Chaosmancer
Legend
All of which are trends worthy of opposing at every opportunity.
Why?
Ditto.
Again, why?
The rules have morphed based on how players (in general whose main interest, remember, lies in making things easier on their characters) have through endless advocacy forced them to morph; mostly because the designers haven't had the spine to push back and keep the game challenging at the design level.
Largely false. Like, tremendously false.
See, we have such a warped perspective on this site it isn't even funny. For example, I was recently running for some teenagers. Helped them make their own characters and everything. One of the players was playing an Artificer, they wanted a lightning sword and I have a 3rd party artificer called the Thundermonger that could provide that. At level 1 they were declaring themselves OP, unbeatable, completely broken and the most powerful person in the party... because they could wear armor, use weapons, cast a damage spell, and cast a healing spell.
And this wasn't just this one player, I had to reassure a few of the other players that this character, who was just a level 1 Air Genasi Artificer, that he wasn't actually OP.
The thing is, that the game IS challenging. These players really struggled, and I've played hell trying to get them to just understand their characters. And this isn't a one-off thing. What the game isn't is challenging for experts. And frankly... it shouldn't be challenging for experts out of the box. Some modularity to make it more difficult would be fine, but it isn't in the game's baseline design of class vs monster that the challenges lay.
The challenges lay in what the DM weaves out of those story elements. And frankly, I think more DMs should take their monsters and do three things if their players are finding it too easy
1) Stop using the Average HP, and use a higher HP value from the range (helps when dealing with Alpha striking players)
2) Stop using the baseline equipment. Nothing says that your gnoll raiders need to still be wearing hide, they could have half-plate and that makes a BIG difference. Same with the weapons, instead of a spear, give them a Glaive.
3) Use Feats, species and class features. Sure, Common Bandits aren't terribly threatening. Bandits that all have the ability to blast you with Hellish Rebuke and have the mobile feat are a WAY different story.
The thing is, I find it trivially easy to adjust the difficulty of the game UP. But it is far far harder to tone it down. If the baseline gnoll was sitting at 17 AC, 40 hp, had polearm master, and a glaive, then it would be a greater challenge, but new players who still think that having a d6 weapon makes you a bad-ass are going to get wrecked so fast and so thoroughly, it won't be fun for them. And, if you are about to say "but the DM can adjust down", yeah, they can... only if they are experienced enough. Many DMs don't get mentored by other, better DMs. Many of them pick this stuff up on their own.
The Game is challenging on a design level, for people new to the game or with only a few years of expeirence. Those of us sitting at a decade or more of experience are not the common player or the common DM.