D&D 5E The Minimum* to Keep 5E at a Low Power Level?

[Retreater]

What was the encounter?

Ok. So I don't know if I mentioned the adventure in this thread or not - and I hope if I did, I'm vague enough that there aren't a lot of spoilers.

First, I had a talk with the player about the double-casting the quickened Fireball and telling him it wasn't allowed. He was disappointed but seemed to understand.

I also gave them a description and warning about the difficulty of the encounter - from an NPC who had fought the creature before.

The encounter was against a 14th level cleric and a CR 18 demon (I halved all damage from spells and attacks to give the party a fighting chance.)

Party approaches the portal that summons the demon (a combination constrictor snake/wyvern/crocodile). It has a Symbol on the floor for confusion. The rogue doesn't find it and triggers it with the barbarian. Sorcerer Counter-spells. Demon has a held action and casts Wall of Fire, separating the rogue and barbarian from the rest of the party. We roll Initiative and the fight begins.

Demon attacks the barbarian and grabs him in its jaws. Gets a critical hit with a poison stinger on the rogue. Both are already badly hurt.

Sorcerer Dispels the Wall of Fire. Ranger fires arrows at the demon, does a little damage (about 10% of the creature's total HP). Demon flies off the summoning platform. If the barbarian escapes the grapple, he's going to fall into demon-hippo infested waters and be killed. Rogue retreats to the "friendly" NPC cleric for healing (since she's near death), and he hits her with a Finger of Death. Demon breathes fire and hits everyone - if Rogue dies she becomes a zombie under the control of the Evil Cleric.

Sorcerer uses Reverse Gravity wand to try to push Evil Cleric from the stairs and into the demon-hippo lake, but he makes his save. Barbarian drinks a potion of invulnerability before he is swallowed by the demon. Ranger administers a potion of mega-healing to the rogue. Rogue drinks potion of heroism and gets into position to attack the Evil Cleric. The demon has now returned to the platform and staircase to attack the rest of the party. The demon kills the sorcerer with a poisonous stinger attack.

Evil Cleric casts Circle of Death, dropping the druid and greatly injuring the ranger. Meanwhile, the barbarian is cutting his way out of the stomach of the demon, hacking it apart from the inside. Evil Cleric drops Cloudkill on the party. This kills the druid. Druid rises as zombie and attacks ranger. Ranger goes unconscious and later dies in the Cloudkill.

The cleric's most damaging offensive magic cast, teleports away. Cloudkill dissipates. Demon bites and swallows rogue. Barbarian and rogue kill the demon from the inside, both terribly injured.

Alone in the evil temple's dungeon, out of healing and exhausted, the barbarian and rogue examined the ruin of their companions and their quest's end (since the group decided to abandon the campaign rather than fight their way out of the dungeon and resurrect their allies.)

I thought it was a pretty epic fight, everything considered.

 

[Mort]

Ok. So I don't know if I mentioned the adventure in this thread or not - and I hope if I did, I'm vague enough that there aren't a lot of spoilers.

First, I had a talk with the player about the double-casting the quickened Fireball and telling him it wasn't allowed. He was disappointed but seemed to understand.

I also gave them a description and warning about the difficulty of the encounter - from an NPC who had fought the creature before.

The encounter was against a 14th level cleric and a CR 18 demon (I halved all damage from spells and attacks to give the party a fighting chance.)

Party approaches the portal that summons the demon (a combination constrictor snake/wyvern/crocodile). It has a Symbol on the floor for confusion. The rogue doesn't find it and triggers it with the barbarian. Sorcerer Counter-spells. Demon has a held action and casts Wall of Fire, separating the rogue and barbarian from the rest of the party. We roll Initiative and the fight begins.

Demon attacks the barbarian and grabs him in its jaws. Gets a critical hit with a poison stinger on the rogue. Both are already badly hurt.

Sorcerer Dispels the Wall of Fire. Ranger fires arrows at the demon, does a little damage (about 10% of the creature's total HP). Demon flies off the summoning platform. If the barbarian escapes the grapple, he's going to fall into demon-hippo infested waters and be killed. Rogue retreats to the "friendly" NPC cleric for healing (since she's near death), and he hits her with a Finger of Death. Demon breathes fire and hits everyone - if Rogue dies she becomes a zombie under the control of the Evil Cleric.

Sorcerer uses Reverse Gravity wand to try to push Evil Cleric from the stairs and into the demon-hippo lake, but he makes his save. Barbarian drinks a potion of invulnerability before he is swallowed by the demon. Ranger administers a potion of mega-healing to the rogue. Rogue drinks potion of heroism and gets into position to attack the Evil Cleric. The demon has now returned to the platform and staircase to attack the rest of the party. The demon kills the sorcerer with a poisonous stinger attack.

Evil Cleric casts Circle of Death, dropping the druid and greatly injuring the ranger. Meanwhile, the barbarian is cutting his way out of the stomach of the demon, hacking it apart from the inside. Evil Cleric drops Cloudkill on the party. This kills the druid. Druid rises as zombie and attacks ranger. Ranger goes unconscious and later dies in the Cloudkill.

The cleric's most damaging offensive magic cast, teleports away. Cloudkill dissipates. Demon bites and swallows rogue. Barbarian and rogue kill the demon from the inside, both terribly injured.

Alone in the evil temple's dungeon, out of healing and exhausted, the barbarian and rogue examined the ruin of their companions and their quest's end (since the group decided to abandon the campaign rather than fight their way out of the dungeon and resurrect their allies.)

I thought it was a pretty epic fight, everything considered.

You can tell the group they got a very old school conclusion to the adventure!

 

[Brotton Goodfellow]

I suggest “5E Hardcore Mode” by Runehammer. It set me on the path to making my own house rules that dial back the power levels. I’ve gotten good feedback from my players about it.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Interesting article to consider as you move into a new campaign (TL;DR: not every fight needs to be, or even should be, "challenging")

Run Easy Battles

Run easy battles. Easy battles are a wonderful tool for D&D DMs. They add upward beats to your game when you need them. They open up interesting options for players who can now choose multiple ways to...

slyflourish.com

 

[Retreater]

Interesting article to consider as you move into a new campaign (TL;DR: not every fight needs to be, or even should be, "challenging")

Run Easy Battles

Run easy battles. Easy battles are a wonderful tool for D&D DMs. They add upward beats to your game when you need them. They open up interesting options for players who can now choose multiple ways to...

slyflourish.com

A disagreement my wife (who's also a player in the campaign) and I have had regarding the next campaign...

All the players voted on Curse of Strahd as the next adventure. I think it will be challenging to run it as a horror game for this group.
1) They joke around. A lot.
2) They are murder hobos.
3) There's a lot of them, and it's difficult to challenge them.
4) Easy encounters don't contribute to the dangerous atmosphere.

The types of encounters that should work in 5e - eight encounters per day - don't work so well in most horror games. Of course, you can have waves of zombies in that kind of game, but you can't really do a war of attrition with a single challenging encounter - which is what Ravenloft is supposed to be. The werewolf that's stalking the town. The ghost haunting the ruined abbey.

It's not often that I start a campaign knowing from the beginning it's a terrible fit and it's going to fail. But I know this going into it.
But I was out-voted. So I guess that's that.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I agree, CoS is doomed. It's hard enough to keep it from farce when the players buy into the horror. But is is really a democracy? Shouldn't the DM at least have a veto? They are the one doing all the work and hair tearing.

 

[Mort]

I agree, CoS is doomed. It's hard enough to keep it from farce when the players buy into the horror.

You could turn it to the comedic - could work well for the right group. or could be even more of a complete disaster.

But is is really a democracy? Shouldn't the DM at least have a veto? They are the one doing all the work and hair tearing.

Always works best when everyone is on the same page. And yeah, campaigns where the DMs heart isn't in it tend to be lackluster at best. Especially running for 7 people, which is already difficult.

 

[Odysseus]

How about running CoS with Shadowdark instead of 5E

 

[Retreater]

I agree, CoS is doomed. It's hard enough to keep it from farce when the players buy into the horror. But is is really a democracy? Shouldn't the DM at least have a veto? They are the one doing all the work and hair tearing.

That's true. However, without the group's buy-in to the adventure, nothing the DM wants to run will be successful. And honestly, I'm so thoroughly defeated by my last experience running that I don't know what would excite me to DM.

And that's really what 5E D&D has been like for me for the past 7-ish years. Players who want me to do everything, and they bring nothing but a character sheet and dice. Meanwhile, the system gives me little assistance in encounter building, guidelines for treasure distribution, and the adventure modules aren't peak either. I've seen every permutation of character build - oh, you have another elf rogue with leather armor and a rapier - that is going to be "sneak attack, bonus action - disengage" for every action?

Oh look, it's another dwarven Life domain cleric! Another elf ranger with a longbow!

I'm just so, so sick of it.

 

[Retreater]

How about running CoS with Shadowdark instead of 5E

The group will not entertain the idea of any systems besides 5E.