Author Topic: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of  (Read 8892 times)

Offline Kikkenass

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New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« on: January 25, 2016, 09:29:46 AM »
As the title says I am a new 5e DM. I have played 3.5 for many years so when the group decided to step away from 3.5 and its easily broken rules and go to 5e I agreed to take the helm.

SO ....... what can be broken in 5e?

What I am looking for is signs to watch for early on. We are starting at 1st level with the Starter Set and the Lost Mine of Phandelver module. So I don't think I have to worry about much at 1st level but as we progress what should I watch out for.

Let me be clear I don't mind a little optimization, as a matter of fact I encourage it. I find that if players do a little optimizing they know how to play their characters better.

What I don't want is a broken and unbalanced character compared to the rest of the party. We have an assortment of characters and I suspect we will end up going through every class and race combination at some point during our run with 5e. (Ok maybe not every one but still there will be diversity)

The party is 6 players so I am going to have to scale up a little on the Mines adventure but I don't want it to be a cake walk and I don't want the party near death all of the time either.

Any suggestions, advice, or experience you guys can offer would be appreciated. The goal is to run through the mines campaign and then transition into Princes of the Apocalypse.

Thanks in advance and please keep the advice coming. It will be really helpful

Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.

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Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2016, 10:45:36 AM »
Cake Walk / Near Death can be influenced by how much you 'let' them short and long rest.

I don't think there's anything terribly broken to worry about, though I have no spoil to the adventures to warn about. There are some hard hitting combos out of Unearthed Arcana like Mystic Novaing and Ambuscade Ranger/ Rogue Assassin, but they don't rewrite reality.

The system will absolutely reward teamwork. So as a basic example, if you've got melee controlling the battlefield with polearms, and constrictor druids restraining things, and stealthy rogues ranging with stealth advantage and sneak attack, then it's entirely possible the party will melt things. The party can usually set themselves up to generate advantage/disadvantage better than random monsters, under plain circumstances.

Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2016, 02:07:47 PM »
Keep out the Ambuscade Ranger and the Awakened Mystic (really just Psionic Weapon) from Unearthed Arcana as mentioned.  They let characters nova hard.  Nothing in the PHB is unbalanced in a "too powerful" sense except maybe Wish > Simulacrum loops which are of questionable legality anyway.

If you're going to customize the magic items that are given out, things that give out + to AC, attacks, saves, etc. can get a little out of hand at higher levels.  Princes of the Apocalypse goes to 15, which is about where I noticed the + items making a big impact relative to what monsters have.
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Offline Kremlin K.O.A.

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2016, 08:08:20 AM »
The Deep Gnome Abjurer can still cause problems, even if you deny them rests (thus screwing over non casters more)
Basically Deep Gnome Abjurers get fighter levels of HP due to their shields, and can regenerate significant portions of those HP between fights.
Worse, the greater gods either can't track them, or are forbidden from speaking of their location.

Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2016, 09:37:31 AM »
It's just HP though.  HP can't bend the campaign to the abjurer's will or trivialize encounters.  That's easy to chew through on a class that would need to make a significant investment to get past 15 AC.  They don't get really tank-y until their aoe protections kick in.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2016, 09:39:11 AM by TenaciousJ »
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Offline NumberKruncher

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2016, 09:38:53 AM »
The Deep Gnome Abjurer can still cause problems, even if you deny them rests (thus screwing over non casters more)
Basically Deep Gnome Abjurers get fighter levels of HP due to their shields, and can regenerate significant portions of those HP between fights.
Worse, the greater gods either can't track them, or are forbidden from speaking of their location.
what makes the deep gnome better than the forest or rock gnome? I'm away from my books right now.
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Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2016, 09:40:38 AM »
The Deep Gnome Abjurer can still cause problems, even if you deny them rests (thus screwing over non casters more)
Basically Deep Gnome Abjurers get fighter levels of HP due to their shields, and can regenerate significant portions of those HP between fights.
Worse, the greater gods either can't track them, or are forbidden from speaking of their location.
what makes the deep gnome better than the forest or rock gnome? I'm away from my books right now.

They have a deep gnome specific feat for a few at-will spells, one of which is an abjuration.  The deep gnome abjurer can recharge his arcane ward outside of combat without expending anything but time.  Other abjurers can do the same thing on a longer time frame with an abjuration ritual.

e: Svirfneblin Magic grants Nondetection at-will and Blindness/Deafness, Blur, and Disguise Self each once per day without expending slots.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2016, 09:43:45 AM by TenaciousJ »
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Offline Kikkenass

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2016, 10:31:48 AM »
Cake Walk / Near Death can be influenced by how much you 'let' them short and long rest.

I don't think there's anything terribly broken to worry about, though I have no spoil to the adventures to warn about. There are some hard hitting combos out of Unearthed Arcana like Mystic Novaing and Ambuscade Ranger/ Rogue Assassin, but they don't rewrite reality.

The system will absolutely reward teamwork. So as a basic example, if you've got melee controlling the battlefield with polearms, and constrictor druids restraining things, and stealthy rogues ranging with stealth advantage and sneak attack, then it's entirely possible the party will melt things. The party can usually set themselves up to generate advantage/disadvantage better than random monsters, under plain circumstances.

Immediately after you commented about UA I went and downloaded all of the articles and subsequent updates and have started to read through them. Some of them look really fun and if I ever get a chance to play again versus running the game I am totally going to use one of those!

As far as the teamwork piece. I don't think I have to worry about them being that efficient but it may serve as a way to use the baddies against them if they start to melt though them too easily.

I am still a little fuzzy on advantage and disadvantage.... As the DM am I expected to know when someone has advantage or disadvantage or is it on a case by case basis?

Thanks
Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.

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Offline Kikkenass

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2016, 10:40:03 AM »
Keep out the Ambuscade Ranger and the Awakened Mystic (really just Psionic Weapon) from Unearthed Arcana as mentioned.  They let characters nova hard.  Nothing in the PHB is unbalanced in a "too powerful" sense except maybe Wish > Simulacrum loops which are of questionable legality anyway.

If you're going to customize the magic items that are given out, things that give out + to AC, attacks, saves, etc. can get a little out of hand at higher levels.  Princes of the Apocalypse goes to 15, which is about where I noticed the + items making a big impact relative to what monsters have.

Can you expand on the relationship of magic to monsters in PotA? Are magic items something that they will need to survive the encounters or are magic items going to make the encounters too easy?

Any experience you have from this would be helpful.
Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.

Omar N. Bradley

Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2016, 11:47:40 AM »
I have not specifically run Princes of the Apocalypse, so I cannot give advice specific to that campaign.  I only own the book to cherry pick things from it for my own campaigns.

What I can say is 5E's bounded accuracy is very fragile.  A combination of a +2 shield and a +1 armor (both listed as rare items in the DMG with no attunement) are likely to make some mook-type enemies unable to hit on anything below a 17.  There's nothing inherently bad about that but you might have to tailor encounters upward a bit in that scenario to create credible threats in spite of what encounter calculations say.  I have not yet encountered an item below legendary that is practical, extremely powerful AND does not have any + to add to or to defend against d20 rolls.

Monsters in general have a damage issue.  Despite what the DMG says about damage by CR, the actual printed monsters tend to fall below the damage curve as the levels go up and instead have higher accuracy.  This spread creates situations where either the mooks have a chance to hit and the big bad always hits (but for relatively lower damage) or the mooks never hit in order to give the players a chance to avoid the attacks of the big bad.  The mooks already have a problem with their damage falling behind, so a player with a 22+ AC starts to just ignore them unless the mooks are smart enough to use alternative tactics (i.e. using the Help action to grant the big bad advantage, trying to grapple or trip, etc.).

It sounds like this advice is a bit more advanced than what you're aiming for.  Just run PotA as-is and give out what it recommends.  The game runs just fine without any required magic items, and very few of the magic items that are likely to be found over the course of a 1 to 15 campaign are anything other than mild increases to versatility.  Just be aware of what can happen if random treasure rolls keep getting you + armor and + shields.
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Offline Kremlin K.O.A.

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2016, 04:33:10 PM »
The Deep Gnome Abjurer can still cause problems, even if you deny them rests (thus screwing over non casters more)
Basically Deep Gnome Abjurers get fighter levels of HP due to their shields, and can regenerate significant portions of those HP between fights.
Worse, the greater gods either can't track them, or are forbidden from speaking of their location.
what makes the deep gnome better than the forest or rock gnome? I'm away from my books right now.

They have a deep gnome specific feat for a few at-will spells, one of which is an abjuration.  The deep gnome abjurer can recharge his arcane ward outside of combat without expending anything but time.  Other abjurers can do the same thing on a longer time frame with an abjuration ritual.

e: Svirfneblin Magic grants Nondetection at-will and Blindness/Deafness, Blur, and Disguise Self each once per day without expending slots.

This covers most of it. The last bit is by reading nondetection you realize that it specifically stops all those spells where you phone a greater god and ask them for the intel.
So either the greater gods don't know what your deep gnome is up to, or deep gnome magic means they are unable to tell anyone.

Offline NumberKruncher

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #11 on: January 27, 2016, 07:43:49 PM »
The Deep Gnome Abjurer can still cause problems, even if you deny them rests (thus screwing over non casters more)
Basically Deep Gnome Abjurers get fighter levels of HP due to their shields, and can regenerate significant portions of those HP between fights.
Worse, the greater gods either can't track them, or are forbidden from speaking of their location.
what makes the deep gnome better than the forest or rock gnome? I'm away from my books right now.

They have a deep gnome specific feat for a few at-will spells, one of which is an abjuration.  The deep gnome abjurer can recharge his arcane ward outside of combat without expending anything but time.  Other abjurers can do the same thing on a longer time frame with an abjuration ritual.

e: Svirfneblin Magic grants Nondetection at-will and Blindness/Deafness, Blur, and Disguise Self each once per day without expending slots.

This covers most of it. The last bit is by reading nondetection you realize that it specifically stops all those spells where you phone a greater god and ask them for the intel.
So either the greater gods don't know what your deep gnome is up to, or deep gnome magic means they are unable to tell anyone.

Thanks!

That's taking the warlock/abjurer casting mage armor (through the warlock special ability) an unlimited amount of times and making it single classed. I like it!
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Offline fearsomepirate

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2016, 08:45:14 AM »
From experience:

1. You have to get out of the 3rd/4th mentality of handing out magic items like candy. Like someone pointed out up there, they can break the game really fast. I would advise running your first campaign by rolling loot pretty strictly from the tables. This will help give you a better feel for what 5e means by "uncommon" and "rare." DO NOT let your players decide for you what kind of loot they get. Magic Mart is gone (note how magic items are in the DMG, not the PHB, and there is no more than a suggestion for setting prices), and magic items should not be treated as part of character builds the way they were in 3rd/4th. If you've got habits developed by the last 15 years of the game, your characters will be extremely OP by level 8. 

2. I would also hew pretty strictly to "one long rest per day, two short rests per day." This is what the DMG suggests. Many of the powers that recharge on a short rest are quite powerful---"recharge on a short rest" should not be read as a stand-in for 4e's "per encounter." If you let your characters take a short rest after every combat during a dungeon crawl, the Warlock, Druid, and Battle Master Fighter will be OP.

3. I would just not use the Unearthed Arcana at all. It really only took reading over their Eberron UA to realize how broken it was. Those should be viewed as beta software releases, and you should only be using them if you're experienced enough to adjudicate their flaws on the fly.

If you stick to the PHB, you shouldn't have to baby-sit builds much. The fact that Extra Attack doesn't stack, so many things are tied to the Bonus Action or Reaction, Concentration prevents casters from stacking effects, and stat boosts/feats are tied to class level means that the system has fewer interactions to be exploited by the players.

Offline Kikkenass

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #13 on: January 29, 2016, 07:15:20 PM »
From experience:

1. You have to get out of the 3rd/4th mentality of handing out magic items like candy. Like someone pointed out up there, they can break the game really fast. I would advise running your first campaign by rolling loot pretty strictly from the tables. This will help give you a better feel for what 5e means by "uncommon" and "rare." DO NOT let your players decide for you what kind of loot they get. Magic Mart is gone (note how magic items are in the DMG, not the PHB, and there is no more than a suggestion for setting prices), and magic items should not be treated as part of character builds the way they were in 3rd/4th. If you've got habits developed by the last 15 years of the game, your characters will be extremely OP by level 8. 

2. I would also hew pretty strictly to "one long rest per day, two short rests per day." This is what the DMG suggests. Many of the powers that recharge on a short rest are quite powerful---"recharge on a short rest" should not be read as a stand-in for 4e's "per encounter." If you let your characters take a short rest after every combat during a dungeon crawl, the Warlock, Druid, and Battle Master Fighter will be OP.

3. I would just not use the Unearthed Arcana at all. It really only took reading over their Eberron UA to realize how broken it was. Those should be viewed as beta software releases, and you should only be using them if you're experienced enough to adjudicate their flaws on the fly.

If you stick to the PHB, you shouldn't have to baby-sit builds much. The fact that Extra Attack doesn't stack, so many things are tied to the Bonus Action or Reaction, Concentration prevents casters from stacking effects, and stat boosts/feats are tied to class level means that the system has fewer interactions to be exploited by the players.

Thank you so much for the feedback! That is EXACTLY the kind of experience I was looking for. Do you have any feedback on the use of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide? I got it for Christmas and haven't even cracked it open yet but I have a player asking about it.
Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.

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Offline fearsomepirate

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #14 on: January 30, 2016, 12:52:03 AM »
I didn't get that book, so I really have no advice there.

Also, don't worry if something feels broken early on (like the Circle of the Moon Druid). As the players level up, it actually gets harder and harder to play a class in a one-dimensional way. Even if someone just does a vanilla Great Weapon Fighter Champion, by level 10, he's got to be coordinating well with the party to be effective. It's much harder (never say impossible) to make a character who can just do it all himself.

The only other piece of advise I can say is to have a random encounter table ready for dungeons. Resting is very valuable and therefore should never be easy. There are some good online tools for generating random encounters of a specified level.

Offline NumberKruncher

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #15 on: January 30, 2016, 01:59:54 AM »
From experience:

1. You have to get out of the 3rd/4th mentality of handing out magic items like candy. Like someone pointed out up there, they can break the game really fast. I would advise running your first campaign by rolling loot pretty strictly from the tables. This will help give you a better feel for what 5e means by "uncommon" and "rare." DO NOT let your players decide for you what kind of loot they get. Magic Mart is gone (note how magic items are in the DMG, not the PHB, and there is no more than a suggestion for setting prices), and magic items should not be treated as part of character builds the way they were in 3rd/4th. If you've got habits developed by the last 15 years of the game, your characters will be extremely OP by level 8. 

2. I would also hew pretty strictly to "one long rest per day, two short rests per day." This is what the DMG suggests. Many of the powers that recharge on a short rest are quite powerful---"recharge on a short rest" should not be read as a stand-in for 4e's "per encounter." If you let your characters take a short rest after every combat during a dungeon crawl, the Warlock, Druid, and Battle Master Fighter will be OP.

3. I would just not use the Unearthed Arcana at all. It really only took reading over their Eberron UA to realize how broken it was. Those should be viewed as beta software releases, and you should only be using them if you're experienced enough to adjudicate their flaws on the fly.

If you stick to the PHB, you shouldn't have to baby-sit builds much. The fact that Extra Attack doesn't stack, so many things are tied to the Bonus Action or Reaction, Concentration prevents casters from stacking effects, and stat boosts/feats are tied to class level means that the system has fewer interactions to be exploited by the players.

Thank you so much for the feedback! That is EXACTLY the kind of experience I was looking for. Do you have any feedback on the use of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide? I got it for Christmas and haven't even cracked it open yet but I have a player asking about it.
That's great advice!

The SCAG isn't bad at all. The classes are balanced, and some of them (storm sorcerer and swashbuckler off the top of my head) are examples of UA classes that have been scaled back a bit from when they were just available on the UA PDFs.

I thought Bladesinger looked a little too powerful at first, but it's all good.

Edit: I love the avatar. BG is awesome.
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Offline sambojin

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Re: New 5E DM, What can be broken and what should I be aware of
« Reply #16 on: January 31, 2016, 05:25:52 PM »
SCAG seems pretty balanced, but don't allow flying tieflings (flying is silly to have early on).

I also advise not to allow anything from the UA articles. Sometimes it's not obvious, but there's heaps of broken stuff there. Just don't use any of it.

Be a tiny bit careful with multiclassing all round. At the very least, make your characters work for it a bit. How did the sorc end up with a fiendish 'lock patron? Why did the druid end up following a life god on top of his already lifey druidism, or take up the life of a monk? Even if the character concepts gel just fine, it's best to have character "progression" rather than just "levelling/building", even to the point of only giving some class abilities to some combos if you think the balance will be out of whack. Or let them "come online", half one play-session, half the next. Make sure your players know this at the start though, so they know whether the "level of badass" effect is or isn't going to work with that build.

And yeah. Be a bit careful about armour stacking. HP invulnerability isn't a good thing for a character to have. If you want to give out plenty of armour, just add +1-2 to-hit/AC for mook monsters every once in a while, maybe up to half the group of your player's party ends up quite powerful. Think of them as the elite part of the mook mob, but you have no intention of putting any real work into them. You don't want to overwhelm squishier characters, while still giving heavily armoured characters a challenge. +1 (or +2) mook-competency-bonus is almost like this edition's -/+2DC from 3rd. Actually, use -/+2DC as well, for reasons of situation or preparedness. Just assume that the bigger mooks try to engage the fightier characters, and that the rogue isn't always on his A-game unless he actually tries to be (saying "I do *this* complicated thing" isn't exactly prepared while combat is raging on, so they might get a negative to whatever they're doing).

Giving monsters and mook squads/leaders the equivalent of the Magical Initiate feat is also a great way of balancing stuff. Why does a wolf have Bless and Guidance? Because he does. He's the leader wolf. Until you knock the stuffings out of him, the pack is stronger and meaner. You can do this for any monster, for any low level spell, just tie it to the stat you want to if it's a spell that DC/to-hit matters for. It gives you a massive range of options for "balance" and provides better encounters overall. Chuck a lvl 1-2 spell or a cantrip or two on absolutely anything if you think your party will breeze through an encounter way too easily. Then there's plenty more to think about than just DPR and bonus actions. Try and make it in character for the monster, but sometimes it's just "because that's what they do". Spells for leaders, mostly just cantrips for entire mook squads. You'll get to know what your player's characters can and can't do pretty quickly, but adding MI to encounters from even pre-canned adventures makes the game "better" for you and your players, even if it's a low-magic campaign. It's low-magic for them, not for you. You don't have to cast the spells if it turns out you went a bit overboard for a particular encounter, it just gives you options. A lasso can be Thorn Whip,  tricksy throwers can have Viscous Mockery, micro-mages can have Create Bonfire/stackable Ray of Frost. There's plenty to do that makes good sense and makes for far better encounters than most WotC written stuff. Think of level 1 spells/cantrips as a good reliable source of "not broken" options, and add them to encounters to spice them up a bit at will. Even if it's not particularly powerful, it does make it a bit more interesting for everyone if combat is getting a bit stale.

Combos to watch for:
Goodberry/life cleric (yes, HP can throw the game out of whack)
Moon Druid/monk (high AC and wildshape HP=bad for balance)
Sorc/lock (just a very good build, not broken, but very good)
Dipping cleric and not RPing squat to your god (cleric is an amazing one-level dip for most classes, often with no effort for the goodies. But cleric should come with RP baggage, at the very least)

Early written adventures tend to have weaker versions of the monsters compared to their MM equivalents. Feel free to buff them up a bit with the above options if you feel they're a bit lackluster. The starter set has less character options than PHB/EE/SCAG, so less potential for powerful characters, but I'm still not actually sure if the balance is better or worse because of it.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2016, 07:01:37 PM by sambojin »