Level Up (A5E) Removing Pointless Death (+)

[lichmaster]

I didn't design that encounter. It was in a published adventure, and I ran it as-is, with the details provided, and the tactics the author gave.

From my experience, many encounters in official 5e adventures suck, big time.
In RoTFM for instance there's an encounter with an alleged CR6 Frost Giant Skeleton that can oneshot crit any character at the level when the encounter happens, and it can come with a hag.
That's only the last one outrageously bad encounter I experienced, a year back, as a player.

I do run published adventures for many of the same reasons you're mentioning, but I do significantly change encounters (either when prepping or during play) because by experience just by looking at numbers I can see all the pitfalls. It's surprising sometimes that older adventures (pre 5e) were much better designed for their own edition than current ones, in my experience.
3PP adventures may be way better though.

 

[Distracted DM]

It may just be certain monsters that cause issues when doing this.

If you're running A5E characters with A5E monsters, it shouldn't be an issue. The A5E characters are, overall, more powerful than 5e- especially the martial characters (and especially the berserker and fighter). Obviously there could be some edge cases, but not in my experience... if the players have some level of "system mastery," A5E martial maneuvers are nasty.

My happiest balance of PC v Monster power was running 5e14 characters with A5E monsters!

 

[AnotherGuy]

My happiest balance of PC v Monster power was running 5e14 characters with A5E monsters!

Agree. That I also found to be the best if you're only using published material.

 

[Anonymous3]

My happiest balance of PC v Monster power was running 5e14 characters with A5E monsters!

This how we started with A5e!

 

[Anonymous3]

I didn't design that encounter. It was in a published adventure, and I ran it as-is, with the details provided, and the tactics the author gave.
I was running a published adventure because of the following...

1) A weekly game that runs 3+ hours
2) A full-time job
3) Household responsibilities
4) Working on my Masters degree
5) A lack of trust in my abilities to design encounters
6) Inability to get everyone on board with original plots
7) A bookshelf stuffed of gaming stuff I've already bought

Life these days is busy. Busy for everyone. I really think the biggest impact at your table would add little to no time to your life: strategize with each other.

 

[FrogReaver]

From my experience, many encounters in official 5e adventures suck, big time.
In RoTFM for instance there's an encounter with an alleged CR6 Frost Giant Skeleton that can oneshot crit any character at the level when the encounter happens, and it can come with a hag.
That's only the last one outrageously bad encounter I experienced, a year back, as a player.

I do run published adventures for many of the same reasons you're mentioning, but I do significantly change encounters (either when prepping or during play) because by experience just by looking at numbers I can see all the pitfalls. It's surprising sometimes that older adventures (pre 5e) were much better designed for their own edition than current ones, in my experience.
3PP adventures may be way better though.

The 1st question might be, just how much stronger in terms of hp and ac are level 3 characters in a5e? (I suspect not much). Then maybe also in damage and control? (I suspect this is where most of the increased power is located).

IMO. 4 5e-style wererats shouldn’t have been that hard of an encounter even for a 5e party.

I think often in 5e adventures they knew the 5e encounter guidelines could be too easy so they increased the difficulty. When you have material that already increased the difficulty beyond recommendations, converting those monsters to be even stronger (along the damage axis), especially since ac and hp of PCs probably stays similar then I think that’s what’s leading to tpks especially around low initiative rolls or bad positioning (like streaming in 1 at a time).

Possible Solution.
I’d do a quick check for what the published encounter difficulty would be for regular 5e and if it’s way outside wncoubter guidelines then I’d adjust downward in some way before converting to a5e monsters. In this case going to 2 or 2 and some lower cr rats would have been about right IMO.

If the party handled was semi optimized annd encounter perfectly I think they could have probably beaten 3, but would be a very difficult encounter.

 

[FrogReaver]

If you're running A5E characters with A5E monsters, it shouldn't be an issue. The A5E characters are, overall, more powerful than 5e- especially the martial characters (and especially the berserker and fighter). Obviously there could be some edge cases, but not in my experience... if the players have some level of "system mastery," A5E martial maneuvers are nasty.

My happiest balance of PC v Monster power was running 5e14 characters with A5E monsters!

The question there might be are you converting modules or making your own encounter guidelines with a5e or even 2014 encounter building guidelines?

Also I believe you that they are more powerful, but in what dimensions does that extra lower exist? I really doubt it’s ac and hp, but I could be wrong.