5e failure: NPCs

I've mostly been a 5e fan, but one place I feel the system has fallen short is NPCs. The combat has been heavily tested and balanced around ensuring players have about a 50% chance to hit (according to Mike Mearls, this is due to observing that players don't have much fun when they go 6 rounds in a row without a hit), so monsters are huge HP sacks in order to keep them alive for a couple rounds. An AD&D ogre typically has around 19 hp, while the 5e ogre has 59(!!!), but the 5e ogre is so much easier to hit, and players output so much more damage relative to their own HP, that the in-game experience of fighting an ogre really isn't too different from one game to the other. If an AD&D module says 4 ogres attack the party, you can reasonably replace them with 4 ogres in 5e and get approximately the same difficulty.

The unfortunate consequence of players hitting more often and doing more damage per level is that NPCs are really just not viable foes at all. A common scenario in AD&D is an NPC of approximately the same level as the players with a few minions. In 5e, the players focus-fire on the NPC, killing him in the first round, then mop up the minions. Let's look at why, focusing on 5th-level characters.

The party opens the door on a 20'x20' room to confront an evil cleric standing behind a row of orcs armed with spears. Our wizard decides to save his Fireball for later, as this isn't a very hard fight. We're going to focus-fire on the evil cleric. The fighter throws handaxes, the rogue shoots his shortbow, the wizard casts Magic Missile, and the cleric casts Spiritual Hammer. How's this work out?

In AD&D, the evil cleric has +1 chain and a shield for AC 3. The DM gives him 6 hp per hit die for 30 hp.

• The fighter's exceptional strength gives him THAC3 of 10, and his axe does d6+3 damage.
• The thief's high DEX gives him a THAC3 of 13, and his arrow does d6 damage.
• The cleric's THAC3 is 14, and his Spiritual Hammer does d4+2 damage.
• The wizard does 3d4+3 damage. He cast Protection From Normal Missiles earlier to ensure his spells succeed while the party clears rooms.

If everybody hits, the evil cleric takes 2d6+4d4+8 damage.   But the thief has a 40% chance to hit, and the cleric has a 35% chance to hit, so when we factor all this in, the party has (using my supersecret calculator) about a 0.5% chance of taking out the evil cleric in the first round. Of course, players don't do all this math, but experienced AD&D players have an intuitive feel for this, and consequently know it is much more worthwhile to attack the orcs immediately (who have AC 6 and an average 4.5 hp apiece) than to concentrate on the cleric.

In 5e, the cleric has chain and shield for AC 18. The DM gives him 7 hp per hit die for 35 hp. In addition, he gets an effective +2 to AC for being behind the row of orcs.

• The fighter gets to throw two handaxes at +7 to hit, and each axe does 1d6+6 thanks to his Duelist fighting style,
• The thief, who is hidden around the corner, gets advantage to attack, +7 to hit, 4d6+4 damage.
• The cleric's Spiritual Weapon attacks at +6, ignores the protection from cover, and does 1d8+3 damage. In addition, our cleric also throws a light hammer at +6 to hit, 1d4+3 damage.
• The wizard uses a 2nd-level slot for 4d4+4 damage. 

There is, when accounting for 5e's critical hits, a 66% chance the evil cleric is dead in the first round. Furthermore, if the cleric isn't taken out immediately, he can cast devastating spells like Spirit Guardians, which could quickly turn this situation into a TPK. By contrast, the most exciting thing an AD&D cleric typically does is boost the attacks of his minions. So not only is eliminating him in round 1 hardly even possible, taking him out isn't nearly so urgent.

My experience with 5e is that NPC + minions tends to be that the party focus-fires on the NPC and eliminates him in one round, or maybe the top of the second. This makes these kinds of scenarios wholly unsatisfying in a way they aren't in AD&D.

Concentration Killed CoDzilla

Last game session, I noticed something about the Druid's combat spells...nearly every single one of them is tagged with Concentration. This is a new mechanic in 5e. You can only have one Concentration effect active at a time, and if you get hit while one is active, you have to make a Constitution saving throw with a DC equal to the damage you took.

The result of this is that the CoDzilla problem from 3rd edition is gone. In case you didn't know, in 3rd, you could make a god-like cleric by stacking the right buff spells and feats. Likewise, the "Batman" wizard (a wizard who can become any class by activating the right spells) is a thing of the past. 4e solved this by standardizing abilities, but at the cost of alienating a lot of fans and making too many classes feel too similar. In 5e, spells feel a lot more like their classic incarnations, but the addition of Concentration keeps things from getting out of hand. Also, only allowing one effect at a time makes the game simpler to run.

5e is Clobbering Pathfinder on Amazon

Wizards has held its sales numbers pretty close to its chest, but Amazon can give some idea of who's hot and who's not. The Pathfinder core rulebook is currently ranked in the 3400s among all books on Amazon, while D&D's Player's Handbook is ranked at 68(!!!!!).

It's also worth noting that the 4e PHB has dropped to 28K, while the 3.5 PHB sits at 26K. I think it is fair to say that 4e is officially dead now. I certainly won't miss paying $75/yr so that my players can have the nice, printed sheets that the Character Builder provided. This handy tool estimates PF core book sales at ~150 per month, and D&D sales at ~1K per month.

I think this bodes well for the future of D&D, which has now resumed its place as the best-selling TTRPG. Pathfinder is a very well-supported product, but because it began life as a fresh coat of paint slapped on D&D 3.5, it has many of the same weaknesses and flaws as that system. The philosophy of "a mechanic for every situation" is a dead-end, and there's a good reason no new RPGs adopt it. 5e is a much fresher, more modern take on the classic game that strikes a good balance between depth and accessibility.

I think in another 10 years, we'll look at Pathfinder as a stopgap measure that existed to give D&D fans who didn't like 4e something to play while Wizards figured out how to take the game into the future.

Evolution of the Mind Flayer

The Mind Flayer is one of those iconic D&D monster that players love to not ever have to deal with in their campaigns. Let's look at how it's changed over the years. For 2e AC and THAC0, I'm going to put the more modern d20 system values:

2nd Edition:

The 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual is about 70% fluff and 30% stats. The stats can be kind of confusing, and there's often stuff like "if you find this in a cave, there's a 25% chance it will have eggs." There's generally enough fluff to be clear on what kind of habitat you find the monsters in, what they'll be doing, what kind of social hierarchy they have, etc. Anyway, the 2e Mind Flayer is a creepy bastard who lives in an underground city centered around a huge brain and keeps a couple mind-controlled slaves around. The artwork is terrible.

Hit points: 40
AC:  15
To hit: +9
Special crap: Resists magic powers and 90% magic damage, can stun for 3d4 rounds, tries to carry off stunned creatures and EAT THEIR BRAINS!!! The Mind Flayer has a tentacle attack. If he attaches all four of his tentacles, he sucks out your brains and YOU DIE!!! Psionic Mind Flayers are in there as an option, but I won't get into that.
Magic spells: Suggestion, charm person, charm monster, ESP, levitate, astral projection, and plane shift.

3.5th Edition:

The 3.5 MM gives the Mind Flayer about two full pages, including some nice illustrations, several round-by-round paragraphs detailing its tactics, how to run the monster as a character race, and a more powerful variant.

The basic Mind Flayer is an 8th-level enemy:

Hit points: 44
AC:  15 regular, 12 touch, 13 flat-footed
To hit: +8
Special crap: Gets to do its regular attack four times as a "full attack," has flat resist 25 to magic, can do that same stun blast and 4-tentacles-and-you-die trick, 11 skills that I'm not going to list, has Improved Grab, has three feats that you have to look up if you don't know by heart (Improved Initiative, Combat Casting, Weapon Finesse).
Magic spells: Charm monster, detect thoughts, levitate, plane shift, suggestion.

There is a 17th-level version that is a bit more complicated, but one thing to note is it has 27 AC, in keeping with 3rd's +1/2 level scaling concept.

4th edition:
This is the basic 4e Mind Flayer. It starts at level 14, so its numbers are a lot higher (4e has 3.5-like shifting). It's stripped out all the spells, feats, and most of the skills and boiled the monster down to two special powers.  There's a 18th level version that has a bunch of powers, but I'll leave him out.

5th Edition:

The 5e MM has solid amounts of fluff and artwork. Each race typically gets a full page. The general feel is AD&D, but things are organized into tight, 4-e style stat blocks rather than 3.5's rambling text. The art is the best yet.

Hit points: 71
AC:  15
To hit: +7
Special crap: Advantage on saving throws against magic, and his save bonuses are pretty high. Not only is the mind blast back, but now it does 4d8+4 damage! He grapples you with a tentacle, and if you can't escape, he'll hit you next time with Extract Brain. Basically, the mind blast, grapple, and extract do so much damage that if you get hit with all three, you'll probably die.
Magic spells: Detect Thoughts, Levitate, Dominate Monster, Plane Shift.

WHAT IT ALL COMES DOWN TO:

While the numbers and powers look pretty similar, you have to remember that 8th-level 3rd edition Fighters will typically have an attack bonus of around +12/+7 (because having multiple attack bonuses is better), so 15 AC is basically a joke. In 2nd edition, the 8th-level Fighter attack bonus is between +7 and +9, and in 5th edition, it's the same. So again, we see that 5e is bringing the numbers more in line with AD&D.

One thing I noticed when reading the older stuff is just how much of a mess 3.5 is. The AD&D MM tends to have a serious problem with clarity and presentation, which the 3.5 MM solves with lengthy, detailed descriptions and just overall increasing the complexity of the system. Seriously, who wants to look up feats for monsters? Really, three different ACs? I try not to rag on 3.5 too much, but the 3.5 Monster Manual was a big step in the wrong direction.

The 3.5 die-hards are crying bitter tears over the loss of monsters as playable races and the reduced complexity that makes it too "casual-friendly." The fascinating thing is just how few of 3.5's monster-related innovations are retained in 5e. Essentially, 5e and 3.5 can be viewed as two entirely different revisions the AD&D source material. 3.5 is an across-the-board increase in precision, complexity and detail. The precision is welcome, but there are far too many additional rules, and the MM tends to be long-winded in explaining how to run a particular monster. 5e, by contrast, goes the opposite direction, making everything tighter, cleaner, and more to the point. It's heavier on the fluff than 4e without rambling the way 3.5 does. This is a running theme in 5e, and it's why I think it's the best D&D yet.

5e's Bounded Accuracy

One of the most controversial aspects of 5e (at least for die-hard fans of 3.x/PF/4e) is so-called "bounded accuracy." What this essentially means is there is very little built-in scaling of bonuses to d20 rolls, and player ability scores are all capped at 20. The +1/2 level bonus is now gone, and the magic item bonus is no longer built in. If you've played 3rd or 4th edition, you know that a high-level wizard can jump across chasms more easily than a low-level barbarian, and a high-level fighter can pick most mundane locks with ease.

What the whiners say:

It ruins everything! The whole concept of attaining godlike power as you level has always been a fundamental part of D&D, and now 5e has ruined it. Everything sucks now! This isn't D&D!

Actual D&D History:

A +1/2 level bonus is actually not fundamental to D&D.  This was actually new to 3rd edition. In AD&D 2nd, AC was based only on your armor, not your level. Each class' THAC0 increased at a different rate, so no, the Wizard never got any better than useless at trying to stab someone in full plate with a tower shield. Only the thief had any ability to disarm traps, sneak, or pick locks at all. The fighter eventually got better AC not by leveling up, but by first earning enough money to buy plate mail, then eventually finding some cool enchanted gear.

The concept:

The designers of 3rd edition brought in this entirely new idea that as players gain experience, they should just naturally become good at things. A wizard should, after surviving enough scrapes, eventually be so handy with a blade that he could easily best a city guard in melee combat, pick the lock on a house, scale a rocky wall, and bluff his way into an orc stronghold. 5e is a return to the old AD&D concept that fighters are good at fighting, thieves are good at thieving and wizards had best stay a healthy distance away from hobgoblins if all they're going to wear is pajamas.

How it worked in practice:

In actual practice, a 12th-level wizard's intrinsic +6 bonus to disarming traps didn't matter.  Any trap a DM threw at a 12th-level party was, surprise surprise, always a 6 difficulty points harder than anything he threw at them when they were first level. In practice, that big modifier on the sheet didn't mean anything. It was just a big number that felt cool to look at because it was so huge. But really, the novelty of rolling a d20+22 wears off pretty quickly when you realize everything you meet has minimum 32 AC. Players tended to complain that it felt like the world just leveled up with you. If you've never played AD&D, but you've played The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, that's what I'm talking about.

The math:

Without getting into details, a 5e fighter will usually have +5 to hit, 1 attack, and 18 AC at level 1. At level 20, he'll have +11 to hit, four attacks, and at least 20 AC. The wizard will probably never have better than 10 AC and 1 attack, and his bonus will go from +2 to only +6. The "feel" is much more like AD&D than 3.x/PF/4e.

How it works in practice:

I find I can throw greater variety into dungeons and still have it be fun. 4e's "minion" monsters are no longer necessary. Low-level monsters serve as minions just fine now. The main thing is that as players level up, the game feels less and less "flat." By level 20, the barbarian becomes a fire hose of damage, but he's *more* vulnerable to a mind-control spell cast by a monster of his same level than he was at level 1. The wizard unleashes insanely powerful blasts of magic, but an ancient dragon will make mincemeat of him if he gets too close. The challenge of the game actually increases as the party levels up, because the players have to become more skilled at exploiting their strengths and avoiding their weaknesses.

D&D 5e: As Simple As You like

One of the more remarkable things about Dungeons & Dragons 5th ed. is that there is little tradeoff between simplicity and power in character builds. In 1st & 2nd editions, "character build" was barely even a concept. You had your race, your class, your abilities...and not much else. The only real complexity on offer was in the caster classes. As a Cleric, you *could* just fill all your 1st-level slots with Cure Light Wounds and be fine, but at least you had options.

3.x/PF and 4e, by contrast, rewarded players who spent a lot of time learning the nuances of the class and fine-tuning their builds with massive payoffs in power. But players who didn't work too hard at their build were punished with weak, useless builds. If you were a 3.5 fighter who just picked cool-sounding feats instead of carefully planning out synergies...well, you might as well quit playing at Level 6.  4e narrowed the power band a bit, but it added the further wrinkle that players who didn't learn to use their Encounter, Daily, and Utility abilities effectively would still feel significantly underpowered.

5e starts with an AD&D-like foundation, and then allows more 3.x/4e-style flexibility as options. These options are laid out in such a way as to be mostly lateral moves in terms of power.  The most obvious change is in the feats. Feats are now an alternative to ability score increases. It's hard to say which is more powerful, two ability points or a feat. They're roughly even. But players who just take the ability bonuses won't be punished.

Let's look at how this philosophy affects the Fighter.

The simplest Fighter build is to be a Champion who takes ability score upgrades whenever he has the option. If you go this route, you end up with essentially an AD&D fighter: You roll a lot of attacks, you have a lot of HP, you can use any weapon, and you have some nice static bonuses to a variety of numbers on your character sheet. There isn't a lot to think about.

On the other end, you can be a Battle Master, and you can take a mix of feats and ability score upgrades. This results in a much more complicated character sheet with a mix of powers and feats, somewhere between 4e and 3.5. The crazy thing is that if you run the numbers (and a lot of people have), the damage output of these builds comes out pretty close.

Other classes follow a similar pattern. There's a lot of depth to be explored, but you can play the class in a simple, straightforward way and still be a force to be reckoned with. It's about how you want to play, not about finding the perfect combination of stats that results in you dumping a bucket of damage dice on the table every time you hit while that "stupid newbie" can't figure out why he only ever seems to roll a single, lonely d8.