Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Thank_Dog Sep 11, 2014 17:46:53	I see so many, many people on forums and discussions around the intarwebz complaining about how deadly monsters are in this edition. Personally, I love it. For me the challenge in encounters has become a thing of the past in previous editions. 3.x and Pathfinder had so much power creep that balanced encounters were trivial and nothing more than speed bumps on the road to more magical items and XP.   4e tried to make dragons dangerous. And failed. Miserably. I remember the hubbub about how solo monsters were going to be truly deadly and the eventuality was that they became little more than laughabley piss-weak treasure chests.   The complaining, however, is so voiciferous that I fear on the next round of feedback that WotC might go, "Oops" and reign in the danger. I really, really, really hope this doesn't happen. It seems that players have become so used to being virtually unkillable gods that they've forgotten how much fun dangerous monsters can be.   Personally, I feel no excitement or fun playing an RPG unless my character was challenged by the real and ever present threat of death. It was one of the many reasons why I never enjoyed playing 3.x or Pathfinder and eventually gave up on both altogether. It was also one of the reasons why I stopped playing 4e (although, to be fair, it was mostly because nobody else wanted to play it either).   So how do you feel about monster deadliness in this edition? Will you nerf the Intellect Devourer so that it won't eat your PC's brains in two rounds? Or will you gleefully munch on their soft, gooey, grey matter, and cackle at the pain and heartache you see in your player's eyes?
#2 pukunui Sep 11, 2014 18:11:38	Our little party of 9th level PCs fought a Huge adult black dragon during last night's session (it was an alpha playtest monster, so it didn't have a CR listed, but based on the basic pdf's adult red dragon, which has a CR of 17, the DM guestimated that it was probably around CR 14 or 15). It wiped the floor with us. Despite not having magical powers, it was a truly terrifying creature, and not just because it was so much higher level than us. While we managed to eventually hurt it enough that it flew away, it could have easily killed several of us. I think the DM may have even gone easy on my PC since she was brand new; he had the dragon roll to notice that my PC was conscious again after having been healed up from 0, and while it succeeded, he opted not to have it attack her again, as that almost certainly would've been the end of her.   And it was fun. Like really fun.   I'll admit that it's hard not to metagame when you know that the monster has 3 "get out of jail free" cards up its sleeve, but it still makes for a far more enjoyable experience than fighting a similar creature in 4e was. When I first joined this particular group, they were in the epic tier of a long-running 4e campaign, and even though we were up against balors and gargantuan dragons and even Orcus at one point, the monsters were just constantly getting stun-locked by one PC or another, so the fights all ended up just being us whittling away at giant, immobile bags of hit points.
#3 Rastapopoulos Sep 11, 2014 18:25:50	Thank_Dog wrote:
#4 Zardnaar Sep 11, 2014 18:31:26	The monsters are weak sauce compared to the amount of healing available and the various PC abilities.You are reallyonly in danger at level 1 maybe level 2 and that is mostly just getting KOed. Death seems rare and I have not had one yet and I have been trying so hard as well. Once monsters can only hit you about 1 in 3 attacks or 1 in 4 attacks (ac 18-20+) and you can negate/penalise that along with crushing them by various means you are all good.
#5 Lawolf Sep 11, 2014 18:35:43	Past level 2, monsters really aren't all that deadly. Sure at low level they can bring you from full HP to dead in a single hit. But by level 3, you tend to have enough HP that you can survive even the most potent of attacks from approriate level enemies.    I have actually been playing recklessly with my level 3 fighter, and despite his low HP (18), he simply won't die. Part of that is our cleric keeps healing me with healing word which makes it very hard to stay down, but seriously I am basically trying to get myself killed and it isn't working.   To me, 5e feels far less deadly than 4e in terms of actual combat deadliness. Take that as you will.
#6 Psikerlord Sep 11, 2014 18:35:50	I like the deadliness of the monsters. In is a big part of the draw for me for 5e. Dangerous foes make the game fun.
#7 Zardnaar Sep 11, 2014 18:40:16	Lawolf wrote:
#8 Thank_Dog Sep 11, 2014 18:51:12	Rastapopoulos wrote:
#9 Rhenny Sep 11, 2014 19:39:48	My players are frightened when they get into combat.  We love that.   We've only gotten up to 3rd level so far.
#10 Orzel Sep 11, 2014 20:08:09	From level 1-3, it's deadly all the time as you just don't have the HP.   But for level 4 on, monster are only deadly: After your 4th medium encounter If a monster with CR= your level, hits you wilth all their attacks and you aren't at full. If the casts their big big and you fail and were not at full Your tactics are bad Your stratedegy is bad. The encounter XP was higher that deadly I like it this way. I kind wish it were balanced to 4-6 encounters and not 6-8 encounters
#11 CCS Sep 11, 2014 20:28:30	I'm all for deadly monsters. Bring them on.
#12 mbeacom Sep 11, 2014 21:05:02	I don't feel like 5E is particularly deadly. More deadly than 4E for sure. In 4E, you pretty much had to be suicidal, or terrible at tactics up against monster much higher than your level to even come close to death. I've run multi year campaigns in 4E and have run 5E up through level 10 so far (we're still playing that campaign). I'm not finding it particularly deadly. In 10 levels with a party of 6 PCs, we've only lost 4 characters total. In 4E in the same timeframe, we had lost only 1. So it's more deadly than 4E and that's great, but it's still only deadly if the DM truly wants to make it so. I"m ok with that. I loved 4E but I never liked how many saves the players got before things actually started to get bad for them. My biggest gripe of 5E is getting full HP restored after a long rest. This was the same mistake that 4E made IMO. It meant that to truly threaten the PCs, you had to throw the kitchen sink at them every day. Otherwise, there was no point. You couldn't whittle down their resources a little each day in the dungeon. That to me is how you make a deadly game. That's a game where every encounter is viewed as a potential resource drain.
#13 Thank_Dog Sep 11, 2014 21:18:15	mbeacom wrote:
#14 lawrencehoy Sep 11, 2014 21:20:46	mbeacom wrote:
#15 Shasarak Sep 11, 2014 21:47:22	Thank_Dog wrote:
(Reply to #13) mbeacom	Thank_Dog wrote:
(Reply to #2) Redblue200	pukunui wrote:
(Reply to #15) mbeacom	Shasarak wrote:
#19 Zardnaar Sep 11, 2014 22:03:57	lawrencehoy wrote:
(Reply to #19) mbeacom	Zardnaar wrote:
#21 arnwolf666 Sep 11, 2014 22:16:55	Look how many monsters you had to fight in 1E modules before you could rest.  Many of the modules gave you the odds for random encounters that varied from area to area or room room.  If the short rest thing is going to work, they had better have random encounter chances that vary depending on when you rest.
#22 pukunui Sep 11, 2014 22:22:20	Redblue200 wrote:
#23 The_Jester Sep 11, 2014 22:34:49	My level 15 Pathfinder party regularly spanks EL 17 fights. So being able to challenge them sounds lovely. And the game assuming monsters of equal challenge to the party are a hard fight is kinda cool. I like that more than "expends 1/4 of the party's resources".
#24 Zardnaar Sep 12, 2014 4:02:47	mbeacom wrote:
#25 Orzel Sep 12, 2014 4:38:04	Its all about encounters per day and how optimized PCs are. 4e can be tough if you don't optimize every single power and feat. The problem many forget is the games is not built around power gamers. They are built around players picking any decent build and doing X encounters a day. People forget PCs dropped like flies when 4e first came out and people complained how monsters were too strong. 5e is based on a non variant human fighter, a stout halfling trickery cleric, and mountain dwarf rogue and a elf enchanter fighting 7 rooms of goblins, bugbears, rats, beetles, and their hobgoblin boss in an abandoned fort.
#26 Psikerlord Sep 12, 2014 5:03:58	Thank_Dog wrote:
#27 Brock_Landers Sep 12, 2014 5:26:25	Rastapopoulos wrote:
(Reply to #27) Orzel	Brock_Landers wrote:
#29 Brock_Landers Sep 12, 2014 6:19:46	Orzel wrote:
(Reply to #24) mbeacom	Zardnaar wrote:
#31 Griffon23 Sep 13, 2014 2:26:19	We almost died to the man in our first Phandelver Goblin encounter. I loved it. Finally, the threat of death once again has its sting.  In an age where too many roleplyers are video game respawn junckies, I'm glad this edition is deadly as ****. I missed a game one night and my friends were killed in the night by wolves. Wolves. That's friggin' great! We murderized a bunch of goblins and bugbears and then they get eaten by normal predators. I'm glad the game has its balls back.
#32 Griffon23 Sep 13, 2014 2:29:55	And I'm not a fan at all of the Resurrection spell option. Now we're pulling a comic book 'temporary death' maneuver that neuters the dynamic tension losing your favorite character can have.
#33 FallingIcicle Sep 13, 2014 2:37:47	Shasarak wrote:
#34 Zardnaar Sep 13, 2014 4:36:09	Griffon23 wrote:
#35 Uchawi Sep 13, 2014 5:03:21	The bottom line is can the DM determine how dangerous a monster is based on assumptions like CR or experience. That way if the monsters are easy overall or harder, then they may be adjusted. This is especially true for a new DM that has little experience.
#36 Brock_Landers Sep 13, 2014 5:04:51	Eyeballing works best, as in previous editions.
#37 WhiteHarness Sep 13, 2014 5:09:44	I am of the opinion that most of the monsters' attack bonuses are too high by at least two points.   I don't think a lowly goblin should have a +4 to hit.  I'd rather not see mosters swinging +4/+5 until level 10 or so.     So if it were up to me, I'd reduce monster attack bonuses by two across the board.
#38 Brock_Landers Sep 13, 2014 5:20:04	WhiteHarness wrote:
#39 Chakrum Sep 13, 2014 6:12:16	I don't think there is anything wrong with how it is designed. I think there are bad habits being continued with current players. Time and time again at the table I see people charging in recklessly against foe's that outnumber them or are definitely a bigger threat because they feel they are some kind of super hero. Previous editions have spoiled players into a false sense of security that they can tackle any problem with rush and smash tactics.   Well thankfully those days are behind us, and welcome to a world where tactics isn't just how you place yourself in a square but actually using the grey matter between your ears to find ways to overcome bigger odds. Using terrain, distractions, range, cover, suprise, reconnaisance, and communication (key) is crucial to success. It's a team game, your in a dangerous world, start acting like it and quit lone wolfing everything and rushing off with no care to strategy, it only gets you killed. This is true in the real world of war and special teams, it is no less true in this fantasy world. Would you as a soldier run off into the open battle field to start shooting a pistol at a tank? I hope not, cause your going to die. Don't do it in D&D either and expect a different result.   As far as long rests and full heals go, I see nothing wrong with it if you keep in mind that as long as the DM isn't allowing mutliple long rests in a session it won't be an issue. I find that the Hoard of the dragon queen designers have taken this approach as well. I think it is intended for DM's to control 15 minute work days and as long as they do, things won't get out of hand. Short rests are definitely in keeping with taking a break and binding wounds, but even those should be limited as well. Again, I see players rushing into battle headlong with their wizards so they can get off a close quarter spell, getting smacked hard, and then crying to the DM for a short or long rest. This isn't a game design problem, this is a player problem trying to play a different version of the game at a table playing than 5E.   What's funny is the guys who were around longer and remember the dangerous days have no problems in 5E remembering to play smarter. So, use your brains.....it is your greatest weapon.