D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Oofta]

What do thise 100 orcs eat? Where do they sleep? If the PCs cut 1/3 of the previous tribe into ribbons using their highest spell slots, why would anyone else agree to come act as cannon fodder? Where did 100 orcs come from within 3 days of the ruin? (3 days to send a messenger, 1 day to organize, 3 days to return). How did no one notice an army of 100 orcs marching through the woods.

It seems like in order to discourage a 5MWD, you are throwing verisimilitude out the window.

They came in from other regions bringing supplies with them. They're raiding the countryside far and wide because the adventurers hired to stop them decided to take a quick vacay. They're eating the villagers. They're eating whatever monsters ever eat in a dungeon. What throws verisimilitude out the window is that that a group can repeatedly just have a fight or two, go away for a week and expect to fight the same level of challenge because the orcs are just going to sit around doing absolutely nothing.

Do you ever seriously go into depth about what the monsters eat? The ecology of monster infested regions or caves has never been a strong point of D&D so maybe the orcs are just eating all those strawmen being thrown out left and right.

 

[Oofta]

The best way to combat the 5MWD and to make attrition have some bite, while still maintaining most of the core structures of modern D&D, is to make recharging resources have a cost, both in time, narrative consequences, and resources.

Recharging spell slots should require special reagents, that cost real gold and aren't always in easy supply. If XP is being used in the game, taking a short or long rest should cost a scaling amount of XP, low but not trivial.

This allows DM to control pacing by simply adjusting the amount of treasure they give out, while also incentivizing players to push forward to accomplish as much as they can without resting.

But you can also simply remove rewards and add penalties if the PCs rest instead of pushing forward. Rest for a week instead of continuing on to capture the bandit king that has a price on his head? He's gone. Trying to stop the ritual? Too late, it succeeded. Need to rescue the prince? You aren't invited to the funeral.

Not only is this an immediate effect, it also gives the party a reputation and not a good one. If the party goes in, kicks the proverbial hornets nest, then go to the spa to rest up while the monsters they disturbed ransacked the country side no one is ever going to trust them to do their job. No leads, no help, they become a pariah caused by failure.

Bad things happen if you don't finish what you start.

 

[TwoSix]

They came in from other regions bringing supplies with them. They're raiding the countryside far and wide because the adventurers hired to stop them decided to take a quick vacay. They're eating the villagers. They're eating whatever monsters ever eat in a dungeon. What throws verisimilitude out the window is that that a group can repeatedly just have a fight or two, go away for a week and expect to fight the same level of challenge because the orcs are just going to sit around doing absolutely nothing.

Do you ever seriously go into depth about what the monsters eat? The ecology of monster infested regions or caves has never been a strong point of D&D so maybe the orcs are just eating all those strawmen being thrown out left and right.

The compromise position here is what @NotAYakk said earlier; when you set up an adventure site, you need to set up the narrative consequences for success, for failure, AND for lack of engagement.

If verisimilitude is a concern, you put that into the planned consequences. 100 orc raiders should not be a static situation, but having 1000 orcs show up a week later might not be the appropriate consequence for lack of engagement to maintain verisimilitude.

 

[TwoSix]

But you can also simply remove rewards and add penalties if the PCs rest instead of pushing forward. Rest for a week instead of continuing on to capture the bandit king that has a price on his head? He's gone. Trying to stop the ritual? Too late, it succeeded. Need to rescue the prince? You aren't invited to the funeral.

Not only is this an immediate effect, it also gives the party a reputation and not a good one. If the party goes in, kicks the proverbial hornets nest, then go to the spa to rest up while the monsters they disturbed ransacked the country side no one is ever going to trust them to do their job. No leads, no help, they become a pariah caused by failure.

Bad things happen if you don't finish what you start.

I believe that would fall under the "narrative consequences" I specified in my first paragraph.

 

[payn]

The best way to combat the 5MWD and to make attrition have some bite, while still maintaining most of the core structures of modern D&D, is to make recharging resources have a cost, both in time, narrative consequences, and resources.

I've found balancing adventure design to actually be a lot better. If the players expect butt loads of combats, then yeah they are going to want to rest a lot. I try and work in exploration items that can give a change of pace. When there is a short cut I make sure the players understand how good it was to find it. Lastly, narrative reasons to press on that dont beat the players with punishing mechanics and endless random encounters. I guess you can say I'm a carrot, not a stick GM.

Recharging spell slots should require special reagents, that cost real gold and aren't always in easy supply. If XP is being used in the game, taking a short or long rest should cost a scaling amount of XP, low but not trivial.

I do want to see some more mechanics that make life less easy for casters. I want spell choice to really matter in the adventuring day. Though, XP can die in a fire and using it to regulate player behavior is right back to the stick.

This allows DM to control pacing by simply adjusting the amount of treasure they give out, while also incentivizing players to push forward to accomplish as much as they can without resting.

I have never found this to work in the past. The more press your luck you make the game, the more players will either go until TPK, or just give up and become chicken farmers.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There are also positive rewards, such as XP and treasure, and of course narrative progression. But you seem to be arguing against negative consequences. Frankly, I know no RPG where such do not exist in some form.

Nope, not at all. But if you tell people that death actually kinda sucks as a consequence and other, more tailored ones are almost always vastly superior, people will immediately jump to that conclusion. It's happened enough times to be tedious rather than shocking now.

Because once we remove attrition, the only negative mechanical consequence left is death;

No, it isn't. The fact you think it is is exactly the problem.

There are other consequences besides death. Most of them are, in fact, better than death for exactly the reasons you mentioned (that I clipped out)--they don't necessitate TPKs, they don't end games, and as I said, they don't result in a brief moment of "WHAAAAT" followed by "guess I just grind all that way up again...for the fifth time..." (or, IMO worse, "Bob IV" syndrome).

The thing is, all those other consequences are--must be--tailored to each game, each group, each person. Because, surprise surprise, motivation is a personal thing! If you want to motivate people, if you want them to be truly invested, you have to build internal, intrinsic motivations with and for them. This is yet another reason why I advocate so strongly for DMs to aggressively pursue genuine player enthusiasm. Because if the player is genuinely enthusiastic--no ill will or ulterior motive, just doing stuff because they enjoy it--then you have little to no need to do any work at all to create meaningful consequences. Consequences that can resonate across an entire campaign, that can define a character's life.

The one and only advantage death has is that you don't have to do any work to make it a consequence. Everyone agrees that it is one (with the raise dead/TPK thing noted.) Otherwise, death is a pretty poor consequence; it dead-ends stories, it forces generally un-fun results, it erases current player investment, it trades all potential futures and all the anxieties and triumphs those might contain for a brief one-shot gut punch, it abandons existing gameplay for (generally) much more barebones gameplay...etc. Regardless of what axis of play you prefer, other than maybe some really hyper-pure simulationism, death tends to....well, deaden, not enrich.

Death is the instant-gratification consequence: all flash, no substance. If you want consequences with substance, they have to come from building things up for, with, and between characters first.

 

[TwoSix]

I have never found this to work in the past. The more press your luck you make the game, the more players will either go until TPK, or just give up and become chicken farmers.

That's absolutely a feature, not a bug. Go big or go home.

 

[payn]

That's absolutely a feature, not a bug. Go big or go home.

In a board game, yes, but I do not want this element in my RPG. Clearly, our miles have varied.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's absolutely a feature, not a bug. Go big or go home.

Personally, I think it's much better to go the other way. The terms I've seen coined for this are "high volatility but low lethality." A volatile game is one where round to round, even turn to turn, a character's status may vary wildly from "seems perfectly safe" to "in terrible danger" and back a gain. Lethality is pretty much what you'd expect--chance of outright death.

Volatile but minimally-lethal games have all the tension (because you care about your current status) without the anxiety. You get the best of both worlds. Of course, having a looming lethality cliff helps a lot too, but unfortunately, 5e's design doesn't really have one of those, because the same resources that make you super-mega-awesome (spell slots) are the things critically depended upon for regaining HP (doubly so since HD are completely unreliable for this purpose, given you only get back 50% per LR and even all of them would barely give you a single full heal most of the time.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Nope, not at all. But if you tell people that death actually kinda sucks as a consequence and other, more tailored ones are almost always vastly superior, people will immediately jump to that conclusion. It's happened enough times to be tedious rather than shocking now.

I am arguing for attrition which is a mechanical consequence other than character death.

No, it isn't. The fact you think it is is exactly the problem.

No, we are just talking past each other. See:

There are other consequences besides death. Most of them are, in fact, better than death for exactly the reasons you mentioned (that I clipped out)--they don't necessitate TPKs, they don't end games, and as I said, they don't result in a brief moment of "WHAAAAT" followed by "guess I just grind all that way up again...for the fifth time..." (or, IMO worse, "Bob IV" syndrome).

The thing is, all those other consequences are--must be--tailored to each game, each group, each person. Because, surprise surprise, motivation is a personal thing! If you want to motivate people, if you want them to be truly invested, you have to build internal, intrinsic motivations with and for them. This is yet another reason why I advocate so strongly for DMs to aggressively pursue genuine player enthusiasm. Because if the player is genuinely enthusiastic--no ill will or ulterior motive, just doing stuff because they enjoy it--then you have little to no need to do any work at all to create meaningful consequences. Consequences that can resonate across an entire campaign, that can define a character's life.

Yes, stuff like this is great. But it is not mechanical consequence built into the system.

The one and only advantage death has is that you don't have to do any work to make it a consequence. Everyone agrees that it is one (with the raise dead/TPK thing noted.) Otherwise, death is a pretty poor consequence; it dead-ends stories, it forces generally un-fun results, it erases current player investment, it trades all potential futures and all the anxieties and triumphs those might contain for a brief one-shot gut punch, it abandons existing gameplay for (generally) much more barebones gameplay...etc. Regardless of what axis of play you prefer, other than maybe some really hyper-pure simulationism, death tends to....well, deaden, not enrich.

Death is the instant-gratification consequence: all flash, no substance. If you want consequences with substance, they have to come from building things up for, with, and between characters first.

But death is mechanical part of the game. You're correct, it is easy consequence to use, even though it might not be the best. But a mass market game must have this sort of easy default option that does not rely the Gm weaving personalised story consequences for characters. Doing that is great, but it is not something we can expect hordes of inexperienced GMs to do for each fight in their action adventure dungeon delving game.

But having attrition allows the story consequence to work on the level of the "adventure" or "mission" without the defeat necessarily meaning death.