Zardnaar
Legend
IDK text can make things hard.
I'm very thick skinned virtually impossible to offend. Doesn't bother me if people disagree with me.
D&D 5E (2014) Variant 5e?
- Thread starter dave2008
- Start date
IDK text can make things hard.
I'm very thick skinned virtually impossible to offend. Doesn't bother me if people disagree with me.
Helldritch
Hero
You want to make 5ed harder? Easy. All the rules are in the PhB and in the DMG.
My groups are usually 6 players strong. Here are my pieces of advice.
1) Vary your encounter types. 10 orcs are great, 5 orcs with a shaman who blesses them is way better. What the players use, so do their foes.
2) Use the help action. With this, one foe uses the help action to give advantage to an other on his attack roll. Suddenly the High AC PC is not that untouchable. Especially if a bless spell has been cast on the attacking foe.
3) Use the flanking rule (if you're not playing the ToTM way). Players will be happy to have advantage on monsters but so will the monsters. In my experience, I have stopped using that rule because the PCs were dying too much because of it. Monsters are usually in bigger numbers than the PCs.
4) Use the grappling action to break PCs' formation. Do not forget that a grappled PC is an easy target for their foe's allies.
5) Make enemy spell caster use the Silence spell. With the prominence of magic in PCs' classes, it can be devastating. Especially if the formation was broken and a foe has an access to the low AC spell casters.
6) Change the spell selection of your monsters if they could do it. Especially if the players are becoming famous (or infamous). If your players tends to use one tactic over any other, then the bosses (and the main villains) will adjust accordingly.
7) Add shields and better armor to your monsters if it is logical to do so. A veteran facing a ninth level group will use a shield and a plate mail. The same logic applies to medium armor. Why use a chain shirt if you can use breast plate and shield?
8) Most magic items the players will find should be in use by their foes. That +1 shield should be in the hands of the warlord, not in his treasury. These healing potions and especially that haste potion should be in his hands too.
9) Dispel magic can and should be used by their foes and so should the spell "counter spell" be used.
10) Make your monsters proactive. Make seek and destroy parties search for retreating PCs. Even short rests should be a challenge to get.
11) Make potions and scrolls a bit more common than the rule book seems to indicate. Especially if your players can make and buy them. If your players can, so can their foes. This will tend to be in their foes' favor. A high level cleric might have a scroll of find the path to find where the PCs are hiding. Divination can be use to find troublesome adventurers and could even be use as a forward warning. How did they know we were coming?
12) Be reckless against your PCs but do it within some logic. Not all monsters are smarts. Not all evil master has a contingency plan for everything. Sometimes the PCs get it easy, sometimes their lives hang by the skin of their teeth.
You don't need to change a lot. Most of the changes you make should be from an equipment optimization stand. Just having a few changes in AC and spell selection can make you players wonder what you have in store for them.
My groups are usually 6 players strong. Here are my pieces of advice.
1) Vary your encounter types. 10 orcs are great, 5 orcs with a shaman who blesses them is way better. What the players use, so do their foes.
2) Use the help action. With this, one foe uses the help action to give advantage to an other on his attack roll. Suddenly the High AC PC is not that untouchable. Especially if a bless spell has been cast on the attacking foe.
3) Use the flanking rule (if you're not playing the ToTM way). Players will be happy to have advantage on monsters but so will the monsters. In my experience, I have stopped using that rule because the PCs were dying too much because of it. Monsters are usually in bigger numbers than the PCs.
4) Use the grappling action to break PCs' formation. Do not forget that a grappled PC is an easy target for their foe's allies.
5) Make enemy spell caster use the Silence spell. With the prominence of magic in PCs' classes, it can be devastating. Especially if the formation was broken and a foe has an access to the low AC spell casters.
6) Change the spell selection of your monsters if they could do it. Especially if the players are becoming famous (or infamous). If your players tends to use one tactic over any other, then the bosses (and the main villains) will adjust accordingly.
7) Add shields and better armor to your monsters if it is logical to do so. A veteran facing a ninth level group will use a shield and a plate mail. The same logic applies to medium armor. Why use a chain shirt if you can use breast plate and shield?
8) Most magic items the players will find should be in use by their foes. That +1 shield should be in the hands of the warlord, not in his treasury. These healing potions and especially that haste potion should be in his hands too.
9) Dispel magic can and should be used by their foes and so should the spell "counter spell" be used.
10) Make your monsters proactive. Make seek and destroy parties search for retreating PCs. Even short rests should be a challenge to get.
11) Make potions and scrolls a bit more common than the rule book seems to indicate. Especially if your players can make and buy them. If your players can, so can their foes. This will tend to be in their foes' favor. A high level cleric might have a scroll of find the path to find where the PCs are hiding. Divination can be use to find troublesome adventurers and could even be use as a forward warning. How did they know we were coming?
12) Be reckless against your PCs but do it within some logic. Not all monsters are smarts. Not all evil master has a contingency plan for everything. Sometimes the PCs get it easy, sometimes their lives hang by the skin of their teeth.
You don't need to change a lot. Most of the changes you make should be from an equipment optimization stand. Just having a few changes in AC and spell selection can make you players wonder what you have in store for them.
dave2008
Legend
Dude relax, it was a hypothetical. I have spent more money on other RPG's this year than I have ever in my life. I bought PF2e and supported a dozen or so kickstarters. Along with what I spent on D&D. However, my point is a real issue. DM's are, in large part, designers (or we think we are). I think it is only natural to look to give a bit of zing to what you know already (we kind do that for every campaign and adventure anyway) first. What is so wrong with that? It is not about easy, it is about using my own creative juices on a game I enjoy. Do I really need to worry that I am not supporting professional designers every time I house rule or homebrew? I don't think so, and I doubt that is what you really mean, but that is how it is coming off.The game designer in me is heartbroken. You've literally invalidated an industry's - an artistic sphere's, real people's - existence because McDonalds is easy.
Sure, don't "waste" your money on our stuff. I assume you also only ever bought one novel, and went to see only one movie, and only ever ate one meal, because you might be "wasting your money" on one not exactly like the first one?
(We just did a sketch about this industry problem in our podcast last week).
Garthanos
Arcadian Knight
Probably why flanking only gave +2 in earlier editions not a full on double roll.
dave2008
Legend
I really like some of those ideas - thank you for sharing!1. PC HP is normal but you must roll. No option to take the average. Level 1 is your roll or half of maximum, whichever is greater. You add CON bonus up to level 7 or 9 maybe, but after that it is only the HD roll.
2. MAX ability is 18. 19 for races which receive a bonus (a mountain dwarf could have STR 19 and CON 19 for example). We do this currently with a feat called "Raising the Bar" which allows one score to be 20.
3. I like the idea of a level of exhaustion, but only a failed death save, and don't make 3 death, make it when the exhaustion level equals death (at 6). You could even combine them, so if you already had a level of exhaustion, and then went to 0 hp, a failed death save would put you at two levels, etc.
Three successes would still stabilize, a 1 would be two levels, and a 20 would remove a level as well as stabilize with 1 hp.
Have the death save be modified by CON. It is not a check or a save, so no features or such would further modify it. IMO a person with a CON 7 is much less likely to survive and stabilize than one with a CON 17.
4. Short Rest recovered HP = level + CON bonus. Long Rest = Short rest x2. This way a "fulll day of rest", i.e. 2 short rests and one long rest would be a short rest x4 effectively. That might be too much, though.
Exhaustion takes one day per level you currently have. So, if you have 5 levels (the max since at 6 you die), it takes 5 days to recover, then 4, then 3, 2, and 1. Thus to completely remove 5 levels would take 15 days. If that isn't long enough, you could double it.
5. Sure. Every 4 levels you gain a feat as well as a proficiency to spend on whatever you want (skill, armor, language, tool, etc.)
6. Oy! That hurts, but with the right archetypes and a bit of leniency I would survive it.
Zardnaar
Legend
I've stopped buying new stuff because I've got more than I can use.
Couple hundred PDFs, most of the WotC books, 3pp books etc.
I'm not overly interested in other RPGs due to can't get people to play them and time IRL as we can only play 2 nights a week.
dave2008
Legend
I like it - thanks for sharing! A little more changes than I was thinking, but they seam pretty minor.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
Very true. Messages can be misunderstood. But my first response to him challenged that misconception and his second reply was blatantly obvious.
He's been doing this for years as we know. His manner of response is just as important as his words. If he had said sometime more like:
"Well, $30 is not a lot to me, but if don't want to spend your money on something before you have a chance to experience it, that is your choice. Still I feel like you are missing out."
instead of "Clearly not." that would have been cool. I can respect that and it would have probably been the end of it. His reply to my next post was even more offensive: "I didn’t imply it. I said it directly." when I asked not to imply I don't support RPGs.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
You're welcome! I hope they help and you and your table can come to a system you all like playing.
DWChancellor
Kobold Enthusiast
I rather think they understood 4E perfectly. How much you want to bet there's an interview with 5E designers discussing how and why they designed healing in 5E with reference to 4E? The point of HD was to make magic healing less necessary for all campaigns and DM styles since you had access to reasonable between-encounter healing (but not unlimited!) Yes, other reasons too.
A big draw for me is that clerics could be a little looser in using spells for damage or utility since they wouldn't have to reserve all their spells to "top up" after each encounter. I also liked 4E's approach but that whole system is just very different. Burned out hard on 4E since it got to be so messy for high level PCs with tons of sort-of-the-same powers and trinkets.
I agree that Life Clerics are so "good" in terms of daily healing that it overwhelms the HD system and puts RAW D&D on easy mode. I've played and DM'd with and without Life Clerics and it makes a huge difference. As a DM I see it as part of the design challenge of DM'ing though and am more than happy to adjust the structure of my games to the parties. A big benefit of home games over organized play (etc.)
-- Either way this discussion goes a long way to putting healing and healing capacity at the heart of rearranging the "feel" of D&D and how PCs respond to or avoid combat situations. Making healing use HD, for example, HUGE difference and easy!
Adventures in Middle Earth (AIME) does something like this with a lot of healing using up HD and it really moves the whole 5E-based game's feeling towards what I think this thread is looking for.
ps - Anyone who LOVES DM'ing and wants to mod 5E should definitely read AIME. Terrific toolbox. It goes up on Humble Bundle every once in a while too.
Last edited:
Similar Threads
- Poll
