D&D 5E The problem with 5e

[tetrasodium]

Have you never seen a Die Hard movie? McClain should have been dead a dozen times over, wraps serious injuries that should take months of therapy and he's good to go. Or every movie/tv show where bullet wounds are healed by someone pulling the bullet out with a greasy pair of pliers they found lying on the floor*?

In any case, I'm done. Have a good one.

*The bullet is always like 2 inches beneath the skin, in reality the bullets are regularly left in because getting them out would cause more harm than good.

We have seen different movies... I just checked it on hbo+. The ending of die hard has him limping on both feet, he's covered in blood, covered in superficial wounds, his mouth is kinda slack jaw from overexertion, & his wife is kinda half supporting a clearly injured man. The end of die hard 2 he's slightly better without the limp but clutching his wounded arm. That is not a man who looks like he's capable of going back to work as a cop in the morning in either case. Your talking about the hitpoints themselves in action not the makeup crew coming in to reshoot the opening scene. In both movies he does things he knows are dangerous things he doesn't & shouldn't want to do because of the high chance of lethality/severe injury so he goes in with a plan. Even if it's a threadbare plan with a lot of improvisation it's an attempt to be prepared & minimize the risk because John mcclain doesn' expect the makeup crew to fix it so he can reshoot it as he was during the opening scene. The end of die hard3 has him slightly better but samuel L jackso is kind of collapsed on the curb with LEOs checking on his fairly beat to hell condition.

 

[Oofta]

We have seen different movies... I just checked it on hbo+. The ending of die hard has him limping on both feet, he's covered in blood, covered in superficial wounds, his mouth is kinda slack jaw from overexertion, & his wife is kinda half supporting a clearly injured man. The end of die hard 2 he's slightly better without the limp but clutching his wounded arm. That is not a man who looks like he's capable of going back to work as a cop in the morning in either case. Your talking about the hitpoints themselves in action not the makeup crew coming in to reshoot the opening scene. In both movies he does things he knows are dangerous things he doesn't & shouldn't want to do because of the high chance of lethality/severe injury so he goes in with a plan. Even if it's a threadbare plan with a lot of improvisation it's an attempt to be prepared & minimize the risk because John mcclain doesn' expect the makeup crew to fix it so he can reshoot it as he was during the opening scene. The end of die hard3 has him slightly better but samuel L jackso is kind of collapsed on the curb with LEOs checking on his fairly beat to hell condition.

He hasn't had a long rest or any magical healing. If you want a rundown on how many times he should have died check out this link or the dozen other ones.

But I'm done talking about HP. They're stupid, they're dumb, they make no sense. But they work well enough for the game that we play and I've never seen an alternative that I would want to use.

 

[jgsugden]

Comic Books.

Problem solved.

What? You want me to explain? Comic Books isn't enough?

Le Sigh

In comic books, the hero is often attacked by forces bent on their destruction. Those forces fail 99.44% of the time. From the moment the battle begins, the question is not whether Comic Book Man will win, but "how" he will win. However, knowing the hero will win tends to be pretty boring, and clever victories only go so far to hold interest. To keep it interesting, comic writers have to give us stakes where we can believe the hero will lose - even if we know they will not die. TO know they can lose, at times they must lose. Thus, we have our heroes protecting, chasing, saving, etc... while engaged in battle. They might fail to protect the innocent citizens. They might fail to catch the escaping Evil Dr. Villain. They might not save their significant other from a fall (SWIK SNAP!).

In D&D, I often hear DMs saying they feel the need to make every battle deadly just to keep it interesting. If it isn't deadly, it is boring. These DMs can benefit from the lessons of the comics, and realize that there are ways to win and lose without it being about life and death.

Encounter 1: 2 Goblins guard the gate. Can the PCs deal with them before they raise the alarm? If not, they get a tougher encounter.
Encounter 2: Some goblins and a worg are arguing over which of them gets to eat the prisoners. The PCs have to act quickly to free the prisoners before they are killed. Deception and might are both potential options, here.
Encounter 3: The PCs spot the returning tribe and are surprised to see that there are far too many goblins to fight. They have 3 rounds to get themselves, and the rescued prisoners, into one (or more) of the alternate escape routes.
Encounter 4: Chase seen through the alternate exit, with the PCs figuring out how to cross barriers and create more barriers behind them.
Encounter 5: They exit from the back entrance to the lair and decide whether to flee by taking sleds down a mountainside, running along an icy trail, or taking the canoes into the river that runs along the mountain (hint, upcoming waterfall).
Encounter 6: A Chase scene battle in their selected escape route, with goblins trying to stop their escape more than trying to kill them, and the PCs being better off focusing on stopping the goblins from slowing their escape than trying to kill as many goblins as possible.

Outside of the PCs deciding to turn and fight in Encounter 3 there is no deadly combats in a session like that one, but it can be a lot of (railroady) fun. It is a one shot I've run many times, and it is usually a hit. You can do the same thing in a more sandbox game, although it is a bit harder and relies upon you having more scenarios at the ready and the skill to set up, plug and play them.

 

[Puddles]

On the topic of injuries, I would agree that the DMG injury chart is not great. I have my own custom injury chart and these are my tips for making your own.

• don’t make the results permanent. Instead of “losing a leg”, have them suffer a broken bone or a sprained muscle. Players won’t thank you for slowly disfiguring their characters. Most of the results on the DMG table would cause a low level character to retire. Even the worse results on my table heal over time.
• have non-results on your injury chart too (‘full recovery’). It makes the roll more fun if there’s a chance to avoid it.
• I even have good results on my injury chart (‘miraculous recovery’), players can earn inspiration if they roll the highest result.
• think about what experiences and role-playing opportunities you can give your players from the table. I have several results that notch weapons, or puncture armour/shields, so players have to service them from time to time in town - or scavenge in the dungeon. Both cool things that you normally don’t get to do in 5e.

 

[Minigiant]

The main issue with injuries is that they usually lead to death spirals. The 4 common types of D&D adventure pacing:

1. Set Pieces
2. Ping-Ponging
3. Long Grind
4. Scheduled Attrition

are seriously harmed by death spirals.

 

[Don Durito]

Comic Books.

Problem solved.

What? You want me to explain? Comic Books isn't enough?

Le Sigh

In comic books, the hero is often attacked by forces bent on their destruction. Those forces fail 99.44% of the time. From the moment the battle begins, the question is not whether Comic Book Man will win, but "how" he will win. However, knowing the hero will win tends to be pretty boring, and clever victories only go so far to hold interest. To keep it interesting, comic writers have to give us stakes where we can believe the hero will lose - even if we know they will not die. TO know they can lose, at times they must lose. Thus, we have our heroes protecting, chasing, saving, etc... while engaged in battle. They might fail to protect the innocent citizens. They might fail to catch the escaping Evil Dr. Villain. They might not save their significant other from a fall (SWIK SNAP!).

In D&D, I often hear DMs saying they feel the need to make every battle deadly just to keep it interesting. If it isn't deadly, it is boring. These DMs can benefit from the lessons of the comics, and realize that there are ways to win and lose without it being about life and death.

Encounter 1: 2 Goblins guard the gate. Can the PCs deal with them before they raise the alarm? If not, they get a tougher encounter.
Encounter 2: Some goblins and a worg are arguing over which of them gets to eat the prisoners. The PCs have to act quickly to free the prisoners before they are killed. Deception and might are both potential options, here.
Encounter 3: The PCs spot the returning tribe and are surprised to see that there are far too many goblins to fight. They have 3 rounds to get themselves, and the rescued prisoners, into one (or more) of the alternate escape routes.
Encounter 4: Chase seen through the alternate exit, with the PCs figuring out how to cross barriers and create more barriers behind them.
Encounter 5: They exit from the back entrance to the lair and decide whether to flee by taking sleds down a mountainside, running along an icy trail, or taking the canoes into the river that runs along the mountain (hint, upcoming waterfall).
Encounter 6: A Chase scene battle in their selected escape route, with goblins trying to stop their escape more than trying to kill them, and the PCs being better off focusing on stopping the goblins from slowing their escape than trying to kill as many goblins as possible.

Outside of the PCs deciding to turn and fight in Encounter 3 there is no deadly combats in a session like that one, but it can be a lot of (railroady) fun. It is a one shot I've run many times, and it is usually a hit. You can do the same thing in a more sandbox game, although it is a bit harder and relies upon you having more scenarios at the ready and the skill to set up, plug and play them.

This is a good example of how to do encounters that are not super tough and not a waste of time.

There just needs to be a meaningful decision point.

"4 goblins attack" is a failure.

 

[robus]

The problem IMHO seems to be that they weren't clear on how the CR system works. The CR system seems to be designed for a group of 4 newbies with no magic, feats or a well balanced class.

I think I agree, it’s much easier to turn knobs up with experience, than to turn knobs down with inexperience. The game encourages play by all comers and expects DMs to adapt to their players to obtain the play feel they desire. (If that makes any sense?)

 

[tetrasodium]

He hasn't had a long rest or any magical healing. If you want a rundown on how many times he should have died check out this link or the dozen other ones.

But I'm done talking about HP. They're stupid, they're dumb, they make no sense. But they work well enough for the game that we play and I've never seen an alternative that I would want to use.

That's narration by the gm of the encounters themselves & such a completely different topic that I have to wonder if your playing devils advocate or just not following the discussion about how the long rest recover all hp & cure wounds burn all unused spell slots before recovering them with one spell prepped trivializes the threat of HP attrition to the point of causing negative side effects. In other news though, It's great that you've decided to stop confusing the issue with a totally different topic.

 

[Retreater]

Why does it matter? I mean, I could fit the same number of encounters into a single day if I wanted to, the alternate rest rules just change pacing. I do it because exploration/interaction is a big part of my games and I don't want to feel like I have to run a scenario like the old "24" TV series every time.

Because most GMs IME don't alter the number of encounters per day under the variant. They just expect you to be tough and power through it. In this case marital characters are far better suited for play that isn't defined by long rests.

 

[Don Durito]

Because most GMs IME don't alter the number of encounters per day under the variant. They just expect you to be tough and power through it. In this case marital characters are far better suited for play that isn't defined by long rests.

That seems odd. All my experience is that most GMs don't reach the intended number of encounters under the default rest.

I don't know why martial characters would be so much better suited. They have the same number of hit dice and while they have more hit points they tend to get hit more often.

And casters have cantrips.

I suppose it makes a bigger difference at lower levels where casters has fewer spells.

(Really one of the great difficulties of balancing D&D is the fact that spell slots grow both more numerous and more powerful)