I am just curious why level advancement is not so great at those levels. Not gaining a spell slot is odd to me as gaining a level is not easy. Gaining Ability Score improvement is great but any explanation why no spell slot gain at those levels?
level 12 and 16 are ASI (ability score increase) levels and, as such, offer a significant reward for getting those levels. 14th level similarly offers a turn undead boost, although, not quite an ASI but still its something. some domains powers have a scale up at 14th level as well.
Hi! My answer to your question is that its not about clerics, its about 'bounded accuracy' or placing limits on characters including spell casters so that a set scenario is less likely to be over run by every player group to encounter it. In the past editions spell casters did not get unlimited spells (cantrips as they are now) but did have more spells per level. Unfortunately in 1st 2nd and 3rd/.5 as more spells were introduced they became ex-potentially more powerful as the extra options on top of the spells available made encounter planning rather difficult for The DM. Spell casters are not alone, the deliberate limitation of attacks / stats combine to hopefully make an accurate mathematic formula for how long an encounter should last and how much it should cost possible. (spoiler! It doesnt always work out like that)
On the plus side lower numbers of spells mean you have to choose your spells much more wisely and choose when to use them with more wisdom than in previous editions where sadly my experience has included campaigns that the same handful of spells tended to dominate to the extent that there would be no need to use others in a campaign.
Enjoy your character and enjoy your time to shine at higher levels when you unleash those spells and try to make your once per day spells an occasion. Your unleashing magic, try an make it a magical experience you can enjoy.
Hi! My answer to your question is that its not about clerics, its about 'bounded accuracy' or placing limits on characters including spell casters so that a set scenario is less likely to be over run by every player group to encounter it. In the past editions spell casters did not get unlimited spells (cantrips as they are now) but did have more spells per level. Unfortunately in 1st 2nd and 3rd/.5 as more spells were introduced they became ex-potentially more powerful as the extra options on top of the spells available made encounter planning rather difficult for The DM. Spell casters are not alone, the deliberate limitation of attacks / stats combine to hopefully make an accurate mathematic formula for how long an encounter should last and how much it should cost possible. (spoiler! It doesnt always work out like that)
On the plus side lower numbers of spells mean you have to choose your spells much more wisely and choose when to use them with more wisdom than in previous editions where sadly my experience has included campaigns that the same handful of spells tended to dominate to the extent that there would be no need to use others in a campaign.
Enjoy your character and enjoy your time to shine at higher levels when you unleash those spells and try to make your once per day spells an occasion. Your unleashing magic, try an make it a magical experience you can enjoy.
Pretty great answer. Looking back at my playing in the 80's, skipping the next 3 decades and coming back in 2016, I do remember a weird imbalance that I feel 5e (or other versions) fixed. I am overall very happy to be playing 5e.
Thank you Clear. I can appreciate the system (anything was an improvement over the travesty of 4th for me) but dont assume the current edition is blemish free. The current systems issue is if you try to use the suggested challenge ratings for a days worth of encounters (especially at first level) the party will be hit by even low challenge opponents unless excessive preparation and safeguards are in place. This can lead to resource expenditure much higher than is tolerable unless multiple opponents are carrying healing potions they never use.
Mitigation and avoidance (whether due to first strike elimination or defence) is preferable to healing - especially now spell slots are more limited. Often boosting armour class will have a better effect than saving the same slot for healing. There are ways to have healing in excess of what is normal for a group but in a fresh group of players with little to medium knowledge of their character abilities and options the chances are at first level the highest ac is 18 in your party, and nearly every opponent has +3 or more to hit. Your tank, your wall of steel will be hit 1 time in 4 on average. Thats terrifying when your first level party with one healer will have 2 healing spells to last them 4 to 8 encounters. For this reason I would advise everyone use their spells wisely, but for the armoured melee players also choose your combat actions wisely. Blocking a path and dodging even though it costs you your attack is often a more valid choice especially if you have that high ac.
level 12 and 16 are ASI (ability score increase) levels and, as such, offer a significant reward for getting those levels. 14th level similarly offers a turn undead boost, although, not quite an ASI but still its something. some domains powers have a scale up at 14th level as well.
It's not just this. 6th to 9th level spells are exceptionally powerful so the game limits how many times you can cast them. If you look through all the class features, magic items and monster abilities that create/restore spell slots or allow storing spells you'll notice all of them max out at 5th level slots/spells.
Thank you Clear. I can appreciate the system (anything was an improvement over the travesty of 4th for me) but dont assume the current edition is blemish free. The current systems issue is if you try to use the suggested challenge ratings for a days worth of encounters (especially at first level) the party will be hit by even low challenge opponents unless excessive preparation and safeguards are in place. This can lead to resource expenditure much higher than is tolerable unless multiple opponents are carrying healing potions they never use.
That's a feature, not a bug. In older editions lower CR monsters became completely unable to pose a threat to the characters even in large numbers and quickly became irrelevant. It was bad from a suspension of disbelief point of view and also made building encounters harder since it limited your options.
Also keep in mind there's no recommended amount of encounters per day.
I.C. Extrapolate from expected experience gain per day and ta-dah! A number of encounters can be determined. Of course it could be one big encounter where the whole kitchen sink is thrown. For first level that would be 300 xp gain per day per party memeber (dmg 84) and i dont want to see a 4 man party attacked on mass by a group of 24 goblins but it makes the point about how easy it is to be damaged to the point that immediate healing is essential more valid, not less. DMG page 84 also says: Assuming typical adventuring conditions, most adventuring parties can handle six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. I will grant it says typical not recommended but I believe thats a nit your picking,
Personally I would disagree that it led to a suspension of disbelief when your high level party could wade through kobolds they game years before considered deadly, but back then kobolds were worth 15xp or 7xp if only with a melee weapon and you needed in excess of half a million to level some classes. It provided a clear demonstration of how much they had grown and how little what bothered most of the world could touch them. Im sorry it would spoil your sense of fantasy heroics to have some creatures become irrelevant, especially as some classes currently make certain creatures utterly irrelevant and unable to do anything except die with no chance of fighting back currently. I hope you continue to be lucky in not experiencing that or enjoy it for the thing it is when it occurs.
Regarding the feature / not bug descriptor, I trust you intended it to mean that the intention was for any creature to be incapable of being ignored. That term has negative connotations in certain games design areas when used to gloss over glaring errors that fail to be addressed. I didnt get that from your description but better check.
I.C. Extrapolate from expected experience gain per day and ta-dah! A number of encounters can be determined.
There is no "expected experience gain per day."
DMG page 84 also says: Assuming typical adventuring conditions, most adventuring parties can handle six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. I will grant it says typical not recommended but I believe thats a nit your picking,
The DMG gives you a rough guideline for the maximum amount of combat you can throw at a party before they're forced to stop, which is a handy thing to know when you're designing an adventure. It's absolutely not a recommendation for how many encounters to throw at your party every day.
Personally I would disagree that it led to a suspension of disbelief when your high level party could wade through kobolds they game years before considered deadly, but back then kobolds were worth 15xp or 7xp if only with a melee weapon and you needed in excess of half a million to level some classes. It provided a clear demonstration of how much they had grown and how little what bothered most of the world could touch them.
Not when the party has only gained a few levels. It's not just that low CR creatures became irrelevant, it's that they became completely irrelevant fast, even if you had large numbers of them. Even monsters whose CR was just 2 or 3 lower than the party's level could end up completely unable to hurt the party.
That kind of superhero fantasy is intended for really high level characters (e.g. 17+). Level 1-4 characters are amateur adventurers, level 5-10 are experienced but still fairly average as far as heroes go. Wading through hundreds of kobolds really doesn't match that expectation. Wiping out a small group that would've been a medium/hard/deadly encounter at 1st level with ease? Sure.
Regarding the feature / not bug descriptor, I trust you intended it to mean that the intention was for any creature to be incapable of being ignored.
Interesting, your choice of the wording rough guideline now when its there in the dmg. (guide being important i suppose) its not prefaced with I reckon, or my best guess.. No its a guide to what an adventuring party can do on an adventuring day. Of course the interpretation that: Use the following table to estimate how much xp that a character is expected to earn in a day.. ...1st level 300xp is not an expected experience gain per day is, one interpretation and you are entitled to it, I struggle with agreeing with that. When I read through the chapter: Creating Adventures, and it had this laid out it seemed that this was the game difficulty level that had been play tested and was expected from the designers before release, not a foreign concept for me that the first level will only take one adventure its been there since third but the one day thing was new to me. From here we can see that if you cant handle the amount of encounters (6 to 8, less if a higher difficulty) then your group think /make up needs to be reorganised or your DM has to make every encounter a little easier on you. If you use the DMG creating adventures guide you can surely see why I and I believe clear_seeker might have reason to be concerned about resource expenditure.
I am not sure if you experienced creatures becoming irrelevant challenges personally but it seems to have left a lasting impression. I can categorically state that tarring every monster or only 2 to 3 cr less than the party as completely irrelevant must be a 4th ed thing (read it, got to minions laughed started playing MMO's instead) as I'm not familiar with how the creatures stacked up there. What I can say is that some creatures in first were free kills at the time they appeared (zombies usually) and others were always a pain. Trolls for one, even at 20th you had to take them seriously unless you could make it rain fire. Any creature with save or suck a lemon abilities? Again also a threat you treated with respect because you were one bad save from an instant kill* (so many different saving throw types for players combined with weird additives from stats and the aforementioned abilities one and done nature made even combat legends quake in fear - Tomb of Horrors being a Mausoleum Necropolis to the victims of countless failed save or suck imbibers who when life gave them Liches they drank Liche-ade) Then there were brute mobs, the type with enough hitpoints not to be cleaved through immediately and enough strength to hit you and make you notice, and in the numbers they could be in back then? You were going to be hit. (clarification here, there werent exactly Challenge ratings in first and second edition, monsters had 'levels' to determine xp award and hoo boy were they crazy, and of course no monster had statistic scores yet there were wrestling rules leading to some.. interesting greco-roman encounters)
Thank you though, this insight into your interpretations has given me a grasp of your play style and outlook. Its certainly not mine and it feels more in tune with the old lord of the rings and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game systems, check them out if you can find them, I hope you enjoy them.
Interesting, your choice of the wording rough guideline now when its there in the dmg. (guide being important i suppose) its not prefaced with I reckon, or my best guess.. No its a guide to what an adventuring party can do on an adventuring day. Of course the interpretation that: Use the following table to estimate how much xp that a character is expected to earn in a day.. ...1st level 300xp is not an expected experience gain per day is, one interpretation and you are entitled to it, I struggle with agreeing with that.
The context of the bolded sentence is important:
Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.
In the same way you figure out the difficulty of an encounter, you can use the XP values of monsters and other opponents in an adventure as a guideline for how far the party is likely to progress.
For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day. Add together the values of all party members to get a total for the party’s adventuring day. This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest.
It's not saying to throw that much XP at the party every day, it's simply saying that's the maximum you should expect them to get through.
Here's some rules designer quotes to back that up:
I am not sure if you experienced creatures becoming irrelevant challenges personally but it seems to have left a lasting impression. I can categorically state that tarring every monster or only 2 to 3 cr less than the party as completely irrelevant must be a 4th ed thing (read it, got to minions laughed started playing MMO's instead) as I'm not familiar with how the creatures stacked up there.
It was a big issue in 3rd/3.5 edition because the system was designed around players and monsters continuously increasing their attack bonuses and AC values and obtaining damage resistance (which subtracts a fixed amount from damage taken unless the damage is of a certain type) and spell resistance (which gives spells an X% chance of not affecting you.) ACs in the 30+ range and roll bonuses in the 15+ range were fairly common. That meant weaker monsters flat out couldn't touch higher level players. Even if they got lucky and scored a crit, damage resistance could reduce the damage to 0.
As suspected your 3rd edition experience was traumatic. I found that though some might have high ac many in the party didnt and in some cases couldnt. That meant that failing to protect your weak links cost you dearly. My experiences were different from yours and no more or less valid.
Now regarding the dmg text itself. Are you determined that the section as a whole is just a bit of fluff filler? If so run with it but this seems unlikely to the point of absurdity to me. Designer comments after the fact do not change this. No suggestion? Its right there its not just suggestive there are entire tables to plan it out, thats a framework not a suggestion. No rule? Well to no ones surprise is a rule demanding every adventure should be this way, obviously that would be boring. But no suggestion? Hysterical. Both of the clarifications together are addressing the issue as though it ranks below an offhanded quip but thats not how the text reads. I find it damning that after the table it ends with: there will likely need to be two short rests a day. When it starts with The Adventuring Day Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. You can call that a guide, a rough estimate and an insight into how the game testing panned out hopefully because its more than a suggestion. Its also sandwiched around a table that is a guide for new DM's to plan encounters in their creation of adventures and a guide is more than suggestion its a plan. Yes experienced dms can throw this out, yes killer dms can throw this out, yes a table that has played together for years can discard this for something they can handle whether less or more. Of course anyone can. But for the new peeps trying to start this game...back again to the encounter lay out - as read its deadly to an ill prepared party, absolutely deadly and spell slots are a valuable resource so stay safe out there and husband resources.
I.C. your logic and experience is undeniable. I feel that imagination requires emotional input to flourish. If you cant see how basing an adventure on the outlines provided in the dmg by a new DM for a new party as is being deadly and potentially ruining someones game I dont know how to bridge the gap. Dude(ette?) there is no mention of maximum, it doesnt read like its warning you thats all they can probably take. Mistakes happen.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I am just curious why level advancement is not so great at those levels. Not gaining a spell slot is odd to me as gaining a level is not easy. Gaining Ability Score improvement is great but any explanation why no spell slot gain at those levels?
level 12 and 16 are ASI (ability score increase) levels and, as such, offer a significant reward for getting those levels. 14th level similarly offers a turn undead boost, although, not quite an ASI but still its something. some domains powers have a scale up at 14th level as well.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
Hi! My answer to your question is that its not about clerics, its about 'bounded accuracy' or placing limits on characters including spell casters so that a set scenario is less likely to be over run by every player group to encounter it. In the past editions spell casters did not get unlimited spells (cantrips as they are now) but did have more spells per level. Unfortunately in 1st 2nd and 3rd/.5 as more spells were introduced they became ex-potentially more powerful as the extra options on top of the spells available made encounter planning rather difficult for The DM. Spell casters are not alone, the deliberate limitation of attacks / stats combine to hopefully make an accurate mathematic formula for how long an encounter should last and how much it should cost possible. (spoiler! It doesnt always work out like that)
On the plus side lower numbers of spells mean you have to choose your spells much more wisely and choose when to use them with more wisdom than in previous editions where sadly my experience has included campaigns that the same handful of spells tended to dominate to the extent that there would be no need to use others in a campaign.
Enjoy your character and enjoy your time to shine at higher levels when you unleash those spells and try to make your once per day spells an occasion. Your unleashing magic, try an make it a magical experience you can enjoy.
Pretty great answer. Looking back at my playing in the 80's, skipping the next 3 decades and coming back in 2016, I do remember a weird imbalance that I feel 5e (or other versions) fixed. I am overall very happy to be playing 5e.
Thank you Clear. I can appreciate the system (anything was an improvement over the travesty of 4th for me) but dont assume the current edition is blemish free. The current systems issue is if you try to use the suggested challenge ratings for a days worth of encounters (especially at first level) the party will be hit by even low challenge opponents unless excessive preparation and safeguards are in place. This can lead to resource expenditure much higher than is tolerable unless multiple opponents are carrying healing potions they never use.
Mitigation and avoidance (whether due to first strike elimination or defence) is preferable to healing - especially now spell slots are more limited. Often boosting armour class will have a better effect than saving the same slot for healing. There are ways to have healing in excess of what is normal for a group but in a fresh group of players with little to medium knowledge of their character abilities and options the chances are at first level the highest ac is 18 in your party, and nearly every opponent has +3 or more to hit. Your tank, your wall of steel will be hit 1 time in 4 on average. Thats terrifying when your first level party with one healer will have 2 healing spells to last them 4 to 8 encounters. For this reason I would advise everyone use their spells wisely, but for the armoured melee players also choose your combat actions wisely. Blocking a path and dodging even though it costs you your attack is often a more valid choice especially if you have that high ac.
It's not just this. 6th to 9th level spells are exceptionally powerful so the game limits how many times you can cast them. If you look through all the class features, magic items and monster abilities that create/restore spell slots or allow storing spells you'll notice all of them max out at 5th level slots/spells.
That's a feature, not a bug. In older editions lower CR monsters became completely unable to pose a threat to the characters even in large numbers and quickly became irrelevant. It was bad from a suspension of disbelief point of view and also made building encounters harder since it limited your options.
Also keep in mind there's no recommended amount of encounters per day.
I.C. Extrapolate from expected experience gain per day and ta-dah! A number of encounters can be determined. Of course it could be one big encounter where the whole kitchen sink is thrown. For first level that would be 300 xp gain per day per party memeber (dmg 84) and i dont want to see a 4 man party attacked on mass by a group of 24 goblins but it makes the point about how easy it is to be damaged to the point that immediate healing is essential more valid, not less. DMG page 84 also says: Assuming typical adventuring conditions, most adventuring parties can handle six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. I will grant it says typical not recommended but I believe thats a nit your picking,
Personally I would disagree that it led to a suspension of disbelief when your high level party could wade through kobolds they game years before considered deadly, but back then kobolds were worth 15xp or 7xp if only with a melee weapon and you needed in excess of half a million to level some classes. It provided a clear demonstration of how much they had grown and how little what bothered most of the world could touch them. Im sorry it would spoil your sense of fantasy heroics to have some creatures become irrelevant, especially as some classes currently make certain creatures utterly irrelevant and unable to do anything except die with no chance of fighting back currently. I hope you continue to be lucky in not experiencing that or enjoy it for the thing it is when it occurs.
Regarding the feature / not bug descriptor, I trust you intended it to mean that the intention was for any creature to be incapable of being ignored. That term has negative connotations in certain games design areas when used to gloss over glaring errors that fail to be addressed. I didnt get that from your description but better check.
There is no "expected experience gain per day."
The DMG gives you a rough guideline for the maximum amount of combat you can throw at a party before they're forced to stop, which is a handy thing to know when you're designing an adventure. It's absolutely not a recommendation for how many encounters to throw at your party every day.
Not when the party has only gained a few levels. It's not just that low CR creatures became irrelevant, it's that they became completely irrelevant fast, even if you had large numbers of them. Even monsters whose CR was just 2 or 3 lower than the party's level could end up completely unable to hurt the party.
That kind of superhero fantasy is intended for really high level characters (e.g. 17+). Level 1-4 characters are amateur adventurers, level 5-10 are experienced but still fairly average as far as heroes go. Wading through hundreds of kobolds really doesn't match that expectation. Wiping out a small group that would've been a medium/hard/deadly encounter at 1st level with ease? Sure.
Yes, other than CR 0 creatures.
Interesting, your choice of the wording rough guideline now when its there in the dmg. (guide being important i suppose) its not prefaced with I reckon, or my best guess.. No its a guide to what an adventuring party can do on an adventuring day. Of course the interpretation that: Use the following table to estimate how much xp that a character is expected to earn in a day.. ...1st level 300xp is not an expected experience gain per day is, one interpretation and you are entitled to it, I struggle with agreeing with that. When I read through the chapter: Creating Adventures, and it had this laid out it seemed that this was the game difficulty level that had been play tested and was expected from the designers before release, not a foreign concept for me that the first level will only take one adventure its been there since third but the one day thing was new to me. From here we can see that if you cant handle the amount of encounters (6 to 8, less if a higher difficulty) then your group think /make up needs to be reorganised or your DM has to make every encounter a little easier on you. If you use the DMG creating adventures guide you can surely see why I and I believe clear_seeker might have reason to be concerned about resource expenditure.
I am not sure if you experienced creatures becoming irrelevant challenges personally but it seems to have left a lasting impression. I can categorically state that tarring every monster or only 2 to 3 cr less than the party as completely irrelevant must be a 4th ed thing (read it, got to minions laughed started playing MMO's instead) as I'm not familiar with how the creatures stacked up there. What I can say is that some creatures in first were free kills at the time they appeared (zombies usually) and others were always a pain. Trolls for one, even at 20th you had to take them seriously unless you could make it rain fire. Any creature with save or suck a lemon abilities? Again also a threat you treated with respect because you were one bad save from an instant kill* (so many different saving throw types for players combined with weird additives from stats and the aforementioned abilities one and done nature made even combat legends quake in fear - Tomb of Horrors being a Mausoleum Necropolis to the victims of countless failed save or suck imbibers who when life gave them Liches they drank Liche-ade) Then there were brute mobs, the type with enough hitpoints not to be cleaved through immediately and enough strength to hit you and make you notice, and in the numbers they could be in back then? You were going to be hit. (clarification here, there werent exactly Challenge ratings in first and second edition, monsters had 'levels' to determine xp award and hoo boy were they crazy, and of course no monster had statistic scores yet there were wrestling rules leading to some.. interesting greco-roman encounters)
Thank you though, this insight into your interpretations has given me a grasp of your play style and outlook. Its certainly not mine and it feels more in tune with the old lord of the rings and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game systems, check them out if you can find them, I hope you enjoy them.
The context of the bolded sentence is important:
It's not saying to throw that much XP at the party every day, it's simply saying that's the maximum you should expect them to get through.
Here's some rules designer quotes to back that up:
"In the DMG, there is no rule or even suggestion that an adventuring day should include 6+ encounters. There is, however, text where we tell DMs that groups will start getting tuckered out after that many encounters."
"D&D doesn’t require a certain number of encounters per day. The “Dungeon Master’s Guide” gives the number of encounters a typical group can face before tuckering out. There’s no minimum."
This also comes up in the Dragon Talk episode on Encounter Building.
https://youtu.be/XWoAK9ZaP4E
It was a big issue in 3rd/3.5 edition because the system was designed around players and monsters continuously increasing their attack bonuses and AC values and obtaining damage resistance (which subtracts a fixed amount from damage taken unless the damage is of a certain type) and spell resistance (which gives spells an X% chance of not affecting you.) ACs in the 30+ range and roll bonuses in the 15+ range were fairly common. That meant weaker monsters flat out couldn't touch higher level players. Even if they got lucky and scored a crit, damage resistance could reduce the damage to 0.
As suspected your 3rd edition experience was traumatic. I found that though some might have high ac many in the party didnt and in some cases couldnt. That meant that failing to protect your weak links cost you dearly. My experiences were different from yours and no more or less valid.
Now regarding the dmg text itself. Are you determined that the section as a whole is just a bit of fluff filler? If so run with it but this seems unlikely to the point of absurdity to me. Designer comments after the fact do not change this. No suggestion? Its right there its not just suggestive there are entire tables to plan it out, thats a framework not a suggestion. No rule? Well to no ones surprise is a rule demanding every adventure should be this way, obviously that would be boring. But no suggestion? Hysterical. Both of the clarifications together are addressing the issue as though it ranks below an offhanded quip but thats not how the text reads. I find it damning that after the table it ends with: there will likely need to be two short rests a day. When it starts with The Adventuring Day Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. You can call that a guide, a rough estimate and an insight into how the game testing panned out hopefully because its more than a suggestion. Its also sandwiched around a table that is a guide for new DM's to plan encounters in their creation of adventures and a guide is more than suggestion its a plan. Yes experienced dms can throw this out, yes killer dms can throw this out, yes a table that has played together for years can discard this for something they can handle whether less or more. Of course anyone can. But for the new peeps trying to start this game...back again to the encounter lay out - as read its deadly to an ill prepared party, absolutely deadly and spell slots are a valuable resource so stay safe out there and husband resources.
I.C. your logic and experience is undeniable. I feel that imagination requires emotional input to flourish. If you cant see how basing an adventure on the outlines provided in the dmg by a new DM for a new party as is being deadly and potentially ruining someones game I dont know how to bridge the gap. Dude(ette?) there is no mention of maximum, it doesnt read like its warning you thats all they can probably take. Mistakes happen.