Seems to me that D&D was designed to be run in a super-hostile one-shot where the PCs succeeded in beating the monster and getting the treasure or died. Neither milestone nor XP leveling would be a factor in D&D as designed. My whole rant about PCs being overpowered and powering up at different rates -- is all due to the game not being designed to for a movie experience troup like "The Heroes Journey".
We were originally supposed to deal out 8 encounters per day - no long rest. So XP didn't matter. Rechargable magic items didn't matter. Game Level was an expectation of the foes to be encountered. Now we switch to epic adventuring and guess what -- PCs are totally overpowered and CR15 and CR10 monsters working together are roadkill verses four PCs of 6-7th level.
I'll conceed that milestone leveling makes sense if one is designing a sequence of stand alone one-shots. But for players wanting to experience "the heroes journey" set in a maluable fantasy world we really need to reinvent and revamp D&D to fit that usage. So hurray for home brew and house rules b/c there is no other way to make D&D work as an open world gaming platform except to tweak the hell out of it. Am I completely alone in this view?
Yes you are completely alone in that view because everyone else is managing quite easily to run campaigns that go across multiple levels and offer challenge at every step of the way. 5e D&D is in no way designed to just run a series of one shots, and I’m baffled why you’re talking about people levelling up at different rates when that’s not been a feature of D&D for decades.
Because all is in balance at the onset. It's what hapens over continuous gaming that some level-up faster than others. And treasures contain magic items and weaponry.
Having a wand of fireballs with 7 charges in it that regains 1d6 charges every morning is just one example of how the game was designed to end quickly.
So, don’t give them one at 6th level🤷♂️
CR isn’t perfect, that’s very true. It can’t possibly be. There’s no way to account for party size, party composition, how many encounters you’ve had since the last long rest, terrain, party magic items, player skill, DM skill, a lucky streak of die rolls, an unlucky streak of die rolls, probably a few other things. It was only ever meant to be, could only ever be meant to be, a rough guide.
The game has always, since first edition, encouraged DMs to make adjustments as needed for their group. I don’t understand why you seem so upset you need to that.
I wouldn't say that I am upset. I was perplexed about the CR rating system. And this discussion has yielded useful insight and advice -- which I appreciate.
I am realizing now that the rules as written do not facilitate a player-driven game world. I am trying to use the D&D framework to do something that it was not intended to do. And the evidence of my misconception is in the DMG on page 127, "Creating Campaigns", step 4 "Bring it to an End". I don't want to bring my game world to an end. I believe that this is the root of my questioning the design. In the future I will be less concerned with rules as written now that I realize I am running a game that is outside the scope of D&D's framework.
You're either misreading or failing to read that section. It's not talking about bringing the game world to an end, but the campaign which takes place within the world. You can have multiple campaigns in the same world. Hell, a party can undertake multiple campaigns.
It seems you're intentionally looking for reasons to criticise or complain about D&D regardless of how grounded in reality they actually are. You've complained that milestone leveling means PCs have no incentive to play, that the DM giving an overpowered item will make the party overpowered, and now the DMG says things it doesn't
Yes you are completely alone in that view because everyone else is managing quite easily to run campaigns that go across multiple levels and offer challenge at every step of the way. 5e D&D is in no way designed to just run a series of one shots, and I’m baffled why you’re talking about people levelling up at different rates when that’s not been a feature of D&D for decades.
You're either misreading or failing to read that section. It's not talking about bringing the game world to an end, but the campaign which takes place within the world. You can have multiple campaigns in the same world. Hell, a party can undertake multiple campaigns.
It seems you're intentionally looking for reasons to criticise or complain about D&D regardless of how grounded in reality they actually are. You've complained that milestone leveling means PCs have no incentive to play, that the DM giving an overpowered item will make the party overpowered, and now the DMG says things it doesn't
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