Disclaimer: This is a short version of a discussion that will happen in greater length farther down the road. This is based purely off the monsters in the first two adventures, the free basic Dungeon Master’s Guide, the Player’s Handbook, and the downloadable preview pages.
Well, DnD Next continues to throw around some pretty groovy flavor in its initial offerings. Here’s the thing to know though: If you REALLY REALLY liked 4th Edition, you may want to stick with it. Next takes some of the smart things 4E did and applies them directly to 3rd Edition. This results in monsters that can absolutely turn you into paste at 1st and 2nd levels.
For example, a preview monster released is the Intellect Devourer. These little nasties have always given players a case of the heebie jeebies if they knew what was good for them. This hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s gotten worse. Now considered a Challenge 2 Monster (450 xp), the Intellect Devourer can feasibly kill a character in two rounds by reducing their Intelligence to 0 (essentially making them comatose) and then stealing their body by teleporting inside their head and eating their brain. A fighter with an Intelligence of 10 will get turned comatose roughly 1/3 of the time with the probabilities at hand. If turned comatose, the Intelligence contest between the ID and the target to have their brain eaten is very hard to win if at Int 0.
That being said, a lot of emphasis has been placed that #1: Challenge is not the old standard of CR and #2: That XP is the proper way to build an encounter. With this in mind, if we look at the ID’s XP value of 450 and compare it to the Encounter Building section of the Basic DMG, we find that for a party of four, the Intellect Devourer is in the “Hard” encounter range, damn near the “Deadly” mark. This should be the DM’s warning that while this large housecat sized brain may be eminently squishy, a game of rocket tag might just get underway if not handled carefully. Further, this creature, at level 2, could well be the entire point of a short adventure. At this level of XP, it is a boss monster or at least a plot pusher.
So, what does this mean? Taking into consideration some of the other monsters at low Challenge Ratings (Allosaurus, Ogres, Cocktrices) high lethality is back. It can absolutely be circumvented through teamwork and DM’s are being reminded time and time again to not be sadists, and instead to be enablers of fun. With these two points in mind, this should be a great edition for gaming. Just don’t be surprised if player characters do get picked off on occasion. (And don’t you DMs out there be the dickhead who revels in TPKs either. You make us all look bad.)
Last time I played was 15 years ago in 2nd Edition, but I always thought the combat was too deadly at low levels and the characters were too powerful at higher levels. The improvements gained on those first few level increases were too dramatic. I would have also preferred a system more focused on improving skills to keep you alive rather than the blunt instrument of gaining hit points. But that could all be totally different in the new editions for all I know.
ReplyDeleteThankfully, the new system really ramps up how scary an individual character is rather quickly. A DM not paying attention can get pretty easily get caught off guard. 4E was pretty bulletproof for encounter design and making the players feel cool. 5E is attempting to add a little deadly back while maintain that "cool" feel. By example, a first level Monk can usually hit twice and a first level fighter can easily hit an AC of 20.
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