy to Insane. It is important for the DM to mix it up, with some combats being Medium and some encounters being Dangerous.

The bulk of combat encounters tend to be challenging, Hard - but not necessarily Deadly. It is important to mix in other kinds of scenarios, including Insane encounters that players should know to make efforts to avoid and obviate, and easy encounters for higher level adventurers to revisit earlier scenarios to demonstrate how far they have come since then.

Some players - thus some settings - exclude either extreme, Easy or Insane.

For some reason, after voting, I am unable to see the results listing other voters by name. These results are significant, because many voters checked several options.

 

[Rhenny]

I voted all. I think a good DM mixes it up. Players like to feel powerful on occasion walking over fights with an easy or medium fights. Sometimes they want it hard, but not deadly. Sometimes they want to feel like its kill or be killed for all the marbles with no escape but victory.

This is exactly what I think. Varied is most thrilling.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I just voted Medium because it was in the middle and I couldn't really place it on either side.

I actually think it's more about the numbers and the difficulty of the individual foes than the overall difficulty of the fight. I feel a much greater sense of accomplishment when I've wiped out scores of foes, than when I've taken down a single enemy--even if both battles were so deadly we almost lost.

I sympathize and agree. It's just that whenever I actually count up the difficulty after the fact for a fun battle like the one you describe, it always turns out to have been incredibly Deadly by DMG standards[1]. That's why I wanted to poll the community, basically to see whether the DMG got the guidelines right.

I'd be interested if you could spot-check some of your recent battles against "scores of foes" to see where they fall on the DMG scale.

[1] E.g. two 10th level PCs vs. four Hobgoblins, two Hobgoblin Captains, and a Hobgoblin Warlord sounds like a pretty average random encounter by Gold Box standards, right? A little bit top-heavy on the leadership types from a fluff perspective, but pretty reasonable from a difficulty perspective. But the DMG says this is double Deadly: 12,300 when the Deadly threshold is 5600.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Yeah, I don't think 5e lends itself as well to quite so many enemies as the games of yore due to bounded accuracy. But it is a lot better in that regards than 3e (where the assumption was one foe), so it's an improvement in my book.

I'm still looking forward to next year when I'll have a campaign where I can throw gobs of weak opponents at my party.

I want them to have the same sort of feeling I had playing Pool of Radiance when I went out on that mission against the kobolds in the cave, and cast fireball the first time. It was a slow yet beautiful scene to watch a screen full of kobolds (over 30) all go down to that spell. That's when I first felt my characters had become powerful.

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah, I don't think 5e lends itself as well to quite so many enemies as the games of yore due to bounded accuracy. But it is a lot better in that regards than 3e (where the assumption was one foe), so it's an improvement in my book.

I'm still looking forward to next year when I'll have a campaign where I can throw gobs of weak opponents at my party.

I want them to have the same sort of feeling I had playing Pool of Radiance when I went out on that mission against the kobolds in the cave, and cast fireball the first time. It was a slow yet beautiful scene to watch a screen full of kobolds (over 30) all go down to that spell. That's when I first felt my characters had become powerful.

I find it works fine.
The issue is that most DMs don't use enough kobolds. For a 4 man lvl 5 party, it's 14 fights of 13 kobolds. Over 150 kobolds.

It's a lot of fights and a lot of kobolds. And you run out of AOE fast. And when that happens, the fun begins.

The bookkeeping and the time is a nightmare. It takes... forever. FOREVER. But it's so fun.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

Do you have a preference as to how many weak enemies? Say you've got 4 11th level characters for simplicity. Would you rather fight 11 hobgoblins (Easy), 16 hobgoblins (Medium), 24 hobgoblins (Hard), or 36+ hobgoblins (Deadly)?

One issue is in 5E, due to their special abilities and damage output, the orcs and hobgoblins are closer to the 2 to 3 HD captains that generally accompanied a dozen or so 1HD troop of their respective races in 1E / Basic. For the style of fight like the older editions...

20+ goblins ( commoner stats cr0 xp10 ) with a few MM statted goblins as sub leaders leading from the rear.

Dozens of hobgoblin with the stats of "CR 1/8th Guards" with a standard mature CR1/2 Hobgoblin acting as a captain.

 

[Hussar]

I prefer the stats of the encounters to be medium with a few hards tossed in. I find that the DM can very, very easily ramp up the difficulty in an encounter with some fairly basic tactics (focus fire, give the baddies bows, positioning and encounter design) that it's rarely necessary to go into deadly encounters unless I really want to beat the PC's like the pinatas that they are.

 

[manw1th0utfear]

Since I hardly get to play I like to be challenged, but as a DM I like to challenge my players. 5e has a great feel to it when you are involved in a challenging combat or situation. If I make fights too hard I tend to give the players a leg up to even the playing field, they just have to be willing to take advantage of it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yeah, I don't think 5e lends itself as well to quite so many enemies as the games of yore due to bounded accuracy. But it is a lot better in that regards than 3e (where the assumption was one foe), so it's an improvement in my book.

I'm still looking forward to next year when I'll have a campaign where I can throw gobs of weak opponents at my party.

I want them to have the same sort of feeling I had playing Pool of Radiance when I went out on that mission against the kobolds in the cave, and cast fireball the first time. It was a slow yet beautiful scene to watch a screen full of kobolds (over 30) all go down to that spell. That's when I first felt my characters had become powerful.

That's a great story!

I don't think Bounded Accuracy is actually much of a change compared to Gold Box games because opponents there are so ridiculously tough. What's the difference between a swarm of Auraks with THAC0 5 easily hitting your AC -6, and a swarm of 5E hobgoblins with +3 to attack easily hitting your AC 18?

Last week my players were hunting hobgoblin vampires, and ran into a manor where the scout reported 20 zombies scattered around the grounds (in packets of 2 to 6) and a vampire (spawn) hobgoblin inside. It actually turned out to be three vampires, but in any case the cleric felt awesome when he blew away 10+ zombies with his Turn Undead. I can't remember how he killed the other ten, maybe the ranger either shot them before they approached or the cleric used Turn Undead twice. So you can definitely get the same feel out of 5E that you had in Pool of Radiance. I hope your campaign next year goes well!