Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:17 pm

Harshax wrote:I also feel that calculating how quickly (and at what level) one could be taken down in a vacuum/perfect battle scenario for the PCs is just dumb. That sauce tastes like straw. If PCs could actually outsmart the pit fiend and kill it by level 6 with a fuck ton of archers, then you're a terrible DM and they deserve every bit of that 25K XP. That has nothing to do with the quality of the game.

It does essentially tell you that a company of archers can kill virtually anything in the game in like two rounds, tops. For the genre that is D&D and epic fantasy fiction, that's quite disappointing. This goes double for the natural consequence that most monsters need to hide in shadows/dungeons/frathouses to not be killed by the town guard, and the major ones still need to be cautious lest someone thinks of aiming the military at them.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:18 pm

If somebody's willing to DM you could do a one-shot "Create a level 6 party to fight a pit fiend" scenario in the Trenches.

brized · Post by **brized** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:22 pm

Is there a particular reason why you wouldn't get the drop on a Pit Fiend other than DM fiat? It can't teleport or go invisible anymore, it lacks divinations, it's a large creature, it's not proficient in stealth, and it has a whole +2 Dex modifier. I don't see how it's especially likely to sneak up on anyone or win initiative. Something I'm missing?

Also, wall of fire's range is 120 ft. Fireball is 150 ft. The Pit Fiend's move is 30 ft. on land and 60 ft. flying. So once it's engaged the best it can do is move 60 ft. and act, or dash 120 ft. until it's at least within 150 ft. of its attackers.

Shortbow range is 80 ft., but its max range is 320 ft. When you shoot past range but within max range, you suffer disadvantage, but you could get 1-2 rounds of such volleys before the Pit Fiend can retaliate. Longbows have a range of 150 ft. and a max range of 600 ft., so you get far more free volleys.

Regarding the fear aura, it's a mere 20 ft. radius. Pitiful.

Harshax · Post by **Harshax** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:22 pm

virgil wrote:It does essentially tell you that a company of archers can kill virtually anything in the game in like two rounds, tops. For the genre that is D&D and epic fantasy fiction, that's quite disappointing. This goes double for the natural consequence that most monsters need to hide in shadows/dungeons/frathouses to not be killed by the town guard, and the major ones still need to be cautious lest someone thinks of aiming the military at them.

This is a valid point. Reading back a few pages, I realized I had forgotten much of the, "bounded accuracy is broken" portion of this discussion. So much of my previous post is out of context.

Ghremdal · Post by **Ghremdal** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:28 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:The pit fiend hits itself on a 5+, but even bullshit monsters hit it on a 15+. The pit fiend's damage output is a bit over 70 if everything hits, so it drops itself in 5 rounds on average. Bullshit monsters meanwhile do like 10 damage on a hit, which means they need about 100 attacks to drop the pit fiend.

If you divide your troops enough that the pit fiend can't clear them out faster than one per round, you can get more than a hundred attacks if you start with 16 or more soldiers (15 if you somehow get the drop on the pit fiend, which you will not).

The pit fiend's fireball is only five dice with a save for half, so it means dick. The big deal is that he gets four attacks with a large attack bonus that each do fireball damage or more. It has a 10 foot reach so you have to spread out a bit to keep it from bashing multiple mooks down in a turn. But it can be done, I don't think there are even overrun options for it and skirmish ranks should work fine.

And you need silver arrows of course. What level do you need to have 16 skeleton archers?

-Username17

Lvl 7, when you can have 18. For a Necromancer they attack at +4, with 1d6+5 dmg. So a skeletons DPR vs a Pit fiend is: 0.25*8.5+0.05*12=2.125+0.6=2.725. Or you need 111 skeleton archer shots to take down the Pit Fiend.

At level 17+ the skeletons do 3.625 DPR against a Pit Fiend, and then you need only 13 skeletons. That is 2 lvl 5 spell slots, and you still have 3 skeletons left over. Or 83 skeleton archer shots.

But lets be generous, and lets say the Pit Fiend kills 4 skeletons per round (though at 25+ hp a pop that is nearly impossible). You need 28 skeletons (if the Fiend goes first), which is equal to 1 slot from levels 3-6. The level 4 and 5 slot you can recover through arcane recovery. So the real cost is one level 3 and one level 6 slot.

But even worse is that you actually don't need to spend those slots on the day of the adventure. Your skeleton buds are absolutely free, so if you are in trouble you can burn your spell slots on wizardly stuff to save your ass. If you don't have the slots to renew control at the end of the day you just order them to kill each other, and re raise them the day after.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:28 pm

Harshax wrote:I also feel that calculating how quickly (and at what level) one could be taken down in a vacuum/perfect battle scenario for the PCs is just dumb. That sauce tastes like straw. If PCs could actually outsmart the pit fiend and kill it by level 6 with a fuck ton of archers, then you're a terrible DM and they deserve every bit of that 25K XP. That has nothing to do with the quality of the game.

While it's important to see if the math of the game works, arguing that you can kill a CR20 Pit Fiend in this specific scenario and that's why were not switching to 5E, is kind of also admitting that you're not a good DM.

I'm amazed you can taste the straw with a mouthful of Oberoni. Both sides showing up to a fight is not a perfect battle scenario. It is not in a Pit Fiends written abilities to have his opponents resources depleted by layers of minions and defenses. He is not an Aboleth, he has no actual ability to create terrain advantage and minions. It is just as plausible a scenario that the Pit Fiend is attacking the party at their guarded, trap filled headquarters as it is that the party is attacking the Pit Fiend at his. We will judge the Pit Fiends combat ability on what is written in his profile and not based on what MTP mindcaulk we can fill in to make him feel more like an actual demon lord.

If a 10th level Necro and friends can use actual abilities like minion creation (48 Skeletons by then), AC stacking+attack disadvantage, and SOL's (Contagion) can win a straight fight against a Pit Fiend because it does not have any real abilities that's not proving we can design a silver bullet for this one monster in a vacuum. It's proving the same thing we've been proving in the Fighter/Wizard debates for years. That things with no abilities and big numbers are worthless, uninteresting, and powerless compared to people with abilities.

I don't know at exactly what level someone could gather enough real abilities to trounce this Pit Fiend at. What I do know is that the strategy for beating the Pit Fiend wouldn't be any different than the strategy for beating any other closet troll. And if this thing is a top of the line campaign ending Boss monster from 5E then anyone who has ANY real abilities is going to run roughshod over everything in this entire edition.

Harshax · Post by **Harshax** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:42 pm

Dean wrote:He is not an Aboleth, he has no actual ability to create terrain advantage and minions.

Creating a Wall of Fire is arguably a method of establishing Zones of Control. It is also terrain advantage due to the fiend's natural immunity. A small point, for clarity sake, but I don't disagree with you.

That things with no abilities and big numbers are worthless, uninteresting, and powerless compared to people with abilities.

This is my main disapproval with the entry. That and how much space is wasted on the page, and the confusing fluff text.

I don't know at exactly what level someone could gather enough real abilities to trounce this Pit Fiend at. What I do know is that the strategy for beating the Pit Fiend wouldn't be any different than the strategy for beating any other closet troll. And if this thing is a top of the line campaign ending Boss monster from 5E then anyone who has ANY real abilities is going to run roughshod over everything in this entire edition.

I'm willing to bet a coke, that the pit fiend as seen is the baseline, on which templates that should be added on top of it. I can't imagine heads so far up asses that WoTC would just reskin fire giants for such an iconic monster.

Dean wrote:I'm amazed you can taste the straw with a mouthful of Oberoni.

Edit: I don't get the reference. Burn? Oooh! Nothing about my post was rule zeroing anything. I simply stated that Math - MTP != TTRPG. If this was a WoW discussion, I would have stayed out of it. But rereading some of the previous posts, I would agree that the math is broken in this game.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:54 pm

The problem with the pit fiend, I think, is that a necro with N skeletons can kill it on his own, with N being a finite, relatively small (maybe triple-digit, but sounds like somewhere in the double-digits) number, that he can maintain with relatively minimal effort (a few spell slots).

We're talking a creature listed as CR 20. If you can kill it without screwing around with setting up optimal conditions, by yourself, at a level at around half that, then that illustrates that this monster is complete and utter shit. Even if it takes a 15th-level necro to do it, that still illustrates either that (1) necros are goddamn broken, or (2) the pit fiend is complete shit. Whichever one it is, that is not a good thing for the game.

With the pit fiend being such an iconic monster, it would make sense to me if they presented it as a sort of flagship critter: "hey guys, look at the cool stuff we've got in store for you!" You wouldn't drop a preview of a creature that is lame or weak for its CR; you want something that will grab attention, that you think will inspire people to buy your product. So I think that the pit fiend, here, is probably representative of the decisions that went into monster design.

Edit: Also, found a thread discussing the 5e intellect devourer on RPGsite. The image in the spoiler below is a bit big.

Not sure what to think of it, but in the context of this conversation, I think that this thing is not terribly scary. AC 12, 21 hp: while its got a number of resistances, I think a few archers could probably deal with this thing long before it became an actual threat.

Ghremdal · Post by **Ghremdal** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 6:56 pm

So 4 of these little guys, at whatever level, hides in little peasant children bodies. They walk up the our adventurers, jump out and do their multiattack, choosing the guys in the plate for their target. They quickly stun, and then enter his body, attacking the other partymembers.

So all this will do is make the PCs afraid of any NPC that gets near them.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 7:03 pm

Ghremdal wrote:They quickly stun, and then enter his body, attacking the other partymembers.

Is "stunned" a subset of "incapacitated"?

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 7:34 pm

Yes it is. It's noteworthy that with 2 monsters leaked CR 2 is the earliest level where a monster has a straight SOD ability. Int Save or die if a 3d6 roll beats your INT score. So yes if 4 of these come at a party of virtually any level they will kill at least one PC.

If a council of CR 20 Pit Fiends declared war on my party I would openly mock them but if a pack of CR 2 Devourers was coming after my party we would live in NPC murdering fear forever after.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 7:40 pm

Dean wrote:If a council of CR 20 Pit Fiends declared war on my party I would openly mock them but if a pack of CR 2 Devourers was coming after my party we would live in NPC murdering fear forever after.

Which is really quite stupid, because it most definitely should be the other way around.

Ghremdal · Post by **Ghremdal** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 8:13 pm

Its even more exacerbated by the fact that INT is a dump stat for most classes, and aside from this SoD, only Maze has a INT saving throw. So yeah, the odds are really good that at least one PC ends up dead. And since the Devourer takes control of the target creature, it can snowball quickly.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 4:03 am

Haven't we all agreed now that the 5e CR system is drunken darts?

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 4:26 am

Well, it sure does make the 3e system look sane.

infected slut princess · Fri Sep 12, 2014 5:17 am

Sample D&D 5e story:

Pit fiend attacks the village. Oh no!!!

Village militia shows up -- 40 x level 1 losers with bows.

They kill the pit fiend, suffer a handful of casualties.

Worst story ever. This would be unacceptable for earlier edition pit fiends.

Pit fiends used to be cool.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 3:58 pm

But that was the whole point of bounded accuracy right?

Sakuya Izayoi · Post by **Sakuya Izayoi** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 4:09 pm

The crappy version of Faust in the fluff text tells me that the GM is supposed to just write in abilities like Wish. That way, the players don't just avoid a confrontation because "that monster has Wish", or build a factory made up of enslaved Wish-casting monsters, but if a monster DOES have Wish and it's not supposed to, Wizards of the Coast can just brush them off saying, "go find a GM who's oberoni you like better".

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 4:29 pm

ishy wrote:But that was the whole point of bounded accuracy right?

Yep. ISP's been on the "this shit is unsuitable" bandwagon for at least a year or two now. It's a position I'm inclined to agree with.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 5:18 pm

ishy wrote:But that was the whole point of bounded accuracy right?

I get the impression the intended point is to make it so orcs can be a credible threat to PCs for many levels. I get the feeling they didn't put much thought into a bunch of no-name NPCs being a credible threat to pit fiends. Still, the take-home message here is "if you don't have interesting abilities (read: spells), you can be better replaced by hiring a few dozen level 1 NPCs".

Harshax · Post by **Harshax** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 5:37 pm

RobbyPants wrote:
ishy wrote:But that was the whole point of bounded accuracy right?
I get the impression the intended point is to make it so orcs can be a credible threat to PCs for many levels. I get the feeling they didn't put much thought into a bunch of no-name NPCs being a credible threat to pit fiends. Still, the take-home message here is "if you don't have interesting abilities (read: spells), you can be better replaced by hiring a few dozen level 1 NPCs".

And the flip side to ISP's sample sad story is an archmage hellbent on destroying some village who didn't appreciate his wizbiz, *not* memorizing Gate and trying to bind a Pit Fiend to his service but instead charming the leader of a tribe of orcs and outfitting them with top quality gear. I believe there was a previous discussion that a wizard with certain spells can just churn out money, so his elite squad of Orcs with plate+two-handers, heavy crossbows and silver-tipped codpieces is actually a better pointy-beard-evil-wizard strat than entertaining otherworldly powers with top-tier spellcasting.

This scratches a weird S&S itch, but I don't think D&D ever did that genre well, except possibly in Dark Sun.

EDIT - And with bounded accuracy, 5E will do Sword & Sorcery genre worse than any other previous edition, since it has been illustrated that PCs will never reach a level of power where they can wade through endless seas of enemies with nary a scratch.

Harshax · Post by **Harshax** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 5:46 pm

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:The crappy version of Faust in the fluff text tells me that the GM is supposed to just write in abilities like Wish. That way, the players don't just avoid a confrontation because "that monster has Wish", or build a factory made up of enslaved Wish-casting monsters, but if a monster DOES have Wish and it's not supposed to, Wizards of the Coast can just brush them off saying, "go find a GM who's oberoni you like better".

There has got to be monster templates that haven't yet been released for consideration. Otherwise, this game is nonsense, and I'll be sticking with other systems.

It's like they could have just condensed 3X's monster types and templates into the back of the DMG, ala d20 Modern, and made this a two-book edition and I would be totally OK with this approach. Slugging my way through three books to run a game is pretty taxing on my middle-aged constitution and allotted free time.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 6:05 pm

Harshax wrote:EDIT - And with bounded accuracy, 5E will do Sword & Sorcery genre worse than any other previous edition, since it has been illustrated that PCs will never reach a level of power where they can wade through endless seas of enemies with nary a scratch.

Maybe if this was treated as a D&D version of Shadowrun? Nobody can fight the Man, but you still break into restricted areas while invisible and fight the cyberzombies.

Harshax · Post by **Harshax** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 6:21 pm

virgil wrote:
Harshax wrote:EDIT - And with bounded accuracy, 5E will do Sword & Sorcery genre worse than any other previous edition, since it has been illustrated that PCs will never reach a level of power where they can wade through endless seas of enemies with nary a scratch.
Maybe if this was treated as a D&D version of Shadowrun? Nobody can fight the Man, but you still break into restricted areas while invisible and fight the cyberzombies.

I can see that, but isn't one of the tropes of the heist genre that some deals go bad? Carefully planned black-ops turn into ultra-violent fire-fights, chases, and complete mayhem? Balling up character sheets every couple of sessions because a flubbed bluff, sneak, or saving throw turned the adventure into the last act of from Dusk till Dawn doesn't sound very appealing if you're planning a long campaign arc.

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 6:45 pm

Harshax wrote: There has got to be monster templates that haven't yet been released for consideration. Otherwise, this game is nonsense, and I'll be sticking with other systems.
.

You've said this twice. Why do you assume this is more likely than the game just being nonsense? From history presented and the rest of the game, i feel fairly confident assuming there will not be templates to fix everything.

If there were, wouldn't wotc have mentioned that anywhere ever?

Yes obviously a smart person would not release shitty monsters. Mearls obviously released shitty monsters and is not smart. Why do you think he is going to surprise us with good monsters?