D&D 5E Starter set unboxing photos

[Ruin Explorer]

I dunno. It doesn't fill me with hope for the encounter building guides being as good as 4th's. 3e's CR was garbage, and I'm really hoping 5th isn't going back to that where CR2 = challenge for 4 level 2 characters. Someone mentioned somewhere, here or Reddit, that 5th's CR is more of a threshold, like "don't use this if the party level is below this number" which I guess would temper that lethality.

This is something I'm concerned about too.

4E's encounter building was wonderful. It meant that I didn't have to think about whether this monster was going to randomly wipe the floor with the PCs, to analyze it's abilities to see what might suddenly blow up and so on. It really was a very reliable guide (especially post MM3-math) to how hard an encounter would be for them.

3E's CR was actively detrimental to my judgement. In 2E I could stare at a monster and have a good idea of how dangerous it might be, and whilst that took time and was annoying, and sometimes ended in fudging, it was only moderately bad. 3E, though, I had to do everything I did in 2E, but I also had to slowly train myself to ignore the CRs which the game insisted worked, because they were desperately misleading. A monster that could easily wipe out a party of equal level might have the same CR as one which was barely a challenge.

I'm sure 5E will beat 3E on this one, but I really hope they come somewhere near 4E, too, as it was a tremendous asset to me as a DM, reducing prep time, encouraging me to use monsters unfamiliar to me, and having a reliable idea of the effect of an encounter on the PCs, which allowed for better adventure planning and so on. If you're right and they also act as "You must be at least this tall..."-type measurements, great.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I wouldn't recommend it - from the video, it seems modifying ogres really cheeses off the designers for some reason.

It was feigned anger. Somebody had put fighter levels on an ogre and, it sounded like, killed Mearls's character. This is typical player banter to me.

 

[Thaumaturge]

I wouldn't recommend it - from the video, it seems modifying ogres really cheeses off the designers for some reason.

The implication I inferred from that exchange was the opposite. I think Mearls modified the ogre by giving him armor and some levels of fighter and then smashed Chris Perkins' character with said ogre. Much to Mearls's glee.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Stormonu]

Why would you make starting characters so fragile that, oops, the DM threw in a monster one level higher and it one-shot the Bard/Wizard/Rogue?

IMO, a 1st/2nd level Bard/Wizard/Rogue who decides to go toe-to-toe with an Ogre should get what's coming to them. If they want to face a brute like this, they should prepare to stack the deck against this guy, and these three classes have the perfect options to do that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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IMO, a 1st/2nd level Bard/Wizard/Rogue who decides to go toe-to-toe with an Ogre should get what's coming to them. If they want to face a brute like this, they should prepare to stack the deck against this guy, and these three classes have the perfect options to do that.

You seem to have missed the point. The main issue is that the monster should clearly indicate whether it is that dangerous to the DM, and all CL2 monsters should be roughly equally dangerous. The DM needs to know what he's letting loose, and to know that without running a statistical analysis on every monster he uses.

Also "decides to go toe-to-toe"? I doubt the Bard/Wizard/Rogue will decide that, or any PC, because they're run by humans - more likely the DM will manage it despite their actions - this isn't 4E where it would be relatively easy to prevent.

 

[mips42]

Retail price is $20. That is a sturdy box, 6 dice, 32 page rulebook, 64 page adventure book and 6 character sheets (one blank).

The Paizo Beginner box is $35. That is a sturdy box, 7 dice, 64 page rulebook, 96 page DM book, 80 pawns, 8 character sheets (4 blank), one flip mat.

Cheers!

I hear what you're saying. The Beginner Box is available for as low as $23.00 right now though. If the Starter Set is $20 and the Beginner Box is $23, the beginner box wins in value in my opinion.
Not saying it's a better game, just that you get more more for the money you're spending. We'll have to see about the game itself. Personally, I hope it's great.

 

[LFK]

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IMO, a 1st/2nd level Bard/Wizard/Rogue who decides to go toe-to-toe with an Ogre should get what's coming to them. If they want to face a brute like this, they should prepare to stack the deck against this guy, and these three classes have the perfect options to do that.

That's not the point. The minor point, as Ruin Explorer pointed out, is less that the Bard is going to go toe-to-toe with the ogre and more that the ogre is going to go toe-to-toe with the Bard. Without the tactical module and Opportunity Attacks it's very easy to get past the front line to harass the back, and with a move+charge it's trivially easy to close with the squishies in any small-to-medium encounter space.

Which brings me to the big point: this Ogre is only one level higher and can, with an average damage roll, murder a healthy PC. That is an incredibly steep curve for the start of the game, and the encounter building guidelines had better explain that. The weird thing is that it seems to exist only for the first few levels of the game, and is almost entirely a byproduct of PCs starting with 5-15 HP instead of 15-25.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I hear what you're saying. The Beginner Box is available for as low as $23.00 right now though. If the Starter Set is $20 and the Beginner Box is $23, the beginner box wins in value in my opinion.
Not saying it's a better game, just that you get more more for the money you're spending. We'll have to see about the game itself. Personally, I hope it's great.

You can get the D&D Starter Box for $12.65 on Amazon.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Which brings me to the big point: this Ogre is only one level higher and can, with an average damage roll, murder a healthy PC. That is an incredibly steep curve for the start of the game, and the encounter building guidelines had better explain that. The weird thing is that it seems to exist only for the first few levels of the game, and is almost entirely a byproduct of PCs starting with 5-15 HP instead of 15-25.

I imagine we'll have +10 starting HP or something as an option in DMG, which might help with this peculiarity, but it sure is peculiar.

One thing worth noting is that there is normally only one (!!!) combat encounter in an adventure from L1 to L2, according to L&L/Mearls (and that adventure/adventure section is much shorter than a normal one), so if L1 PCs did encounter this monster, he'd likely be the only monster they encountered before L2

 

[ExploderWizard]

Which brings me to the big point: this Ogre is only one level higher and can, with an average damage roll, murder a healthy PC. That is an incredibly steep curve for the start of the game, and the encounter building guidelines had better explain that. The weird thing is that it seems to exist only for the first few levels of the game, and is almost entirely a byproduct of PCs starting with 5-15 HP instead of 15-25.

Forget challenge level BS. Are looking at the same ogre I am? That is a 7 HD creature that pounds things to mush. I don't even need a challenge rating to tell me that it would be foolish for a 1st level party to fight it straight up without having a decent plan.

Challenge levels may or may not be complete gibberish. Hit dice don't lie.