I agree. Some classes benefit a ton, others hardly at all. It feels very meta-gamey.

I am not a huge fan of short rests. It feels very “half-measure” from the 4e encounter system. In some cases, classes hugely benefit from it. In others, they just don’t care. It’s definitely an ill-fitting solution in a lot of cases.

That’s very hard to do in 5e, which is balanced around having numerous encounters in a single day.
Yeah this is one of the assumptions I really wish they’d been better about. I really dislike the rhythm of “short rests”. I do use wave attacks, which works fairly well to keep things from going too crazy while making sure that threat stays fairly high.

It sort of is, because there are classes with “important” saves that don’t match up with their good stats. A good example would be the Warlock, who has Wisdom save proficiency but it’s pretty unlikely that a Warlock will actually have a high Wisdom to capitalize on it. The Wizard also fits in this.

The real problem is the gap that opens up between people who have a synergy between their save proficiency and how common it is to be made. By about 9th level characters who have synergy between their stat and save proficiency are essentially immune even to fairly hard saves (DC 20 or so).

I think it would have been a lot better to have had three save types, much like there was in 3E. At least it would be a lot easier to check out making sure they were reasonably balanced in terms of threats.

That sounds amazing. Thanks for the tip.

Hrmm, I feel like it does. The easy – for me, at least – answer is “spawn adds” or have a “second phase” of an encounter when you want something to be epic. The legendary creature system is pretty solid for this, actually. You get some solid lair effects running, the creature is doing awesome things, you have little “shitlings” (affectionate term for minions in 4e or really low CR stuff in 5e), and all of a sudden the battle is wild.

I ran a fey encounter where the party was fighting a bear and a minotaur (they picked the form of their own destructor), and based on who they focused, the fight changed one of them “died” merging into a single creature, with the minotaur being the lead. Every time it charged, little “shitlings” would fly off the creature. The minobearotaur was bleeding golden blood that the party could either collect to help complete the puzzle and end the encounter, or drink as a use object action to heal themselves some.

Short and brutal battles are great. They ensure that every action is meaningful, and that every dice roll is significant. Short and brutal battles are exciting and unpredictable; I’m glad that they are the default type of encounter in 5e. It’s just a shame that 5e doesn’t easily support longer battles.

Actually, I like it that 5e battles are not designed to last long.

They are short and brutal and for my session planning they work really well, as I try to have battles for at least the 40% of the session and so time is not spent in throwing dice.

Yup. Each class gets one “common” save (Con, Wis, or Dex) and one “uncommon” save (Cha, Int, Str). The save choice ends up being a big factor in class balance. For example, a sorcerer has proficiency in Con saves (which includes concentration checks) while a Wizard does not (at least not by default). Consequently, the Sorcerer spell list lacks a lot of the best concentration spells that the wizard has (such as summons.)

The lack of other saves is definitely an issue, and one that hasn’t translated all that well from previous editions. I could be wrong – I am working solely from memory here – but I think most classes get one “good saving throw” and one “class flavor” saving throw.

Like a wizard gets Wisdom and Int. Still, the holdover from the editions is such that really the “good saving throw” only matters.