Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why does 5E SUCK?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6658693" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>Tangent, but: assuming we're talking about 5E and not 4E, I can't really agree that fights that don't exhaust HP were pointless. What you want is tension, uncertainty, not knowing who's going to win. (Sometimes not even the DM knows, but certainly you don't want the players knowing.) You <em>can</em> get that by simply balancing DPR and total hit points on both sides, as well as special powers--mirror image fights can be quite tense. But you don't <em>have</em> to get it that way. Sometimes I'll set up fights with a trick to them: last week was a high-Deadly encounter (130% of the daily encounter budget, all in one fight--it was the fourth fight of the day without even a short rest beforehand), but because the enemies were vampires and the time of day was early afternoon, one of the vampires got taken out simply by grappling it and dragging it into the sunlight. (Vampires get disadvantage to ability checks in sunlight so it was basically impossible to break free once it was in sunlight.) The PCs could have chosen to approach the fight straightforwardly, which might have killed them, or they could have cat-and-moused the vampires one at a time by darting into the house, snatching a vampire, and retreating around a corner. As it turned out they took something of a middle path, and though two of the PCs were mostly depleted of HP by the end of the encounter, the encounter would have been exactly as difficult if they'd chosen a strategy which let them win at a loss of only a handful of HP.</p><p></p><p>Other things which can make the outcome of a combat uncertain include potential for reinforcements (i.e. occluded visiblity such as in a catacomb or cave, and a precedent that monsters sometimes break up into multiple small groups, so players don't know how many are in the vicinity), illusions (<em>Seeming</em> can make a necromancer and his skeletons look like a bunch of scrawny goblins), environmental hazards (pit traps, caltrops, cliffs to shove people off), enemy spellcasters, enemy archers with partial or full cover, darkness, and running water. Ideally you want it to be an actual decision point as to whether or not combat will be the approach taken in this situation, or if they will bluff/negotiate/sneak instead. That only happens when combat is perceived as risky.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6658693, member: 6787650"] Tangent, but: assuming we're talking about 5E and not 4E, I can't really agree that fights that don't exhaust HP were pointless. What you want is tension, uncertainty, not knowing who's going to win. (Sometimes not even the DM knows, but certainly you don't want the players knowing.) You [I]can[/I] get that by simply balancing DPR and total hit points on both sides, as well as special powers--mirror image fights can be quite tense. But you don't [I]have[/I] to get it that way. Sometimes I'll set up fights with a trick to them: last week was a high-Deadly encounter (130% of the daily encounter budget, all in one fight--it was the fourth fight of the day without even a short rest beforehand), but because the enemies were vampires and the time of day was early afternoon, one of the vampires got taken out simply by grappling it and dragging it into the sunlight. (Vampires get disadvantage to ability checks in sunlight so it was basically impossible to break free once it was in sunlight.) The PCs could have chosen to approach the fight straightforwardly, which might have killed them, or they could have cat-and-moused the vampires one at a time by darting into the house, snatching a vampire, and retreating around a corner. As it turned out they took something of a middle path, and though two of the PCs were mostly depleted of HP by the end of the encounter, the encounter would have been exactly as difficult if they'd chosen a strategy which let them win at a loss of only a handful of HP. Other things which can make the outcome of a combat uncertain include potential for reinforcements (i.e. occluded visiblity such as in a catacomb or cave, and a precedent that monsters sometimes break up into multiple small groups, so players don't know how many are in the vicinity), illusions ([I]Seeming[/I] can make a necromancer and his skeletons look like a bunch of scrawny goblins), environmental hazards (pit traps, caltrops, cliffs to shove people off), enemy spellcasters, enemy archers with partial or full cover, darkness, and running water. Ideally you want it to be an actual decision point as to whether or not combat will be the approach taken in this situation, or if they will bluff/negotiate/sneak instead. That only happens when combat is perceived as risky. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why does 5E SUCK?
Top