Is D&D too hard?

[Kelb_Panthera]

So... which of those two is accurate? because in two sentences you are telling that there are too many variables to really get to 80%, and then you say that you get close most of the time.

Those aren't contradictory.

There are too many variables to get -exactly- 20% resource burn on any typical encounter and it's actually more entertaining, IMO, for the typical fight of EL = APL that's supposed to drain that 20% to be made up of several foes of a CR < APL. Getting in the ballpark of 20%, give or take a few points, on the other hand, isn't all that difficult. Adjusting up or down as the day progresses to get to within a point or two of 80% by the end of a four encounter day is pretty easy.

The whole thing gets kinda complicated when you further realize that defining 80% of party resources with precision is a fairly non-trivial task. How exactly do you value HP versus spell slots versus item charges versus potions as generic "party resources?" The only thing I can think of is using the magic item formulae to assign a gold value to -every- aspect of the character, including HD derived benefits like skill points and feats as well as ability score points. Just because they're renewable doesn't make them not resources, ya know.

That is to say:

Exactly 80.000% = basically impossible.

Somewhere in the range 78.000% - 82.000% by subjective approximation = eminently doable.

I personally am a "fiction first" sort of player, and would love to be a bit more loose with the encounter budget for the sake of drama and verisimilitude, but my players demand balance and cry foul if they feel it isn't there.

Its kind of a funny disconnect actually, on Saturday I had someone on this thread accusing me of "neurotic adherence to strict balance guidelines," but I had one of my players complaining to me that he felt like I was "just picking CRs out of a hat and throwing them at the party randomly."

At some point you have to realize that at least some of their complaints shouldn't carry any weight since they seem to be prone to whining. The desire to make the game to everyone's liking is commendable but compromise -must- be part of that. There's a line between being willing to compromise and being a doormat.

I forget who the quote comes from but it goes something like "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you cannot please all of the people all of the time. You've got to choose your battles."

I do ask them, and they give inconsistent answers.

Pretty consistent complaints are:

1: They can't do a full clear of a dungeon in one go without using consumables, and this bugs them even though they have always still made a net profit and are always above suggested WBL.
2: The wizard uses most of his spells in doing so and doesn't have as many as he would like to make scrolls or sell for profit in town.*

Okay, 1 is just pure whining. "We won but I don't like the margins" is a BS complaint that should be ignored outright. If things are getting tight and you don't want to burn non-renewable resources, either withdraw or hunker down and take the long-rest to restore your renewable resources.

2 is contradictory to 1. If they have the downtime to make scrolls (1 day/ scroll, minimum) then they have the time to slow down and approach the dungeon in a way that doesn't force consumable use. Especially given this:

In this particular campaign I let the players call a retreat at any time without consequences, as there are several new players in the group and I am trying to build up their confidence without having to risk accidental TPKs.

In any case, a more conservative approach to dungeon delving could solve both of these complaints. I have no sympathy for people who whine about problems of their own making unless they're willing to at least -try- to fix it themselves.

*: This is a peculiarity of my particular house rules. I use a long rest variant so players don't have unlimited spells during downtime, but I allow them to save up unused spells or convert them to gold. Players can still purchase or craft items normally without expending spell slots.

This confuses me though. They never did have unlimited slots during down time. The per-day limit is exactly that; per day. Or at least per full night's rest for arcanists. Is a night's rest not a "long rest" somehow?

I always took the 1/2 price on sales to be a matter of the abstraction of buying and selling gear. You get half because, unless you specify differently, the presumption is that you're selling it to a pawn broker or some similar person who makes it their business to buy up adventurer loot in a market where there are -plenty- of established sellers of good standing while you're just a random nobody. If one of my players wants better than 1/2 then I'll let them roll a few skill checks for as much as an extra 10% or actually try to establish themselves as a competing seller by opening a shop and maybe get full value if they don't mind it taking a good while and dealing with the adventure hooks that come with being a businessman in a high-magic, high-fantasy world.