D&D 5E Too Much Healing Going On?

[DND_Reborn]

It can be difficult to challenge higher level parties no matter what their makeup. Add in that most parties will have ways of starting fights at 100% health and sometimes you need to change tactics. My quick top 5:

1. Focus fire. Pick on one PC and don't let up, keep attacking until they're down. Depending on the group and preference keep attacking until they're dead.
2. Send in waves. Especially if there's always that PC that hides in the back, send in reinforcements from the back now and then. Then focus fire on the PC in the back.
3. Customize monsters. The MM was published before the DMG so sometimes I'll go back to the DMG and recalculate damage and HP.
4. Change the goalposts. Don't make it one side killing the other, change up the goals so one time it's stopping the doomsday device the next it's stopping the bad guys from getting the McGuffin. If you do this, don't be afraid to send in overwhelming number of opponents.
5. Change the goalposts II. Banish PCs, lock them in force cages, incapacitate them.

All good advice but mostly stuff our DM and I both do already in our games.

1. Ganging up on the front-liner and even hitting PCs when they are down, so no whack-a-mole happens. They're dead, and won't come back until after the battle is over. This is rare, because it is a dick-move to do, but what monsters should do IMO.

2. Yeah, waves happen. About a month ago we finished a session defeating King Snurre and some of his allies. We didn't get a chance to rest because the first wave of enemies was coming after that big battle. The next session our entire 10-hour session was waves of fire giants and their allies. We had maybe a round or two, if that, to fortify before the next wave hit. FWIW, we earned over 100000 XP from all those foes in that series of battles.

3. We buff HP, AC, and even damage, as well as add special features, particularly to BBEGs.

4. This one we've "kind of" done. Hostages, etc. so that the goal isn't just killing the foes.

5. Yep. Banished to Hell, twice now, with no guaranteed means to recover.

Now, the best part is all of those things DO make for the best and most memorable encounters! So, yes, very good advice.

 

[NotAYakk]

Add more time pressure.

Chain encounters.

3 medium encounters with 6-18 seconds between them don't permit efficient out of combat healing.

The third one will be a medium ebcounter, but you'll enter with less than full HP.

Have a clock, with story consequences for each tick. On minute, hour and day scales.

Break things up into scenes, days and arcs.

Scenes have by the minute pressure.
Days have by the hour pressure.
Arcs have by the day pressure.

In each "piece", have a story elements that you, as the DM, get to do as the players waste minutes/hours/days. These don;t have to be "you lose", but "lich flees, taking most of her treasure" or "dragon burns a settlement", etc.

You can even make it mechanical. Each unit of time, you get a +1 on a roll. When they reach the point where they'd see which way it went, roll 1d20+used time, and on an X or higher the story consequence occurs.

Now throwing 3 giants at the players, when they just heal up afterwards, can be a victory; they wasted time.

When building adventures you can now exploit this feature, because players get to pick when they retreat, and they suffer bounded planned consequences. And if you draw a line between wasted time and those consequences, they may start pushing harder, and making fights tougher for you.

(This comes from dungeon world; the "consquences" akin to "DM noves" triggered by player failures. Here I'm saying wasting time is a failure.)

 

[DND_Reborn]

Then don't. Personally I design encounters that make sense to my vision of the world we are playing in and let the chips fall were they will. It works extremely well for us. I don't have to worry about encounter budgets and difficulty and the PCs are always prepared for the worst, but happy/relieved to quickly dispatch minor threats.

LOL, bad word choice. I don't design the encounters to do that and neither does our DM. We design encounters for the world, as you suggest, and the story, and after those three dragons, wading through a dozen minor foes in 2 rounds does allot the PCs to shine in other ways.

And remember, the monsters almost always start with full hp. What goes for one side should go for the other.

That is a very good point! Thanks for bringing it up.

@dnd4vr if your looking for a more attrition based play then stock D&D 5e and PF2e are not what you are looking for (but I think you know that). However, there are ways to make them more like what you want. I just don't think it, at this point, it is worth the investment for you. I know your time with 5e is limited.

LOL that is why I am working on all this... I'd rather not have to drop it if I can find a balance for things that work for me and our table.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think the issues is...

~1/2 of D&D classeshave healing spells and healing magic. And if you use feats, your basic items do to. That's before you count potions and magic items.

This is a good point, too. I think a Gritty-style with from the DMG would mitigate a lot of the healing surplus I feel like 5E has.

 

[Laurefindel]

I know encounter design is part of it, but there is just something about it all that rubs me the wrong way... I'll have to think more on it.

Speaking from my own (and very biased) experience...

• Lots of healing isn't so bad. It allows players to "let loose" and enjoy the fight.
• Lots of hp isn't so bad. It allows players to "let loose" and enjoy the fight.
• The combination of the two... allows too much looseness IMO, and regularly giving PCs a good challenge becomes a challenge of its own.

From what I gather, you have a large group, abundant access to healing spells/abilities, lots of hp due to high level, in an edition generous with between-fight healing and overnight healing. That's like the perfect storm scenario to break the attrition game.

There are solutions to that, both in terms of custom houserules and DMG variants/houserules, but most that I think of are awkward to implement mid-campaign. Which is too bad in a way, because most houserules that would address this issue (should you consider high hp and abundant healing an issue) change the dynamics of the early stages game considerably, and dare I say, too much for most players.

[edit] I'm not sure what to suggest at this point of your campaign, but for future games, you may want to consider diminishing hp gain after a certain point (not unlike 1e where acquisition of hp dropped after level 10th-ish). That is the solution I found that has the least impact on the early game stages, and somewhat addresses the challenges of high level play.

 

[Oofta]

...
5. Yep. Banished to Hell, twice now, with no guaranteed means to recover.
...

Just made me chuckle because long ago I had a PC banished to hell. It started with typical smell of sulfur and fire.

Then the DM described sitting in a waiting room with muzac pumped in, hot and humid in a room full of other sweaty bodies and BO. My PC had a piece of paper with number in his hand while sitting in an uncomfortable chair. The "serving number" was at 1000, the number on my card was 1002. Then serving number changed from 1000 to 1.

My DM's version of hell was the DMV.

 

[dave2008]

LOL that is why I am working on all this... I'd rather not have to drop it if I can find a balance for things that work for me and our table.

OK, if that is the case, may I suggest a new thread? I don't remember all your grievances with 5e, but if you could list them all in one place and clarify your goals (simple changes so you can continue playing 5e in a manner that appeals to you with published adventures or something like that) I think we (the Enworld community) can help.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Just made me chuckle because long ago I had a PC banished to hell. It started with typical smell of sulfur and fire.

Then the DM described sitting in a waiting room with muzac pumped in, hot and humid in a room full of other sweaty bodies and BO. My PC had a piece of paper with number in his hand while sitting in an uncomfortable chair. The "serving number" was at 1000, the number on my card was 1002. Then serving number changed from 1000 to 1.

My DM's version of hell was the DMV.

LOL reminds me also of Bettlejuice!

 

[DND_Reborn]

OK, if that is the case, may I suggest a new thread? I don't remember all your grievances with 5e, but if you could list them all in one place and clarify your goals (simple changes so you can continue playing 5e in a manner that appeals to you with published adventures or something like that) I think we (the Enworld community) can help.

Thanks! I'll try to write something up after lunch and focus on the real key issues.

 

[dave2008]

Thanks! I'll try to write something up after lunch and focus on the real key issues.

Sounds like a plan!