To be fair to the OP, he hasn't requested the designers do anything to the game or anything that would affect anyone else's game. What he has done is asked for people to assist him with changing his game to match his expectations. There's nothing unreasonable about that request. If his expectations are so divergent from someone else's expectations that the person can't really offer suggestions, there's no harm in walking away from the thread.
D&D 5E there aren't enough slow Dwarves with Axes! ;)
- Thread starter CapnZapp
- Start date
To be fair to the OP, he hasn't requested the designers do anything to the game or anything that would affect anyone else's game. What he has done is asked for people to assist him with changing his game to match his expectations. There's nothing unreasonable about that request. If his expectations are so divergent from someone else's expectations that the person can't really offer suggestions, there's no harm in walking away from the thread.
I would beg to differ.
he expressly stats it’s not meant to be houseruled or homebrew and this is his series on what he thinks an updated 5e “5.1” should be.
Hah, I guess I missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.
Now you have me very confused. You are saying that my examples won’t work for you because the monsters at low level do not have enough melee abilities? Huh?
Take it as snide or dismissive if you wish. You have this issue but there are a multitude of simple things within your control that you can do to mitigate it, but you refuse to use them and instead want the game rewritten. At this point I can’t tell if you are completely incompetent, or trolling. I am guessing trolling. The simple fact is, though the game could use a bit of a tweak to help balance a bit between melee and ranged (as I said you have a few points I do actually agree with), but the majority of your issues (in this thread and every other thread I have seen from you) is a failure in your encounter design and play of the monsters. Yet you’d rather just cry about the game being broken.
Shadowdweller00
Hero
Yeah, I don't often have problems with ranged attackers overpowering encounters either. Short encounter distance is a major component of this, but the fact of the matter is that there are a thousand and one reasons WHY many encounters occur at comparatively short distances:
- Ground vegetation that completely obscures crouching or crawling enemies.
- Large obstacles such as boulders, ravines, outcroppings that can provide total cover as melee combatants move closer.
- Large structures such as haystacks, wagons, buildings with doors, multispace towers, ruins, obelisks
- Many predators in the real world rely to varying degrees on ambush tactics. Many have long since adapted to the fact that if they are seen from far away, prey animals can simply avoid their general area. To overcome this, many predators hunt in conditions where they cannot be seen at all (total obscurement or cover in game terms). For example - hunting at night, lurking in murky water, dropping down from trees. It seems silly not to apply this principle to monsters.
- Many warlike humanoids that favor melee attacks KNOW they are vulnerable to ranged weapons and plan accordingly. Example: A group of gnolls construct a barricade across the road. Since they realize that the barricade is visible from far away, the gnolls crouch down behind total cover and wait for prey to come close and investigate. Many also possess darkvision for a reason.
- Very few PCs can see more than 60 feet away in dark conditions. Even completely discounting terrain features than provide cover or concealment,
- The way I run stealth and perception in my games is such that even failing a stealth check doesn't necessarily allow the enemy to pinpoint a PC or monster's location or identify what exactly is causing the sound/glimmer/smell/shadow. Though it prevents surprise and may give a strong clue. PCs and NPCs have a much better chance to actually directly see something hiding from very short distances. Example: "You hear rustling and breaking branches from somewhere to your left." "The branches of the large tree over here seem to be moving" "You catch a momentary glimpse of a giant shape in the water around here". "You catch the sound of whispered voices somewhere nearby." I do this for several reasons - not only for balance, but because it results in a much more dramatic narrative.
- I throw in the occasional red herring, so the PCs don't waste all their limited resources blasting at every single noise or perceptual oddity they come across.
- Ground vegetation that completely obscures crouching or crawling enemies.
- Large obstacles such as boulders, ravines, outcroppings that can provide total cover as melee combatants move closer.
- Large structures such as haystacks, wagons, buildings with doors, multispace towers, ruins, obelisks
- Many predators in the real world rely to varying degrees on ambush tactics. Many have long since adapted to the fact that if they are seen from far away, prey animals can simply avoid their general area. To overcome this, many predators hunt in conditions where they cannot be seen at all (total obscurement or cover in game terms). For example - hunting at night, lurking in murky water, dropping down from trees. It seems silly not to apply this principle to monsters.
- Many warlike humanoids that favor melee attacks KNOW they are vulnerable to ranged weapons and plan accordingly. Example: A group of gnolls construct a barricade across the road. Since they realize that the barricade is visible from far away, the gnolls crouch down behind total cover and wait for prey to come close and investigate. Many also possess darkvision for a reason.
- Very few PCs can see more than 60 feet away in dark conditions. Even completely discounting terrain features than provide cover or concealment,
- The way I run stealth and perception in my games is such that even failing a stealth check doesn't necessarily allow the enemy to pinpoint a PC or monster's location or identify what exactly is causing the sound/glimmer/smell/shadow. Though it prevents surprise and may give a strong clue. PCs and NPCs have a much better chance to actually directly see something hiding from very short distances. Example: "You hear rustling and breaking branches from somewhere to your left." "The branches of the large tree over here seem to be moving" "You catch a momentary glimpse of a giant shape in the water around here". "You catch the sound of whispered voices somewhere nearby." I do this for several reasons - not only for balance, but because it results in a much more dramatic narrative.
- I throw in the occasional red herring, so the PCs don't waste all their limited resources blasting at every single noise or perceptual oddity they come across.
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CapnZapp
Legend
Thank you for providing your housrules.
Or houserules and houserules - since the stealth rules are so... openended (or impossible to use as-is if you want to be less generous) I'd say they're your interpretations.
Still, it's slightly off thread. Not that there's any problem with that, but almost all of this discussion revolves around real-world expectations, which I would guess apples mostly to the lowest levels (the levels where a pack of wolves, say, still present a challenge).
If, on the other hand, you travel the underdark as you do when playing Out of the Abyss, there are plenty of instances where the terrain is essentially a long tube. A jacked frazzled tube with lots of cracks and fissures, sure, but still essentially a tube.
Now, as I've said before (perhaps in another thread, since this one isn't primarily about the stealth part, but about the part that comes after initiative is rolled) a single monster lying in ambush down the tube do stand at least some chance of getting the drop on the adventurers in that their "point man", the warlock flying invisible imp, might miss it.
But what then? If the monster detects the imp (which isn't unlikely), it's game over for the imp, sure, but the ambush is revealed.
And if there are more than a single stealthy predator (and sadly too many MM entries have really
Stealth scores) they WILL be detected.All I'm saying is that those of you that simply plop down enemies right within pouncing distance (so that initiative decides who gets jumped), that's okay, but that's not what the rules lead to, and more importantly, I hate that kind of gameplay as a player, so I tend to not overuse it as a DM.
I don't want my players to spend time on precautions and being overly cautious, so I don't bend the rules to invalidate their standard procedure (either the imp or the monk going on point; the monk stands a very good chance of gliding out of any ambush and instead leading the monsters back into the rest of the party's warm welcome)
Instead I want D&D to remain challenging and exciting even when the monsters don't just appear in the hero's face out of nowhere.
Not only because "In your FACE" gets old, fast, but also because "keeping your distance" generally becomes an overpowering strategy.
So, to loop back to this thread's actual topic, I'm convinced a party with three out of five characters having Speed 30 and primarily using axes (to throw and use in melee) will lack the immediate means to trivialise the MM content.
This in turn means (much) less work for me as a DM, something good in itself.
It also means the players get to enjoy D&D the way it was meant, where challenges labeled as deadly at some level still are, and where the resource management game really works (in that the party's resources actually dwindle, since monsters do get to do their thing, which often means "biting chunks out of the heroes" at melee range)
So, again, let me ask you to focus on the thread's question:
How do you tweak the rules to make players build more slow Dwarves with Axes!?
(While still remaining as fun as possible to everyone)Dorian_Grey
First Post
To answer your restated question: you can't.
Everyone has provided great suggestions and you've shot them down. The latest one made it clear to what you really want:
1. PCs encounter monsters
2. Monsters are 200 away
3. They stare at each other over a flat featureless plain
4. Both sides decide to close.
You want, at the end of the day to describe two sides closing over distance. In a game with ranged weapons or spells such a scenario is impossible and the only way to make it happen is to ban ranged attacks. What you want is to create scenarios that favor ranged attacks, and make the PCs go with melee attacks instead.
Further this is a waste of time. If they are going to melee save five minutes and just start the monsters right next to the monsters.
Why ban ranged attacks? Because even if you nerf ranged so that it will only do 1 pnt of damage the PCs are still better off inflicting 1 pnt of dmg then not.
Sorry, but the only way to answer your scenarios and goal posts is to say ban ranged outright full stop.
Everyone has provided great suggestions and you've shot them down. The latest one made it clear to what you really want:
1. PCs encounter monsters
2. Monsters are 200 away
3. They stare at each other over a flat featureless plain
4. Both sides decide to close.
You want, at the end of the day to describe two sides closing over distance. In a game with ranged weapons or spells such a scenario is impossible and the only way to make it happen is to ban ranged attacks. What you want is to create scenarios that favor ranged attacks, and make the PCs go with melee attacks instead.
Further this is a waste of time. If they are going to melee save five minutes and just start the monsters right next to the monsters.
Why ban ranged attacks? Because even if you nerf ranged so that it will only do 1 pnt of damage the PCs are still better off inflicting 1 pnt of dmg then not.
Sorry, but the only way to answer your scenarios and goal posts is to say ban ranged outright full stop.
Shadowdweller00
Hero
Evidently, you are unfamiliar with the concept of "cave". They are filled with boulders and debris, jagged rocks, multiple levels and ledges, cave floors that rise and fall several feet at irregular intervals, winding turns. Even smoothish lava tunnels are like this. Even if you presume an underdark that is filled with dim illumination from faerzress and lots of phosphorescent fungi, there are still giant mushrooms, fungal groves, patches of darkness, and plenty of other terrain features that a predator can take advantage of. In some percentage of encounters, the party will outmaneuver the enemy and score an easy win. That's a good thing - it lets the PCs feel their strengths.
The warlock's flying, invisible imp - which they took in place of a magic weapon and/or the ability to cast more spells - is a decent scout. But has a poor perception ability on its own and only middling stealth.
IF the imp spots the ambush and IF the ambush occurs in open terrain where the PCs can target the enemy from far away with ranged attacks and IF there aren't still sufficient terrain features for the enemy to approach safely or even lay low until the PCs approach...then yes, the strongly ranged PC party has an advantage.
Of course, to take a counterexample - in an oddly bare cave tunnel with a simple turn some distance ahead. The invisible imp spots the ambush. Good. The PCs can buff themselves, run away, or take preparatory measures - but they still can't kill the enemy from far away unless they have attacks that travel around corners. Or can draw the enemy out somehow.
Nope. It's called "passive perception" and/or "group stealth". Look them up.And if there are more than a single stealthy predator (and sadly too many MM entries have really
No, that's precisely what the rules lead to. Many adventures and adventure paths are written with this concept in mind. The 60 foot limitation on darkvision is no accident. Many spells and abilities have surprisingly short range. The PHB's wording on surprise strongly implies that perception checks to avoid it happen at the moment the enemy jumps out. Several class/character options reference this. Not to mention monster abilities - like false appearance - that provide no specific mechanism of being seen through. I could point out that it's also more realistic and believable this way, but you've already stated that you don't actually care about realism or verisimilitude. If you don't like stealth or cover, you're certainly free to handwave them in any way you choose. If you want to treat perception like X-ray vision that's also your prerogative. But don't pretend that you're not creating artificial conditions when you do so.
"In your FACE" keeps the party tank from feeling useless and prevents that entire slough of personal defensive buffs that casters get from being meaningless. "Keeping your distance" only works when you have foes approaching from known and very limited directions, when you don't have party members that need close-range support, and when you don't have obstacles hemming you in.
If you don't imagine that a dedicated melee combatant can hack through simplistic encounters with equal speed and proficiency, you're not thinking very hard on the matter.
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