D&D 5E What to do about Hypnotic Pattern?

[Mistwell]

Are your players having fun?

 

[Oofta]

That's something I'll have to keep in mind. My groups are large, though (6 players in one, 8 in another), so combat in small rooms causes other headaches.


For your group, maybe! For mine, it sounds like an invitation to nothing but doorway fights, where the ranged PCs stand in the doorway and fill the room with arrows/fireballs/magic missiles and never even get touched by whatever enemies are in those rooms. The downside to a small room is that there isn't much room for enemies to stand in them either, meaning that there is just one or two per room and they can be picked off with smaller spells.

That's why any monster can use "shove" as an attack. I (house?) rule that any melee attack in the monster's stat block can be a shove. On the other hand it doesn't come up that often for me since my environments tend to be more dynamic.

 

[jayoungr]

Are your players having fun?

As far as I can tell, yes. But I believe they'd have more fun if situations were more varied. And I know I'd have more fun if I didn't have to run the classic hypnotic pattern fight over and over.

 

[Mistwell]

As far as I can tell, yes. But I believe they'd have more fun if situations were more varied. And I know I'd have more fun if I didn't have to run the classic hypnotic pattern fight over and over.

Have you asked them if they would have more fun if the combats were more varied?

 

[Stalker0]

And I know I'd have more fun if I didn't have to run the classic hypnotic pattern fight over and over.

Then as the DM you should absolutely do something about the spell, whether its having a talk with your players or adjusting the spell.

The DM's fun is the most important...because your also doing a lot of work. Players don't have to do much for their fun, so if its diminished slightly they will still find plenty of ways to enjoy things. But if a DM is not enjoying the game....that quickly leads to burnout....and then the game ends. I have both seen it and dealt with it personally several times over my 20 years of gaming/Dming.

So don't feel bad about making adjustments to ensure your own enjoyment.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

No, policing the adventuring day is ANY action taken by the DM to deal with the 5MWD.

It includes tweaking the resting rules or using rest variants. Rulings. Random monsters. Not-so-random monsters. Doom clocks. Failing forward. Taking to the players and reaching social consensus not to try and game the rest system. Even heavy handed 'you rest and nothing happens' or 'nope'.

I strongly recommend against arbitrarily informing your players that their long rest had no effect. That way leads to madness and the lamentations of your women.

 

[Flamestrike]

I strongly recommend against arbitrarily informing your players that their long rest had no effect. That way leads to madness and the lamentations of your women.

I dont have to luckily.

Part of session zero is a discussion about the 5MWD, and rest/ resource expectations in the campaign, and how I dont really brook anyone trying to game the system. I inform the players that they should expect 6-ish ecounters per long rest as a median, and can expect around 2 short rests in that time (also as a median).

From there (in game) I make liberal use of doom clocks and surprise encounters, enough to make the system largely self regulating in actual play.

 

[jgsugden]

I just want a bigger range of tricks to deal with it when it's appropriate, and I as a DM am frankly uncomfortable with the inevitable part at the end of the combat where the entire party are beating up helpless enthralled enemies. I feel like that is damaging to a heroic-toned campaign, and it's also boring as heck to run. To be honest, that's my biggest complaint with the spell.

I'm also frustrated because every combat in every campaign has to be built around this one spell. There's a limit to how much "celebrating" should be allowed to dominate every session you ever run, or so it seems to me.

What does your group want?

A DM is not building the DM's world. The DM build's the group's world. You're not creating the story of your NPCs - it is the story of the PCs exploring your world.

It is all about the heroes of the tale, not the DM's world.

Does that mean you're expected to suffer through and be at the whim of the players? Absolutely not. You're there to build an interesting world for them to explore and in which to thrive and adventure. The game works best when the players walk into a world that is interesting to them, but does not feel like it was built just for them. A DM can have the fun a parent has when they build a town of blocks and then watches their 11 month old child play Godzilla and crush it. (Would you think of gluing it all together to stop the kid from using their body to break it apart?)

However, you're absolutely not there to invalidate their choices. If you don't like the illusion rules, but you have a player that really wants to play an illusionist and loves the illusion rules, talk with them to understand what it is they like, explore options, try to encourage understandings that you think are improvements - but in the end you need to take what they love about their PC idea and celebrate it, regardless of what it is they love about it (within socially acceptable limits, of course).

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I dont have to luckily.

Part of session zero is a discussion about the 5MWD, and rest/ resource expectations in the campaign, and how I dont really brook anyone trying to game the system. I inform the players that they should expect 6-ish ecounters per long rest as a median, and can expect around 2 short rests in that time (also as a median).

From there (in game) I make liberal use of doom clocks and surprise encounters, enough to make the system largely self regulating in actual play.

Good news.

Though, personally, I've never like doom clocks. Instead, I changed the in-game incentive structure.

1) I award XP for completing quests, not killing monsters. So if the party kills a monster, retreats, and rests, they've earned 0 experience.

2) I also increased short rests to 8 hours and long resist to 5 days, which gives monsters enough time to regroup (reinforcements!) if the party decides to retreat back to town after only a couple of encounters.

The downside is that increasing the short rest time sometimes means a party to complete 8 encounters without resting at all. On the other hand, fighters, monks, and warlocks get to shine during wilderness exploration, when one-encounter days are the norm. So I feel like it balances out.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

What does your group want?

A DM is not building the DM's world. The DM build's the group's world. You're not creating the story of your NPCs - it is the story of the PCs exploring your world.

It is all about the heroes of the tale, not the DM's world.

Does that mean you're expected to suffer through and be at the whim of the players? Absolutely not. You're there to build an interesting world for them to explore and in which to thrive and adventure. The game works best when the players walk into a world that is interesting to them, but does not feel like it was built just for them. A DM can have the fun a parent has when they build a town of blocks and then watches their 11 month old child play Godzilla and crush it. (Would you think of gluing it all together to stop the kid from using their body to break it apart?)

However, you're absolutely not there to invalidate their choices. If you don't like the illusion rules, but you have a player that really wants to play an illusionist and loves the illusion rules, talk with them to understand what it is they like, explore options, try to encourage understandings that you think are improvements - but in the end you need to take what they love about their PC idea and celebrate it, regardless of what it is they love about it (within socially acceptable limits, of course).

Or instead DMs and players could find and develop groups of like-minded individuals whose playstyles complement one-another. A player who likes illusions is better off playing with a DM who likes illusions than one who doesn't.

Personally, I ban everything I don't like. When a new (but experienced*) player comes to the table, I hand him/her a copy of my player's guide which lists my (minimal) house rule as well as the options available in my world. The player can then decide the game isn't for him/her. That's fine with me. It saves us both a lot of trouble.

* with new players the process is a little different.