Is 5e combat broken? Is there a easy way to fix it?

[Esgadir]

Hi all,

I'm on 5e since 4y now and I like it but I have a problem with combat.

1st level characters are weak, that's ok. Then for 4 or 5 levels it feels balanced. Then above 7th level combat start feeling weird and not fun anymore.

2 things happen: too many dice to throw + it feels much less violent, it feel weak, fake. Like swords don't cut anymore and are made of rubber.

I tried some math of the core combat system, a basic fighter with STr., Con and Dex best stats with longsword, armor and shield with defence style and champion archetype, fighting against himself at every level. Attack vs. defence, damage vs. hit point. No magic item, no distractions, just the core math of the system. It's not a realistic situation, DMs fix this with narrative, with items, with situation, but it show the basic system dynamics and why it is broken as you level up.

Look at this link for the math: drive.google.com/open?id=1_s4Xfp-OTBqrHqkz125sVJIV__lSkhkR

The system is asymmetric. Attack skill slightly improves against defence skill. Damage increase very little compared to absorption (HP). At levels 5, 11 and 20 Damage get up a step with one more attack per round, but not enough to compensate the growth of HP, and at the price of throwing even more dices.

It goes from a average of 4 attacks to kill himself at 1st level to 43 attacks to kill himself at 20th level. If you also throw the damage dice then it becomes 67 dices to throw to kill himself.

Instead of becoming more tactical (meaning less sheer attacks and more maneuvering+preparation+side actions like hiding, dodging, shove, ecc) and of becoming more violent (higher damage per attack), it goes in the opposite direction.

You can do this math in many different ways, what matters is not the exact number of rounds or dice that I calculated but the direction where D&D goes as characters and enemies grow up in power: more dices to throw and proportionally less powerful attacks.

If you don't agree with me, please explain me why, I'm very interested and I'm writing this post exactly to understand this problem better.

[Malifice]

It takes your 4th level fighter 4 rounds to make 4 attacks necessary to kill himself at 1st level.

It takes him 8 rounds to make the 40 attacks to kill himself at 20th.

With a magic weapon that's down to 4 pretty quick.

[Fredaintdead]

Except the combat of the system is not designed to be Champion Fighter vs Champion Fighter, or even Champion Fighter vs a single monster. It's designed to be an entire party against multiple encounters consisting of differing numbers of/difficulties of monster.

So take a single combat, on average I've found most fights to last between 3 and 5 rounds, so we'll go with an average of 4. During that combat, the Fighter is likely to make an attack action each round, resulting in 16 attacks. Add in a potential damage roll for each one, and the possibility of a saving throw (roughly every other round is likely), we're looking at:

16 attack rolls (Up to 32 dice with advantage).
16 damage rolls.
2 saving throws.


For a total of 34 dice (50 with advantage). Because the Fighter isn't meant to kill the monsters by themselves, they're a portion of the party's damage overall, and the fight itself isn't necessarily even meant to kill them in one, it's just a steady attrition against the party's ability to prevent/absorb/cure damage.

[Esgadir]

Yes, if magic was something influencing only the damage. But if you have a magic weapon why not also a ring of protection of the same power? That compensate attack vs. defence. But then of course a few potion of healing are more then enough to compensate that +1 (or +2, or +3) damage bonus of your magic weapon. Plus yes, you can have all sort of powers, but you can have in attack and in defence, in damaging and in absorbing, and there's no statistics that says that with level you are going to find more damage dealing items than damage absorbing damage.

No. Magical items are neutral because they can affect all the stats in play. The core system will still go in that direction. In the real game the DM compensate it with narratives and items and situation because nobody wants to make 40 attacks for a fight.

But that's still the reality of the system, and why is like this? and why is needed? and is there a why to easily fix it?

[Armored Walrus]

In my opinion, there's one flaw in your (OP's) analysis. PCs aren't balanced against PCs, but against monsters. I'd be curious to see how the math changes if you put the fight up against a single foe of a CR high enough to make the encounter "deadly" and see if the lengthening of combat is still a trend at higher levels.

I do agree, though, that the scaling is just based on more attacks and more damage dice, rather than based on more damaging attacks and higher damage dice. Fighters don't get significantly more accurate, or more able to deal damage, they just get better at spamming more and more attacks.

Rogues and casters though...

[Eric Diaz]

Heh... I agree... kinda... but what about feats, additional fighting styles, magic weapons, improved crits etc?

What is "Cos"?

Seems to me magic weapons aren't neutral, since magic items will more often affect AC than HP, while magic weapons will affect both.

The point of having multiple attacks is destroying mooks... is either that or AoE attacks, or let damage overflow to nearby foes. That would make things faster and swords "sharper".

If you're attacking the same foe 4x just roll the 4 dice at one, all roll all damage at once. Will have the effect you're looking for, or something close, I think.

[Mortis_Elrod]

I think your premise is flawed. Fighters don’t fight fighters. NPCs are designed differently than player characters.

Also the combat is not suppose to be one and done. Multiple encounters of varying degrees of difficulty are supposed to happen. One encounter can’t accuratley measure whether or not the combat system is balanced.

[Seekergeek]

I get it. I always want combat to feel more lethal, but I think realistically that combat in 5e is meant to be more cinematic than "realistic". I mean, first off it's hard to bandy about the notion of realism in a world with fireballs and simulacrums. Simulacri? Whichever. Secondly, as you gain levels, you are meant to feel, look, and behave in a more heroic fashion. By that I don't mean necessarily be a hero, I mean it in the sense of being able to do things which are by definition preternatural. In my experience, combat in 5e rarely stretches out more than, say, ten rounds even at higher level. In that time a Champion may swing his sword 30-odd times, and that may not seem very exciting, but there's lots of other things he can do, too. This is true even more so of a paladin, and even more so of a sorcerer and so on. Gaining hit-points at a rate which outpaces straight damage gives players the latitude to gain options in combat, and gives DMs leverage to do more than straight damage to PCs.

I think that makes sense.

[Eric Diaz]

Although the OP asks if combat is "broken" (it is not), it seems to be asking if there are too many dice rolls at high levels (there are) and how to "fix" it (a fair question IMO, but high levels lose more time over too many options than too many die rolls IMO).

[PhoenixPhyre]

Comparing PC vs PC is silly. It's not part of the game's design at all.

Let's instead compare effective health (HP after including effects of regeneration, resistances, etc). This comes from my spreadsheet of all the monster data in MM and Volos, linked in the signature



CR
Average eHP
eDPR


1
31
13


5
112
29


10
186
62


15
248
118


20 (averaged over CRs 19-21 for enough data)
430
129



Yes, effective health increases dramatically. As does the damage output, which roughly doubles every 5 CR until CR 15.

Another thing to consider is that tactical options also increase (roughly quadratically) with levels. Both spells and feats and class features that contribute mightily toward making fights quicker.

From anecdotal experience, past level 4 or so PCs are hard to kill iff you stick to the standard adventuring day and don't run deadly fights. That's by design. If each fight had a 1% chance of killing a PC, you'd have total turnover by level 10, let alone level 20.

[Ultimate_Coffee]

Hi all,

I'm on 5e since 4y now and I like it but I have a problem with combat.

1st level characters are weak, that's ok. Then for 4 or 5 levels it feels balanced. Then above 7th level combat start feeling weird and not fun anymore.

2 things happen: too many dice to throw + it feels much less violent, it feel weak, fake. Like swords don't cut anymore and are made of rubber.

I tried some math of the core combat system, a basic fighter with STr., Con and Dex best stats with longsword, armor and shield with defence style and champion archetype, fighting against himself at every level. Attack vs. defence, damage vs. hit point. No magic item, no distractions, just the core math of the system. It's not a realistic situation, DMs fix this with narrative, with items, with situation, but it show the basic system dynamics and why it is broken as you level up.

Look at this link for the math: drive.google.com/open?id=1_s4Xfp-OTBqrHqkz125sVJIV__lSkhkR

The system is asymmetric. Attack skill slightly improves against defence skill. Damage increase very little compared to absorption (HP). At levels 5, 11 and 20 Damage get up a step with one more attack per round, but not enough to compensate the growth of HP, and at the price of throwing even more dices.

It goes from a average of 4 attacks to kill himself at 1st level to 43 attacks to kill himself at 20th level. If you also throw the damage dice then it becomes 67 dices to throw to kill himself.

Instead of becoming more tactical (meaning less sheer attacks and more maneuvering+preparation+side actions like hiding, dodging, shove, ecc) and of becoming more violent (higher damage per attack), it goes in the opposite direction.

You can do this math in many different ways, what matters is not the exact number of rounds or dice that I calculated but the direction where D&D goes as characters and enemies grow up in power: more dices to throw and proportionally less powerful attacks.

If you don't agree with me, please explain me why, I'm very interested and I'm writing this post exactly to understand this problem better.

Players aren't balanced against other players. I ran a basic champion fighter against an equal CR monster at levels 1, 5, 11, and 20, using the DMGs Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating chart to get a good handle on monster stats by CR, and I found that the number of rounds for one to kill the other stay pretty consistent throughout.



Level
Attacks for Player to Kill Monster
Attacks for Monster to Kill Player


1
~13
~6


5
~10
~6


11
~10
~6


20
~13
~6

[Potato_Priest]

I think your premise is flawed. Fighters don’t fight fighters. NPCs are designed differently than player characters.

Also the combat is not suppose to be one and done. Multiple encounters of varying degrees of difficulty are supposed to happen. One encounter can’t accuratley measure whether or not the combat system is balanced.

As the OP said, what matters is not the detail of the analysis but the general trend. This analysis is flawed in several ways, but I nonetheless agree with him/her that the general trend is there. It would be interesting to see how this works out in monsters’, attack vs defense however.

Also, I expect this problem is even more severe in barbarians, paladins, and rangers, who get no extra attacks after 5th level. Barbs and rangers especially get almost no increases to damage as they level past 5.

[ciarannihill]

I understand the point, and although you picked probably the most extreme possible example of it (class and subclass with the most straightforward kits, no feats and no magic weapons/items) I get what the "problem" you're describing is...

Having said that I think it's a feature not a bug that 5E's combat grows longer over the course of leveling up. It means encounters feel more epic, gives players more time to leverage more of their cool abilities they've gained over the course of their journey and means that facing down an Ancient Red Dragon never feels like facing a Bugbear. One should clearly be far harder to take down, even for party appropriate to it's level, than the other.

Fights at high levels should feel more epic and grand in scale than those are first level, and part of doing that is scaling survivability more severely than offensive capabilities, although your "simulation" over-exaggerates your point a bridge too far to be taken seriously...

[PhoenixPhyre]

As the OP said, what matters is not the detail of the analysis but the general trend. This analysis is flawed in several ways, but I nonetheless agree with him that the general trend is there. It would be interesting to see how this works out in monsters’, attack vs defense however.

Also, I expect this problem is even more severe in barbarians, paladins, and rangers, who get no extra attacks after 5th level. Barns and rangers especially get almost no increases to damage as they level past 5.

Wait...barbs get more rage damage per swing (plus other features).

Paladins get more (and more powerful) smites, plus spells and IDS.

Rangers get combat features.

So no. Everybody increases in straight damage output. Usually at the beginning of each tier, levels 1, 5, 11, 17. There's decided break-points in damage done and general power level at (or close around) those levels.

[Potato_Priest]

Wait...barbs get more rage damage per swing (plus other features).

Paladins get more (and more powerful) smites, plus spells and IDS.

Rangers get combat features.

So no. Everybody increases in straight damage output. Usually at the beginning of each tier, levels 1, 5, 11, 17. There's decided break-points in damage done and general power level at (or close around) those levels.

Indeed, they do increase in damage, but the increases that the other classes experience (well, maybe not paladin) are quite small compared to the fighter. The barbarian for example gets rage bonus damage that goes up from 2 to 4, netting an increase of 4 damage per round, 6 if they have a bonus action attack. When you compare that to a whole extra attack it’s going to be unfavorable on anything but the most unoptimized of fighters, since even a d6 weapon with +3 to damage gives 6.5 extra dpr.

[Toofey]

On to the "is there an easy fix" and the answer is YES... well kind of easy.

First: Double all damage on critical hits.
Second: roughly double all damage on higher level spells. You need to go through spell by spell and reassign the damage.

Long answer short. 5e is just not quite lethal enough in general, which becomes inescapable at higher level. To make it feel more engaging, make it more dangerous.

[Unoriginal]

No, 5e combat is not broken, and does not require fighting.

As other have said, your premise is flawed from the get go.

A Champion Fighter is a great character, but the subclass entirely about taking the basics of combat up to 11, both in their attacks/hits (with improved critical) and with defenses/HPs. They don't have Rage like a Barbarian, or Manoeuvres like a Battlemaster, or Sneak Attack or the like. A player can use them intelligently and use tactics, but your calculation just have them stand next to each others and hit each other again and again. And as others have said, PCs aren't meant to fight PCs.

So yeah, what you have is two Extra-Attacks spam robots not meant to fight each other, fighting each others.

[QUOTE=Eric Diaz;23170076
The point of having multiple attacks is destroying mooks... is either that or AoE attacks, or let damage overflow to nearby foes. That would make things faster and swords "sharper".
[/QUOTE]

Well multiple attacks work even better against one big foe. It's rare for an high level fighter to not hit at least once per turn, for example.

[PhoenixPhyre]

On to the "is there an easy fix" and the answer is YES... well kind of easy.

First: Double all damage on critical hits.
Second: roughly double all damage on higher level spells. You need to go through spell by spell and reassign the damage.

Long answer short. 5e is just not quite lethal enough in general, which becomes inescapable at higher level. To make it feel more engaging, make it more dangerous.

Not quite lethal enough for you. Not everyone enjoys a meatgrinder or thinks that the threat of death on a bad roll is exciting or fun.

[ciarannihill]

Indeed, they do increase in damage, but the increases that the other classes experience (well, maybe not paladin) are quite small compared to the fighter. The barbarian for example gets rage bonus damage that goes up from 2 to 4, netting an increase of 4 damage per round, 6 if they have a bonus action attack. When you compare that to a whole extra attack it’s going to be unfavorable on anything but the most unoptimized of fighters, since even a d6 weapon with +3 to damage gives 6.5 extra dpr.

I mean Barbarians do get a few other avg DPR increases: Brutal Critical, most of the archetypes grant bonus damage (Berserker, Zealot, Storm Herald), plus they're one of the main classes that benefits from the Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master and Sentinel feats.

[Pex]

High level combat is not broken. Not liking it is a matter of taste, but the game isn't falling apart. Fortunately 5E does provide a way to make it simple. In monster statistics they provide the average value of damage dealt. You don't have to roll anything when the monster hits. The damage is calculated for you. Use that if rolling is such a bother. You'll have to calculate average yourself for spells, but it's easy to do for the commonly used.

For other people rolling dice is part of the fun. If combat is taking too long in real world time they look to fix the metagame reasons, not the mechanics. Players should know their character's abilities. If you need to look up something do it on someone else's turn. Plan your turn on someone else's turn. Learn not to have analysis paralysis. Don't think too hard. For BBEG everything and the kitchen sink combats you have to think hard and carefully. That's the whole point of the fun of it. That's the exception. It's the run of the mill fights that don't need circumspection.

[Willie the Duck]

OP, to what other gaming systems (other D&D editions being a system, for these purposes) are you comparing it?

There are undoubtedly a few editions where the damage has scaled up faster than the hp (obviously it did in the TSR era after your HP plateaued at name level, but you were semi-retired from adventuring by then), but overall, 'takes longer to kill' is kind of the fighter primary benefit of leveling.

I'm not really clear on why that makes higher level combat less 'tactical' or how maneuvering + preparation + side actions (hiding, dodging, shove, ecc) become less useful at that level. advantage or disadvantage on attacks and the like are beneficial at any level with any number of attacks you get to make or be subjected to. I don't see how that changes.

[Vogie]

1st level characters are weak, that's ok. Then for 4 or 5 levels it feels balanced. Then above 7th level combat start feeling weird and not fun anymore.

Actually, if you feel that way, one solution would be capping characters at level 6-7, then adding additional characters to the party for leveling up past that point. At the end of an campaign where you'd normally spend some time at level 20, each player would instead end with a trio of level 6-7s each (or larger amounts of lower level characters).

I think that'd be quite fun.

[KorvinStarmast]

Is 5e combat broken?
No

Is there a easy way to fix it?.
No need to fix what isn't broken.

It takes your 4th level fighter 4 rounds to make 4 attacks necessary to kill himself at 1st level.

It takes him 8 rounds to make the 40 attacks to kill himself at 20th.

With a magic weapon that's down to 4 pretty quick.
No die rolls are needed to kill one's self, since HP are not meat in D&D 5e.

Player declares: I am going to use my sharpened dagger to slit my own throat deep enough to sever an artery.
DM: The dagger is sharp enough. You feel the blood running down your throat, you get light headed, and you fall to the floor ... do any of the rest of you do anything?
Party: No, he told us not to interfere with his suicide attempt.
DM: You pass out, you bleed out, and you bleed to death.

No rolls required.

Disclaimer: please don't do this IRL. This was only an illustration of the fundamental 'how the game is played' concept for D&D 5e.
DM describes situation
Players describes what they do
DM narrates results

You only roll the dice when the outcome is uncertain.

[Sigreid]

Sounds like combat in runequest might be more to your liking. HP never increase, but your ability to parry/dodge/hit increases. This means you can more easily negate the guard's attack, but if you don't, his sword is always deadly.

[2D8HP]

Hi all,

I'm on 5e since 4y now and I like it but I have a problem with combat.

1st level characters are weak, that's ok...


They usually seem pretty strong to me, but that depends on the DM.


..Then for 4 or 5 levels it feels balanced. Then above 7th level combat start feeling weird and not fun anymore...


According to Mike Mearls, WotC research shows that most 5e D&D is played levels 1 to 7.

Higher levels are more superheroic, some folks like the higher levels (for the record, I usually enjoy the lower ones more), try to get your table to play at those levels you like more.


..2 things happen: too many dice to throw + it feels much less....

....but the direction where D&D goes as characters and enemies grow up in power: more dices to throw and proportionally less powerful attacks.

If you don't agree with me, please explain me why, I'm very interested and I'm writing this post exactly to understand this problem better.


I couldn't figure out the link, and I was told there was math involved so I'm not going to try too hard.

Anyway, first read up on:

What we really meant (http://kaskoid.blogspot.com/2015/10/what-we-really-meantpt-1-ac.html?m=1)

which is by Tim Kask the first employee of TSR (the publishers of D&D before WotC), to get a better sense of the games assumptions.

Next, maybe you'd like to play a game with more lethal, and less "cinematic" combat?

I thought that Mythic Iceland, Pendragon, and RuneQuest were pretty good.

One houserule that I used with older versions of D&D was to make the starting, and total available HP no more than the Constitution stat, which made play at different levels more alike, and it would probably make spell casters more enticing to play, but I don't remember that happening.

Otherwise, use milestone leveling to keep play at the levels you like longer, unless all you want to convey is that "playing at some levels is more fun for me than other", in which case, join the club.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You're not entirely wrong. 5e scales strangely-- as you note, most of the difference between a high and a low level character is damage/hp. While I think that's mostly to accommodate bounded accuracy, there IS a secondary benefit: missing is boring. Dealing hit point damage feels like you're making progress-- hitting three times for 1/3 of the target's health feels better than whiffing twice and hitting once for all of it, often.

Without totally rewriting the system, your best bet is probably to tweak enemies. Increase their offensive CR by a level or three and decrease their defensive CR by the same amount-- that should result in shorter and more dangerous encounters.

You can also play with houserules treating Exhaustion as "real" injuries, as opposed to the more abstract health that is HP. Levels of Exhaustion are constant across levels, after all...

Otherwise, maybe try something like Savage Worlds?

[Mith]

They usually seem pretty strong to me, but that depends on the DM.




According to Mike Mearls, WotC research shows that most 5e D&D is played levels 1 to 7.

Higher levels are more superheroic, some folks like the higher levels (for the record, I usually enjoy the lower ones more), try to get your table to play at those levels you like more.




I couldn't figure out the link, and I was told there was math involved so I'm not going to try too hard.

Anyway, first read up on:

What we really meant (http://kaskoid.blogspot.com/2015/10/what-we-really-meantpt-1-ac.html?m=1)

which is by Tim Kask the first employee of TSR (the publishers of D&D before WotC), to get a better sense of the games assumptions.

Next, maybe you'd like to play a game with more lethal, and less "cinematic" combat?

I thought that Mythic Iceland, Pendragon, and RuneQuest were pretty good.

One houserule that I used with older versions of D&D was to make the starting, and total available HP no more than the Constitution stat, which made play at different levels more alike, and it would probably make spell casters more enticing to play, but I don't remember that happening.

Otherwise, use milestone leveling to keep play at the levels you like longer, unless

To clarify, does this mean 20 CON max in the current edition rules for all levels of play?

[Rynjin]

5e combat becomes incredibly boring at high levels due to the issue of every fight involving beating the other people down through slow, mind numbing attrition across 6-10 rounds of battle. Mostly this is due to the bounded accuracy and severely lowered damage making the die roll to-hit matter way too much (the fact that a 20th level character can miss a CR 1 monster on anything but a 1 is frustrating), and even hits that do land feel pitiful; 1d8+5 is impressive at first level when enemies have 10 HP.

It's less so at higher levels when you're fighting 8 dudes who each have 40 HP and you're still rolling 2 attacks at 1d8+5 per round.

I think 5e is an excellent game at levels 1-5 or so, but falls apart into an indescribably boring experience in combat after that. They went too far in the other direction eliminating "rocket tag" combats, which could be unsatisfying but were at least mercifully short.

[2D8HP]

To clarify, does this mean 20 CON max in the current edition rules for all levels of play?


Yeah, though I uppose CON plus Level for HP could work as well, the basic idea is higher HP thab default at low levels, and lower HP at high levels.

You'd probably need to scale high CR monsters HP down as well.

Anyway, all I can think of for the OP that's easy (besides just sticking to favored levels).

[Knaight]

It takes your 4th level fighter 4 rounds to make 4 attacks necessary to kill himself at 1st level.

It takes him 8 rounds to make the 40 attacks to kill himself at 20th.

With a magic weapon that's down to 4 pretty quick.
It takes 10 rounds to make 40 attacks, and in terms of table time used that's still 40 rolls and roll calculations instead of 4.


For other people rolling dice is part of the fun. If combat is taking too long in real world time they look to fix the metagame reasons, not the mechanics. Players should know their character's abilities. If you need to look up something do it on someone else's turn. Plan your turn on someone else's turn. Learn not to have analysis paralysis. Don't think too hard. For BBEG everything and the kitchen sink combats you have to think hard and carefully. That's the whole point of the fun of it. That's the exception. It's the run of the mill fights that don't need circumspection.

Sheer dice rolling and calculations are the reason it takes so long. This is a problem caused by the mechanics and not the metagame, and one fairly intrinsic to scaling by number of attacks at all. That you can partially compensate for it by making a bunch of changes you don't have to make for other games (or the earlier levels of this same game) doesn't somehow make it not a mechanical problem.

As is, high level martial characters in D&D are almost half as bad as a minimalist Ninjas and Superspies combat that's been fully optimized for speed.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It takes 10 rounds to make 40 attacks, and in terms of table time used that's still 40 rolls and roll calculations instead of 4.



Sheer dice rolling and calculations are the reason it takes so long. This is a problem caused by the mechanics and not the metagame, and one fairly intrinsic to scaling by number of attacks at all. That you can partially compensate for it by making a bunch of changes you don't have to make for other games (or the earlier levels of this same game) doesn't somehow make it not a mechanical problem.

As is, high level martial characters in D&D are almost half as bad as a minimalist Ninjas and Superspies combat that's been fully optimized for speed.

Have you actually run a game to level 20? I have. Speed wise, it's not that much different at 20 than at 10. Or 5.

Part of it is that the idea that you're commonly going up against CR = Level+ opponents is a deviation from the design. At level 20, the modal enemy is CR 10 if you're following guidelines. Even against high CR enemies, the sheer versatility (measured as number of combat options) available means that you're rarely just doing a full attack routine. My party of 4 level 19s took down a beefed up Kracken (CR 20+) in about 6 rounds, not that much off their normal average of 3-5 rounds. A few sessions later they burned through a whole adventuring day of Hard+ encounters at level 20 in a session, with an average combat running 3-4 rounds.

You can theory all you want, but observed reality is that it's not broken. It may not be what you (speaking generically here) think it should be, but it's a far cry from 4e's padded sumo. And the key damage dealers for my campaign weren't the druid or the warlock. They were the rogue and the monk. The martials.

To note as well, save-or-dies are a horrible, stupid design. I'm glad they're dead, as well as the "win initiative to win the combat" rocket-tag mentality.

[Rynjin]

Party vs CR appropriate creature or above isn't much an issue. It's MULTI TARGET combats that suck.

Because the damage scales so poorly, what should be a CR appropriate challenge (X number of CR Y trash mobs vs Z character level) tends to take way too long to resolve in total.

ESPECIALLY if your party lacks a caster with a real AoE, and even then at certain breakpoints stuff like Fireball stops being a great solution. 8d6 damage is AWESOME at 5th level, and easily wipes the group of 8-10 goblins the GM might send out.

At 10th level, with a group of 5-6 Umber Hulks instead? That average 28 (or even 36 for upcasting) doesn't really cut it, and your Rogue doing something like 1d8+6+5d6 (28-ish damage) and Barbarian adding on the 1d12+8 x2 (30-ish damage) aren't speeding up the matter enough to stave off ending on round 6 at the EARLIEST (assuming they hit all their attacks, which vs AC 18 in this game is far from guaranteed since you're looking at max reasonable attack bonuses of like +10).

[2D8HP]

AFAICT, the basic "solutions' to higher level xombat quicker are to lower AC's and HP's, and increase damage, and a DM can still do this without changing the PC's sheets, just do all the changes on the monsters side, and it will work.

If you want the Players to do big damage, have them find some appropriate magic items (yes I know the OP rejected that idea).

Really, DM's already have the tools

[ImproperJustice]

Also: try rolling multiple attack rolls and damage rolls at once using color coded dice. Speeds up things a lot.....

Example: Hitmax the Fighter has four attacks
So he has a red, green, blue, and purple d20.
He rolls all four at once, while also rolling his damage dice with matching colors. He then quick checks what hits and misses and knows which damage dice to add.
Alternatively: use a dice roller app.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Party vs CR appropriate creature or above isn't much an issue. It's MULTI TARGET combats that suck.

Because the damage scales so poorly, what should be a CR appropriate challenge (X number of CR Y trash mobs vs Z character level) tends to take way too long to resolve in total.

ESPECIALLY if your party lacks a caster with a real AoE, and even then at certain breakpoints stuff like Fireball stops being a great solution. 8d6 damage is AWESOME at 5th level, and easily wipes the group of 8-10 goblins the GM might send out.

At 10th level, with a group of 5-6 Umber Hulks instead? That average 28 (or even 36 for upcasting) doesn't really cut it, and your Rogue doing something like 1d8+6+5d6 (28-ish damage) and Barbarian adding on the 1d12+8 x2 (30-ish damage) aren't speeding up the matter enough to stave off ending on round 6 at the EARLIEST (assuming they hit all their attacks, which vs AC 18 in this game is far from guaranteed since you're looking at max reasonable attack bonuses of like +10).

Still haven't seen this in practice. As a note: 5-6 umber hulks vs 4 level 10 players is about 2 x Deadly. You're looking at CR 4 for 5-6 opponents there to hit the border of deadly.

Average eHP for CR 4 is 99. Say 500 total HP.
Round 1:
Fireball (30 damage to all enemies, 150 HP).
3x other PCs at ~30 HP each each, 180 HP.
Remaining: 270 HP

Round 2
4x30 = 120. 150 remaining

Round 3
4x30 = 120. 30 remaining.

Round 4
Over.

3-5 rounds on average, just like at level 5. Both in theory and in practice, I see very little deviation. The longer fights happen when the enemies come in dribs and drabs (had a 24 round combat once due to waves of foes). Some fights are over real quick.

At my tables (even with new players), each player's turn takes ~1-4 minutes (more if one player's baby is fussy right then). The DMs takes about twice as long, so say 5-8 minutes. That's ~12-15 minutes per round. So 45-60 minutes for an average combat. It's usually less than that, really. And that's pretty constant across the levels in my experience.

The dominant time sinks are people not knowing what they're doing. That dwarfs the time spent rolling (even that rogue sneak attack crit + weapon that deals extra dice + poison that once happened). The DM's turn takes longer as enemies get more complex--casters especially. All of those are people issues, not game issues.

Edit: my average was 2 combats and a lot of RP per 3-hr session. So most combats were around 30 minutes. There were rare exceptions for set-piece battles, but those were like 1-2x/campaign.

[Knaight]

You can theory all you want, but observed reality is that it's not broken. It may not be what you (speaking generically here) think it should be, but it's a far cry from 4e's padded sumo. And the key damage dealers for my campaign weren't the druid or the warlock. They were the rogue and the monk. The martials.
It's funny that you say that, because when a lot of other people observe reality they come to fundamentally different conclusions. It's hardly just theory revealing this problem.


To note as well, save-or-dies are a horrible, stupid design. I'm glad they're dead, as well as the "win initiative to win the combat" rocket-tag mentality.
This isn't a defense of 5e. It's a criticism of 3e and prior - which can suck pretty much arbitrarily hard without making 5e better even relative to other RPGs as a whole, because there's plenty of other options.


At my tables (even with new players), each player's turn takes ~1-4 minutes (more if one player's baby is fussy right then). The DMs takes about twice as long, so say 5-8 minutes. That's ~12-15 minutes per round. So 45-60 minutes for an average combat. It's usually less than that, really. And that's pretty constant across the levels in my experience.
45-60 minutes for an average combat sure sounds like padded sumo to me. It also sounds entirely too long for low levels, which consistently come in closer to 15-30. Still excessive, but less so.

[Rynjin]

Still haven't seen this in practice. As a note: 5-6 umber hulks vs 4 level 10 players is about 2 x Deadly. You're looking at CR 4 for 5-6 opponents there to hit the border of deadly.

Tell that to whoever wrote Out of the Abyss.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Tell that to whoever wrote Out of the Abyss.

So they screwed up. Or it's an outlier. Regardless, it's an abnormal fight. Not something you should use as a benchmark.

I'm writing from my own experience having run multiple campaigns at various levels across the spectrum and having played in several as well. Long duration fights (in rounds) tend to be because people are playing super defensive or due to waves of creatures. Long duration (in elapsed time) fights are due to distraction, dithering about what to do, or time spent trying to get the perfect tactics.

None of these are system issues, and they're independent of the numbers. They're people issues.

[mgshamster]

Tell that to whoever wrote Out of the Abyss.

Wait.. I've run Out of the Abyss (entire campaign log is linked in my profile).

We ran it up to level 20. What parts of it had extended and boring combat? I don't recall any of that. Perhaps it's just my DM style and I made it work, but I'm curious as to which parts were slow and boring?

(I'm also currently playing OotA; just hit Level 2 with my dwarven wizard. Didn't get spells at level 2 because I don't have a spellbook yet.)

[Rynjin]

Wait.. I've run Out of the Abyss (entire campaign log is linked in my profile).

We ran it up to level 20. What parts of it had extended and boring combat? I don't recall any of that. Perhaps it's just my DM style and I made it work, but I'm curious as to which parts were slow and boring?

(I'm also currently playing OotA; just hit Level 2 with my dwarven wizard. Didn't get spells at level 2 because I don't have a spellbook yet.)

I made it up to about 10th level before I decided I was done with 5e. Part of that was due to party tension (my character hated another character for stealing from me while I was gone. I despised the player because he was a prick).

I was playing Derendil as a barbarian after my Monk died, while that was really fun RP-wise, I found combat slow and frustrating.

[mgshamster]

I made it up to about 10th level before I decided I was done with 5e. Part of that was due to party tension (my character hated another character for stealing from me while I was gone. I despised the player because he was a prick).

I was playing Derendil as a barbarian after my Monk died, while that was really fun RP-wise, I found combat slow and frustrating.

Yeah. I can see how that can drive someone from a game system. A bad experience with players can ruin any system, good or bad.

And I also know your play style, and I can see how 5e wouldn't be for you.

For me, I find 5e fun and exciting through all levels of play (currintly playing OotA, as mentioned above, as well as running several Level 20 games). Im also running a game of Shadow of the Demon Lord, which is 5e-esque (a bit more deadly and the dice are a bit more narrow).

Conversely, I found PF frustrating after years of playing it, mostly due to combat getting too bogged down with rules and the fact that once you specialize in something, it pretty much means you can't do anything else - the math behind the system prevents it. However, that same math also requires that you focus in. Makes chargen a lot of fun, but play a lot less fun. At least for me.

I like 5e because the math behind the system allows for the non-specialized to do things, which lets me try out crazy random things with a chance of it working. That means I can make up stuff to do, which opens up the options in real game play. Heck, just today my 9 charisma wizard made an intimidation roll and succeeded! That would likely never happen in PF (Nat 20s and Nat 1s aren't a thing for skill checks in either system, but bounded accuracy gives me a chance in 5e).

But an experienced PF player isn't used to doing that, because the system discourages it. One of the last PCs I played in PF was in your Skulls & Shackles game; he failed at everything because he wasn't specialized in anything. Even for level 7, he couldn't keep up with the DCs because he wasn't specialized enough in any given thing; so not only could I not try random things just to see if it worked, I couldn't even succeed in the things I was supposedly good at (or at least slightly more focused than anything else). Meanwhile, we had an awesome necromancer and a badass barbarian who were hyperspecialized, and they could usually beat the DCs for their specializations (but not always), which gaurunteed that they could never try anything outside their focus because it was gaurunteed to fail.

So while I understand the appeal for games like PF and the chargen stuff it allows, I find 5e much more liberating in terms of gameplay and what I can actually do. I find myself (and I see my players) doing a lot more things in and out of combat than I ever did or saw when we played PF.

[BW022]

Esagdir,

I've never found simple math arguments convincing in D&D. People repeatedly try to simply it and show basic statistics on a game which is infinitely more complex than chess. Combats are rarely just standing there and trading sword blows with another character. You have a party, each doing other actions. You have special abilities, spells, and dozens of other actions other than just attacking. You have magic. You can roleplay certain actions. And yes, instant/quick deaths is certainly possible by mid-levels -- probably even more so than low-levels. You can fail a hold person spell and be tossed over a cliff, you can be turned to stone, you can be teleported into a volcano, you can be strength drained by a pact of shadows to 0 strength in a couple of rounds, a red dragon can burn your ship and the fighter drowns in his armor, poisons, etc.

I would also point out that there are reasons why characters (and creatures) grow exponentially stronger in terms of hit points vs. normal attacks. Most campaigns wouldn't last long if characters remained at single-hit levels of general weakness throughout the game. You would loose any sense of accomplishment at leveling, be unable to make "mistakes", force you to optimize nearly exclusively, make certain classes unbalanced or unplayable, wouldn't allow you to become great heroes (or villains). There are lots of gaming systems which are more realistic and higher-level characters can die one hit. Many are fun, but they are different and the feel is different.

However, if you find D&D game "feels" that way and you don't like it... I would suggest some practical ways of addressing it.

1. Really alter the difficulty of combats. Put in a lot more easy combats and then some really hard ones. Easy ones are so you can advance plot/story without taking too much table time, but the odd hard one such that players have a much higher chance of dying and they become more meaningful.

2. Play the monsters harder. Make use of special abilities, give them a few magical items. Mix and match monsters so that players are unsure what they are fighting. Dragons which attack from underwater, or during a snow storm. Consider spending time preplanning tactics or abilities for the first few round of combat. Go after light sources, flee (and attack later), have front-line creatures go defensive, etc.

3. Make use of situations. Use terrain, lighting, water, traps, doors, ambushes, etc. Put players in situations where their usual tactics won't work. A bar brawl (no lethal damage), a joust, a fight against some giant eagles while climbing ropes, etc. can suddenly make a combat feel different. And... you can use this in the PCs favor also... for example, have 10th-level PCs fight, 15 frost giants... but maybe the PCs are defending a keep. Maybe use a timed fight where defeating the enemies isn't the main goal -- say fighting fire elementals while freeing people from a burning building, trying to subdual a magic-jar'd prince, or in the middle of a two-way fight between something way more powerful than them.

4. Put in more non-mundane threats. NPC spellcasters are often good for this, but also look at just giving creatures scrolls, wands, or magical items. Look at monsters with non-standard attacks --

5. Adjust the XP rewards to keep the game within levels which the group likes. If you like the thrills of lower levels... give 100xp (or even 50xp) per session and you'll be at 1st through 5th for six months or so.

6. Use less combat as you get higher in levels. Political, wilderness, roleplaying, survival, horror-themed, etc. Some settings may help -- Arcanis is more political, Ravenloft is more horror, etc. Or just some really good backstories and maybe a non-combat focused campaign. Make a really good compelling story or work with the players to really work on personal plots. Players won't worry so much about combats if they only happen once a session and are pretty quick... if something good in terms of plot is happening.

7. Look at more gritty campaigns by lowering the point-buy, treasure, magic, and political power of the players. This can include starting them as criminals, capturing them as slaves, placing them in situations their characters aren't suited for (wilderness, city, sea, etc.), etc. If no-one has magic weapon... suddenly a wraith becomes a series issue.

[Phoenix042]

I DM for a group of 13th level characters, fighting a reasonably appropriate mix of encounters each day. Combat still lasts, on average, around 2 - 5 rounds, usually 3 or 4. It takes a little longer to finish a typical combat, but not much longer than it did at 1st level.

They roll more dice, yea, but that's often solved by owning more dice IRL. If your attack does 5d6 damage, roll the d20 and 5 d6's all at once. Little math like that isn't hard to do on the fly.

Plus our group (and I suspect lots of players) actually LIKE the feeling of gradually increasing the number of dice we roll roll each round. Gives a physical, tangible, real world component to a character's progression.

Your problems seem like problems in theory, but in practice, with a good DM, high level play feels powerful and satisfying.

[Esgadir]

Hey guys, you're wonderful, it's incredible how much experience and point of view to share here. Thanks, that's exactly why I wrote this post. I read every answer, I know my math and examples are flawed, done on the fly, but I'll try to make my point just to keep the discussion going because it's actually very interesting and with different opinions.

I dm and play since 20y, started with basic d&d, it's role play, narrative, fun. Combat is just a part of it. I used many tricks to make it feel the way I liked it, my player's has always been happy, I don't have another system that I really like better than 5e right now and I'm very happy with it, but still... the fact that as a DM you can make it work, doesn't mean that the system is working well by itself, or that it can't improved in the feeling that it delivers. I believe that the mechanics of a game will influence the dynamics (and expecially players' decisions), so to me mechanics are important.

1. I'm not worrying about making my players feel weaker or getting killed quicker, I don't want to lower their HP or anything like that, my problem is when they are the killer and winner but it doesn't feel epic or rewarding or satisfying to them.

2. Combat to me works well at any level when they're fighting masses. Damage doesn't really count much there, after characters are, say, 4th or more and they are fighting basic goblins or guards or general mobs there's no Damage roll anymore, one hit is a kill. Maybe is not a kill, maybe the victim got only injured, he just dropped the weapon and went on ground screaming, whatever, unless it matters it doesn't matter, so that works for me.
3. No problem for me with big monsters. A dragon, a giant, a troll, you can easily imagine a fighter hitting that huge body once and once and once again even 20 times before it finally collapse down. That's great, 5e? Perfect for me.

4. My problem is only when the enemies are strong individual humanoid foes, thus my example.

But I understand that fighter against himself was not a appreciated example, let's try a Fighter vs a Orc War Chief. Rest of the party is busy with the orc shaman and the orc scout and a little bit of orc masses, and they are holding ground but they'll run out of resources soon and they'll get killed unless our heroic fighter defeat the Orc War Chief in a locked one-one battle up there on the tower. Epic.

Orc War Chief is 1.100 xp CR4, good for a level 6 fighter. Bare math it takes an average of 19 attacks and 11 hits. If we give our fighter a +1 weapon it's going still to be 15 attacks and 10 hits. If our player is brilliant and gets advantage every single attack, he double the % of Crits and he now needs 11 attacks and 9 hits: great tactics, really great, will influence % of hitting, but damage? Is almost not influenced. If mechanics don't incentivate tactics, player will not worry about inventive great tactics for 11 attacks, it becomes a dice rolling game unless the DM invents something to keep it interesting, but the system is not helping in that direction.

As a DM, how do you really describe to your very inventive player that is doing great things to have advantage every single turn, maybe hitting from hide, maybe from behind, maybe from above, that he keeps hitting but it's only a bruise for 10 times until one last final bruise and the orc is on the ground? The only possible explanation is that his sword is blunt!

Can you name any nice book or movie when you see a humanoid combat that ends up with 10 hits from one side? Usually it's a lot of swordplay, maybe a hit or two or three that weakens up the enemy and that there's the big hit that kills. It may get to 6, but 10? And that's the average. It means that sometimes it's going to be maybe 15 hits! And that's only at 6th level, the system is asymmetric, higher the level more hits you need to kill a humanoid of proper CR.

Grod_The_Giant noted that for some people doing progress with minor hits is more fun that missing a lot and then doing a hard hit, I don't personally agree but I understand the point, but there is a consequence on that, since tactics mainly influence the % of hitting, and almost nothing in the damage, if you are already hitting a lot there's no reason for smart playing and tactics, it's just sheer rolling dices, not the best for narrative playing...

What do you think?

[Unoriginal]

I don't have the time to respond to everything you wrote but, even ignoring how an Orc War Chief isn't "good" for a lvl 6 Fighter, you seem to be ignoring a key point:

Hit Points are not Meat Points.

In D&D 5e, losing HPs represents non-dangerous bruises and scratches, exhaustion from avoiding attacks that nearly hurt you badly, your luck running out, etc just as much as it represents actual injuries.

The Fighter and the Orc War Chief wouldn't literally be raming their weapons through each other every time they hit.

I can't give you a list of works where a character does more than 10 attacks during a duel right now due to where I am, so for now I'll give you one:

Aragorn vs the Uruk leader at the end of Fellowship of the Ring.

Now, let me ask you a question in turn:

How many turns would the Orc War Chief need to kill the Fighter, according to you?

[Silkensword]

This discussion has had a few premises I disagree with:

HP damage is the only way to take out enemies - which is a valid way to play, but not the only one.
Enemies who are low on HP keep fighting until the end.
Combat conditions are static.
There are no buffs and debuffs, and no strategic layer to combat - just a slugfest to see who's standing in the end.
Magic items categorically do not exist OR have an equal and opposite effect when both sides have them


5e has all the resources you need to build an encounter that necessitates active thinking on part of the players- Especially at the higher levels that most of the criticism was aimed at. Grappling, Shoving- at higher levels, you'll often be able to make use of these. Your enemies SHOULD have goals other than "kill the whole party dead" to begin with- combat should, in my opinion, center around denying those evildoers whatever evil thing they seek to do. thinking about how to end the fight without reducing them all to 0 HP is always a primary concern of mine, just in case things turn south.

Following the guidelines laid out in the DMG, you should also have access to magic items. If you do not, there might need to be adjustments made.


In my experience, 5e has a big aspect of resource management that as a fighter, you don't need to worry about as much. The fighter is consistent and can deal with a lot of ****- from 300 HP down to 10. Spellcasters need to manage spellslots, what spells to prepare and when to use them. This in general has been a very "hit thing with sword" centric discussion :D

[Malifice]

At 10th level, with a group of 5-6 Umber Hulks instead? That average 28 (or even 36 for upcasting) doesn't really cut it, and your Rogue doing something like 1d8+6+5d6 (28-ish damage) and Barbarian adding on the 1d12+8 x2 (30-ish damage) aren't speeding up the matter enough to stave off ending on round 6 at the EARLIEST (assuming they hit all their attacks, which vs AC 18 in this game is far from guaranteed since you're looking at max reasonable attack bonuses of like +10).

It would want to be.

6 x CR 5 Umber Hulks is a Deadly encounter for 5 x 10th level PCs.

There are a lot of DC 15 Charisma saves (or PCs fighting blind) there.

With magic items and a favorable environment they should be fine though. Like you say, they should be dropping one Umber Hulk a round (25-30 damage per PC focussed on one Hulk = 1 dead Umber Hulk per round). Of course the inverse is also true (the Hulks do about the same damage per round each as the PCs, and could focus on a PC and drop him in a round).

The PCs have more diverse abilities than the Hulks and should win, but it could go pear shaped with bad rolls.

In any event the combat shouldnt last more than 5-6 rounds (and about 15-20 minutes of real time to resolve), which is about standard for a 5E combat.

[Unoriginal]

What Malifice said is true. People tend to neglect the importance picking the target has.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Hey guys, you're wonderful, it's incredible how much experience and point of view to share here. Thanks, that's exactly why I wrote this post. I read every answer, I know my math and examples are flawed, done on the fly, but I'll try to make my point just to keep the discussion going because it's actually very interesting and with different opinions.

I dm and play since 20y, started with basic d&d, it's role play, narrative, fun. Combat is just a part of it. I used many tricks to make it feel the way I liked it, my player's has always been happy, I don't have another system that I really like better than 5e right now and I'm very happy with it, but still... the fact that as a DM you can make it work, doesn't mean that the system is working well by itself, or that it can't improved in the feeling that it delivers. I believe that the mechanics of a game will influence the dynamics (and expecially players' decisions), so to me mechanics are important.

1. I'm not worrying about making my players feel weaker or getting killed quicker, I don't want to lower their HP or anything like that, my problem is when they are the killer and winner but it doesn't feel epic or rewarding or satisfying to them.

2. Combat to me works well at any level when they're fighting masses. Damage doesn't really count much there, after characters are, say, 4th or more and they are fighting basic goblins or guards or general mobs there's no Damage roll anymore, one hit is a kill. Maybe is not a kill, maybe the victim got only injured, he just dropped the weapon and went on ground screaming, whatever, unless it matters it doesn't matter, so that works for me.
3. No problem for me with big monsters. A dragon, a giant, a troll, you can easily imagine a fighter hitting that huge body once and once and once again even 20 times before it finally collapse down. That's great, 5e? Perfect for me.

4. My problem is only when the enemies are strong individual humanoid foes, thus my example.

But I understand that fighter against himself was not a appreciated example, let's try a Fighter vs a Orc War Chief. Rest of the party is busy with the orc shaman and the orc scout and a little bit of orc masses, and they are holding ground but they'll run out of resources soon and they'll get killed unless our heroic fighter defeat the Orc War Chief in a locked one-one battle up there on the tower. Epic.

Orc War Chief is 1.100 xp CR4, good for a level 6 fighter. Bare math it takes an average of 19 attacks and 11 hits. If we give our fighter a +1 weapon it's going still to be 15 attacks and 10 hits. If our player is brilliant and gets advantage every single attack, he double the % of Crits and he now needs 11 attacks and 9 hits: great tactics, really great, will influence % of hitting, but damage? Is almost not influenced. If mechanics don't incentivate tactics, player will not worry about inventive great tactics for 11 attacks, it becomes a dice rolling game unless the DM invents something to keep it interesting, but the system is not helping in that direction.

As a DM, how do you really describe to your very inventive player that is doing great things to have advantage every single turn, maybe hitting from hide, maybe from behind, maybe from above, that he keeps hitting but it's only a bruise for 10 times until one last final bruise and the orc is on the ground? The only possible explanation is that his sword is blunt!

Can you name any nice book or movie when you see a humanoid combat that ends up with 10 hits from one side? Usually it's a lot of swordplay, maybe a hit or two or three that weakens up the enemy and that there's the big hit that kills. It may get to 6, but 10? And that's the average. It means that sometimes it's going to be maybe 15 hits! And that's only at 6th level, the system is asymmetric, higher the level more hits you need to kill a humanoid of proper CR.

Grod_The_Giant noted that for some people doing progress with minor hits is more fun that missing a lot and then doing a hard hit, I don't personally agree but I understand the point, but there is a consequence on that, since tactics mainly influence the % of hitting, and almost nothing in the damage, if you are already hitting a lot there's no reason for smart playing and tactics, it's just sheer rolling dices, not the best for narrative playing...

What do you think?
I think we're getting closer to your real complaints, which means we're getting closer to being able to solve them. From this post, it sounds like you've got two main issues, maybe three. Luckily, all of them should be fixable without too huge an alteration.

1Humanoid enemies have too much health. Which is fair; enemy HP scales fast. But as I mentioned before, this shouldn't be too hard to fix. Drop their hit points, increase their damage.
Clever play doesn't affect damage enough. I'd argue that 19 attacks vs 11 attacks to kill is a big incentive, but, personal preference is also fair. How about saying that, oh... "if you have Advantage on your attack roll, you also deal +1d6 damage on a hit. If you'd have multiple sources of Advantage, the bonus d6s stack."
Hit-points-as-meat-vs-plot-armor. You're certainly not wrong there; 5e is particularly bad about making up its mind what hit points represent. (If they're "fighting spirit," why are inspiration type effects always temp HP, and why are there no mundane healing abilities? If they're physical damage, why can you heal from everything after just one night's sleep, and yo-yo between zero and positive hit points with no loss of fighting skill?) Perhaps try something like 3.5's Vitality and Wound Points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm) variant?

[Unoriginal]

How many turns would the Orc War Chief need to kill the Fighter, according to you?

I decided to try answering this question using:




Look at this link for the math: drive.google.com/open?id=1_s4Xfp-OTBqrHqkz125sVJIV__lSkhkR

The Fighter has AC 20, which means the Orc War Chief needs 14 or more to hit, aka has 35% chances to hit every attack. Which means hitting once every ~2.8 attacks

The Fighter you presented has 58 HPs. Ignoring crits, the Chief deals 15 damage per hit, which means the Fighter will be at 0 after 4 hits, or 11.2 attacks. Which means 5.6 turns if the Chief doesn't use their Battle Cry ability.

Which, if we follow you said here:



Orc War Chief is 1.100 xp CR4, good for a level 6 fighter. Bare math it takes an average of 19 attacks and 11 hits. If we give our fighter a +1 weapon it's going still to be 15 attacks and 10 hits. If our player is brilliant and gets advantage every single attack, he double the % of Crits and he now needs 11 attacks and 9 hits: great tactics, really great, will influence % of hitting, but damage? Is almost not influenced.

means that it is near impossible for the lvl 6 fighter to win this slugfest UNLESS they get advantage, since it'd take 9.5 turns to kill the War Chief with a normal weapon and 7.5 with a magic one.

And that is if the Chief never use their Battle Cry, never get a crit, and never gets any advantage.

In turn, this mean that what you said here:



If mechanics don't incentivate tactics, player will not worry about inventive great tactics for 11 attacks, it becomes a dice rolling game unless the DM invents something to keep it interesting, but the system is not helping in that direction.

is wrong, because the system does give incentives to think cleverly when facing a superior opponent. Namely, not dying.

[Esgadir]

you seem to be ignoring a key point:

Hit Points are not Meat Points.

In D&D 5e, losing HPs represents non-dangerous bruises and scratches, exhaustion from avoiding attacks that nearly hurt you badly, your luck running out, etc just as much as it represents actual injuries.


You're right, that's the official assumption, that's the way i describe it to my player, it's the only way you can make it work but i have many problems with it:

1. Number of dice to throw. With that assumption you can explain why it works this why, but you are not going to make it any faster or less boring doing 20 attacks

2. Mechanics don't correspond with that assumption, damage depends on physical skill and kind of weapon, why it is so if it's not wounds? Why there's such a big difference in "non-dangerous bruises and scratches, exhaustion from avoiding attacks that nearly hurt you badly, your luck running out, etc" from a dagger to a 2h sword?

3. If you narrate a hit as a "non-dangerous bruises and scratches, exhaustion from avoiding attacks that nearly hurt you badly" how do you narrate a miss? Like "you're facing the wrong direction and you're not even tiring your opponent"?

4. How the hell you explain arrows with that? How can a arrow shot be more than just one single blow that hit but just make you tired? If it's a bruise what kind of arrow are you shooting at your enemy if you need to hit with 10 of them to kill?

5. So now you have the most important combat mechanic to distinguish between a total miss and a minor hit, but there is no mechanic to work out a major hit? Crits are just luck, they don't depend on skill, and even with a crit once in a while things are not so different

6. Bottomline how is possible that a famous strong hero fighter (11 level) deals almost the same damage with a attack than a 1st level guard?

7. If HP point are "non-dangerous bruises and scratches, exhaustion from avoiding attacks that nearly hurt you badly, your luck running out, etc" what happens with fireball and falling from a cliff. Like the guy on your right is burning alive and you're just a bit tired from those flames?

8. So now we have two different systems to calculate exhaustion, one is combat exhaustion and it goes away with a little bit of rest and doesn't have any side effect, the other one is non-combat exhaustion and it takes longer to go away and it has many malus. And there's no system for real hard blows? Isn't it more a exhaustion system than a combat system then?

Grod_The_Giant wrote some more points against it and I could go on, but it's endless. I personally think that that assumption is made ex-post. First they developed the system, they wanted to be close to the original d&d system, so then they had to find a way to explain it and that's what they tried but it doesn't really work.

I think it is much better if we go back to meat points and a hit is a hit and damage is damage. So much simpler to pick and to imagine when you play. Of course then I'm back to my original problems: too many dices to roll and too little damage compared to HP at higher level...

Let's give a look at your example, Aragorn vs Uruk leader, it's a great example, there is 1 hit with a dagger, 3 hits with the sword and a few punches and kicks. If you apply 5e mechanics here's no way that could be enough for a 10 lvl fighter with a enemy of comparable CR.

[Esgadir]

I think we're getting closer to your real complaints, which means we're getting closer to being able to solve them. From this post, it sounds like you've got two main issues, maybe three. Luckily, all of them should be fixable without too huge an alteration.
[LIST=1]


What would you think about this other way to fix it: rewrite the "extra attack" rule more or less in this way.

"Extra attack become Extra damage"
"You become a more deadly fighter and you are able to deal much more damage with your attacks. When you hit your damage is doubled. When you declare a Attack action you have the option to choose to do two attacks to two different target instead of doubling your damage."

Math and game balance doesn't change at all, you're dealing same amount of damage per round but now is:
1. half or less than half dices to roll at higher level
2. tactics become important to make sure that you land that single hard blow
3. a hit becomes a blow again, and a violent one
4. advantage may bring you to a crit that double that damage for a "cut enemy head" or "pierce enemy stomach" kind of narrative

Do you think it could work or do you see any major flaw in it?

[Esgadir]

Thanks for taking the time to try this and I see your point.


I decided to try answering this question using:
The Fighter you presented has 58 HPs. Ignoring crits, the Chief deals 15 damage per hit, which means the Fighter will be at 0 after 4 hits, or 11.2 attacks. Which means 5.6 turns if the Chief doesn't use their Battle Cry ability.


There may be a mistake here, if I'm not wrong the Orc War Chief deals 1d12+4 damage with is 10.5 hp avg, adding also crit (5%) it becomes really a avg of 10.83 which is not enough to kill the fighter.

But look, this math doesn't really matter, you are right in your concept, if you give them superior opponent they need tactics, you're right and I do it all the time.

They still need to hit 10 times that damn guy to take him down, maybe attack him 13 or 14 times, throw a total of 20 to 25 dice plus a similar amount from the DM for a total of about 40 to 50 dice roll for a single one-one combat, what the hell... really there's no way to do this in a more fun, epic and less dice rolling way?

[Unoriginal]

Math and game balance doesn't change at all

Wrong.



Do you think it could work or do you see any major flaw in it?

The PCs' maths are based on how multiple attacks mean multiple chances to hit, and multiple chances to miss.

Your "fix" would just throw any class that doesn't have Extra Attacks but still use weapons regularly into the oblivion of combat irrelevance. That includes Clerics, several Bard subclasses, Hexblade and Blade Pact Warlocks, and others (with Rogues being made not totally irrelevant thanks to sneak attack, but still pretty hurt by this).

[KorvinStarmast]

Example: Hitmax the Fighter has four attacks
So he has a red, green, blue, and purple d20.
He rolls all four at once, while also rolling his damage dice with matching colors. He then quick checks what hits and misses and knows which damage dice to add.
Alternatively: use a dice roller app. This is a good suggestion.

[Unoriginal]

There may be a mistake here, if I'm not wrong the Orc War Chief deals 1d12+4 damage with is 10.5 hp avg, adding also crit (5%) it becomes really a avg of 10.83 which is not enough to kill the fighter.


You're wrong:


Orc War Chief:

Gruumsh’s Fury. The orc deals an extra 4 (1d8) damage when it hits with a weapon attack (included in the attacks).
Greataxe. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (1d12 + 4 plus 1d8) slashing damage.




But look, this math doesn't really matter, you are right in your concept, if you give them superior opponent they need tactics, you're right and I do it all the time.

Curious why you were claiming the contrary a few hours ago, then.



They still need to hit 10 times that damn guy to take him down, maybe attack him 13 or 14 times, throw a total of 20 to 25 dice plus a similar amount from the DM for a total of about 40 to 50 dice roll for a single one-one combat, what the hell... really there's no way to do this in a more fun, epic and less dice rolling way?

That one-one combat would most likely be over by round 6.

I personally consider a fight where a group of adventurer has to use a lot of attacks, spells and tactics to take down their enemies to be fun and epic, especially when enemies are trying and able to do the same.

You don't like it, fair. Tastes are tastes. There are probably systems better for your tastes out there.

[Pex]

Fighter vs Orc Chief

The flaw is denying the fighter his abilities. Action Surge gives him one turn of extra attacks. Second Wind mitigates one hit of damage from the Orc Chief. If the Fighter is a Champion he has a chance to crit more. If the Fighter is a Battle Master he has extra d8s of damage plus conditions. If the Fighter is an Eldritch Knight the Shield spell will negate a hit from the Orc Chief.

[Unoriginal]

Fighter vs Orc Chief

The flaw is denying the fighter his abilities. Action Surge gives him one turn of extra attacks. Second Wind mitigates one hit of damage from the Orc Chief. If the Fighter is a Champion he has a chance to crit more. If the Fighter is a Battle Master he has extra d8s of damage plus conditions. If the Fighter is an Eldritch Knight the Shield spell will negate a hit from the Orc Chief.

True. On the other hand, even taking that into account, and following Esgadir's "just stand here and hit each other" premise, it's still basically impossible for any of those Fighters to win without a magic weapon (and goes by an hair's width with a +1 one).

Point is that the premise is flawed.

In actual play that duel would be pretty awesome, though.

[Esgadir]

Wrong.

The PCs' maths are based on how multiple attacks mean multiple chances to hit, and multiple chances to miss.

Your "fix" would just throw any class that doesn't have Extra Attacks but still use weapons regularly into the oblivion of combat irrelevance. That includes Clerics, several Bard subclasses, Hexblade and Blade Pact Warlocks, and others (with Rogues being made not totally irrelevant thanks to sneak attack, but still pretty hurt by this).

This is interesting for me, I need to understand this better.
Am I wrong if I say that doing 2 attacks with 40% chance of success and 10 dmg each or 1 attack with 40% and 20 dmg is statistically the same thing?

Let's say. If you attack with 40% means that you're hitting once every 2.5 attacks. Or 2 times every 5 attacks. Or 4 times every 10 attacks. So let's say that in 5 rounds with 2 attacks per round you hit 4 times, that's 40 HP in this example.

Alternative. If you do 1 attack per round with double damage in 5 rounds you have 5 attacks, still 40% so 2 hits. Total of 40 hp. The same.

Statistically there's no difference, you're no dealing 1 HP more than a fighter already does, combat will statistically last same exact amount of rounds, it's only much more condensated, less rolls, more feelings.

Please, help me understand why this is wrong.

[Rynjin]

Two attacks at 40% have only a 16% chance for both to land. One attack at 40% has a 40% chance to land.

Essentially, you've more than doubled DPR vs a single target.

[Esgadir]

You're wrong:
Curious why you were claiming the contrary a few hours ago, then.


No, I was not, I was talking about comparable opponent and I threw in the Orc War Chief example, you showed that it is actually a superior opponent and of course if it's a superior opponent tactics becomes all you have to win that fight.

But examples are just examples, the problems are still there. Tactics may be all you have to win that fight but they still have a very minor impact because the damage roll is actually the important dice roll to win this fight.



That one-one combat would most likely be over by round 6.

Yes, roundwise to me it's ok. Problem is amount of attack, dice rolls, hits that don't really hurt and so on...



I personally consider a fight where a group of adventurer has to use a lot of attacks, spells and tactics to take down their enemies to be fun and epic, especially when enemies are trying and able to do the same.

You don't like it, fair. Tastes are tastes. There are probably systems better for your tastes out there


No, I like it. My problems, as I stated in the OP, are simply 2:
1. too many dice to roll as you level up
2. each hit doesn't feel so hard and epic anymore, and it's just a matter of doing many hits, many minor wounds

[Esgadir]

Two attacks at 40% have only a 16% chance for both to land. One attack at 40% has a 40% chance to land.

Essentially, you've more than doubled DPR vs a single target.

Ok. I'm not a expert in statistics, so please help me understand.

What's the chance that at least one of the 2 attacks lands?

So if you consider our battle of, say, 4 to 6 rounds does it still make difference?

[Unoriginal]

This is interesting for me, I need to understand this better.
Am I wrong if I say that doing 2 attacks with 40% chance of success and 10 dmg each or 1 attack with 40% and 20 dmg is statistically the same thing?


Yes, you're wrong.

When you have A and B with each 40% chances of happening, there are 4 possibilities:

1. A happens but not B
2. B happens but not A
3. Both happen
4. Neither happen

When you have only C with 40% chances of happening, there are only 2 possibilities:

1. C happens
2. C does not happen.

It's MORE likely to have either A or B happen than C alone, but LESS likely than C that both A and B happen.

If C's benefits for happening are equal to A's+B's, then it means that rolling A and B will give you a more consistent but smaller benefit than simply rolling C. However, since it's more likely for C to happen than A+B, C is just more profitable.

Meanwhile, you have classes that DON'T get Extra Attacks, meaning that contrarily to the Fighter who get to roll A and B, and with your "fix" would get to roll C, they only get to roll A.

Usually, it means everyone get to roll A, with classes like Fighters get an additional B as an edge. Which means that those classes will hit more consistently, and *sometime* do more damages.

With your system, it'd mean some will get to roll A, and others will get to roll C. Both have the same chance to hit, but one will do *massively* more damage.

Same way that you're less likely to get a 20 with 2d10 than with 1d20, but you're more likely to get a median result.

Also, removing dice rolls don't increase "feelings" universally. Again, your tastes.

[Mellack]

Putting all the damage into a single roll would make fights much more swingy. The more roils you have, the closer to average you get, which makes fights more predictable. By condensing the rolls you increase randomness, which will work against the PC's. You will end up with more character deaths.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The math can, indeed, probably use some tweaking to keep DPR on par (perhaps also adding an accuracy boost?), but the basic idea ought to be sound. As Mellack points out, things will be a bit swingier, but that sounds like what you want. That said...


Your "fix" would just throw any class that doesn't have Extra Attacks but still use weapons regularly into the oblivion of combat irrelevance. That includes Clerics, several Bard subclasses, Hexblade and Blade Pact Warlocks, and others (with Rogues being made not totally irrelevant thanks to sneak attack, but still pretty hurt by this).
I'm not sure I follow this part. How does Extra Attack becoming "extra damage" make melee Clerics and/or SCAG melee cantrip users obsolete? If a fighter goes from doing .6(10)+.6(10) DPR to .6(20) DPR, it has no effect on the guy who was doing .6(15) DPR the whole time, other than making the distinction slightly smaller.

[mgshamster]

please help me understand.

I do have to say, you're incredibly gracious and understanding of the responses here. Bravo, good sir.

Not just the quote or any response to any one person, but overall as well.

It does not go unnoticed. :)

[lperkins2]

So, if you want combat to stay thrilling and dangerous, limit HP growth. The rule I've used before is you get your first 4 HD worth of hitpoints. On further levelups, you still roll for HP, and can replace previous hitdice, so eventually you get your max value. Multiclassing into a class with larger hitdice also can have a small benefit. Once you max all your hitdice, rolling max gives a permanent +1 to one save or AC. In some settings, undead get their full HP, which makes them actually pretty threatening.

Up to level 4, this has no impact on the game. After level 4, the effect pretty quickly becomes rather apparent. Spellcasters are truly terrifying, which usually either means they go undercover, or hide behind cover, since a spellcaster, in flashy regalia, in the open will draw pretty much everyone's ranged attacks. Getting surprise becomes incredibly important, since the first round of combat in a pitched battle often leads to multiple fatalities.

Overall, it gives a very different feel to the game than the increasingly exhausting attrition battles with even critical hits being shrugged off as nothing important at higher levels.

[Esgadir]

Putting all the damage into a single roll would make fights much more swingy. The more roils you have, the closer to average you get, which makes fights more predictable. By condensing the rolls you increase randomness, which will work against the PC's. You will end up with more character deaths.

That's a very good point! Actually, I hope that this would bring players to rely less on rolls and more on tactics, decisions, preparation.

Since you're rolling less times and each of them is so much more important, you're probably not going there and just say "I attack" but, hey, now you want to maybe dodge, study your opponent, find some advantage and land your attack when you have higher chance of not wasting it, don't you think so?

Look at this combat: Bronn vs Ser Vardis Egan. Bronn is just dodging for 2 minutes and when he sees an advantaged situation, he lands just one strong blow. Then he dodge a bit more and lands a second one and that's it.

With D&D mid to higher level mechanics such a great combat will never happen, unless you say that Bromm is actually hitting many times Ser Vardis just because he's tiring him. But look, he's not hitting anything, the kind of weapon he has in his hand doesn't matter at all, he's just dodging!

[Esgadir]

I do have to say, you're incredibly gracious and understanding of the responses here. Bravo, good sir.

Not just the quote or any response to any one person, but overall as well.

It does not go unnoticed. :)

Hey, thanks! I actually appreciate a lot people taking their time to consider and answer on my problems and my comments, that's priceless for me!

[Pex]

Not liking to roll lots of dice is your taste, but that doesn't make 5E combat broken. Even 5th level was designed on purpose to provide the dice rolling high. That's when warriors get their second attack and spellcasters roll two dice on their cantrips. The cherry on top is rolling 8d6 Fireball. Speeding up combat is done by how it's played, not what is done. I already mention average damage for monsters. Others suggested rolling attack rolls and damage dice together. Some warrior players with multiple attacks roll all their attack dice together then roll all the appropriate damage dice. Paladin players shouldn't do the latter because it matters when they're using smites or not. It makes a difference when you know which attack roll has the 20 to use a smite. Battle Masters can also benefit, but it's not too powerful knowing which attack has the 20 to spend a maneuver die for them.

The act of rolling the dice is part of the fun.

[Esgadir]

Overall, it gives a very different feel to the game than the increasingly exhausting attrition battles with even critical hits being shrugged off as nothing important at higher levels.

Yep, I share exactly your same feeling on this. And I understand your point. And it's a option.
But look, if you limit HP now you're going to affect also the Character vs. masses and the Character vs. Big monster kind of situation and I'm quite happy with them.

I like the heroic fantasy that d&d is, with mid to high level character going for a dragon or a lich. So I'm ok with them having a lot of HP at some point.
And I like that there is a big difference between a weak fighter and a strong one, and HP are a big part of that in 5e.

I would just love to find a way to just cut down the amount of rolls and increase the effect of each single blow without breaking the balance of the game.

[Unoriginal]

I'm not sure I follow this part. How does Extra Attack becoming "extra damage" make melee Clerics and/or SCAG melee cantrip users obsolete? If a fighter goes from doing .6(10)+.6(10) DPR to .6(20) DPR, it has no effect on the guy who was doing .6(15) DPR the whole time, other than making the distinction slightly smaller.

Well, first, those melee cantrip aren't .6(15) to the fighter's .06(10). For things like Shillelahg it just increases the attack to more or less the equivalent to the fighter's, and for things like Booming Blade it's a bit better than the fighter's attack if the extra damage happen, but the chances of the extra damage happening are lower.

So it's more like .6(10-13) vs .6(20).



Also, on a different but related topic, boy, imagine the "multiple attacks become bonus damage" applied to NPCs to "reduce the number of dice"?

[Mellack]

That's a very good point! Actually, I hope that this would bring players to rely less on rolls and more on tactics, decisions, preparation.

Since you're rolling less times and each of them is so much more important, you're probably not going there and just say "I attack" but, hey, now you want to maybe dodge, study your opponent, find some advantage and land your attack when you have higher chance of not wasting it, don't you think so?

Look at this combat: Bronn vs Ser Vardis Egan. Bronn is just dodging for 2 minutes and when he sees an advantaged situation, he lands just one strong blow. Then he dodge a bit more and lands a second one and that's it.

With D&D mid to higher level mechanics such a great combat will never happen, unless you say that Bromm is actually hitting many times Ser Vardis just because he's tiring him. But look, he's not hitting anything, the kind of weapon he has in his hand doesn't matter at all, he's just dodging!

No, I do not think it would have the effect you see. I think it turns into more a game of rocket tag. That dodging for a few minutes lowers their chance of hitting, but if they get a lucky roll, you just lost a large chunk of your hp. With the old method, dodging was a better risk because with several rolls, it was more likely to have some effect. Again, combining rolls means greater randomness. The best way to avoid that randomness for a character is to limit rolls. So it would mean more novas, or attacking as much and as fast as possible.

[Esgadir]

Not liking to roll lots of dice is your taste, but that doesn't make 5E combat broken.

Well, mine is just a question. I asked the question not because of the amount of dice to roll, that could be a design choice, but because it keep increasing with levels. But let's take this away, let's say that it's not broken and let's look at it just as a personal taste.

You give a interesting example between a fighter extra attack and a wizard cantrip. At lvl 5, a fighter gets 1 more attack and instead the wizard gets more damage. How is that? Why they didn't give the wizard a second bolt to shoot? I'm afraid that's only because the multi-attack system is a heritage from previous editions and cantrips are mostly a new idea so where designed better.

Anyway, throwing too many dice is just half of my problem, the other half is the feeling you get from those many small hit.

But I'm not trying to convince anybody to have my same problem, I'm just looking for smart and interesting consideration on my doubts to better consider any solution before I take my poor players to play test it...

[Mellack]

To give a quick example, lets say a ettin is swinging at a level 6 cleric. The cleric has about 51 hp and maybe an 18 AC. The ettin hits on an 11+. Using your condenses rolls, the ettin will drop the cleric on the second round 25% of the time. Using the old method, the ettin would only have a 6% chance of dropping the cleric in that time. If the cleric were to just dodge, they would lower that chance of being KO'ed down to the 6%, instead of having the 0.4% chance of KO they would have had over the old system. So dodging would be a worse tactic under the new system then it was under the old system.

[Esgadir]

No, I do not think it would have the effect you see. I think it turns into more a game of rocket tag. That dodging for a few minutes lowers their chance of hitting, but if they get a lucky roll, you just lost a large chunk of your hp. With the old method, dodging was a better risk because with several rolls, it was more likely to have some effect. Again, combining rolls means greater randomness. The best way to avoid that randomness for a character is to limit rolls. So it would mean more novas, or attacking as much and as fast as possible.

Ok. I take it. It is reasonable that you may be right and I don't have any strong point to think the opposite.
But then let me ask you why this is different than with cantrips. Why a 11 wizards doing 1 attack with x3 damage doesn't have the same "increase randomness" effect? Why a fighter with a bow it better doing 3 arrows x1 damage than same as the wizard 1 arrow x3 damage?

Mmm. Maybe you're right if we were just taking away dices, but we are actually converting them from being more attacks to being more damage, the total number of rolls is way less because now you are rolling 1 attack + 1 damage (3d8 for example) but the total number of dice is not much different, so maybe there isn't that randomness problem.

In that case, from your consideration, my "fix" rule shouldn't say that you multiply the total damage, but that you multiply the dice to roll for damage (and the bonus as well, of course).

What do you think? Does it make any difference?

[Mellack]

I am not sure what you mean. I am figuring that instead of rolling multiple attacks, you are combining them into a single attack that does damage equal to all of them combined for the round. That means you get more all or nothing hits, which increase randomness.

[Mellack]

But then let me ask you why this is different than with cantrips. Why a 11 wizards doing 1 attack with x3 damage doesn't have the same "increase randomness" effect? Why a fighter with a bow it better doing 3 arrows x1 damage than same as the wizard 1 arrow x3 damage?



The wizard is more random in their damage than the fighter. Since I did not design the game, I do not know why they chose that. I will note that the one class designed to use cantrips as their main damage does not use that mechanic (Eldritch blast).

[Unoriginal]

Wizards get one decent boom from time to time with their cantrips, or a few big booms by spending ressources. Fighters are more consistent, with more at-will attacks, but with little to no ressource-based "big booms".

[PhoenixPhyre]

Wizards get one decent boom from time to time with their cantrips, or a few big booms by spending ressources. Fighters are more consistent, with more at-will attacks, but with little to no ressource-based "big booms".

And note that cantrip users (except warlocks, who are a special case) average about 50% of the at-will/no-resource damage of a fighter. Cantrips are a fallback, not a primary weapon of most casters.

[Mellack]

And note that cantrip users (except warlocks, who are a special case) average about 50% of the at-will/no-resource damage of a fighter. Cantrips are a fallback, not a primary weapon of most casters.

And that one special case who does use it as a primary weapon gets multiple attack rolls.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And that one special case who does use it as a primary weapon gets multiple attack rolls.

A good chunk of that is the invocation adding CHA to each beam. It's worth a whole lot less on a single, bigger attack.

[Unoriginal]

And note that cantrip users (except warlocks, who are a special case) average about 50% of the at-will/no-resource damage of a fighter. Cantrips are a fallback, not a primary weapon of most casters.

Indeed, indeed.

[Pex]

Well, mine is just a question. I asked the question not because of the amount of dice to roll, that could be a design choice, but because it keep increasing with levels. But let's take this away, let's say that it's not broken and let's look at it just as a personal taste.

You give a interesting example between a fighter extra attack and a wizard cantrip. At lvl 5, a fighter gets 1 more attack and instead the wizard gets more damage. How is that? Why they didn't give the wizard a second bolt to shoot? I'm afraid that's only because the multi-attack system is a heritage from previous editions and cantrips are mostly a new idea so where designed better.

Anyway, throwing too many dice is just half of my problem, the other half is the feeling you get from those many small hit.

But I'm not trying to convince anybody to have my same problem, I'm just looking for smart and interesting consideration on my doubts to better consider any solution before I take my poor players to play test it...

I'll be blunt even if it's an answer you won't like reading, though I don't mean any insult by it.

House rules are fine. A tweak here, a tweak there, suit to taste. However, if you have to write your own Handbook of house rules, then the problem is you don't like the game. You were offered solutions of tweaks and not just from me, but you reject them still looking for more. The tweaks aren't enough for you. You're not satisfied. What you want is something that will fundamentally change how the entire game works. You want to redo the entire game math. What you're looking for is another game system.

I've seen this before in DMs. They constantly tweak the house rules. They're never satisfied with the numbers, the game mechanics, the rules, character abilities, etc. The rules keep changing between game sessions. Eventually they get fed up with the whole thing and end the game altogether due to burn out or frustration or something in their personal life is blown out of proportion to have an excuse to stop a game they're not having fun with anymore because it's never working right.

Whatever your problem is, if you can't get over it, then play something else. You're going to end the game with your players eventually anyway. I know you will. I've been such a player.

[mgshamster]

I'll be blunt even if it's an answer you won't like reading, though I don't mean any insult by it.

House rules are fine. A tweak here, a tweak there, suit to taste. However, if you have to write your own Handbook of house rules, then the problem is you don't like the game.

I'm reminded of Kirthfinder. :D

On the whole, I'm not sure I agree. I mean, 5e begs you to house rule, and even if you're writing you're own houserule, you're still creating a game for you that you and your friends want to play. It doesn't matter if it's drastically different.

Heck, Shadow of the Demon Lord is technically another system, but it could have easily been just a houseruled 5e game. I've seen plenty of sci-fi and space adaptations to 5e, and those are all heavily house ruled.

And think about 3.X and the d20 System. Every d20 System game is essentially someone's house rules that they printed into their own book and presented to others. Heck, that's where Pathfinder grew out of.

That vague distinction between heavily house ruled and new game is irrelevant when you consider that the whole point is to make a game you'll have fun with.

[Knaight]

Two attacks at 40% have only a 16% chance for both to land. One attack at 40% has a 40% chance to land.

Essentially, you've more than doubled DPR vs a single target.

No you haven't. Two attacks at 40% only have a 36% chance of both missing,whereas one attack at 40% has a 60% chance to miss. The averages don't change, and as DPR is an average it's unaffected. What changes is the distribution.

[PhoenixPhyre]

No you haven't. Two attacks at 40% only have a 36% chance of both missing,whereas one attack at 40% has a 60% chance to miss. The averages don't change, and as DPR is an average it's unaffected. What changes is the distribution.

Your math is off (but so was theirs).

Including crits, the expected damage done by two attacks each dealing X when they land, at a 40% hit rate is


System
Damage


Normal
0.5775X


Proposed
0.9X



for a ratio of about 1.56 : 1.


Proposed is simple: 0.6*0 + 0.35*2X + 0.05*4X = 0.9X

Normal is more difficult: 0.6*0.6*0 (both miss) + 0.35*0.6*X (one normal hit) + 0.35*0.35*X (two normal hits) + 0.05*0.6*2X (one crit, one miss) + 0.05*0.35*3X (one crit, one hit) + 0.05*0.05*4X (two crit) = 0.5775X

A major difference is that under the proposed system, when one "attack" crits, the other does too (doubling dice twice), meaning a double-crit happens 5% of the time. That only happens 0.25% of the time under the regular system. Under the proposed system, crits add about 11% to the damage (0.1 out of 0.9). Under the regular system, they add only about 3% (0.01775 out of 0.5775). So crits are about 4x as strong (proportionally).

Side note: increasing the accuracy to where it should be (~60% hit rate) drops the ratio down a bit: 1.31 : 1. Accuracy is more important in the normal case than the proposed case. This implies that advantage is weaker in the proposed than normal but so is disadvantage. Thus tactics and teamwork (which may impose one or the other) are less valuable in the proposed system, all else being equal.


Of course the distribution is also changed sharply: 2 separate attacks is much more reliable damage (you only miss completely 36% of the time, not 60% of the time and crit more frequently (with one, regardless of the other) as well. In addition, the regular system is more flexible, as you can decide after a single attack to attack someone else (if you kill the main target, for example), while in the proposed as I understand it, you'd have to decide before you made the attack.

Including advantage makes the math more than I'd like to do, so I'll ignore that.

This all ignores a few fundamental things--

All else being equal, rolling dice is fun for a lot of people. Things that reduce the dice rolling may be necessary, but they're not without trade-offs.

All else being equal, hitting is more fun than missing. Having two chances to hit on a turn is more expected fun than one chance, even if that one chance adds up to bigger numbers. A careful analysis of the monster stats indicates that the expected hit chance stays pretty darn constant across the levels (sitting at about 60% without magic items). This is good. A system that says "1 hit = 1 kill (or at least major damage)" implies that the baseline is "not hit." That means that most turns will be "miss. Miss. Miss. well, nothing happened that round." It also means that you're more likely to die to a random attack, because it's all in the hands of the dice. That's less fun for a lot of people.

[Esgadir]

It also means that you're more likely to die to a random attack, because it's all in the hands of the dice. That's less fun for a lot of people.

I understand and agree with everything you said besides this last sentence because tactics, other actions, surprise, even just fighting skill and so on, they all change your chance to hit but they have little influence on your damage, it means to me that it's less in the hands of dice because you can do something to minimize receiving attacks but you don't have any way to minimize damage so that's more just on the dice.

But anyway, I'm not sure that i want to apply that rule to monsters and enemies, it may also just be a class ability like action surge, a player only mechanics.

Then it all goes back to how much my players like to throw dices or if maybe they prefer the feeling of less but harder attacks.

Thank you all guys, this discussion was very useful for me, we may conclude that d&d 5e combat is not broken, the number of attacks and rolls increase along the way but that's fine with many people and it works.

I can actually add that 5e is really a great system because is so flexible that in case a group doesn't like that feeling of many rolls it's also easy to house rule it without breaking the system.

[Mellack]

I understand and agree with everything you said besides this last sentence because tactics, other actions, surprise, even just fighting skill and so on, they all change your chance to hit but they have little influence on your damage, it means to me that it's less in the hands of dice because you can do something to minimize receiving attacks but you don't have any way to minimize damage so that's more just on the dice.

But anyway, I'm not sure that i want to apply that rule to monsters and enemies, it may also just be a class ability like action surge, a player only mechanics.

Then it all goes back to how much my players like to throw dices or if maybe they prefer the feeling of less but harder attacks.

Thank you all guys, this discussion was very useful for me, we may conclude that d&d 5e combat is not broken, the number of attacks and rolls increase along the way but that's fine with many people and it works.

I can actually add that 5e is really a great system because is so flexible that in case a group doesn't like that feeling of many rolls it's also easy to house rule it without breaking the system.

First off, thanks for being a polite and reasonable poster.

I do want to point out that the part I bolded is incorrect. There are several ways to reduce damage. Feats like armor master, spells like absorb elements, barbarian rage, evasion, uncanny dodge, arcane ward and others. There are a great number of ways to reduce incoming damage.

[Pex]

I'm reminded of Kirthfinder. :D

On the whole, I'm not sure I agree. I mean, 5e begs you to house rule, and even if you're writing you're own houserule, you're still creating a game for you that you and your friends want to play. It doesn't matter if it's drastically different.

Heck, Shadow of the Demon Lord is technically another system, but it could have easily been just a houseruled 5e game. I've seen plenty of sci-fi and space adaptations to 5e, and those are all heavily house ruled.

And think about 3.X and the d20 System. Every d20 System game is essentially someone's house rules that they printed into their own book and presented to others. Heck, that's where Pathfinder grew out of.

That vague distinction between heavily house ruled and new game is irrelevant when you consider that the whole point is to make a game you'll have fun with.

In as much as 5E forces DMs to do the job the game designers failed to do, once the DM does it he's done and gets on with the game. That's a different problem I rant about. In this case I'm talking about DMs who can never get on with the game, and it's not limited to 5E. I've seen the same thing happen in 3E with its concise and complex rules. These DMs cannot leave well enough alone. They're constantly tinkering and never satisfied with the result. They're looking for perfection they never accept is right in front of them. In as much as there is an anomaly in an otherwise fine system, they cannot just let it go. They cannot patch it or accept its existence and play the game.

[Esgadir]

In as much as 5E forces DMs to do the job the game designers failed to do, once the DM does it he's done and gets on with the game. That's a different problem I rant about. In this case I'm talking about DMs who can never get on with the game, and it's not limited to 5E. I've seen the same thing happen in 3E with its concise and complex rules. These DMs cannot leave well enough alone. They're constantly tinkering and never satisfied with the result. They're looking for perfection they never accept is right in front of them. In as much as there is an anomaly in an otherwise fine system, they cannot just let it go. They cannot patch it or accept its existence and play the game.

Hey, thank you for worrying for me and my players and for your example of what to avoid. I'll keep your past bad experience in mind to not become like your master. For now, everything is good down here in my campaign and if i playtest any house rule i do it in one-shots adv that usually are a lot of fun for everybody. But thanks again for sharing.

[Knaight]

Your math is off (but so was theirs).

Including crits, the expected damage done by two attacks each dealing X when they land, at a 40% hit rate is


System
Damage


Normal
0.5775X


Proposed
0.9X



for a ratio of about 1.56 : 1.


Proposed is simple: 0.6*0 + 0.35*2X + 0.05*4X = 0.9X

Normal is more difficult: 0.6*0.6*0 (both miss) + 0.35*0.6*X (one normal hit) + 0.35*0.35*X (two normal hits) + 0.05*0.6*2X (one crit, one miss) + 0.05*0.35*3X (one crit, one hit) + 0.05*0.05*4X (two crit) = 0.5775X

A major difference is that under the proposed system, when one "attack" crits, the other does too (doubling dice twice), meaning a double-crit happens 5% of the time. That only happens 0.25% of the time under the regular system. Under the proposed system, crits add about 11% to the damage (0.1 out of 0.9). Under the regular system, they add only about 3% (0.01775 out of 0.5775). So crits are about 4x as strong (proportionally).

Side note: increasing the accuracy to where it should be (~60% hit rate) drops the ratio down a bit: 1.31 : 1. Accuracy is more important in the normal case than the proposed case. This implies that advantage is weaker in the proposed than normal but so is disadvantage. Thus tactics and teamwork (which may impose one or the other) are less valuable in the proposed system, all else being equal.


The proposed math does work out to .9X, assuming that a crit is exactly double damage. Your calculation for the normal situation is wrong though. You have:


Normal is more difficult: 0.6*0.6*0 (both miss) + 0.35*0.6*X (one normal hit) + 0.35*0.35*X (two normal hits) + 0.05*0.6*2X (one crit, one miss) + 0.05*0.35*3X (one crit, one hit) + 0.05*0.05*4X (two crit) = 0.5775X

The one normal hit case, one crit one miss case, and one crit one hit case are all calculated incorrectly. Because there are two ways of reaching each of these (hit then miss, miss then hit, plus the obvious analogs for all the others) each should be multiplied by 2. Two normal hits should also hit at 2X, not X, throwing off that case. That gets you:

Normal is more difficult: 0.6*0.6*0 (both miss) + 2*0.35*0.6*X (one normal hit) + 0.35*0.35*2X (two normal hits) + 2*0.05*0.6*2X (one crit, one miss) + 2*0.05*0.35*3X (one crit, one hit) + 0.05*0.05*4X (two crit) = 0.9X

As an analogy - say you have a system where you flip two coins, and we're trying to count how many heads are expected. Calculating this using your math and the actual math gets you: 0.5*0.5*0 (two tails) plus 0.5*0.5*1 (one tails, one head) plus 0.5*0.5*2 (two heads), for a total of 0.75 expected heads in two coin flips, which is obviously wrong. Using the correct math gets you 0.5*0.5*1 (two tails) plus 2*0.5*0.5*2 (one tails, one head) plus 0.5*0.5*2 (two heads), for a total of 1 expected heads in two coin flips, which is correct. You can't just ignore the combinatorial term.

Coming back to the DPR case, you'll notice how if you take the combinatorial term into account you get 0.9 for both of them, which is the exact same.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The proposed math does work out to .9X, assuming that a crit is exactly double damage. Your calculation for the normal situation is wrong though. You have:


Normal is more difficult: 0.6*0.6*0 (both miss) + 0.35*0.6*X (one normal hit) + 0.35*0.35*X (two normal hits) + 0.05*0.6*2X (one crit, one miss) + 0.05*0.35*3X (one crit, one hit) + 0.05*0.05*4X (two crit) = 0.5775X

The one normal hit case, one crit one miss case, and one crit one hit case are all calculated incorrectly. Because there are two ways of reaching each of these (hit then miss, miss then hit, plus the obvious analogs for all the others) each should be multiplied by 2. Two normal hits should also hit at 2X, not X, throwing off that case. That gets you:

Normal is more difficult: 0.6*0.6*0 (both miss) + 2*0.35*0.6*X (one normal hit) + 0.35*0.35*2X (two normal hits) + 2*0.05*0.6*2X (one crit, one miss) + 2*0.05*0.35*3X (one crit, one hit) + 0.05*0.05*4X (two crit) = 0.9X

As an analogy - say you have a system where you flip two coins, and we're trying to count how many heads are expected. Calculating this using your math and the actual math gets you: 0.5*0.5*0 (two tails) plus 0.5*0.5*1 (one tails, one head) plus 0.5*0.5*2 (two heads), for a total of 0.75 expected heads in two coin flips, which is obviously wrong. Using the correct math gets you 0.5*0.5*1 (two tails) plus 2*0.5*0.5*2 (one tails, one head) plus 0.5*0.5*2 (two heads), for a total of 1 expected heads in two coin flips, which is correct. You can't just ignore the combinatorial term.

Coming back to the DPR case, you'll notice how if you take the combinatorial term into account you get 0.9 for both of them, which is the exact same.

You're right. I goofed. Contest retracted.

It does change the distribution and the swingy-ness, but not the expectation value.

[Esgadir]

The proposed math does work out to .9X, assuming that a crit is exactly double damage. Your calculation for the normal situation is wrong though. You have:


Normal is more difficult: 0.6*0.6*0 (both miss) + 0.35*0.6*X (one normal hit) + 0.35*0.35*X (two normal hits) + 0.05*0.6*2X (one crit, one miss) + 0.05*0.35*3X (one crit, one hit) + 0.05*0.05*4X (two crit) = 0.5775X

The one normal hit case, one crit one miss case, and one crit one hit case are all calculated incorrectly. Because there are two ways of reaching each of these (hit then miss, miss then hit, plus the obvious analogs for all the others) each should be multiplied by 2. Two normal hits should also hit at 2X, not X, throwing off that case. That gets you:

Normal is more difficult: 0.6*0.6*0 (both miss) + 2*0.35*0.6*X (one normal hit) + 0.35*0.35*2X (two normal hits) + 2*0.05*0.6*2X (one crit, one miss) + 2*0.05*0.35*3X (one crit, one hit) + 0.05*0.05*4X (two crit) = 0.9X

As an analogy - say you have a system where you flip two coins, and we're trying to count how many heads are expected. Calculating this using your math and the actual math gets you: 0.5*0.5*0 (two tails) plus 0.5*0.5*1 (one tails, one head) plus 0.5*0.5*2 (two heads), for a total of 0.75 expected heads in two coin flips, which is obviously wrong. Using the correct math gets you 0.5*0.5*1 (two tails) plus 2*0.5*0.5*2 (one tails, one head) plus 0.5*0.5*2 (two heads), for a total of 1 expected heads in two coin flips, which is correct. You can't just ignore the combinatorial term.

Coming back to the DPR case, you'll notice how if you take the combinatorial term into account you get 0.9 for both of them, which is the exact same.

Wonderful! Man, i needed you! That was my feeling by instinct, didn't have the mathematical knowledge to demonstrate it though! That's exactly what i was looking for, a way to change the feeling without changing the balance of the game!

Thanks a lot!

[Unoriginal]

Doesn't change a thing, though.

Like I said in a previous post, yes, you get 1 "head" more often with the current system than with the "fix" you're talking about, but you get 2 "heads" less often than 1 "head" with the "fix".

And since the damage for 1 "head" with your way is equal to the damage of 2 "heads" for classes with extra attacks, it makes single-attack classes pretty much obsolete.

I mean, it's common sense. If you flip a coin and gain $20 whenever you get "head", you're always going to have more money than the guy who get $10 for the same thing. Meanwhile if you flip two coins and get $10 for each "head", you'll get $10 much more consistently, but not often $20, which allows the guy who flip one coin and get $10 to be relevant.

So no, you didn't get "a way to change the feeling without changing the balance of the game"

[Knaight]

I mean, it's common sense. If you flip a coin and gain $20 whenever you get "head", you're always going to have more money than the guy who get $10 for the same thing. Meanwhile if you flip two coins and get $10 for each "head", you'll get $10 much more consistently, but not often $20, which allows the guy who flip one coin and get $10 to be relevant.

So no, you didn't get "a way to change the feeling without changing the balance of the game"

If you flip one coin and get $20 on heads, you expect $10 per flip. This is the same expected value as flipping two coins and getting $10 for each heads. Those are equivalent, whereas the $5 average per flip absolutely isn't.

That's not to say they're exactly the same. If you really need $20, then flipping one coin for $20 is a better option. If you really need $10, flipping two coins for $10 each is a better option. Still, they're roughly equivalent, especially once a whole bunch of coins are flipped.

[Esgadir]

Doesn't change a thing, though.

Like I said in a previous post, yes, you get 1 "head" more often with the current system than with the "fix" you're talking about, but you get 2 "heads" less often than 1 "head" with the "fix".

And since the damage for 1 "head" with your way is equal to the damage of 2 "heads" for classes with extra attacks, it makes single-attack classes pretty much obsolete.

I mean, it's common sense. If you flip a coin and gain $20 whenever you get "head", you're always going to have more money than the guy who get $10 for the same thing. Meanwhile if you flip two coins and get $10 for each "head", you'll get $10 much more consistently, but not often $20, which allows the guy who flip one coin and get $10 to be relevant.

So no, you didn't get "a way to change the feeling without changing the balance of the game"

Yes, just like knaight explained, your point is valid only if you consider one single round which is almost never the case. If you consider more rounds then the math balance is basically untouched. And if you consider the long term like the whole character life then the math balance is really untouched.

What's different is the dynamics of game because even if in the long term is going to be the same, every time there is a crucial single attack the stakes are higher. Of course with higher stakes there's more tension, you need to consider very well your options. When the stakes are high you carefully choose your cards, you can't just "give it a try"

That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Same thing if you compare fighters with clerics and so. In the long term there's no difference but in the short term, when a single attack matters, cleric are not able to land that deep skilled deadly blow that only high level combatants are able to do. I like this feeling.

Right now it is the same thing, just is connected with speed instead of power, clerics are never going to be as fast as fighter and do 2 attacks per round, this doesn't make them obsolete...

[Unoriginal]

Look.

You might not want to believe it, but there is a huge difference between being able to destroy 20% of a monster's HPs over several hits, and being able to destroy 20% of a monster's HPs with one hit when others can at best hope for 10%.

And it's not going to give you the tactic-rich suspens-filled quick-paced combat you says you want.

If you absolutely want to try your method out anyway, then I'd be more than happy to participate in a test in the Play-by-Post section of this forum, with whichever factors you want to try out. Because in the end that kind of things need a practical test.

[Willie the Duck]

Look at this combat: Bronn vs Ser Vardis Egan. Bronn is just dodging for 2 minutes and when he sees an advantaged situation, he lands just one strong blow. Then he dodge a bit more and lands a second one and that's it.

With D&D mid to higher level mechanics such a great combat will never happen, unless you say that Bromm is actually hitting many times Ser Vardis just because he's tiring him. But look, he's not hitting anything, the kind of weapon he has in his hand doesn't matter at all, he's just dodging!

I think everyone else has finally gotten the math hammered out for that end of the discussion. I wanted to discuss this part.

First of all, regarding that GoT fight--I don't think the weapon in Bronn's hand didn't matter while he was dodging. Weapons still create zones of control and which vector of attack Vardis was willing to commit to was determined by where he thought he had an opening.

But beyond that...you're right. That type of fight doesn't happen in D&D because hit points were invented to act as a pacing mechanism. One that people have very strong opinions about. One that the game books have hemmed and hawed about what they 'are' (are they meat? luck? morale?) but the reality is that hit points are hit points and they represent hit points and they exist specifically so that fights were people go from perfectly healthy to near death in an instant don't happen. Mind you, it did happen... in Chainmail. A super-hero (equivalent to 8th level fighter) was unharmed in combat until he had 8 regular infantry (or the equivalent in creatures that counted as more than one) all successfully hit him during the same round, and then he was dead (or defeated, at least). People found that unsatisfactory for a character they put any real investment into, so hp became a thing. We can come up with all the 'Bromm is actually hitting many times Ser Vardis just because he's tiring him' justifications in the world, but it's all post-hoc justification. D&D combat works the way it does because, although we might say we like the feel of an epic fight, we (apparently) don't like our PCs to be fine... fine... fine... oh look, dead.

Edit: Well, unless we do want that. In which case, there are plenty of games where that can be the case. Runequest you pretty much can never be so good that you can't be dropped by a perfect crit. GURPS you certainly can have so many hp that one sword blow won't kill you, but the bleed and stun rules are such that one good hit can put you in an inescapable death spiral. So there are games like that out there.

[mgshamster]

First of all, regarding that GoT fight--I don't think the weapon in Bronn's hand didn't matter while he was dodging. Weapons still create zones of control and which vector of attack Vardis was willing to commit to was determined by where he thought he had an opening.

But beyond that...you're right. That type of fight doesn't happen in D&D because hit points were invented to act as a pacing mechanism.

You can almost-kind-of-sort-of simulate that style by bringing back the idea that a single goes combat round is 1 minute. You spend that minute dodging and maneuvering until you find an opening to strike, and that's what the attack roll represents. Extra Attack would represent that some people are able to find more openings to make that strike during the 1 minute time frame.

[Knaight]

You can almost-kind-of-sort-of simulate that style by bringing back the idea that a single goes combat round is 1 minute. You spend that minute dodging and maneuvering until you find an opening to strike, and that's what the attack roll represents. Extra Attack would represent that some people are able to find more openings to make that strike during the 1 minute time frame.

On the other hand all sorts of other fights don't work well with the combat round taking a minute - it's good for long cinematic duels, but not much else.

[Willie the Duck]

On the other hand all sorts of other fights don't work well with the combat round taking a minute - it's good for long cinematic duels, but not much else.

I've always found that the best advice for 'how long is a round?' is 'long enough for something exciting to potentially happen.' In an actual medieval battlefield using people lined up in shield walls and pushing and slowly jockeying for position, a 1-minute round might make sense. In a long running skirmish battle, with lots of time spent just moving, actual exchanges where the outcome of the battle might change might occur only once ever 10 minutes or so. OTOH, if you are the miners and counter-miners suddenly encountering each other below a castle wall in a cramped underground tunnel-- a six second round would be a ridiculous eternity. I've always thought that situational round length made the most sense (and honestly, unless there is a ticking time bomb, it doesn't really matter as long everyone plays by the same rules and combat magic duration is measured in combat rounds regardless of actual time length).

[Pex]

I think everyone else has finally gotten the math hammered out for that end of the discussion. I wanted to discuss this part.

First of all, regarding that GoT fight--I don't think the weapon in Bronn's hand didn't matter while he was dodging. Weapons still create zones of control and which vector of attack Vardis was willing to commit to was determined by where he thought he had an opening.

But beyond that...you're right. That type of fight doesn't happen in D&D because hit points were invented to act as a pacing mechanism. One that people have very strong opinions about. One that the game books have hemmed and hawed about what they 'are' (are they meat? luck? morale?) but the reality is that hit points are hit points and they represent hit points and they exist specifically so that fights were people go from perfectly healthy to near death in an instant don't happen. Mind you, it did happen... in Chainmail. A super-hero (equivalent to 8th level fighter) was unharmed in combat until he had 8 regular infantry (or the equivalent in creatures that counted as more than one) all successfully hit him during the same round, and then he was dead (or defeated, at least). People found that unsatisfactory for a character they put any real investment into, so hp became a thing. We can come up with all the 'Bromm is actually hitting many times Ser Vardis just because he's tiring him' justifications in the world, but it's all post-hoc justification. D&D combat works the way it does because, although we might say we like the feel of an epic fight, we (apparently) don't like our PCs to be fine... fine... fine... oh look, dead.

Edit: Well, unless we do want that. In which case, there are plenty of games where that can be the case. Runequest you pretty much can never be so good that you can't be dropped by a perfect crit. GURPS you certainly can have so many hp that one sword blow won't kill you, but the bleed and stun rules are such that one good hit can put you in an inescapable death spiral. So there are games like that out there.

There are particular game mechanics that are fundamental to D&D. They are not going to get rid of them nor should they. When they tried, 4E, despite some accolades there were roars of anger and players voted with their feet playing Pathfinder.

Hit points is one of those iconic D&D things. Every once in a while a person complains they're not realistic. Even in 2E I played with a DM who house ruled separating your total hit points to among your body parts. He didn't care Fireball showed it didn't work. It's not about the hit points but their stubbornness as sticklers for realism, whether it's in hit points or some other game rule that bother me. It takes the Fighters can't have nice things mentality and moves it to the Game can't have nice things. Magic isn't totally immune as this is where house rules of mana fatigue or risk insanity for the audacity of casting a spell comes in. There are game systems that have the realism they want. They should play those games. I don't need that realism. That's why I don't play those games.

[mgshamster]

On the other hand all sorts of other fights don't work well with the combat round taking a minute - it's good for long cinematic duels, but not much else.

True. It's all a matter of what you're trying to simulate. The one-mimute rounds were what I grew up on, as that was standard in 2e.

So I guess it's a matter of which type of combat you're willing to hand-wave aside as "I know it doesn't make sense, but just work with it." Or use Willie's idea. :)

[Esgadir]

1. I'm not worrying about making my players feel weaker or getting killed quicker, I don't want to lower their HP or anything like that, my problem is when they are the killer and winner but it doesn't feel epic or rewarding or satisfying to them.


Willie the duck I agree with you, your right and I'm fine with PC hit points, I'm happy that they keep going for long without dropping to ground, i don't want them to feel weak, quite the opposite, i don't like that a strong high level fighter feels kind of weak. After all each of his attacks doesn't do much more damage that a basic druid does, and after all he's basically doing about the same damage that he was doing when he picked up a sword for the very first time. He only feels faster, like a hitting machine and that's a bit disappointing to me.

Pex, i don't know what's your problem, but i know that my problem is NOT realism, quite the opposite, i want my player fighters to feel more epic, i want them to feel that when they hit is a damn tough fighter slamming his sword through his enemy chest. At the same time i like d&d 5e, don't want to go looking for other systems and i don't want to heavily change rules or math balance, I'm just looking for a minor tweak that could give that more epic fighter feeling without changing the general balance, maybe it doesn't exist and my "fix" doesn't work, but hey, it's already very interesting to just talk about it.

[Unoriginal]

Willie the duck I agree with you, your right and I'm fine with PC hit points, I'm happy that they keep going for long without dropping to ground, i don't want them to feel weak, quite the opposite, i don't like that a strong high level fighter feels kind of weak. After all each of his attacks doesn't do much more damage that a basic druid does, and after all he's basically doing about the same damage that he was doing when he picked up a sword for the very first time. He only feels faster, like a hitting machine and that's a bit disappointing to me.

Pex, i don't know what's your problem, but i know that my problem is NOT realism, quite the opposite, i want my player fighters to feel more epic, i want them to feel that when they hit is a damn tough fighter slamming his sword through his enemy chest. At the same time i like d&d 5e, don't want to go looking for other systems and i don't want to heavily change rules or math balance, I'm just looking for a minor tweak that could give that more epic fighter feeling without changing the general balance, maybe it doesn't exist and my "fix" doesn't work, but hey, it's already very interesting to just talk about it.

As I told you earlier, if you want to test your method out, I'd be happy to help, and I'm sure others would be ready to as well.

Choose the factors of a fight (combatants, environment, etc), and we can see how it goes in the Play-by-Post section of this forum.

[Esgadir]

Look.

You might not want to believe it, but there is a huge difference between being able to destroy 20% of a monster's HPs over several hits, and being able to destroy 20% of a monster's HPs with one hit when others can at best hope for 10%.

And it's not going to give you the tactic-rich suspens-filled quick-paced combat you says you want.

If you absolutely want to try your method out anyway, then I'd be more than happy to participate in a test in the Play-by-Post section of this forum, with whichever factors you want to try out. Because in the end that kind of things need a practical test.

I totally agree with you, it takes a practical test, and it would be nice to try in this way, thank you for offering it. I definitely don't know if that "fix" is going to obtain any of my objectives, but if it was heavily affecting game math i wouldn't even want to try.

So i have a proposal for you, since I'm more interested in exploring players feelings regarding that fix, and you're kind of skeptic regarding the balance, why don't you set up a play-by-post situation where you can put everything that you think that is not working with the fix and I'll play the fighter?

I'd be happy to try!

[Willie the Duck]

Pex, i don't know what's your problem, but i know that my problem is NOT realism, quite the opposite, i want my player fighters to feel more epic, i want them to feel that when they hit is a damn tough fighter slamming his sword through his enemy chest.

Pex was carrying on arguments that existed outside of this thread. He's not wrong that we've all seen people try to make the game 'more realistic' in very selective ways that do not work with the rest of the system. It was, however, a bit out of scope to the question at hand.

That said, what do you propose? People have mentioned that combining all of a fighter's attacks into one super attack is possible (if extra swingy). Is that what you would like to look at? Or something else?

[Unoriginal]

So i have a proposal for you, since I'm more interested in exploring players feelings regarding that fix, and you're kind of skeptic regarding the balance, why don't you set up a play-by-post situation where you can put everything that you think that is not working with the fix and I'll play the fighter?

I'd be happy to try!

Fair by me. Which level(s) would you like to try?

Also, is anyone else interested by this?

[Esgadir]

That said, what do you propose? People have mentioned that combining all of a fighter's attacks into one super attack is possible (if extra swingy). Is that what you would like to look at? Or something else?

Well, that would be awesome! At the moment I don't have any other idea of a possible "fix" for this, and I didn't read any other strong easy-to-apply idea, so yes, why not? It would be great to try it...

[Esgadir]

Fair by me. Which level(s) would you like to try?

Also, is anyone else interested by this?

I would go for something between 7 to 9 just because it's the stage I am in my present campaign with my players so it would be easier for me to compare...

[Pex]

Perfect timing.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562226-houserule-on-fighting-fitness&p=23176547#post23176547

[Unoriginal]

I would go for something between 7 to 9 just because it's the stage I am in my present campaign with my players so it would be easier for me to compare...

Alright, go here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562246-Damage-Houserule-Testing-Arena-OOC&p=23176575#post23176575) for the first challenge. We can test other things later.

[Esgadir]

Perfect timing.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562226-houserule-on-fighting-fitness&p=23176547#post23176547

I understand, but it is not what i was talking about. Indeed, i agree with you on that topic.

[Esgadir]

Alright, go here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562246-Damage-Houserule-Testing-Arena-OOC&p=23176575#post23176575) for the first challenge. We can test other things later.

Great! I'm driving now, I'll post later today!

[KorvinStarmast]

Even in 2E I played with a DM who house ruled separating your total hit points to among your body parts. That started back in Blackmoor. Here's a taste of it. I was seeing this crop up in a few 1e campaigns I played in, but our OD&D group who tried it abandoned it as too damned much work. I will say that it did critical hits without being critical hits, since a blow to the head when you had 26 hit points usually killed you. (Gee, how do I know that)



HIT LOCATION DURING MELEE
... each area has an assigned percentage of the total hit point value of the creature ... This means that the sum of the parts is greater than the sum of the whole, but as destruction of most of these various parts brings some form of penalty to the creature — not to mention the possibility of immediate death — it is an equitable system. Thus, if a humanoid with a total of 100 possible hit points is attacked, the head can withstand up to 15 points of damage, the chest 80, the abdomen 60. each arm 20, and so on; however, if the head receives 15 points of damage (100% of the possible total) death occurs immediately.

HOW TO USE THIS SYSTEM: When a hit is scored upon the being you are fighting consult the above charts and adjust any wounds due to height and weapons. Any hits upon death dealing areas (head, body) are recorded off its percent chance of living.(Abbreviated to show examples)
Hit Location Table 1: (Humanoid)
.............FRONT..........REAR
----------------------------------
Head.......1-15.............1-25
Chest......16-50...........26-70
Arms*.....51-80...........71-80
Legs**....81-00...........81-100
*also wings
**also tail

[ZorroGames]

Combat is not broken for melee. Martials hit things to kill them, Casters kill/immobilize/weaken them by spells. Things work as designed and it works fine.

The balance has varied from the original three booklets using the ‘man’ method before D20s to today but it works for fantasy gaming just fine.

[Pex]

I understand, but it is not what i was talking about. Indeed, i agree with you on that topic.

I know. I was commenting on a subject someone else brought up.

Re: Blackmoor. That sounds like what he was using. I didn't know of such a thing. Never did until just now. I thought it was something he made up.

[ZorroGames]

I know. I was commenting on a subject someone else brought up.

Re: Blackmoor. That sounds like what he was using. I didn't know of such a thing. Never did until just now. I thought it was something he made up.

Blackmoor the OD&D supplement or the “Not D&D exactly” Game that came a few years ago?

Edit:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmoor_(campaign_setting)

http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/works.php

http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/about.php

[Unoriginal]

The IC testing thread, if anyone is interested:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562268-Damage-Houserule-Testing-Arena-IC&p=23177492#post23177492

[Pex]

Blackmoor the OD&D supplement or the “Not D&D exactly” Game that came a few years ago?

Edit:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmoor_(campaign_setting)

http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/works.php

http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/about.php

Proving my point I have no clue what it is. :smallyuk: It sounded similar to what the DM was using. I really don't care about it or for it.

[ZorroGames]

Proving my point I have no clue what it is. :smallyuk: It sounded similar to what the DM was using. I really don't care about it or for it.

Originally it was independent then merged into OD&D (1975) with “Supplement II Blackmoor” where Dave Arneson introduced Monks, Assassins, and “Hit Location” rules.

Humanoid, Avian, Reptile, Insectoid, Fish, and Snake. High Cool Factor but combat was extended or brutally fast depending on the dice. Combined with rules for Attacker Height and Defender Height made being shorter extremely dangerous.

Great on paper then (simulation was a magic word) but I do not know anyone who used those rules more than once or twice before returning to “core.”

[KutuluKultist]

In 4th edition, there was the concept of a minion. Minions had one hit point and treated any save for half cases as save for none. They were still as offensively powerful as other, equivalent level monsters.
This starts to recalibrate the situation in regards to PvE.
Regarding big monsters or npcs, you can add certain debilitating effects to certain, appropriate battle tactics to keep things from being only a damage slog.

PC hit points on the other hand are in my opinion best not changed too much. Extra hp at level one make play at that level less random and more like higher level play. A hp soft limit as it existed in 2nd edition (hit dice + con are rolled only for the first 9 or so levels, after that it's a fixed 1-3 hp per level.

Trying for a more realistic approach is bound to make pc lives drastically shorter. Also, in many cinematic narratives, the bad guys just never hit the heroes. Simulating this with a low to hit chance but realistic - that is often fatal- effects of a hit generates a similar problem. We roll often and if any one roll can mean pc death, that changes the game profundly.

You could also just rule that the bad guys never hit on their first attack, but that, too, will have a great effect on preferred tactics.

Finally, if you look a real conflict, it usually does look a lot like rocket tag (sometimes literaly). Killing the enemy with high certainty before they can act is really the only way to stay remotely safe in real world armed conflicts.

But that is no fun. No, we want our heroes to behave much like armies, able to take hits and losses while still coming through.

I don't think that there is much of a third option between random death and wittling down hitpoints, but fine-tuning is certainly possible.

[Unoriginal]

In 4th edition, there was the concept of a minion. Minions had one hit point and treated any save for half cases as save for none. They were still as offensively powerful as other, equivalent level monsters.
This starts to recalibrate the situation in regards to PvE.


Minions are completely antithetic to the basic design goals of 5e.




Finally, if you look a real conflict, it usually does look a lot like rocket tag (sometimes literaly). Killing the enemy with high certainty before they can act is really the only way to stay remotely safe in real world armed conflicts.

But that is no fun. No, we want our heroes to behave much like armies, able to take hits and losses while still coming through.

True.



I don't think that there is much of a third option between random death and wittling down hitpoints, but fine-tuning is certainly possible.

There's also Speedy Gonzales your way around the enemy to avoid random death.

[Uzgul]

Hi all,

I'm on 5e since 4y now and I like it but I have a problem with combat.

1st level characters are weak, that's ok. Then for 4 or 5 levels it feels balanced. Then above 7th level combat start feeling weird and not fun anymore.

2 things happen: too many dice to throw + it feels much less violent, it feel weak, fake. Like swords don't cut anymore and are made of rubber.

I tried some math of the core combat system, a basic fighter with STr., Con and Dex best stats with longsword, armor and shield with defence style and champion archetype, fighting against himself at every level. Attack vs. defence, damage vs. hit point. No magic item, no distractions, just the core math of the system. It's not a realistic situation, DMs fix this with narrative, with items, with situation, but it show the basic system dynamics and why it is broken as you level up.

Look at this link for the math: drive.google.com/open?id=1_s4Xfp-OTBqrHqkz125sVJIV__lSkhkR

The system is asymmetric. Attack skill slightly improves against defence skill. Damage increase very little compared to absorption (HP). At levels 5, 11 and 20 Damage get up a step with one more attack per round, but not enough to compensate the growth of HP, and at the price of throwing even more dices.

It goes from a average of 4 attacks to kill himself at 1st level to 43 attacks to kill himself at 20th level. If you also throw the damage dice then it becomes 67 dices to throw to kill himself.

Instead of becoming more tactical (meaning less sheer attacks and more maneuvering+preparation+side actions like hiding, dodging, shove, ecc) and of becoming more violent (higher damage per attack), it goes in the opposite direction.

You can do this math in many different ways, what matters is not the exact number of rounds or dice that I calculated but the direction where D&D goes as characters and enemies grow up in power: more dices to throw and proportionally less powerful attacks.

If you don't agree with me, please explain me why, I'm very interested and I'm writing this post exactly to understand this problem better.
If I understand correctly, you basically dislike two things about higher level combat:
1. There are too many dices/attacks to roll causing each attack to feel meaningless.
2. Enemies become bullet sponges.

Number 1 can be solved by combining all attacks into one roll. Eg a lv20 fighter gets a single attack with quadruple damage (and possibly multiple battle master maneuvers). Same goes for monsters multi attack.

Number 2 can be solved by lowering monster hp and increasing their numbers. I do that quite often as I hate bullet sponges and love fights with lots of enemies for group tactics.

Combine both and you should get dangerous feeling combat with hard hitting weapons at every level.

Disclaimer: I haven't read pages 2-5. Sorry, if someone else made these suggestions already.

[Esgadir]

If I understand correctly, you basically dislike two things about higher level combat:
1. There are too many dices/attacks to roll causing each attack to feel meaningless.
2. Enemies become bullet sponges.

Number 1 can be solved by combining all attacks into one roll. Eg a lv20 fighter gets a single attack with quadruple damage (and possibly multiple battle master maneuvers). Same goes for monsters multi attack.

Number 2 can be solved by lowering monster hp and increasing their numbers. I do that quite often as I hate bullet sponges and love fights with lots of enemies for group tactics.

Combine both and you should get dangerous feeling combat with hard hitting weapons at every level.

Disclaimer: I haven't read pages 2-5. Sorry, if someone else made these suggestions already.

Uzgul, thanks for that. Solution number 1 is exactly what I kind of came up with, during the following pages. We discussed the math but now there is more or less an agreement that the math is not affected, at least not in the long term, what really changes is the math, and thus the feeling, of a single attack. You can read the other pages for more details.

Anyway, now we are at the point of trying the effect on game dynamics of combining all attacks into one. My feeling is that is going to create more tension (which is of course good in my opinion) and tactics because each attack will have higher stakes on it. But others don't agree with this, there is some fear that it could shadow other non-multiattack classes in combat.

Anyway, we are working exactly in the direction you're point, but with some doubts, so it would be nice if you feel like reading a little bit more of the thread and give us your opinion regarding the details.

Solution number 2 is easy and always possible and that's ok, but you know, sometimes you really would like to see that epic fight between our hero fighter and a strong single enemy combatant, and that's when it doesn't really work. But solution number 1 may be enough to solve both problems.

Well, anyway, thanks for your input.

[Unoriginal]

Anyone is interested in participating to the test? We need someone to play a 7th lvl character (any official-material-only build). Fight should be finished tomorrow.

[KutuluKultist]

Minions are completely antithetic to the basic design goals of 5e.


Maybe. But I feel more responsible to our having fun at the table than to 5e design goals ;)
And minions are fun and often make things easier.

[Unoriginal]

Maybe. But I feel more responsible to our having fun at the table than to 5e design goals ;)
And minions are fun and often make things easier.

I don't see what's fun with popping balloon-animal versions of monsters pretending to be real threats, personally. But that's a question of tastes I suppose.

Don't see what they make easier, either. This part is not a question of tastes.

[KutuluKultist]

Book keeping, as in minions do not require any.

And what is fun is quick combat, where players feel pretty powerful because their actions have immediate impact.

[Knaight]

I don't see what's fun with popping balloon-animal versions of monsters pretending to be real threats, personally. But that's a question of tastes I suppose.

They're generally not "pretending to be real threats". Minion rules are there to represent lesser combatants dangerous in numbers - take fairly common scenes in action genres where someone cuts through a dozen guards in as many seconds, then proceeds to have a protracted duel with someone actually dangerous, who also probably has an actual name in story.

As for "balloon-animal versions", while minion rules can get weird with larger monsters it's worth noting that what is actually hitting them in fiction is a mixture of proper weaponry and magic. That 1 HP ogre isn't a skilled enough combatant to defend themselves well against the PCs, so they get decapitated with an ax, or take an arrow through an eye, or get caught in a massive magical conflagration, and thus get killed instantly. None of these events are actually implausible.

[Unoriginal]

Book keeping, as in minions do not require any.

Not having minions at all mean even less book keeping. You don't even have to count them or write them on your notes.



And what is fun is quick combat, where players feel pretty powerful because their actions have immediate impact.

To me it's "where the DM pretends the players' actions have immediate impact by making them remove worthless pseudo-opponents who don't matter."


They're generally not "pretending to be real threats".

Yes, yes they are.



Minion rules are there to represent lesser combatants dangerous in numbers

Funny, 5e has rules about those, too. It's called "use low CR enemies".



- take fairly common scenes in action genres where someone cuts through a dozen guards in as many seconds, then proceeds to have a protracted duel with someone actually dangerous, who also probably has an actual name in story.

Which is antithetic to 5e's design, where even mooks are supposed to have an impact no matter the level of play.



As for "balloon-animal versions", while minion rules can get weird with larger monsters it's worth noting that what is actually hitting them in fiction is a mixture of proper weaponry and magic. That 1 HP ogre isn't a skilled enough combatant to defend themselves well against the PCs, so they get decapitated with an ax, or take an arrow through an eye, or get caught in a massive magical conflagration, and thus get killed instantly.

Meanwhile, an actual Ogre is a good enough combatant to survive the flaming sword of Zariel, Archduchess of Hell.



None of these events are actually implausible.

Implausible, no. Out of place, definitively.

There are games where "minion" rules have their places. 4e, martial art movie-style RPGs, comic book hero-style RPGs, etc.

5e, however, is built around that kind of assumption not being the case.

Also, in the context of 5e, and I'm aware it's a personal taste, but I absolutely loath th kind of gaming elements like the minion rules, that remove the "NPCs exist in the world beyond the heroes' POV, and don't exist just for the PC" concept, and I can't stand those "illusion of competence" bs where the DM hands out feelgood pills by pitting the players against something supposedly challenging when the level of difficulty was lowered to the down bottom, because people are supposed to feel awesome doing things that aren't actually hard I guess?

[Knaight]

To me it's "where the DM pretends the players' actions have immediate impact by making them remove worthless pseudo-opponents who don't matter."
Individually ineffective opponents, sure. They're far from worthless though, they're just miniature glass cannons en mass, inherently disposable, and best deployed as the fantasy equivalent of sending a swarm of tiny fighters with big guns against a capital ship. Except for in this case it's minimally trained warriors who can't block well.


Which is antithetic to 5e's design, where even mooks are supposed to have an impact no matter the level of play.
It fits the design pretty well - HP/Damage scaling inherently favors death by a thousand cuts, while powerful entities are able to drop weaker ones. This is exactly that, but streamlined.


Meanwhile, an actual Ogre is a good enough combatant to survive the flaming sword of Zariel, Archduchess of Hell.
Which nicely raises the question of which model does a better job representing the underlying fiction behind the system. In this particular case, it's pretty clearly the 1 HP minion. In the Ogre vs. Cat situation, not so much. Part of this is that a simulationist approach to game design inherently creates a simplified model that does weird things when presented with the right in game fiction, part of it is that monster HP is just pretty bloated in general, partially because what HP actually means is vague.


Also, in the context of 5e, and I'm aware it's a personal taste, but I absolutely loath th kind of gaming elements like the minion rules, that remove the "NPCs exist in the world beyond the heroes' POV, and don't exist just for the PC" concept, and I can't stand those "illusion of competence" bs where the DM hands out feelgood pills by pitting the players against something supposedly challenging when the level of difficulty was lowered to the down bottom, because people are supposed to feel awesome doing things that aren't actually hard I guess?
The problem with this is that these gaming elements can easily be simulationist. Minion rules don't remove the "NPCs exist in the world beyond the heroes' POV" concept; they acknowledge that dramatic differences in combat ability can exist, and that weapons are sufficiently dangerous to kill things. As for the "illusion of competence", in terms of competence in the players fights including minions can be made just as difficult as fights that don't. The superior tactics will vary, but there's no overall difficulty correlation, it's just a larger fight. In setting, the PCs are fighting more worse foes instead of fewer better foes. This establishes them as more competent in setting because they actually are, as it's established that the setting standards includes combatants far less competent than them.

[Unoriginal]

Which nicely raises the question of which model does a better job representing the underlying fiction behind the system. In this particular case, it's pretty clearly the 1 HP minion.

No.

You don't get to decide what the underlying fiction behind the system is. The underlying fiction of the system is that an Ogre -or a lvl 6 fighter- can survive 1 hit from an Archdevil.






The problem with this is that these gaming elements can easily be simulationist. Minion rules don't remove the "NPCs exist in the world beyond the heroes' POV" concept

Yes it does.

Minions only exist to get slaughtered by PCs. That's they're purpose, and their stats limit them to that.

A minion is unable to survive being punched by a STR 10 Wizard. Even if they're an Ogre, or a Salamander, or whatever.



they acknowledge that dramatic differences in combat ability can exist

No, they don't.

Statblocks as they are do that.

Minion rules only acknowledge that some things need to go "pop" when pricked to pretend the PCs are important.



As for the "illusion of competence", in terms of competence in the players fights including minions can be made just as difficult as fights that don't. The superior tactics will vary, but there's no overall difficulty correlation, it's just a larger fight. In setting, the PCs are fighting more worse foes instead of fewer better foes.

And against a horde of minions the PCs literally can throw their weapons away and start slapping the minions to death.

If your fight can accurately be described as "you can inherently Three Stooges your enemies to death", you're not playing a hero in an epic fight.


, as it's established that the setting standards includes combatants far less competent than them.

Those are lower CR opponents, not minons.


5e rules make so that minions aren't glass cannons, or threatening in number. They're like a big piece of broken glass obviously standing on top of a bowl of cereals. It's technically dangerous, to be sure, but most people would be able to handle it without it ever being a problem, it's not threatening, and it almost certainly belongs to the trash.

[Knaight]

No.

You don't get to decide what the underlying fiction behind the system is. The underlying fiction of the system is that an Ogre -or a lvl 6 fighter- can survive 1 hit from an Archdevil.
At this point it's just circular reasoning to support the status quo. The mechanics determine the underlying fiction of the system, therefore any change to the mechanics betrays the fiction, therefore any change is wrong. This sort of thing is how we get drown healing.


No, they don't.

Statblocks as they are do that.

Minion rules only acknowledge that some things need to go "pop" when pricked to pretend the PCs are important.
That statblocks as they are do that doesn't mean that minions don't. There's more than one way to model the same in game fiction.


A minion is unable to survive being punched by a STR 10 Wizard. Even if they're an Ogre, or a Salamander, or whatever.
Like I said, I don't particularly like the idea of combining minion rules with tough monsters as a general rule, though there are cases where it can make sense - human minions for other humans make total sense, as do ogre minions for other ogres, giant minions for other giants, etc. Though at that point it basically takes large scale framework rewrites to build in a system of relational statistics instead of absolute stats, which is generally only worth it for games that snap between specific scales fairly often where scale specific stats make everyone's life easier.


And against a horde of minions the PCs literally can throw their weapons away and start slapping the minions to death.

If your fight can accurately be described as "you can inherently Three Stooges your enemies to death", you're not playing a hero in an epic fight.

They're not going to though - which means that the way the model interacts with the events that actually happen in the game is that they're getting killed by tools explicitly designed to do that. "This model breaks down in the cases nobody uses it for" is basically the ideal situation for a model, and while I'm all for poking at a model to see where it breaks down it doesn't follow that those areas mean the whole model is bad. This applies whether it's RPG combat systems being used to model slap fights or trying to use Henry's law for gases than ionize once dissolved in liquid phase.

On top of that calling a slap a proper attack that does even one damage is questionable at best.


5e rules make so that minions aren't glass cannons, or threatening in number. They're like a big piece of broken glass obviously standing on top of a bowl of cereals. It's technically dangerous, to be sure, but most people would be able to handle it without it ever being a problem, it's not threatening, and it almost certainly belongs to the trash.
Nonsense. 5e rules guarantee that they can still hit you effectively, as AC/Saves scale minimally. 5e rules guarantee that they can still hurt you effectively, as they're deliberately thin on ways to reduce successful hits to 0 damage. These are the exact same rules that allow for those low CR enemies you keep hyping to do this, and a lot of those generally get killed in one hit anyways.

[Sigreid]

Quick comment on minions. The concept seems to fall apart for me when you have minions on both sides. No one really expects an orc to last a round against a 10th level, well anything really, but it's a likely outcome that both survive the first round of orc vs. town guard.

[Snails]

Individually ineffective opponents, sure. They're far from worthless though, they're just miniature glass cannons en mass, inherently disposable, and best deployed as the fantasy equivalent of sending a swarm of tiny fighters with big guns against a capital ship. Except for in this case it's minimally trained warriors who can't block well.

IMHO...

On the plus side, I like that Minions overtly brings to the table the idea of lower bookkeeping mooks.

On the minus side, "glass cannons" does have a way of forcing the PC tactics in a very certain direction. If there is one boss ogre and 10 minion ogres, it is suicide to attack the boss ogre first.

[Pex]

There's also a meta-factor. A player who wipes out 5 monsters at 5th level with a fireball because they all had 1 hit point feels like a waste, but if they all had 20 hit points it would feel awesome.

[Sigreid]

There's also a meta-factor. A player who wipes out 5 monsters at 5th level with a fireball because they all had 1 hit point feels like a waste, but if they all had 20 hit points it would feel awesome.

I suppose it would make burning hands and shatter a lot more effective though. Still not a fan.

[Kane0]

Also in regards to slapping a minion to death, while funny the DM can just say 'knock it off' and move on. 5e allows for that.

[JoeJ]

IMHO...

On the plus side, I like that Minions overtly brings to the table the idea of lower bookkeeping mooks.

On the minus side, "glass cannons" does have a way of forcing the PC tactics in a very certain direction. If there is one boss ogre and 10 minion ogres, it is suicide to attack the boss ogre first.

Also on the minus side, it's extra work for the DM to recalculate the CR of the minion ogres. It works better IMO to draw the minions from genuinely weak creatures that the PCs have already faced at lower level so that the players can genuinely see how their characters have grown. For example, three hobgoblins is a deadly encounter for a party of 4 PCs at level 1; but 20 hobgoblins is only a medium encounter for the same party at level 11.

Hobgoblins have an average of 11 hit points, so if they're fighting a high level party any hobbo that gets hit for less than 11 damage can simply be marked wounded. A wounded hobbo is killed on the next successful hit. Given the amount of damage the party should be throwing around, that's close enough, and a lot easier to track than individual hit points. The party will mow through them and feel like bosses.

Or, if you take 20 hobgoblins and add a suitable CR 5 boss to bring the encounter level up to deadly, you're good for a tough final battle. Three minion only fights and one minions + boss gives you just under the recommended daily experience, and the party will have successfully (it is to be hoped) taken on 80 hobgoblins plus the boss. That's pretty awesome.

[wormwood]

How do you fix it? Easy! Play Warhammer Fantasy. :D
Death aplenty!

[Willie the Duck]

At this point it's just circular reasoning to support the status quo. The mechanics determine the underlying fiction of the system, therefore any change to the mechanics betrays the fiction, therefore any change is wrong. This sort of thing is how we get drown healing.

I will agree that "The underlying fiction of the system is that an Ogre -or a lvl 6 fighter- can survive 1 hit from an Archdevil" is using the status quo to justify the status quo. But you lost me on that somehow being a slippery slope to down healing. That's effectively the Godwin's Law of D&D rules debate and killed the rest of your point.


Also in regards to slapping a minion to death, while funny the DM can just say 'knock it off' and move on. 5e allows for that.

An actual slap, yes. That's stupid and the DM has every right to say, 'No, only serious threats are serious threats and I'm applying a 'know one when I see one' filter to this.' However, 1 hp minions mean that every damaging threat is equal. As others have mentioned, burning hands gets a new life, but so does spellcaster cantrips. Mind you, there are some plusses -- a Bard's vicious mockery stops being relatively useless once opponents get multi-attack, and paladin smites and SS/GWM stop being the 'Best Character Options (TM),' but I feel the minuses outweigh this. For one, glass cannons, are, well, cannons. The more readily one can dispatch them, the more you need to make a threat. But the more you need, the more likely you will eventually get that moonshot event where they all survive (or win initiative) to lay the smack down on the PCs and a minor encounter becomes a TPK. And Second, well, hit points are supposed to mean something. Yes, they exist exclusively as a pacing mechanism, but, well, why have a pacing mechanism if you aren't going to use it?

[Unoriginal]

At this point it's just circular reasoning to support the status quo.


I will agree that "The underlying fiction of the system is that an Ogre -or a lvl 6 fighter- can survive 1 hit from an Archdevil" is using the status quo to justify the status quo.

The status quo IS the underlying fiction. That's why it's underlying.

If Iron Man beats Captain America in a fistfight, you don't get to say "nuh uh, the underlying fiction is that Captain America is a better fistfighter, Iron Man can't beat him like that." It happened, so it's part of the status quo that in this instance, Captain America was defeated by Iron Man, and so that it's possible for it to happen. If an Ogre is tough enough to survive getting stabbed by an Archdevil's magic-filled sword, you don't get to say "it's a better representation of the underlying fiction if the Ogre dies when a DEX 10 PC throw a dagger at them and roll minimum damage."



The mechanics determine the underlying fiction of the system

They both determine it and represent what it is, yes.

There are thousands of magic systems out there. Yet D&D 5e Wizards memorize spells. Why? Because they're D&D 5e Wizards, and in 5e's lore and mechanics the Wizards have to memorize their spells.


therefore any change to the mechanics betrays the fiction, therefore any change is wrong.

YOU are the one who presented the argument that the current D&D mechanics betrayed the D&D fiction, or rather than it didn't portray the D&D fiction accurately.



That statblocks as they are do that doesn't mean that minions don't. There's more than one way to model the same in game fiction.

If a different system does the same thing as the current one, why change it?



Though at that point it basically takes large scale framework rewrites to build in a system of relational statistics instead of absolute stats, which is generally only worth it for games that snap between specific scales fairly often where scale specific stats make everyone's life easier.

On this we agree.




Nonsense. 5e rules guarantee that they can still hit you effectively, as AC/Saves scale minimally. 5e rules guarantee that they can still hurt you effectively, as they're deliberately thin on ways to reduce successful hits to 0 damage. These are the exact same rules that allow for those low CR enemies you keep hyping to do this, and a lot of those generally get killed in one hit anyways.

There is very few beings that can consistently be killed in one hit even using your non-ressource-options.

And I have no issue if a goblin get one-shot by a lvl 15 fighter with a greatsword. My problem is if that goblin also consistently get one-shot by a Rogue's bonus action with dual-wielded dagger (without the feat), by one single magic missile from a lvl 1 Sorcerer, or from a lvl 1 STR 10 Wizard's unarmed attack.



And Second, well, hit points are supposed to mean something. Yes, they exist exclusively as a pacing mechanism, but, well, why have a pacing mechanism if you aren't going to use it?

Because minions are meant to speed up the pacing to make it look like the PCs are incredible. Which is like making a video go faster and saying "look, this guy has super-speed, see how fast he defeats those enemies?"

A real trick actually used in movies where the hero fights mooks. Except the difference between a movie's audience and a RPG player is pretty obvious: it's more like filming a guy fighting, then speeding it up and hope the guy believe he actually moved that fast.

[Knaight]

They both determine it and represent what it is, yes.

There are thousands of magic systems out there. Yet D&D 5e Wizards memorize spells. Why? Because they're D&D 5e Wizards, and in 5e's lore and mechanics the Wizards have to memorize their spells.

There are also thousands of wound systems out there. Yet D&D creatures have hit points. Why? Because hit points are an actual in-setting thing.

This is exactly equivalent to your statement about wizards, yet while the wizards one is reasonable that one is clearly ridiculous. There's a difference between mechanical abstractions for in game fiction (hit points, proficiency, skill points in earlier editions, damage) and using mechanics to communicate the fiction itself. Magic, as something that doesn't actually exist in the real world, tends to end up in the second category.


If a different system does the same thing as the current one, why change it?
Because it does it more elegantly. To-Hit Tables, THAC0, and attack vs. AC all do the same things - to the point of being almost completely mechanically interchangeable, and not just as methods of establishing what hits (for which there are a whole bunch of other systems). There's still a reason THAC0 displaced those To-Hit Tables and was later replaced by BAB, which stuck around as a basic framework.

Also check your last quote - I'm not sure who wrote that, but it wasn't me.

[Willie the Duck]

The status quo IS the underlying fiction. That's why it's underlying.

At this point, we really need to define what we're talking about here when we use that term, otherwise we are arguing angels dancing on pinheads. What do you think the term underlying fiction means?


If Iron Man beats Captain America in a fistfight, you don't get to say "nuh uh, the underlying fiction is that Captain America is a better fistfighter, Iron Man can't beat him like that." It happened, so it's part of the status quo that in this instance, Captain America was defeated by Iron Man, and so that it's possible for it to happen. If an Ogre is tough enough to survive getting stabbed by an Archdevil's magic-filled sword, you don't get to say "it's a better representation of the underlying fiction if the Ogre dies when a DEX 10 PC throw a dagger at them and roll minimum damage."

Then anything that did happen, should have happened, and it is unchallengeable. That's nice and useless. I disagree with Knaight that "In this particular case, it's pretty clearly the 1 HP minion," that best represents my definition of the underlying fiction (how I see ogres and sixth level fighters and archdevil's interacting in battle, within the framework of 'ought to'). But if the rule system is supposed to work the way it works simply because it already does work that way, than you are in fact creating a circular reasoning. Good thing for you then that the system already works the way you prefer, because if it didn't, you'd have no way to argue against it. Do you understand the problem with that logic?


They both determine it and represent what it is, yes.

Okay, so you do think the rules determine the fiction? Then yes, I suppose you can't challenge it. But then it becomes a useless term except for describing what the rules currently are, in which case why have another term for it?


There are thousands of magic systems out there. Yet D&D 5e Wizards memorize spells. Why? Because they're D&D 5e Wizards, and in 5e's lore and mechanics the Wizards have to memorize their spells.

Alright, then this becomes proof by tautology.

[Vogie]

Actually, I wonder if it'd be interesting to occasionally mix in some 1 HP minions into a swarm of normally-statted monsters. They'd look the same, have just as much threat, damage-wise, and just as durable in an AC sense, but would be really easy to kill.

That'd be a way to make the fight epic, without revealing your hand. Sometimes that arrow will immediately hit the target in their eye and they'll die, while the other target hit would take a couple hits to burn down.

You'd want your players to still roll damage, and wouldn't want to use that tactic all the time, otherwise your players would get savvy, and open each encounter with some AOE just in case.

[Mith]

Actually, I wonder if it'd be interesting to occasionally mix in some 1 HP minions into a swarm of normally-statted monsters. They'd look the same, have just as much threat, damage-wise, and just as durable in an AC sense, but would be really easy to kill.

That'd be a way to make the fight epic, without revealing your hand. Sometimes that arrow will immediately hit the target in their eye and they'll die, while the other target hit would take a couple hits to burn down.

You'd want your players to still roll damage, and wouldn't want to use that tactic all the time, otherwise your players would get savvy, and open each encounter with some AOE just in case.

When you have a crowd of enemies, isn't the usual strategy to open up with an AOE, then shoot arrows into what isn't dead while your melee close in to slug it out in close combat?

[Mordaedil]

There's no real difference between a minion with 1 hp and level 1 monster, so I don't see why people fly off the handle over it. If nothing else it makes backdrop enemies easier to DM too, as you can have them slug out and only really worry about AC versus attack roll.

[Unoriginal]

There's no real difference between a minion with 1 hp and level 1 monster, so I don't see why people fly off the handle over it. If nothing else it makes backdrop enemies easier to DM too, as you can have them slug out and only really worry about AC versus attack roll.

Given that there is no such thing as a level 1 monster, I don't know what you're talking about.

Minion rules take monsters who are supposed to be capable to handle several hits, at least in some circumstances (low level characters, bad dice roll, use of cantrips rather than big spells, etc) and reduce them to "they get hit they go 'pop' because they don't matter". It creates situation where supposedly dangerous Salamanders (CR 5) are killed in one hit, which makes them horrendously weak for no reason other than "they're supposed to die easily to make the encounter more awesome" or something.

If something doesn't matter, don't put it in your game.

[Sigreid]

There's no real difference between a minion with 1 hp and level 1 monster, so I don't see why people fly off the handle over it. If nothing else it makes backdrop enemies easier to DM too, as you can have them slug out and only really worry about AC versus attack roll.

Well, it does hurt wizards a bit. A large group of kobold minions, as described, will survive any damage spell with a save on a successful save. Where as normal rules there are a variety of spells that give them no chance for survival on all but the very worst damage rolls, for example.

[Psikerlord]

You're right, that's the official assumption, that's the way i describe it to my player, it's the only way you can make it work but i have many problems with it:

1. Number of dice to throw. With that assumption you can explain why it works this why, but you are not going to make it any faster or less boring doing 20 attacks

2. Mechanics don't correspond with that assumption, damage depends on physical skill and kind of weapon, why it is so if it's not wounds? Why there's such a big difference in "non-dangerous bruises and scratches, exhaustion from avoiding attacks that nearly hurt you badly, your luck running out, etc" from a dagger to a 2h sword?

3. If you narrate a hit as a "non-dangerous bruises and scratches, exhaustion from avoiding attacks that nearly hurt you badly" how do you narrate a miss? Like "you're facing the wrong direction and you're not even tiring your opponent"?

4. How the hell you explain arrows with that? How can a arrow shot be more than just one single blow that hit but just make you tired? If it's a bruise what kind of arrow are you shooting at your enemy if you need to hit with 10 of them to kill?

5. So now you have the most important combat mechanic to distinguish between a total miss and a minor hit, but there is no mechanic to work out a major hit? Crits are just luck, they don't depend on skill, and even with a crit once in a while things are not so different

6. Bottomline how is possible that a famous strong hero fighter (11 level) deals almost the same damage with a attack than a 1st level guard?

7. If HP point are "non-dangerous bruises and scratches, exhaustion from avoiding attacks that nearly hurt you badly, your luck running out, etc" what happens with fireball and falling from a cliff. Like the guy on your right is burning alive and you're just a bit tired from those flames?

8. So now we have two different systems to calculate exhaustion, one is combat exhaustion and it goes away with a little bit of rest and doesn't have any side effect, the other one is non-combat exhaustion and it takes longer to go away and it has many malus. And there's no system for real hard blows? Isn't it more a exhaustion system than a combat system then?

Grod_The_Giant wrote some more points against it and I could go on, but it's endless. I personally think that that assumption is made ex-post. First they developed the system, they wanted to be close to the original d&d system, so then they had to find a way to explain it and that's what they tried but it doesn't really work.

I think it is much better if we go back to meat points and a hit is a hit and damage is damage. So much simpler to pick and to imagine when you play. Of course then I'm back to my original problems: too many dices to roll and too little damage compared to HP at higher level...

Let's give a look at your example, Aragorn vs Uruk leader, it's a great example, there is 1 hit with a dagger, 3 hits with the sword and a few punches and kicks. If you apply 5e mechanics here's no way that could be enough for a 10 lvl fighter with a enemy of comparable CR.

You're right about dnd hp being a mix of meat and fatigue and luck etc is problematic, esp re arrows, but it's been that way forever. There are other systems, including mods to dnd, that split hp into actual wounds and fatigue elements. You might try one of those variants.

This wont solve the boringness of long combats however, if that's your main gripe. You might try DCC or B/X, WFRP or other OSR style games for faster, deadlier combat. They might suit you better than 5e.

[furby076]

5e combat becomes incredibly boring at high levels due to the issue of every fight involving beating the other people down through slow, mind numbing attrition across 6-10 rounds of battle. Mostly this is due to the bounded accuracy and severely lowered damage making the die roll to-hit matter way too much (the fact that a 20th level character can miss a CR 1 monster on anything but a 1 is frustrating), and even hits that do land feel pitiful; 1d8+5 is impressive at first level when enemies have 10 HP.

It's less so at higher levels when you're fighting 8 dudes who each have 40 HP and you're still rolling 2 attacks at 1d8+5 per round.

I think 5e is an excellent game at levels 1-5 or so, but falls apart into an indescribably boring experience in combat after that. They went too far in the other direction eliminating "rocket tag" combats, which could be unsatisfying but were at least mercifully short.

To note, high level battles (10+) can easily get boring in other editions (2e, 3.x and pathfinder). Lower levels were relatively quick to resolve, but at higher levels it gets really complex with tons of abilities. Oh, you planned to cast horried wilting, but the pcs who went before you killed all but one npc? Well, heck, horried wilting is a terrible waste (AOE) for 1 target. So the group gives you a minute or two to figure a spell. Oh....you do another 100 dmg...big whoop. What made good campaigns fun at higher level is the DM letting you do wacky things and weaving a story. Yea you had your base go in, but you made it flarey. FOr example, my pathfinder paladin had an arm of nyr and a sword with the shrink property. He punched an illithid in the mouth hoving his arm into its head...then summoned his sword. It was roughly the same thing as "I take 3 swings at the illithid and do 150 dmg", but way more fun. In 3x and pathfinder the DM would have to put us up against critters who had 500-1000 hp...in 5e we may do way less damage, but how many critter have 500 to 1000 HP? DMG went down, so did HP and AC. The key is to take your "i just swing 2 times" and fluff it

[Merudo]

Well, it does hurt wizards a bit. A large group of kobold minions, as described, will survive any damage spell with a save on a successful save. Where as normal rules there are a variety of spells that give them no chance for survival on all but the very worst damage rolls, for example.

Damage spells do get quickly obsolete in 5e. Fireball is awesome at level 5, not so much at level 8+.

However, control spells never go out of style.

[opaopajr]

Two Major Things:

1. Defining "Balance" is going to be a fool's errand. So, better to say you like the *Feel* of 4th ~ 7th lvl. And that's a great thing for you to know about your desired game aesthetics. That's your sweet spot when you play your games.

2. 'All systems break with infinity.' Meaning you can always try to add more things in any system... up until the point it breaks from the stress. At some point the stress inherently changes the structure into something else, and may be considered not a fruitful position to continue. Regardless, you cannot expect things to remain the same, even in feelz, over time from progression.

This is an old discussion about a game's sweet spot. You're not really gonna fix it beyond wholesale change (which then redefines the *new sweet spot*), or savoring the sweet spot (e.g. slower XP progression). And while a game can have an accepted overlapping sweet spot shared by the most people, we are all going to have different spectra of our sweet spots for the game. :smallcool:

[UrielAwakened]

Given that there is no such thing as a level 1 monster, I don't know what you're talking about.

You are so pedantic it's actually physically painful to read what you write.

Minions are great. 4e was great. Use them if you want.

[Sigreid]

Damage spells do get quickly obsolete in 5e. Fireball is awesome at level 5, not so much at level 8+.

However, control spells never go out of style.

IMO AOE damage spells are for clearing the ground of weaker opponents so the rest of the party can focus on the harder targets.

[PhoenixPhyre]

IMO AOE damage spells are for clearing the ground of weaker opponents so the rest of the party can focus on the harder targets.

And since 5e (by design) uses lots of weaker opponents mixed with a few harder targets, that role remains viable to level 20. The only case where it doesn't is when DM's try to run a diet of straight Solos (or strong duos) instead of the wider mix that the system was designed around.

[Knaight]

You are so pedantic it's actually physically painful to read what you write.

Minions are great. 4e was great. Use them if you want.

4e is also far from the only place minions have shown up. There's a very established trope in action movies and certain other action media where it's common to have a lot of very ineffective people far below the standards of actual named characters, plus a handful of actual named characters. This applies to futuristic action (Starwars, The Matrix), modern action (Rambo), historical/fantasy action (Lord of the Rings), explicitly martial arts films (The Protector), and especially a certain type of swashbuckling adventure story (Princess Bride).

Minions are an obvious way to handle this, and as there's a lot of designers who are reasonably competent they've been using them for years. The 4e minions are if anything unusually kludgy, where they're a late addition instead of something the combat system was built around.

[Unoriginal]

4e is also far from the only place minions have shown up. There's a very established trope in action movies and certain other action media where it's common to have a lot of very ineffective people far below the standards of actual named characters, plus a handful of actual named characters. This applies to futuristic action (Starwars, The Matrix), modern action (Rambo), historical/fantasy action (Lord of the Rings), explicitly martial arts films (The Protector), and especially a certain type of swashbuckling adventure story (Princess Bride).

Minions are an obvious way to handle this, and as there's a lot of designers who are reasonably competent they've been using them for years. The 4e minions are if anything unusually kludgy, where they're a late addition instead of something the combat system was built around.

As I've said several times, minions are fine in systems made for them.

5e isn't one of those.

[furby076]

As I've said several times, minions are fine in systems made for them.

5e isn't one of those.

Have you tried using minions? If yes, what was wrong with them for 5e?

Having a smattering of critters that can do annoying things (trip, 2-5 points of damage, obstacles, etc), but retaining ac 10 and 1 hp = a way to increase the challenge (and antics) of a fight? "Oh darn, you tripped over the starving rat that is now trying to naw your foot off...take 1 damage". Now the PC is delayed getting to the bad guy, and needs to deal with this tiny critter he keeps tripping over

[ad_hoc]

This is an old discussion about a game's sweet spot. You're not really gonna fix it beyond wholesale change (which then redefines the *new sweet spot*), or savoring the sweet spot (e.g. slower XP progression). And while a game can have an accepted overlapping sweet spot shared by the most people, we are all going to have different spectra of our sweet spots for the game. :smallcool:

Yeah, I think it is important to keep in mind that 5e was designed to have levels 5-10 be the sweet spot. Level 11 is a great ending spot for a campaign. For those who want to go further there are higher levels but things get weird.


Have you tried using minions? If yes, what was wrong with them for 5e?

Having a smattering of critters that can do annoying things (trip, 2-5 points of damage, obstacles, etc), but retaining ac 10 and 1 hp = a way to increase the challenge (and antics) of a fight? "Oh darn, you tripped over the starving rat that is now trying to naw your foot off...take 1 damage". Now the PC is delayed getting to the bad guy, and needs to deal with this tiny critter he keeps tripping over

They also do things like kill PCs.

A PC can get healed by Healing Word back to a couple HP. It just takes 3-4 minions (or 2 with multiattack) to attack with advantage (the PC is prone) and take them to death.

There is no need to have an actual 'minion' mechanic though. Low CR creatures fill the role without need of any special rules.

[Willie the Duck]

Have you tried using minions? If yes, what was wrong with them for 5e?

Having a smattering of critters that can do annoying things (trip, 2-5 points of damage, obstacles, etc), but retaining ac 10 and 1 hp = a way to increase the challenge (and antics) of a fight? "Oh darn, you tripped over the starving rat that is now trying to naw your foot off...take 1 damage". Now the PC is delayed getting to the bad guy, and needs to deal with this tiny critter he keeps tripping over


There is no need to have an actual 'minion' mechanic though. Low CR creatures fill the role without need of any special rules.

Well, what furby is describing actually isn't minions at all as we are using the term, but simply low CR creatures. Minions, in this context, are fully powerful opponents who merely pop after a single hit. It's a perfectly reasonable creature type, along the lines of actual MM creatures which are glass cannons of a sort. They wouldn't map to existing CR structure, however (some monsters CR is based on how resilient they are, some on how damaging they are), so they would effectively be brand new creatures.

[ad_hoc]

Well, what furby is describing actually isn't minions at all as we are using the term, but simply low CR creatures. Minions, in this context, are fully powerful opponents who merely pop after a single hit. It's a perfectly reasonable creature type, along the lines of actual MM creatures which are glass cannons of a sort. They wouldn't map to existing CR structure, however (some monsters CR is based on how resilient they are, some on how damaging they are), so they would effectively be brand new creatures.

Right, and I'm saying that there is no need for them in 5e.

Low CR creatures are still effective at higher levels.

[furby076]

They also do things like kill PCs.

A PC can get healed by Healing Word back to a couple HP. It just takes 3-4 minions (or 2 with multiattack) to attack with advantage (the PC is prone) and take them to death.

There is no need to have an actual 'minion' mechanic though. Low CR creatures fill the role without need of any special rules.

Well, yes, minions can kill PCs, it's very well possible, but unlikely. Why would minion have multi-attack? Now we are changing this "weak" critter to something more powerful. All the minions may not go at the same time and all targeting one player-> That's an assumption of group roll for NPCs and that minions all gang up.

Are these scenarios possible, sure, but for minions I wouldn't bother. Our DM used minions (hey were spider swarms). Killing them required a torch, and if you didnt they would swarm you deal, minimal damage (1-3) and cause blindness (crawing over your face). Annoying, and yes potentially fatal encounter if ignored, but in and of themselves harmless


Well, what furby is describing actually isn't minions at all as we are using the term, but simply low CR creatures. Minions, in this context, are fully powerful opponents who merely pop after a single hit. It's a perfectly reasonable creature type, along the lines of actual MM creatures which are glass cannons of a sort. They wouldn't map to existing CR structure, however (some monsters CR is based on how resilient they are, some on how damaging they are), so they would effectively be brand new creatures.

Different type of minion doesn't mean mine are not minions :) You consider them to be really powerful but made of candy glass. I consider them to be uber weak, annoying, made of candy glass - but if you ignore them, you pay a price.

[Willie the Duck]

Different type of minion doesn't mean mine are not minions :)

What we have here is a failure to communicate. What you described as minions is a perfectly cromulent and reasonable thing to describe as a minion (as are the Universal Pictures creatures from the Despicable Me IP). However, people were referring to the 4e Minion creature role (http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Minion). By all accounts, you missed that distinction, and thus people made sure you were aware of it. Within the context of the conversation we were having, what you described is, as ad_hoc described, simply a lower cr opponent.



You consider them to be really powerful but made of candy glass. I consider them to be uber weak, annoying, made of candy glass - but if you ignore them, you pay a price.

4e minions are not uber weak. They are just as powerful as a normal monster of appropriate level, they simply die after a single successful attack. That's their point. That seems to be what you are missing. You might want to read up on them, and go back and re-read what people have said, with that bit of context now filled in. Otherwise we'll just keep on miscommunicating because people are talking about completely different things while using the same terminology.

[Unoriginal]

You know, even taking into account the "hero defeats hordes of enemies in myth/action movies" argument, the thing is that contrarily to the 4e-style minion rules, those enemies are supposed to be weak ranks-and-files. The dissonance with the minion rules is when they're applied to beings who aren't supposed to be that weak, like a Cloud Giant with Frost Giant minions or the like.

To me it's like taking this scene:


https://youtu.be/RWqgueA6H80

And making the big guy go down with the first punch. He's a mook, maybe, but he's a tough mook, that's his one thing.

[Willie the Duck]

I think the genre emulation that it works best with is conservation of ninjitsu (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu).

[UrielAwakened]

You know, even taking into account the "hero defeats hordes of enemies in myth/action movies" argument, the thing is that contrarily to the 4e-style minion rules, those enemies are supposed to be weak ranks-and-files. The dissonance with the minion rules is when they're applied to beings who aren't supposed to be that weak, like a Cloud Giant with Frost Giant minions or the like.

The problem is the rules never adequately explained how minions should work.

You shouldn't be fighting Orc minions while fighting standard Orcs, for instance. You should be fighting Orc minions 5 levels after you fought standard Orcs. It helps demonstrate to the players that they're progressing, which is important especially with how even-paced the math of 4e progresses.

A lot of DMs took to working with a 5 level progression system. For instance, you could convert a level 5 solo to a level 10 elite, a level 15 standard, and a level 20 minion. You have to change their action economy and powers to match, but thematically such a progression shows growth over time.

For example, my PCs fought a Young Dragon solo around level 7. By level 27 they were flying airships through whole tornadoes of swirling young dragons on Tiamat's home plane, and those dragons were considered difficult terrain to them. It really helped punctuate how far they've come.

Of course using a level 20 Storm Giant and a bunch of level 18 Frost Giant minions is nonsensical. But come level 23 or even 28, those same giants make way more sense as minions. If your Orcs are level 2, your PCs should encounter them around level 7-8 as minions. Likewise for basically any monster.

[Sigreid]

From my never played 4e perspective it's a better indicator of my progress that you don't have to minionize the orcs for me to rip through them like tissue paper.

But I will point out that AD&D did have a minion system...sort of. When fighting opponents with less than 1 hit die fighters got 1 attack per level.

[Unoriginal]

From my never played 4e perspective it's a better indicator of my progress that you don't have to minionize the orcs for me to rip through them like tissue paper.

Amen.

The DM removing all but 1 HP from tough combatants isn't a progress indicator of the PCs. It's like saying that having your boxing opponent be bribed to throw the fight in the first round is an indicator of your progress as a boxer.



But I will point out that AD&D did have a minion system...sort of. When fighting opponents with less than 1 hit die fighters got 1 attack per level.

Did anything more dangerous than a goblin have less than 1 hit die?

[Sigreid]

Amen.



Did anything more dangerous than a goblin have less than 1 hit die?

No. It was pretty much kobolds, goblins, 0 level men at arms and that sort of thing.

[Willie the Duck]

Did anything more dangerous than a goblin have less than 1 hit die?

In oD&D, it was one hit dice or less (so getting 1Hd +1 hp made you immune). This made allowable targets of orcs, zombies, nixies, pixies, npc-type dwarves and gnomes, bandits, nomads, buccaneers, and all first-level PC classes except fighters (:smallbiggrin:).

[Pelle]

From my never played 4e perspective it's a better indicator of my progress that you don't have to minionize the orcs for me to rip through them like tissue paper.


Yes, this is always what it ends up with. People who do or do not want their characters to feel more powerful because they actually have become more powerful.

Turning it around, instead of using minion rules, every PC could get an ability to automatically kill enemies on one hit if their CR is less then your level - X. Lets say a on level 2 PC gain the ability to one-shot CR 0 creatures. On level 2 it's CR 1/8, ..., on level 6 it's CR 1 creatures etc. Sounds more appetizing?

Minion rules (seems to be) are just a more elegant way of implenting these abilities. Taken to the extreme however, you could have a system where PCs never gain new abilities as they increase in level, but monsters gets less powerful. So a level 1 CR 20 Dragon is really dangerous, while a level 20 CR 20 Dragon is as dangerous as a level 1 CR 1 goblin. The PCs haven't changed, but that it becomes easier to kill dragons is an indicator of progress...

[PhoenixPhyre]

Another thing about minions (4e style) is that they don't work well with CR. Note that 4e used levels for monsters, not CR. The difference is important. Level was more about the necessary to-hit/AC numbers (largely ignoring HP and damage), CR focuses on HP and damage (modified slightly by ATK and AC). This means that a 4e minion could have the same level as a 4e "real" creature and the system mostly worked. That depended on the ATK/AC scaling built into 4e, something that's non-existent (or way weaker) in 5e.

Take an on-CR creature in 5e. That is, a creature with offensive CR = defensive CR = total CR. Now make him a minion. At most it will now have a defensive CR of 1/2 (assuming a 19+ AC): 1 HP = CR 0. AC 19 moves them up 3 entries ((19 - 13)/2 == 3).

So now you have a creature of approximately CR' = CR/2. A CR 2 creature is now a CR 1 creature. A CR 10 creature is now a CR 5 creature. Etc.

If that's the case...why not just use a CR 5 creature? The math works just the same, the stat block is likely simpler (making up for the time difference due to not tracking HP, as a complex stat block takes longer to run than a simple one). It also preserves verisimilitude. And, *shocker*, it's exactly what the system was designed for.

Minions also promote the "one real threat and a bunch of trash" MMO-style model.

[Unoriginal]

Turning it around, instead of using minion rules, every PC could get an ability to automatically kill enemies on one hit if their CR is less then your level - X. Lets say a on level 2 PC gain the ability to one-shot CR 0 creatures. On level 2 it's CR 1/8, ..., on level 6 it's CR 1 creatures etc. Sounds more appetizing?

Not to me, as far as 5e is concerned.


Minion rules (seems to be) are just a more elegant way of implenting these abilities.

Thing is, minions rules don't apply to *all* monsters of X type or Y CR. So its not "all CR 1 creatures die in one hit vs a lvl 6 PC", it's "sometime the Dwarven Royal Guard dies in one hit no matter the damages dealt, sometime they have 50 HPs".

It's not really what you presented above, let alone a more elegant way to do it.


Another thing about minions (4e style) is that they don't work well with CR. Note that 4e used levels for monsters, not CR. The difference is important. Level was more about the necessary to-hit/AC numbers (largely ignoring HP and damage), CR focuses on HP and damage (modified slightly by ATK and AC). This means that a 4e minion could have the same level as a 4e "real" creature and the system mostly worked. That depended on the ATK/AC scaling built into 4e, something that's non-existent (or way weaker) in 5e.

Take an on-CR creature in 5e. That is, a creature with offensive CR = defensive CR = total CR. Now make him a minion. At most it will now have a defensive CR of 1/2 (assuming a 19+ AC): 1 HP = CR 0. AC 19 moves them up 3 entries ((19 - 13)/2 == 3).

So now you have a creature of approximately CR' = CR/2. A CR 2 creature is now a CR 1 creature. A CR 10 creature is now a CR 5 creature. Etc.

If that's the case...why not just use a CR 5 creature? The math works just the same, the stat block is likely simpler (making up for the time difference due to not tracking HP, as a complex stat block takes longer to run than a simple one). It also preserves verisimilitude. And, *shocker*, it's exactly what the system was designed for.

Very well said.



Minions also promote the "one real threat and a bunch of trash" MMO-style model.

Is that really MMO-style? Can't say I've seen that associated with MMOs in particular.

[MaxWilson]

Yes, this is always what it ends up with. People who do or do not want their characters to feel more powerful because they actually have become more powerful.

Turning it around, instead of using minion rules, every PC could get an ability to automatically kill enemies on one hit if their CR is less then your level - X. Lets say a on level 2 PC gain the ability to one-shot CR 0 creatures. On level 2 it's CR 1/8, ..., on level 6 it's CR 1 creatures etc. Sounds more appetizing?

Minion rules (seems to be) are just a more elegant way of implenting these abilities. Taken to the extreme however, you could have a system where PCs never gain new abilities as they increase in level, but monsters gets less powerful. So a level 1 CR 20 Dragon is really dangerous, while a level 20 CR 20 Dragon is as dangerous as a level 1 CR 1 goblin. The PCs haven't changed, but that it becomes easier to kill dragons is an indicator of progress...

It's the other way around. Implementing the one-shot ability would be more elegant, and would avoid weird effects when e.g. a Confusion spell causes the minions to fight each other. They don't have the one-shot ability, so they can't one-shot each other.

[ciarannihill]

So now you have a creature of approximately CR' = CR/2. A CR 2 creature is now a CR 1 creature. A CR 10 creature is now a CR 5 creature. Etc.

If that's the case...why not just use a CR 5 creature? The math works just the same, the stat block is likely simpler (making up for the time difference due to not tracking HP, as a complex stat block takes longer to run than a simple one). It also preserves verisimilitude. And, *shocker*, it's exactly what the system was designed for.

Minions also promote the "one real threat and a bunch of trash" MMO-style model.

The main reason one might do this is to keep a thematically relevant enemy type -- To throw together a super quick analogy (that is to say, it almost certainly has holes in it, but it's meant to be an example of a potential scenario, since I'm AFB and can't verify it) your party finds themselves siding with a specific faction in the Underdark, and as a result are infiltrating an enemy lair. There may be Underdark relevant creatures at the difficulty you desire, but not necessarily a type of enemy consistent with the scenario you're creating.

Now, remapping an otherwise appropriate monster would also work for this -- just take a monster of similar type that doesn't thematically fit and refluff it into the correct flavor, but minions make it easier to do something like this on the fly if your players move in a way you didn't expect mid session and you have to improvise.

I've used Minions in 5E and it certainly doesn't ruin any experience, but I also don't feel like it was this revolutionary way to enhance the experience. It was fine, I might use them again if its a truly suitable moment, but it's only a slight amount more work to refluff a statblock from a monster of an appropriate CR as do minions and it ends up with a far more balanced encounter.

For what it's worth the "Main boss plus trash" encounter model has it's place IMO. It shouldn't be the standard, but it can make for an interesting encounter -- although for something like DnD I like variations like the Tower Knight fight from Demon's Souls where easy enemies are harassing you from a platform or something above where you're fighting the primary foe, but you can move to dispatch them first to make the primary foe easier if you so choose, but doing so allows the primary foe more actions in theory than trying to burst it down. There's a push pull dynamic that works there, and it's all based on player agency which is good IMO.


tl;dr: Minions aren't worth it for planned encounters, but can be a tool in the box for on the fly encounter building without having to refluff or search the MM for an appropriate challenge mid-session.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The main reason one might do this is to keep a thematically relevant enemy type -- To throw together a super quick analogy (that is to say, it almost certainly has holes in it, but it's meant to be an example of a potential scenario, since I'm AFB and can't verify it) your party finds themselves siding with a specific faction in the Underdark, and as a result are infiltrating an enemy lair. There may be Underdark relevant creatures at the difficulty you desire, but not necessarily a type of enemy consistent with the scenario you're creating.

Now, remapping an otherwise appropriate monster would also work for this -- just take a monster of similar type that doesn't thematically fit and refluff it into the correct flavor, but minions make it easier to do something like this on the fly if your players move in a way you didn't expect mid session and you have to improvise.

I've used Minions in 5E and it certainly doesn't ruin any experience, but I also don't feel like it was this revolutionary way to enhance the experience. It was fine, I might use them again if its a truly suitable moment, but it's only a slight amount more work to refluff a statblock from a monster of an appropriate CR as do minions and it ends up with a far more balanced encounter.

For what it's worth the "Main boss plus trash" encounter model has it's place IMO. It shouldn't be the standard, but it can make for an interesting encounter -- although for something like DnD I like variations like the Tower Knight fight from Demon's Souls where easy enemies are harassing you from a platform or something above where you're fighting the primary foe, but you can move to dispatch them first to make the primary foe easier if you so choose, but doing so allows the primary foe more actions in theory than trying to burst it down. There's a push pull dynamic that works there, and it's all based on player agency which is good IMO.


tl;dr: Minions aren't worth it for planned encounters, but can be a tool in the box for on the fly encounter building without having to refluff or search the MM for an appropriate challenge mid-session.

A properly varied ecosystem handles this all by itself. Mono-creature factions strain credulity by themselves.

Those ogres? They've got goblin servants/rabble. Those drow? They've got slaves/spiders/etc.

Edit: And I tend to refluff heavily, as it's easier than trying to modify stat blocks. I use the drow stat-blocks as "generic sneaky/casty evil dudes" when I need those, as drow don't exist in my setting. I've refluffed almost everything. So find something of the right power/theme and adjust the looks to match, instead of finding something with the right looks and adjust the stats to match. Much less room for error there.

[Pelle]

It's the other way around. Implementing the one-shot ability would be more elegant, and would avoid weird effects when e.g. a Confusion spell causes the minions to fight each other. They don't have the one-shot ability, so they can't one-shot each other.

Depends on how you implement it, I guess. To drive home explicitly that it is the PC who gain new power, I would like a new ability every level, not an overall rule that states that's how it works.



Thing is, minions rules don't apply to *all* monsters of X type or Y CR. So its not "all CR 1 creatures die in one hit vs a lvl 6 PC", it's "sometime the Dwarven Royal Guard dies in one hit no matter the damages dealt, sometime they have 50 HPs".


I'm not a fan of such minion rules personally, anyways. I like to run more CaW, and prepping situations instead of set encounters. Minion rules seem to mess with the players' ability of judging the power of their enemies, if the Dwarven Royal Guard has 1 or 50 HP depending on the narrative evaluation of the GM. Probably works better for linear games though.

However, I see that a more general rule where level 6 PC one-hit kill level 1 monsters, AND level 11 monsters one-hit kill the PCs, could be an ok enough way of modelling exponential growth of power, with a linear progression and these cut-offs to indicate "out of your league". Not so fan of exponential growth, either...

[ciarannihill]

A properly varied ecosystem handles this all by itself. Mono-creature factions strain credulity by themselves.

Those ogres? They've got goblin servants/rabble. Those drow? They've got slaves/spiders/etc.

Edit: And I tend to refluff heavily, as it's easier than trying to modify stat blocks. I use the drow stat-blocks as "generic sneaky/casty evil dudes" when I need those, as drow don't exist in my setting. I've refluffed almost everything. So find something of the right power/theme and adjust the looks to match, instead of finding something with the right looks and adjust the stats to match. Much less room for error there.

Just to clarify my analogy I meant more along the lines of: You have, for example, a Drow faction and a Mindflayer faction, your party goes to attack one, but there isn't an appropriate CR monster for a role you want within the compound, there's one of a higher CR than would be appropriate for the given circumstances, but otherwise it's excellent! That's when it might be worth using a Minion, you can even justify the reduced HP by saying it's clearly wounded or ill in some way -- so that if they encounter the same type of monster later they won't underestimate it based on the Minion.

Having said this, I agree with you (and said as much in my previous post) that finding a similar enough Monster and refluffing it into something more appropriate flavor-wise works much better for planned encounters. For on the fly ones, however, Minion can be a tool to break out in times of need when you don't want to spend 5 minutes building a relevant encounter mid-session.

I'm not saying Minion are the right tool for more than a couple of scenarios, but I think that they have a place in one's toolbox should you encounter the very few scenarios in which they can be useful. There's no opportunity cost to having it in your DM toolbox -- to have it available if at some point you should choose to make use of the mechanic.


NOTE: I also don't begrudge those who think they're pointless, they are certainly nearly pointless -- and to a DM who's more knowledgeable and experienced than me perhaps they're completely useless, but they can make on the fly encounter building more rapid and effortless for me personally.

[Pelle]

That's when it might be worth using a Minion, you can even justify the reduced HP by saying it's clearly wounded or ill in some way -- so that if they encounter the same type of monster later they won't underestimate it based on the Minion.


If you are saying that it is wounded etc, you are not using it as a minion. You are just reducing its hit points to make it an easier challenge. You don't need minion rules to do that.

[ciarannihill]

If you are saying that it is wounded etc, you are not using it as a minion. You are just reducing its hit points to make it an easier challenge. You don't need minion rules to do that.

I mean, Minions are just variations of Monsters with 1 HP and (essentially) the "Evasion" feature. Giving an existing Monster those attributes and saying "It appears injured" as a way to justify it going down more easily than expected it just a diegetic way to explain it having been mechanically a Minion.

It seems like you're making a distinction without a difference to me, but if I'm misunderstanding something important please elaborate for me (not sarcasm, don't intend it that way but I know sometimes tone gets lost in text conversation so just clarifying to prevent any potential confusion about that...yeah)

[UrielAwakened]

From my never played 4e perspective it's a better indicator of my progress that you don't have to minionize the orcs for me to rip through them like tissue paper.

But I will point out that AD&D did have a minion system...sort of. When fighting opponents with less than 1 hit die fighters got 1 attack per level.

Well that's just not how the 4e math was balanced.

[Sigreid]

Well that's just not how the 4e math was balanced.

I understand that. But can say my current perspective is that if I know I'm ripping through them like tissue paper only because they are minions, I feel considerably less awesome.

[UrielAwakened]

I understand that. But can say my current perspective is that if I know I'm ripping through them like tissue paper only because they are minions, I feel considerably less awesome.

You say that having not played 4e though.

I don't see how the number of hit points something has impacts the actual flavor behind what is happening. You're simply way more badass than those same Orcs you met 5 levels ago, and that's why they're barely a stepping stone to you now.

How the numbers capture that is irrelevant. Without looking at their stat blocks you'd never even know they had 1 hit point.

It's not like the way 5e handled bounded accuracy is super great anyway. Even now my level 12 PCs can walk over more or less an infinite amount of creatures 10 CR below their level, barely getting hit ever. No different than if I were to throw a bunch of level 2 enemies against level 12 PCs in 4e. 4e minions at least remain a threat offensively.

[JNAProductions]

You say that having not played 4e though.

I don't see how the number of hit points something has impacts the actual flavor behind what is happening. You're simply way more badass than those same Orcs you met 5 levels ago, and that's why they're barely a stepping stone to you now.

How the numbers capture that is irrelevant. Without looking at their stat blocks you'd never even know they had 1 hit point.

It's not like the way 5e handled bounded accuracy is super great anyway. Even now my level 12 PCs can walk over more or less an infinite amount of creatures 10 CR below their level, barely getting hit ever. No different than if I were to throw a bunch of level 2 enemies against level 12 PCs in 4e. 4e minions at least remain a threat offensively.

At level 12, the Fighter should have Full Plate, a Shield, and Defensive Fighting style for max AC. That's AC 21-give 'em a +1 Shield or Armor for 22.

Barbarian can have an AC as high as 21, with Shield, 18 Dex, and 20 Con. Does mean their Strength is maxed at around 16, assuming Point Buy.

Wizard can have 18 (Mage Armor), and then 23 with Shield, assuming 20 Dex.

Rogue is probably rocking 17 (Studded Leather and 20 Dex), but no real way to buff it.

Compared to some CR 0-2 monsters...

Page 79 of the Monster Manual. Allososaurus hits at +6. CR 2.
So does the Plesiosaurus. CR 2.
Pteranoadon hits at only +3, so it'd need a 19 to hit the Fighter. CR 1/4.

Page 122 of the Monster Manual. Duergar hits at +4. CR 1.

Page 194 of the Monster Manual. Kenku hits at +5. CR 1/4.
Kobold hits at +4, with Pack Tactics. CR 1/8.
Winged Kobold hits at +5, with Pack Tactics. CR 1/4.

Page 327 of the Monster Manual. Giant Poisonous Snake hits at +6. CR 1/4.

If you have 4 level 12 players, they can face (for a Medium-Hard encounter)...

80 CR 1/8
40 CR 1/4
14 CR 1
8 CR 2

Let's look at Kobolds!

If you have a Barbarian (AC 21), Fighter (AC 22), Rogue (AC 17), and a Wizard (AC 18, 23 with Shield) against 80 Kobolds, if you all roll like utter garbage for initiative and they somehow ALL go first (incredibly unlikely, but hey) they're rocking...

+4 with advantage for 1d4+2 damage.
Barbarian is hit 36% of the time.
Fighter is hit 27.75% of the time.
Rogue is hit 64% of the time.
Wizard is hit 57.75% of the time, down to 19% with Shield.

Total potential damage is 80d4+160, for an average of 360. That's 68.4 damage to the Wizard if they pop Shield. The Wizard likely only has (if 14 Con) 74 HP, so if they roll just a little above average (or if I account for crits) he's toast.

In fact, accounting for crits, the Wizard takes an average of (.0925*4.5)+(.0975*7)=.41625+.6825=about 1.10 damage per attack.

Or, with all 80, 88 damage. He'd need +4 Con (or its equivalent in racial features and feats) to survive that.

This is, mind you, a Medium encounter by the books. And yes, they have ranged attacks, so they can all hit. (Some might be attacking without advantage, due to range, though.) And I assumed that the Wizard, for some reason, maxed Dex over Int.

Now, if you showered your party in AC Boosting items, I can see a different story. But with just ordinary items... They're screwed.

[PhoenixPhyre]

JNA is right. The average ATK for a CR 2 creature is +5, and they deal 16 DPR if all attacks hit.

AC 20-ish is the best you can do without spending resources (or getting +X items, which are not assumed by the system math). And note that without magic items, that has been constant since level ~5 (when you can afford plate). This means the best people are getting hit 1/4 of the time, for an average of 4 HP/round/enemy attacking.

Compare this to 4e (using MM3 on a business card):

A standard level 2 critter should have ATK +7 and 10 DPR. Someone in non-magical plate there has AC = 10 + 8 (plate) + 6 (1/2 level) + 2 (shield) = 26 minimum. That means a level 2 critter is hitting on a 19, or 10% of the time, averaging 1 HP/round/enemy. And at level 12 equivalent (4e level 18, since there are 30 levels in 4e not 20), you're looking at +3 armor in general (using the inherent magical item bonus table), meaning that the enemy is hitting on a 20 only.

That's a huge difference, and one that only grows with level. Note that HP is much more bloated in 4e than in 5e, meaning that 4 DPR in 5e is much more dangerous than 4 DPR in 4e.

[Pelle]

It seems like you're making a distinction without a difference to me, but if I'm misunderstanding something important please elaborate for me (not sarcasm, don't intend it that way but I know sometimes tone gets lost in text conversation so just clarifying to prevent any potential confusion about that...yeah)

Well, the distinction is that a part of the minion concept is to present the creature as a regular creature, fluffwise as powerful as the ones you have faced before or in the future.

If in the epic showdown with the bbeg and his army of orcs, unlike the normal orcs you have have faced before the DM describes these orcs as wounded, elderly and lame, you don't really feel progressively more powerful...

[Sigreid]

You say that having not played 4e though.

I don't see how the number of hit points something has impacts the actual flavor behind what is happening. You're simply way more badass than those same Orcs you met 5 levels ago, and that's why they're barely a stepping stone to you now.

How the numbers capture that is irrelevant. Without looking at their stat blocks you'd never even know they had 1 hit point.

It's not like the way 5e handled bounded accuracy is super great anyway. Even now my level 12 PCs can walk over more or less an infinite amount of creatures 10 CR below their level, barely getting hit ever. No different than if I were to throw a bunch of level 2 enemies against level 12 PCs in 4e. 4e minions at least remain a threat offensively.

I do understand what you're saying. What I'm saying is that, to me, knowing I actually did the damage to kill the orc is a more satisfying idea than knowing the orc's death was essentially hand waved.

[UrielAwakened]

So I found this on Reddit today and I think it's precisely what 5e needs in terms of simplifying monster design and encounter building:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FL60QvMduOKF5bEjtQqsgSB-2MZTyP4l/view

There's even a web app:

http://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/

I look forward to trying it.

[GlenSmash!]

So I found this on Reddit today and I think it's precisely what 5e needs in terms of simplifying monster design and encounter building:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FL60QvMduOKF5bEjtQqsgSB-2MZTyP4l/view

There's even a web app:

http://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/

I look forward to trying it.

I love little utilities like this. Thanks for sharing.

[UrielAwakened]

Yeah I've been playing around with it and it's been so much easier to create custom monsters and encounters quickly.

Party is level 12. Throw 4 level 12s, or 8 level 8s, or 4 level 7s and 4 level 9s. Or an elite level 12 and 4 level 8s. Or 8 level 12 minions and 4 level 8s. Or hell, 32 level 8 minions.

So much simpler than that damn CR XP budget.

[2D8HP]

I saw this blog post:

Would Dungeons & Dragons Play Better If It Stayed Loyal to How Gary Gygax Awarded Hit Points? (http://dmdavid.com/tag/would-dungeons-dragons-play-better-if-it-stayed-loyal-to-how-gary-gygax-awarded-hit-points/)

and I thought of this thread

[KorvinStarmast]

I saw this blog post:

Would Dungeons & Dragons Play Better If It Stayed Loyal to How Gary Gygax Awarded Hit Points? (http://dmdavid.com/tag/would-dungeons-dragons-play-better-if-it-stayed-loyal-to-how-gary-gygax-awarded-hit-points/)

and I thought of this thread I noticed this little tidbit in the article.

The game’s move to storytelling means characters often face just one fight per day.
That wasn't the design model.

PS: the current edition is trying to appeal to a broad spectrum of gamers, from fanatics, to power gamers, to casual players, to beginners. The author obviously tends to the former more than the latter.

I also notice the acknowledgment that giants do serious damage. Yeah, we are in mid to late tier 3, and when the giants hit they hurt. The one item I wish I had was a displacer cloak. Fewer crits from giants would be nice.