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

[Retreater]

I've written a few times regarding not being able to challenge my groups. (Most recently in this thread: D&D 5E - A Mess of OP Characters (magic items, rest mechanics, etc.))
I want to work on a house rule document to present before the start of the next campaign to keep this type of experience from happening again.
What am I trying to avoid?

• Game unbalancing magic items
• Having to restructure the game and redesign monsters after 5th level or so
• Accommodating a fun and challenging experience for 6-7 players
• Preventing spellcasters from going nova easily
• Short adventuring days

I'm getting intense feedback from the gritty rest mechanics. I also suggested rolling for stats, and that was scoffed at. I don't expect the group to be amenable to other systems, such as the OSR variety.

I still want to DM for this group. They really enjoy it - but it's hard to keep pace with their power level. Even in the default game, they easily get so overpowered that I can't adapt.

 

[DarkCrisis]

5E is built to be a high power "Superhero" fantasy. You are going to have to take away a lot to get to "grit". Remove multiple saves. Resting doesn't fix 90% of your problems. Etc etc

And even then you're still going to have big HP and big damage etc.

I got tired of the Power Level of 5E and went back to AD&D. Also started looking into modern retro clones old school feel with updated mechanics. I know you said they aren't keen on OSR but at some point you either just play 5E or play something else.

 

[pukunui]

I would remove all +x magic items (as they are designed to break bounded accuracy).

I would recommend making it so a long rest only heals Con mod + character level HP rather than all HP.

Give monsters / NPCs feats (or parts of feats) and magic items (or special powers that emulate magic items, if you don't want your players to grab those items for themselves).

The best way to deal with short adventuring days is to put time pressure on the PCs. They've got to accomplish their mission before X amount of time or else Y happens.

 

[Zardnaar]

What you've described is baked onto the fane. The mobsters are weak, the CR system is lolbad and the encounter rules don't work very well.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

The slow natural healing variant is better, IMO, than the gritty rest. It just require HD to heal, even on a long rest (and you only regain 1/2 your max HD per long rest).

Healing Kit dependency is pretty good too: you need a Healer's Kit use to spend 1 HD on a rest, or else you need a safe haven.

You may want to look at the fear/stress rules or VRGtR, to give you another resource to drain your player.

Playing Feat-less could be an option, or keep the Feats but only use Sidekick classes (I'd even add a lvl 0 start with the Survivors rules)

Other possibilities, from the DMG:

• Wands (and other magic items) dont recharge
• Scroll/Consumable miscast
• Massive Damage and Lingering Injuries
• Difficult identification
• Loyalty, Complication and Rivals

In short, if you want to challenge a huge group, you have to reduce their resources (HP, HD, Exhaustion, Stress, NPC relations), either by diminishing them at chargen, or targeting them restlessly in game.

 

[Oofta]

I've written a few times regarding not being able to challenge my groups. (Most recently in this thread: D&D 5E - A Mess of OP Characters (magic items, rest mechanics, etc.))
I want to work on a house rule document to present before the start of the next campaign to keep this type of experience from happening again.
What am I trying to avoid?

• Game unbalancing magic items

I limit what is available to the PCs. They only get 1 or 2 uncommon magical items up to level 10 and don't start getting rare items until above 10th, no very rare until around 15th and legendary at the last couple of levels. Weapons are almost always limited to +1 or perhaps flaming/frost. Armor and shields with magical bonuses are practically unheard of. Wands of Gravity don't exist.

• Having to restructure the game and redesign monsters after 5th level or so

I don't have to do this myself, occasionally I'll create custom monsters typically by adding bonuses to attack and damage.

• Accommodating a fun and challenging experience for 6-7 players

It's tough to share the spotlight with that many PCs. I'd try keeping a list on who's been challenged/focus of attacks/had an RP opportunity. So if Joe hasn't had a chance to shine, I try to make something up.

• Preventing spellcasters from going nova easily

You need more than 1-3 fights per day, at least on a regular basis.

• Short adventuring days

The 5 minute work day has always been an issue. It's why I use the gritty rest rules. I do compensate PCs by saying that any spell that normally lasts more than half an hour gets their duration multiplied by 4.

I'm getting intense feedback from the gritty rest mechanics. I also suggested rolling for stats, and that was scoffed at. I don't expect the group to be amenable to other systems, such as the OSR variety.

Personally I use point buy, rolling for stats just leads to some PCs being more capable out of the box than others. YMMV.

I still want to DM for this group. They really enjoy it - but it's hard to keep pace with their power level. Even in the default game, they easily get so overpowered that I can't adapt.

I've given advice on other threads on this. It's never been a problem for me, but I'm chintzy when it comes to items and stingy when it comes to long rests. It makes a difference. Besides, I want people to rely on their PC builds, not their toys.

I've run campaigns up to 20th level, it gets a bit gonzo at higher levels but it's completely doable.

 

[humble minion]

I limit what is available to the PCs. They only get 1 or 2 uncommon magical items up to level 10 and don't start getting rare items until above 10th, no very rare until around 15th and legendary at the last couple of levels. Weapons are almost always limited to +1 or perhaps flaming/frost. Armor and shields with magical bonuses are practically unheard of. Wands of Gravity don't exist.

This is pretty similar to what our GM does. We have one +2 weapon in the party at 12th level. But more importantly, we don't get much cash handed out, and so we can't really choose what magic items we get, which limits the scope for horrifyingly powerful synchronous combos.

Which can be a bit odd when we're playing in a pre-written adventure, when you're poking around the magic merchants in a smuggling port and run across a (clearly direct-from-WotC) NPC who's got legendary magic items for sale for 100k+ gp, but even at 12th level you can maybe only scrape together a couple of thousand or so.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I've written a few times regarding not being able to challenge my groups. (Most recently in this thread: D&D 5E - A Mess of OP Characters (magic items, rest mechanics, etc.))
I want to work on a house rule document to present before the start of the next campaign to keep this type of experience from happening again.
What am I trying to avoid?

• Game unbalancing magic items
• Having to restructure the game and redesign monsters after 5th level or so
• Accommodating a fun and challenging experience for 6-7 players
• Preventing spellcasters from going nova easily
• Short adventuring days

I'm getting intense feedback from the gritty rest mechanics. I also suggested rolling for stats, and that was scoffed at. I don't expect the group to be amenable to other systems, such as the OSR variety.

I still want to DM for this group. They really enjoy it - but it's hard to keep pace with their power level. Even in the default game, they easily get so overpowered that I can't adapt.

What sort of feedback about the gritty rest mechanics are you getting? Is the issue conceptual (doesn't make sense that you don't get spells back each day) or based on the power that the characters will lose? Have you pointed out that there is little effective difference between gritty rest and just running more encounters per day? Have you got pushback for suggesting more encounters per day?

Overly powerful magic items can be an issue, but so is allowing characters to buy magic items freely. I'd suggest not having magic item shops available if you currently do.

Point buy isn't that much more powerful than rolling and then assigning stats. I wouldn't worry about that compared to some of the other issues.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Would they consent (or more accurately, their parents would consent) to you recording the sessions and then uploading them somewhere? We would be better able to offer advice if we could see precisely what you're doing...

 

[Delazar]

Is "slow" levelling an option? As a general rule, I require one session played per current level to go to the next level:

level/sessions played
1/0
2/1
3/3
4/6
5/10
6/15
7/21
8/28
9/36
10/45

that's more or less one year of weekly games to reach level 10, which can be a nice end of the campaign.