D&D 5E (2014) Some thoughts after more time with the game...

[SteveC]

Example of monsters that have incorrect attack bonuses for their CR?

I suspect you are confused about how monster proficiency bonus is determined. It's based on CR, not HD.

If your DM introduced too many magical sources of AC, I can see that restricting stacking might be useful. This is basically a fix for a problem your DM created, but whatever works.

Sigh. I know how that about CR. I happen to think it's a terrible way of doing things. Far better for HD=level = proficiency bonus. CR to me is an entirely arbitrary mechanic to determine the level of characters who should be meeting this opponent.

Many creatures have a lot of Hit Dice because they end up being big bags of hit points. I have no issue with treating them exactly like characters and basing their proficiency bonus accordingly. The fact that this makes large creatures slightly stronger is a feature to me.

I have a similar reaction to the magic items comment. If D&D is about killing things and taking their stuff, we want to make sure they have some stuff to take. Our DM uses the treasure generation rules from the DMG, so it's all been left up to the dice.

It's, interesting, I guess is the right term, to think of D&D as being unbalanced once you introduce basic magic items into it. That in itself is a problem, since having magic items be a part of the game is as old as the game itself.

I'm looking for ideas on how to deal with the cases where ACs and hit bonuses are outside the normal ranges for bounded accuracy, which I believe to be an issue. Perhaps you don't find it so, and if that's the case, enjoy your game.

 

[MerricB]

Example of monsters that have incorrect attack bonuses for their CR?

Ghoul comes to mind, but the attack bonus calculations are actually more guidelines than rules according to the Word of God (Mearls). It's fine to vary the stats.

Cheers!

 

[JohnTitusRenzi]

Some spells are well thought out and others have no martial value at all. How many spells that send a 25 word message do we need?

Sure you detected the poison. But you need Remove Poison to do anything about it.

 

[Celtavian]

I have an 8th level group in my 5e game currently. I agree with many posters above re AC:

1. PCs being able to easily hit monsters is expected by the system and not a problem.
2. PC AC has not been a problem IMC, which has a swords & sorcery tone and not much heavy armour around, but I expect that very high ACs in Tier 2 will cause difficulty when stacked with magic bonuses. An AC 24+ would cause major problems for the system; monsters need to be hitting on rolls of under 20 for the system to work.

My PC group:
Hakeem, Barbarian-8 AC 19 Attack +8 MI: +1 longsword
Rey, Rogue-8 AC 18 Attack +7/+8 MI: +1 dagger, mage armour spell cast on him
Bjornalf, Warlock-8 AC 16 Attack +7

At these numbers the game works great. If ACs got up around 22 or so I think it would work much less well, and at AC 24 it would start breaking down.

AC 22 and 24 is extremely easy to get it you allow heavy armor, even without magic items.

 

[Celtavian]

The wording for this is a little weird however. Multi-class rules say: "You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class." The prepared-casting classes all limit prepared spells by saying: "The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots." A cleric 5/wizard 5 has 5th level spell slots, so you could make the argument that they should be able to prepare 5th level cleric spells (not wizard spells however, since they can't put 5th level spells in their spell book). Wizards has clarified that this is not how the multi-class rules are supposed to work, but in the absence of that clarification you could easily interpret the rules that way.

That first sentence seemed clear to me. You determine maximum spell level prepared for each class individually. Sure, I can see how some people might interpret things a different way. With so many folks reading it, people might focus on different sentences or see things differently. The example I believe was clear. If you accept preparing spells for each class individually means up to the spell slots they would have individually, it makes the interpretation clear. If you use the combined multilcass spell slots, that is not each class individually.The example clarifies this.

 

[billd91]

Sigh. I know how that about CR. I happen to think it's a terrible way of doing things. Far better for HD=level = proficiency bonus. CR to me is an entirely arbitrary mechanic to determine the level of characters who should be meeting this opponent.

Many creatures have a lot of Hit Dice because they end up being big bags of hit points. I have no issue with treating them exactly like characters and basing their proficiency bonus accordingly. The fact that this makes large creatures slightly stronger is a feature to me.

I think high-level 3e and PF have revealed the weakness of that approach - save DCs and opposed skill modifiers grew way too high as HD outstripped CR and the modifiers the PCs could bring to overcome them.

 

[MostlyDm]

Sigh. I know how that about CR. I happen to think it's a terrible way of doing things. Far better for HD=level = proficiency bonus. CR to me is an entirely arbitrary mechanic to determine the level of characters who should be meeting this opponent.

Many creatures have a lot of Hit Dice because they end up being big bags of hit points. I have no issue with treating them exactly like characters and basing their proficiency bonus accordingly. The fact that this makes large creatures slightly stronger is a feature to me.

I have a similar reaction to the magic items comment. If D&D is about killing things and taking their stuff, we want to make sure they have some stuff to take. Our DM uses the treasure generation rules from the DMG, so it's all been left up to the dice.

It's, interesting, I guess is the right term, to think of D&D as being unbalanced once you introduce basic magic items into it. That in itself is a problem, since having magic items be a part of the game is as old as the game itself.

I'm looking for ideas on how to deal with the cases where ACs and hit bonuses are outside the normal ranges for bounded accuracy, which I believe to be an issue. Perhaps you don't find it so, and if that's the case, enjoy your game.

Using the DMG random treasure guidelines, you guys ended up with so many +AC items (even factoring in attunement) that you needed to reign in stacking?

That's. Really surprising. I hope you realize your group is an extreme outlier, in that case. Statistically, nobody is going to have your experience. +AC items just aren't common enough in the tables.

 

[S'mon]

AC 22 and 24 is extremely easy to get it you allow heavy armor, even without magic items.

How is that possible? Plate & shield AC 20, no DEX bonus allowed? From what I can see the system seems designed to cap ACs at 20 in the absence of magic boosts (21 for Defensive Fighter), with a theoretical max AC of 29 with magic (30 for Defensive Fighter) - +3 armour, +3 shield, three +1 AC attuned items?

 

[Prism]

Using the DMG random treasure guidelines, you guys ended up with so many +AC items (even factoring in attunement) that you needed to reign in stacking?

That's. Really surprising. I hope you realize your group is an extreme outlier, in that case. Statistically, nobody is going to have your experience. +AC items just aren't common enough in the tables.

Yup. Just doing some quick maths based on the DMG guidelines of random treasure, there is almost no chance of finding AC pushing magic amour of any kind before 11CR encounter treasure, about a 10% (over the course of the entire level range) chance of finding something like +2 splint, +1 plate, demon plate or dwarf plate by CR16 and even when you get to CR17+ encounters its only about 20% likely you will find something that could tip your AC much past 20.

Magical shields are a bit more common at 15% over the CR 11 to 17 range. The biggest problem I would say is the lower 5-11 CR range where there is a reasonable chance of finding a magical shield when the monsters are far less likely to be able to hit the wearer.

So, if we were to roll for magic items, by the time a party has adventured all the way to 20th level is likely they will have found no AC pushing magic armour at all (they may well have found some lesser armour like magical chain or leather). I don't expect many DMs will actually roll for everything but it does lend weight to the argument that you really shouldn't give out magic plate mail (and possibly studded, half plate and splint) without being aware that it is not an expected part of the system. A character wearing magic plate mail should be a very rare thing indeed.

We break all this advice when playing, but we also are happy to boost monsters too as needed

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Monster AC does not necessarily need to be comparable with PC AC.

A PC thinking of clever strategies and fails at them for 3 rounds in row will be frustrated and get the feeling he doesn't contribute to the battle at all.
A DM having his monsters miss three times in row will probably rather feel relieved that no PC died. In the end it gives the DM more freedom to play the creatures as smart as he can possibly think of. Players will be happy that they survived the encounter, even though it felt like the monsters were really out there to get the PCs killed.