D&D 5E The Greatest Thing about 5e

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Possibly, it has been so long since I was a new DM it is hard to remember. However, I started with 1e and those monsters had next to nothing and we still made them interesting!

I started with AD&D too (well, technically Runequest and Traveller) and yes, I agree.

But you can't compare seriously old school gaming 40 years ago with what new young players are expecting today, or the gaming style that WotC are selling to them. When we started, homebrewing was the default - or at best doing some serious fleshing out from 32 page modules. That is not the case now with Wiz pumping out 200+ page campaigns, Adventurers League etc.

 

[dave2008]

But you can't compare seriously old school gaming 40 years ago with what new young players are expecting today, or the gaming style that WotC are selling to them.

Curious, what do you think is the game style WotC is selling? That is not something I even think about so it stood out to me.

When we started, homebrewing was the default - or at best doing some serious fleshing out from 32 page modules. That is not the case now with Wiz pumping out 200+ page campaigns, Adventurers League etc.

IDK, have you checked out the UA reddit or DMs Guild? Homebrewing seems alive and well to me. I feel like the resources outside of "official" WotC/TSR content are greater than ever.

 

[Stalker0]

I would also say out of the gate Legendary Monsters (w/ LA) are better than anything 4e ever had.

I'll disagree with that. The solo monster concept took some time to figure out, but I think its chassis is superior to legendary monsters. Later 4e solos are pretty cool, with all sorts of neat abilities to trip up a group of players. Meanwhile I feel like 5e legendary monsters haven't gone anywhere, its the same fundamental thing, get a few actions outside your turn, get legendary resistance which I think is a pretty poor mechanic because its very biased against spellcasters (especially if there is a single spellcaster in the party).

Also 4e action points where a way to really scare the party if you knew how to use them. Blow them at the beginning....yawn, no big deal. But wait until the party has gotten a little complacent, and you get a big hit on a PC.... suddenly out of nowhere you take two full attack actions one after the other.....suddenly you were terrifying!!! I don't feel like 5e legendaries have that same oomph factor.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'll disagree with that. The solo monster concept took some time to figure out, but I think its chassis is superior to legendary monsters. Later 4e solos are pretty cool, with all sorts of neat abilities to trip up a group of players. Meanwhile I feel like 5e legendary monsters haven't gone anywhere, its the same fundamental thing, get a few actions outside your turn, get legendary resistance which I think is a pretty poor mechanic because its very biased against spellcasters (especially if there is a single spellcaster in the party).

Also 4e action points where a way to really scare the party if you knew how to use them. Blow them at the beginning....yawn, no big deal. But wait until the party has gotten a little complacent, and you get a big hit on a PC.... suddenly out of nowhere you take two full attack actions one after the other.....suddenly you were terrifying!!! I don't feel like 5e legendaries have that same oomph factor.

On that bolded bit it goes double because it's pretty much a replacement for the more finessed Spell Resistance that pushed casters to lean on force multiplier spells that made everyone at the table more awesome/safer.

 

[Stalker0]

On that bolded bit it goes double because it's pretty much a replacement for the more finessed Spell Resistance that pushed casters to lean on force multiplier spells that made everyone at the table more awesome/safer.

Yeah WOTC has long had a bad history of giving high level casters huge power, but then trying to make monsters that just negate it...because otherwise you have boring fights.

Probably the best monster design I have seen against that is your classic Final Fantasy "multiple forms" boss monster. Sure player A casts X spell, totally owns the boss.....and then he comes back in form 2, everything reset and laughs "so what do you have now?" That I think goes well with 5e's very limited high level slots. It lets a caster go full fury, yet keeps the BBEG as a credible threat. It also ensures alpha strikes never end a fight prematurely.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah WOTC has long had a bad history of giving high level casters huge power, but then trying to make monsters that just negate it...because otherwise you have boring fights.

Probably the best monster design I have seen against that is your classic Final Fantasy "multiple forms" boss monster. Sure player A casts X spell, totally owns the boss.....and then he comes back in form 2, everything reset and laughs "so what do you have now?" That I think goes well with 5e's very limited high level slots. It lets a caster go full fury, yet keeps the BBEG as a credible threat. It also ensures alpha strikes never end a fight prematurely.

I'm with you on the first part but that last paragraph is just way too much for any reasonable level of a bar for adventure/encounter design in a ttrpg. The dm is usually one person with a few other people acting as players while FF is a whole team plus a group of QA/QC testers who run through any content till their eyes bleed.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm with you on the first part but that last paragraph is just way too much for any reasonable level of a bar for adventure/encounter design in a ttrpg. The dm is usually one person with a few other people acting as players while FF is a whole team plus a group of QA/QC testers who run through any content till their eyes bleed.

Well again this is meant to be for specifically solo monsters, I didn't mean it to be a complete redesign of all monster types. I assume solo monsters go through playtesting, so not sure why this type of design would be that different.

 

[MarkB]

Probably the best monster design I have seen against that is your classic Final Fantasy "multiple forms" boss monster. Sure player A casts X spell, totally owns the boss.....and then he comes back in form 2, everything reset and laughs "so what do you have now?" That I think goes well with 5e's very limited high level slots. It lets a caster go full fury, yet keeps the BBEG as a credible threat. It also ensures alpha strikes never end a fight prematurely.

We're starting to see some of that come through in 5e - Auril in Rime of the Frostmaiden has three forms, each very different, and there are also Mythic monsters that come back with increased ferocity and powers after they're taken down once.

 

[Anand]

PF2 bring this close to perfection. Want to move 3 times? Sure! Want to Move, Jump and Attack! Go for it! Spell and Sword? Why not? 3 attacks? Of course you can.

 

[dave2008]

I'll disagree with that. The solo monster concept took some time to figure out, but I think its chassis is superior to legendary monsters. Later 4e solos are pretty cool, with all sorts of neat abilities to trip up a group of players. Meanwhile I feel like 5e legendary monsters haven't gone anywhere, its the same fundamental thing, get a few actions outside your turn, get legendary resistance which I think is a pretty poor mechanic because its very biased against spellcasters (especially if there is a single spellcaster in the party).

You are saying two different things: superior chassis and then describing cool powers. Cool powers are chassis independent. I think the LA chassis is better than the standard MM3 solos. I do agree with you that LR is not always the best, I like how LevelUp did it - on the Legendary chassis.

I agree WotC hasn't been the most inventive with Legendary monsters (though just like 4e they have gotten better), but the chassis is solid and others are doing great things with it. The LevelUp monsters, and some of my own, can really make the chassis shine. Just adding the mythic* version was a great addition, but there is nothing stopping anyone from adding "neat abilities" to any legendary monster. There are a lot of legendary monsters with cool abilities and some of them are even by WotC.

I will remind you that prior to MM3 solos had a serious action economy problem. The "instinctive action" was a pretty neat solution, but, IME, three off-turn actions is better than 1.

Now, the real issue with 4e solos, particularly at higher levels and that still exists in 5e, is that they just don't hit hard enough. This coupled with huge amount of HP still made them feel like bags of hit points for some people. 5e monsters have relatively less HP, but they can also, IMO, do more cool things because of their legendary actions. YMMV.

*There is also the multi-stage monster Auril which is an interesting extension of the legendary/ mythic concept, which has 3 stages each with its own statblock. Hopefully it is not a one-off like the 4e Lolth was.