Let's break 5e with PHB

[With a box]

Today is 19th, isn't it? (well 10am at here)

[Lokiare]

You can't break something that's already broken.

[Tehnar]

Any class with access to Animate dead. Which is surprisingly even the EK; even with his reduced casting the skeletons he can create are stronger then he is.
Conjure elementals/planar binding. You need 2 casters to get it to work by RAW, but basically its infinite elementals for a infinite amount of time.

[Zeuel]

Moon Druids seem really ridiculous once they hit level 20. I mean their shapes are big hp buffers which they can do forever as a bonus action. On the other hand they are super vulnerable to spells like Sleep or PWK or Disintegrate.

[emeraldstreak]

How would you like it broken?

[HorridElemental]

From what I've seen so far...

Each class is useful versus the game.

Magic classes got a free pass to be awesome.

Non-magical classes got shackled into never being awesome or only having something cool but limited unless it is dishing out direct weapon damafe .

So the classes aren't balanced against each other but for the most part they are balanced versus the game. Give everyone a free save proficiency and then half proficiency on bad saves and things should be fine there.

But sadly it does seem like the SME issue that caused 3e to suck... The creators were afraid that if they made non-casters awesome then it would take away from casters. Or, they over valued what the non-casters got and didn't understand what they were giving the casters.

[emeraldstreak]

But sadly it does seem like the SME issue that caused 3e to suck... The creators were afraid that if they made non-casters awesome then it would take away from casters. Or, they over valued what the non-casters got and didn't understand what they were giving the casters.


As was predicted a long time ago. And it's going to get uglier for non-casters in splats too. These are the limitations of the current design philosophy. Take it or leave it.


As for all classes being useful against the game, yes, that's nice; however all classes were useful against level-appropriate challenges in 3.x given the right itemization. So that's only a minor improvement.

[HorridElemental]

As was predicted a long time ago. And it's going to get uglier for non-casters in splats too. These are the limitations of the current design philosophy. Take it or leave it.


As for all classes being useful against the game, yes, that's nice; however all classes were useful against level-appropriate challenges in 3.x given the right itemization. So that's only a minor improvement.

Not necessarily true, WotC has shown to help non-casters in splat before and can do it again. Core 3.5 was the most unbalanced portion of 3.5.

Items give the lower tier classes the ability to multiclass into higher tier classes with GP instead of XP. So while your statement has that itemization qualifier it doesn't change the fact that the classes themselves (without multiclassing with GP or XP) can't keep up with the game at all.

Well until you get into splat books.

I love the core rules of 5e, I'll just need to recreate most of the class stuff. I've been working with some friends on a FF Tactics game, perhaps FFT 5e would work out (recreate classes).

[emeraldstreak]

Not necessarily true, WotC has shown to help non-casters in splat before and can do it again. Core 3.5 was the most unbalanced portion of 3.5.

Just as with the ones about the PHB over one year ago that turned right, that's a conjecture about the future based on certain facts about the WotC design team and philosophy. All I can say is wait and see.

[Z3ro]

[LIST]
Any class with access to Animate dead. Which is surprisingly even the EK; even with his reduced casting the skeletons he can create are stronger then he is.


Just out of curiosity, how do you figure a skeleton is stronger than a fighter? Even at the max the spell can control for a EK (6), those six skeletons put together will have fewer hit points and do less damage than the fighter summoning them. I'm really not seeing this one.

[Theodoxus]

I keep seeing this complaint over and over, and I'm super curious as to what possible solutions you complainers have. How does one make a melee centric class compete with a magic centric class on a meta level?

The party barbarian can rage teleport 1000 miles away? A Fighter can do a special slice to an enemy's brain to make it charmed? I know you're not complaining about blasters, because they're pretty much on par - in 3.x specifically, a fighter with the proper feat chain can dance around the battlefield in one round and deal as much damage as a meteor swarm... It looks comparable in 5E.

So how do you put them on par with other support type magics?

Healing's taken care of. Buying cohorts = summoning/animating. Really, it's movement and environmental (flight, water breathing, energy resistance) that are the big things - or am I missing something?

Quit bellyaching over perceived lack of options and either come up with solutions (ie stop making someone else do the work, because that's obviously not going to happen) or realize that not everyone needs to be able to do everything. Even casters aren't omnipotent in this version.

[HorridElemental]

Just as with the ones about the PHB over one year ago that turned right, that's a conjecture about the future based on certain facts about the WotC design team and philosophy. All I can say is wait and see.

Wait and see is the most asinine response to a discussion on possibilities. Let's just ignore everything we know about X and *not extrapolate the data.

I'm not saying it is 100% guarenteed but that there is evidence to support that they help non-casters in non-core books and such. And I have proof that WotC has done this before so there is no rational reason to not believe they will do it again. There is also a market for such a thing.

They helped non-casters in 3e and 4e with splats, why would they stop now? There is a market for it and they like money... There is really no reason to help non-casters.

Edit: some of my message got erased, I didn't add it all back but at least it makes sense now.

[Fwiffo86]

The party barbarian can rage teleport 1000 miles away? A Fighter can do a special slice to an enemy's brain to make it charmed? I know you're not complaining about blasters, because they're pretty much on par - in 3.x specifically, a fighter with the proper feat chain can dance around the battlefield in one round and deal as much damage as a meteor swarm... It looks comparable in 5E.

--snipped--

Quit bellyaching over perceived lack of options and either come up with solutions (ie stop making someone else do the work, because that's obviously not going to happen) or realize that not everyone needs to be able to do everything. Even casters aren't omnipotent in this version.

I agree with this ideology, noone should be able to do everything, at least not easily.

A quick solution is to not let them compete. Remove all damage dealing spells and spells that indirectly cause damage (summons, charms, etc) from the caster lists. That way there won't be any competition in regards to who is doing what. Bob will kill, Charles will incapacitate, Sherry will buff. Done.

[Tehnar]

Just out of curiosity, how do you figure a skeleton is stronger than a fighter? Even at the max the spell can control for a EK (6), those six skeletons put together will have fewer hit points and do less damage than the fighter summoning them. I'm really not seeing this one.

A lvl 19 EK can control 18 skeletons. Which in total have 234 hp compared to the 215 average a fighter with 20 CON has. The skeletons with shortbows attack with +4 and do 1d6+2 damage (average 5.5). Against AC 18, each skeleton has a average of 0.3*5.5+0.05*9=1.65+0.45=2.1 DPR, or in total they have a 37.8 damage DPR, which is comparable the EK will have (0.65*13.13+0.05*21.26)*4= 38.4 DPR. That is for a great weapon style fighter with a greatsword, other options will do less damage.

[Grynning]

A quick solution is to not let them compete. Remove all damage dealing spells and spells that indirectly cause damage (summons, charms, etc) from the caster lists.

Is this sarcasm? because that would leave like...5 spells or less per level to choose from for the wizard.
*edit ok, a lot more than that, I keep forgetting how many utility spells are in this game. I tend to like blasting.

I guess it depends on how you define "indirectly dealing damage." But seriously, taking away blasting and charms doesn't really fix the problem. Taking away summoning, polymorphing, and Wish would be the "easiest" fix, but it still gets rid of some of the core things that make casters really interesting. They just needed to balance the spells a little better before release

[charcoalninja]

I keep seeing this complaint over and over, and I'm super curious as to what possible solutions you complainers have. How does one make a melee centric class compete with a magic centric class on a meta level?

The party barbarian can rage teleport 1000 miles away? A Fighter can do a special slice to an enemy's brain to make it charmed? I know you're not complaining about blasters, because they're pretty much on par - in 3.x specifically, a fighter with the proper feat chain can dance around the battlefield in one round and deal as much damage as a meteor swarm... It looks comparable in 5E.

So how do you put them on par with other support type magics?

Simple. All martial classes gain an additional 4e power progression. Casters still have magic and utility, but martials now have interesting options and swordy ways of dealing with things.

Problem solved.

I honestly cannot fathom how WotC didn't just do this. 4e Martial Classes, 5e Caster Classes, and the terrible basic fighter that does nothing but basic attacks because aparantly there's a subset of the population that loves the hell out of it. A 5e game with 4e martial classes would be a mind blowingly wonderful game.

EDIT: as for breaking the game: we have True Polymorph, Majic Jar, Shapechange, Clone, Simulacrum (makes an exact copy of the fighter only with 1/2 hp, oh gee darn), Demiplane, Planar Binding, Animate Dead, Finger of Death (infinite Zombie armies), Cleric's auto miracles... it's the same caster dominace D&D has seen in all editions save 4e, but at least there are more restraints on their power in 5e so it will be easier to manage than 3.5

I mean with Simulacrum and True Polymorph you can turn your fighter into a Dragon, Simulacrum your dragon and then turn the fighter back to normal for a free Dragon for the party which is in addition to your undead army and potent combat spellslots. Staves and wands and scrolls are still things so unless your DM never gives you magic items ever you're going to have all the spell slots you'll ever need to stomp all over the world.

[Z3ro]

A lvl 19 EK can control 18 skeletons. Which in total have 234 hp compared to the 215 average a fighter with 20 CON has. The skeletons with shortbows attack with +4 and do 1d6+2 damage (average 5.5). Against AC 18, each skeleton has a average of 0.3*5.5+0.05*9=1.65+0.45=2.1 DPR, or in total they have a 37.8 damage DPR, which is comparable the EK will have (0.65*13.13+0.05*21.26)*4= 38.4 DPR. That is for a great weapon style fighter with a greatsword, other options will do less damage.

OK number was wrong, still learning all the spells. But even then, I don't think the comparison holds up. The ek should have haste up, making it five attacks. In addition, feats make a huge difference. Lastly, pure HP is not the only measure of survivability, the fighters saves are much better to. Consider the fighter and skeletons against a single fireball, for instance.

Eta the fighter ac will also mean those HP stay around a lot longer.

[charcoalninja]

OK number was wrong, still learning all the spells. But even then, I don't think the comparison holds up. The ek should have haste up, making it five attacks. In addition, feats make a huge difference. Lastly, pure HP is not the only measure of survivability, the fighters saves are much better to. Consider the fighter and skeletons against a single fireball, for instance.

Eta the fighter ac will also mean those HP stay around a lot longer.

Yeah but the EK with the undead is doing almost as much damage as the fighter AND still has all his skeletons...

[Z3ro]

Yeah but the EK with the undead is doing almost as much damage as the fighter AND still has all his skeletons...

Two things: #1, that seems like melee getting nice things, which is fine with me. #2 skeleton minions die really easy; that dps might seem impressive, but each time a skeleton dies (and several will die each round, at level 19), that number goes down. Really against something like a dragon you're talking a 2-3 round shield more than a competant combatent. Which is not to say that's a waste, but hardly the juggernaut it's being representated as.

[Fwiffo86]

I guess it depends on how you define "indirectly dealing damage." But seriously, taking away blasting and charms doesn't really fix the problem. Taking away summoning, polymorphing, and Wish would be the "easiest" fix, but it still gets rid of some of the core things that make casters really interesting. They just needed to balance the spells a little better before release

I agree with you. The problem is, when you boil things down, there are only a couple of categories for what spells actually do:

deal damage - see any damage dealing spell
stop actions - hold person, entangle
enhance something - Shield, Mage armor
convert something - Charm, dominate, animate dead
create something - walls, cages

Fighters can do most of these things:

Smack something with a metal stick - damage
Grapple/trip/push - stop actions
Wear armor/Surge - enhance something

They cannot convert something without roleplaying interaction, or create something instantly. Let the casters focus on that. Additionally...

There is no fundamental difference between fireball and lightning bolt. They deal similar amounts of damage and affect areas. You can argue the areas are different, but that isn't the point. Instead of having 15 spells that deal damage, you can simply go with something like this...(This is quick and ugly, just tossing thoughts)

Bolt
1st level
Damage: 2d6 elemental damage (chosen when learned)

When casting at a higher spell level, each spell level can be used to either increase the damage by +1d6 or increase the area of effect by 25 cubic feet. You may select an effect bonus per spell level increase.

Done. Now you have every elemental spell in D&D easily replicated by one single spell. Of course, this method invalidates the Sorc I think.

Basically my point is that Damage is damage, it doesn't matter how it happens (that's just story explanation), the target is still injured. Armor is armor (via spell or worn). I think people are getting too focused on the details and missing the bigger pictures.

[Tehnar]

Two things: #1, that seems like melee getting nice things, which is fine with me. #2 skeleton minions die really easy; that dps might seem impressive, but each time a skeleton dies (and several will die each round, at level 19), that number goes down. Really against something like a dragon you're talking a 2-3 round shield more than a competant combatent. Which is not to say that's a waste, but hardly the juggernaut it's being representated as.

That is just for the EK, arguably the weakest way to use animate dead.

A necromancer gives skeletons +proficiency dice to damage, and +lvl to hp. Also he (and any full casting class) can control up to 144 skeletons, though that is pretty much overkill. 50 is more then enough to replace the entire party damage, and he still has a vast majority of spells available to him. Like Irresistable dance to give all those skeletons advantage.

62 skeletons is enough to kill a CR 16 dragon in one round (without any buffs or debuffs on the dragon)!

[Z3ro]

because aparantly there's a subset of the population that loves the hell out of it.

The vast majority of the time, I count myself amongst that subclass. Can I make a god-wizard and just roll everything? Sure. But I find the game more fun for me personally when I can just position myself and smash something with my sword.



EDIT: as for breaking the game...Demiplane

I've seen several people mentioning demiplane being gamebreaking, but reading the spell I'm not seeing it. Sure, it's a neat little hidey-hole spell, but others can get into it, and it's an 8th level spell. Where's the game breaking?

[Z3ro]

That is just for the EK, arguably the weakest way to use animate dead.


Oh, I know it's weak, I was taking issue with the fact that it was posited to be stronger than the fighter who cast it, which it's just not.



A necromancer gives skeletons +proficiency dice to damage, and +lvl to hp. Also he (and any full casting class) can control up to 144 skeletons, though that is pretty much overkill. 50 is more then enough to replace the entire party damage, and he still has a vast majority of spells available to him. Like Irresistable dance to give all those skeletons advantage.

62 skeletons is enough to kill a CR 16 dragon in one round (without any buffs or debuffs on the dragon)!

The Necromancer, of course, is a different animal all together, and is, in my opinion, the strongest build at the moment. But even that has weaknesses (in the dragon example, sure they can kill it, but what if the dragon gets a breath weapon off first? Or if a cleric shows up and turns them?). All in all i think the necromancer is certainly very strong, but no where near what we saw in 3.x.

[Person_Man]

My current read of the game is that 5th edition D&D is the best version of 3rd edition D&D ever published.

If you like 3rd edition, you'll probably like 5th edition. If you think that the mechanical flaws of 3rd edition make it unworkable or have no interest in buying yet another clone of a game you already own or can read for free online, then you won't like 5th edition.

[INDYSTAR188]

That is just for the EK, arguably the weakest way to use animate dead.

A necromancer gives skeletons +proficiency dice to damage, and +lvl to hp. Also he (and any full casting class) can control up to 144 skeletons, though that is pretty much overkill. 50 is more then enough to replace the entire party damage, and he still has a vast majority of spells available to him. Like Irresistable dance to give all those skeletons advantage.

62 skeletons is enough to kill a CR 16 dragon in one round (without any buffs or debuffs on the dragon)!

Can those skeletons hit the dragon? They get a +4 to attack (I think), what is the dragons AC?

Maybe the dragon has a higher initiative than the spellcaster and his minions and it's able to destroy a lot of them right away. Maybe the dragon is flying...

[Sartharina]

Can those skeletons hit the dragon? They get a +4 to attack (I think), what is the dragons AC?

Maybe the dragon has a higher initiative than the spellcaster and his minions and it's able to destroy a lot of them right away. Maybe the dragon is flying...

Dragon's AC is ~17, if I remember. And it doesn't matter if it's flying - Arrows also fly.

[charcoalninja]

The vast majority of the time, I count myself amongst that subclass. Can I make a god-wizard and just roll everything? Sure. But I find the game more fun for me personally when I can just position myself and smash something with my sword.



I've seen several people mentioning demiplane being gamebreaking, but reading the spell I'm not seeing it. Sure, it's a neat little hidey-hole spell, but others can get into it, and it's an 8th level spell. Where's the game breaking?

Game breaking comes from you being immune to anything that cannot get to you. It's the same as being on an island vs. an advancing army that doesn't have boats. You're immune to their everything because they can never reach you.

Now, admittedly, I may have jumped the gun on demiplane as I haven't read it in its specifics, but historically such spells allowed for the construction of interdimension fortresses of doom for casters, while the muggles were stuck moaping around the real world.

Basically it becomes the poorman's phylactory allowing you a nearly inassailable place to store you clones and magic jar bodies while you stockpile various critters to build simulcrums and undead out of as needed. From here you teleport/planeshift/gate to wherever you need to be Nova to annihilate it utterly, than retreat to your safehouse to reset and alpha strike again.

Now I DO enjoy that playstyle and thought experiment, and I do believe it should be in the game (because it's epic as all hell), however the problem arises when the casters get this awesome minigame of epic logistics while the muggles have the same attack routine they had since level 1 and are helpless against a villain that makes use of even basic high level magic.

Seriously. Classic D&D quest: stop the evil necromancer lich from destroying the world. Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue and Ranger are the plucky PC party people decided to play. They as currently written have no chance in hell of overcoming this challenge without serious DM fiat help. Not only do they have no means of actually getting to the epic fortress of amazing sorcerery, but once they're there, they have some serious limitations on what they can do to threaten the villain.

Giving them cool powers that do cool things would make them able to survive the attacks of the wizard. He'd use his options and utility and world shaping but the heroes would dodge, dip, dive, duck and dodge their way through it to confront him through sheer tanacity. And right now I don't see that happening. I hope I'm wrong though.

[charcoalninja]

My current read of the game is that 5th edition D&D is the best version of 3rd edition D&D ever published.

If you like 3rd edition, you'll probably like 5th edition. If you think that the mechanical flaws of 3rd edition make it unworkable or have no interest in buying yet another clone of a game you already own or can read for free online, then you won't like 5th edition.

That has to be the best summation of 5e I've heard yet. Pretty darn accurate I'd say.

[Human Paragon 3]

Dragon's AC is ~17, if I remember. And it doesn't matter if it's flying - Arrows also fly.

How about this:

Dragon flies in and uses its breath weapon then continues on. After the first skeleton attacks it uses legendary action to wing buffet and move out of short bow close range. Skeletons all attack with disadvantage. Dragon dashes /wing buffets out of long range and waits for breath weapon the recharge. Repeat. How many passes would it take to reduce the skeletons to worthless?

If the dragon is in its lair, they won't even last a round.

[Z3ro]

snip

Thanks for the reply; I didn't think through the implications of using it as a base, mostly due to the size limitations. I guess the fact that others can get into it made me discount it as an impregnable fortress.

As to your quest example, I actually see that as a very interesting challenge that could lead to a good late game campaign. First, the characters have to determine who the lich is. Then they need to figure out the contents of his demiplane. Then they need to find a caster who can cast demiplane to get in and fight him. I would actually love to play in that campaign.

[Sartharina]

I like demiplanes. Then again - All I do is build them to be private amusement parks.

[Sir_Leorik]

From what I've seen so far...

Each class is useful versus the game.

Magic classes got a free pass to be awesome.

Non-magical classes got shackled into never being awesome or only having something cool but limited unless it is dishing out direct weapon damafe .

So the classes aren't balanced against each other but for the most part they are balanced versus the game. Give everyone a free save proficiency and then half proficiency on bad saves and things should be fine there.

But sadly it does seem like the SME issue that caused 3e to suck... The creators were afraid that if they made non-casters awesome then it would take away from casters. Or, they over valued what the non-casters got and didn't understand what they were giving the casters.

Based on your complaints, you might be better off playing 4E, or maybe GURPS.

[Sir_Leorik]

I like demiplanes. Then again - All I do is build them to be private amusement parks.

The best Demiplane is the one where you check in (against your will) and don't check out unless you can outwit Count Strahd, free the ghost of Dr. Rudolph van Richten, outperform Harkon Lukas, and survive the Shadow Rift. I speak of course, about the Demiplane of Dread, aka Ravenloft.

[Sir_Leorik]

My current read of the game is that 5th edition D&D is the best version of 3rd edition D&D ever published.

If you like 3rd edition, you'll probably like 5th edition. If you think that the mechanical flaws of 3rd edition make it unworkable or have no interest in buying yet another clone of a game you already own or can read for free online, then you won't like 5th edition.

There's a lot of game mechanics and ideas from 3.X in 5E, but 5E also contains mechanics and concepts from 4E, such as short and long rests, Dragonborn, Warlocks with 4E features (as well as 3.5 features), Barbarians and Bards, characters like Druids and Paladins being of any Alignment, Monks that don't suck, the Battle Master Fighter Archetype, the Paladin Oath of Vengeance, and others as well. The paternity of 5E includes 2E's focus on campaign settings and freeform roleplay, 3.X's core game mechanics and spellcasting system, and 4E's dedication to making sure everyone at the table is having fun.

[emeraldstreak]

That has to be the best summation of 5e I've heard yet. Pretty darn accurate I'd say.

I must concur.

[emeraldstreak]

Wait and see is the most asinine response to a discussion on possibilities. Let's just ignore everything we know about X and *not extrapolate the data.

I'm not saying it is 100% guarenteed but that there is evidence to support that they help non-casters in non-core books and such. And I have proof that WotC has done this before so there is no rational reason to not believe they will do it again. There is also a market for such a thing.

They helped non-casters in 3e and 4e with splats, why would they stop now? There is a market for it and they like money... There is really no reason to help non-casters.

Edit: some of my message got erased, I didn't add it all back but at least it makes sense now.

Well, edit as you like but keep in mind an year from now I'll be linking this thread as proof of how mistaken in their expectations were parts of the community.

[HorridElemental]

Well, edit as you like but keep in mind an year from now I'll be linking this thread as proof of how mistaken in their expectations were parts of the community.

And a year from now they may not have any splat books out dealing with this issue.

How long did it take for the nice things to come out for non-casters in 3.5?

Shock Trooper, Hulking Hurler (tons of fun), and you know, Tome of Battle are some minor examples.

[Falka]

Melee classes are super fun. I don't have anyone complaining at my table, at least. People tried Wizard, but got bored of how vulnerable the class can get (and since I usually don't play mommy-DM games where people can rest after every fight, Wizards burn down their resorces really fast).

[HorridElemental]

Melee classes are super fun. I don't have anyone complaining at my table, at least. People tried Wizard, but got bored of how vulnerable the class can get (and since I usually don't play mommy-DM games where people can rest after every fight, Wizards burn down their resorces really fast).

Are they using the same wizard class I am? The wizard cantrips are pretty solid and the spells are icing on the cake.

If you are purposely over powering a group or focusing on the casters when you attack, then yeah I see how they have a problem. But Wizards are set up pretty well versus what the game throws at them. Mage Armor is 8 hours after all (13 + Dex for AC, easily getting you a 16 at level 1 or by level 4).

Sure there are times when just moving and attacking is fun with a non-caster, but you know what, you can do that with a system that allows for non-casters to have things to do other than "I move and attack". There is nothing stopping say a Battle Master Fighter from saying "you know what, I just want to hit people with my sword today". Actually they should just allow the EK Fighter and Battle Master Fighter to take Champion Archetype options whenever they want.

[Seppo87]

There can be no ToB.
The Fighter already has an archetype called Battlemaster, based on maneuvers. There will be no better subclasses based on maneuvers because that would be redundant and make the Battlemaster obsolete.
Also, WoTC will not create fighting class that fight better than the Fighter because that would be so unpopular, so there will be no Warblade either.

[MukkTB]

It is not impossible to make mundanes as good as or even better than spellcasters. You just tone down what a spellcaster can do while giving mundanes a better array of options until you reach your preference of balance. I'm pretty sure 4E had really good balance. That was achieved though, by really stripping what a caster could do. Its even conceivable to make magic effects so weak that they're not worth bothering with. HE CAN CREATE EXTRA PING PONG BALLS AND MAKE PIGEONS APPEAR OUT OF HIS HAT. HE IS, THE WIZARD. You can also really restrict the spell list for any individual class to the point that all a specialist wizard, for example the necromancer, can do is make undead and cast a few cantrips.

But lets take seriously the question of out of combat utility of non casters. It's always seemed to me that a great deal of utility can be achieved by giving mundane characters permission to succeed at mundane things. That fighter is never going to have a problem jumping that chasm. The Bard (or whatever) will never have trouble talking someone into being his henchman. The medic always heals a minimum amount of HP, ect.

[HorridElemental]

There can be no ToB.
The Fighter already has an archetype called Battlemaster, based on maneuvers. There will be no better subclasses based on maneuvers because that would be redundant and make the Battlemaster obsolete.
Also, WoTC will not create fighting class that fight better than the Fighter because that would be so unpopular, so there will be no Warblade either.

Or you know, the maneuvers get errata and are made awesome, some with high level prerequisites or whatever.

Not only are you a downer but you are quite near sighted when it comes to what can be done.

[PinkysBrain]

How does one make a melee centric class compete with a magic centric class on a meta level?

Martials deserve flexibility because that games the game more fun ... but that's not really what they need most. What they need most is to be king of single target damage in their own right (ie. not bloody True Polymorphed, invalidating every progression choice they ever made). I don't care if a wizard can cast meteor shower only once a day, he can do ~120 damage to an army ... the fighter should be able to do that damage to a single target in one turn at the very least. Damage should be the martial's primary niche, but it isn't ... even without necromancy and planar binding shenanigans it's not their niche. Damage should also not be invalidated by Save or Suck/Die.

In my opinion all saves should be massively increased (say +10) and only decreased on something like the bloodied status. Takes the sting both out of caster AoE damage and their SoS/SoD spells.

PS. a strong secondary niche for the fighter at least should be crowd control in my opinion, shame marking wasn't groggy enough.

[Seppo87]

Or you know, the maneuvers get errata and are made awesome, some with high level prerequisites or whatever.
Better maneuvers = better battlemaster = other archetypes are worse by comparison = players are unhappy = WotC failed to mantain their promises about roughly equal performance between the simple and the complex fighter = not going to happen

[Demonic Spoon]

Better maneuvers = better battlemaster = other archetypes are worse by comparison = players are unhappy = WotC failed to mantain their promises about roughly equal performance between the simple and the complex fighter = not going to happen


or...

New class with better maneuvers on an inferior chassis.

or

More interesting, but not intrinsically better maneuvers

[hawklost]

Fighter 2d6+5 damage per hit (13.33 * 8 Damage = 106.66 + (8.333 * 8 * .15 (crit damage) = 10) = 116 average damage on his attack) = 116 max 1 round With nothing but a 20 str, no feats, no specials from Race, No magic. Just fighter abilities used. (reroll 1/2 on dice of course)

So, a fighter, using his best ability (doubling his Action, which he gets more than once a day to note) can do almost as much damage as the Meteor Storm (which actually does ~140) on a round. He can do this at least 1 other time during the day. He can also do it 2 more times after a short rest and then repeat. (Assuming a short rest between each encounter, which would be stupid in my opinion, he could do 116 damage twice and a total of 928 damage over 4 encounters).

Note that I did not give an AC or a Ref save for anything, this is Raw damage.

Now, I will fully agree that the Wizard can do more damage to large groups but you requested a Fighter to do ~120 damage to a single target. He can, using his best abilities.

[Sir_Leorik]

There can be no ToB.
The Fighter already has an archetype called Battlemaster, based on maneuvers. There will be no better subclasses based on maneuvers because that would be redundant and make the Battlemaster obsolete.
Also, WoTC will not create fighting class that fight better than the Fighter because that would be so unpopular, so there will be no Warblade either.

There's nothing stopping them from releasing new Maneuvers. There's nothing stopping them from releasing new Martial Archetypes. You're right that the Warblade won't be a class, but there could be a Warblade Archetype, a Kensai Archetype, a Samurai Archetype, or a Bohemian-Ear-Spoon Expert Archetype. The sky's the limit. :smallamused:

[Edge of Dreams]

Fighter 2d6+5 damage per hit (13.33 * 8 Damage = 106.66 + (8.333 * 8 * .15 (crit damage) = 10) = 116 average damage on his attack) = 116 max 1 round With nothing but a 20 str, no feats, no specials from Race, No magic. Just fighter abilities used. (reroll 1/2 on dice of course)

So, a fighter, using his best ability (doubling his Action, which he gets more than once a day to note) can do almost as much damage as the Meteor Storm (which actually does ~140) on a round. He can do this at least 1 other time during the day. He can also do it 2 more times after a short rest and then repeat. (Assuming a short rest between each encounter, which would be stupid in my opinion, he could do 116 damage twice and a total of 928 damage over 4 encounters).

Note that I did not give an AC or a Ref save for anything, this is Raw damage.

Now, I will fully agree that the Wizard can do more damage to large groups but you requested a Fighter to do ~120 damage to a single target. He can, using his best abilities.

Fighter can actually do even better than that at level 20. With the Battlemaster archetype, he can spend a Superiority Die on most of those attacks, adding another 6d12 (~39 damage, more if the re-rolling of 1's and 2's applies).

[hawklost]

Fighter can actually do even better than that at level 20. With the Battlemaster archetype, he can spend a Superiority Die on most of those attacks, adding another 6d12 (~39 damage, more if the re-rolling of 1's and 2's applies).

I did specify that I used nothing but basic. He could also do more damage by using Feats and Races as well as a different Arch-type. I was just responding to a person complaining that 'fighters suck cause they can't do X damage in a Round' Pointing out that without using any resources but those that were free, we could get them to do it. And Do it more times per day than the Wizard.

[Person_Man]

It is not impossible to make mundanes as good as or even better than spellcasters. You just tone down what a spellcaster can do while giving mundanes a better array of options until you reach your preference of balance.

The 3.5 Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Duskblade, and GitP homebrew forum disagree. You can have more balanced Tier 3-ish spellcasters that still do awesome magical stuff. You just can't have full casters with access to huge open ended spell lists that make them capable of doing everything.

5E could have balanced spellcasters in four easy steps.
1) Every spell with a duration longer then 1 round requires Concentration. No exceptions. This mostly kills CoDzilla, limits Summon or Animate Dead abuse, prevents players from combining spells to achieve unintended consequences, etc.

2) Long Rests fail if interrupted by combat, and Rope Trick/Secure Shelter workarounds don't exist. DMs can make exceptions if they wish, but the default is that the "daily" magic limitation is a real and meaningful limitation.

3) Every spellcaster with access to 6th-9th level magic has a "general" spell list of fairly basic/universal spells, plus a School/Domain/Whatever subclass options, each of which grants them access to an additional discrete (not added to with splat) mostly non-overlapping spell lists. The subclass selection makes them magically awesome at some niche. Evokers blow up lots of enemies in cool ways, Enchanters can charm/dominate/control, Summoners summon powerful magic creatures, Life Domain Clerics have the most potent healing/protection/resurrection options, and so on. All the amazing awesome magical options exist. But no one class/subclass is amazingly awesome at everything.


The 5E designers purposefully chose not to follow a more balanced magic system because their market research and play test feedback determined that some number of potential players/customers really like uber potent and hugely flexible spellcasters, and they complained loudly about most attempts to reign them in.

As I've said in other threads, its primarily a mid-high level problem, not a low-mid level problem. (It'll take a lot of play testing to nail down exactly what level the cutoff for the E6 of 5E should be). And it doesn't exist if the player is not a jerk about abusing their power (ie, chooses not to abuse Polymorph like spells), or if the player hoards spell slots out of fear that they won't have them when they're needed most (a fear that the DM can help create...), or if the DM strongly enforces plot based time limitations (you must rescue the princess by midnight tonight!). But the issue clearly exists.

[HorridElemental]

I love how some people see the fighter in the PHB and think "game over, game over man" and act as if WotC released a statement saying they will never ever update or make non-casters better.

I used an updated version of my old DM's Setting Sun martial archetype (SpawnofMorbo is in the middle of nowhere Canada for work, not sure if he even had internet) in a one shot. It is quite easy to make a fun archetype that can do something cool. At level 18 I threw a Lich through a wall (walls have ratings that reduce your strength score, if you have distance after taking the wall penalty the creature keeps moving).

I was 10 feet from a wall, grabbed and threw the Lich with my 20 strength. The maneuver allowed me to throw at double score and the ice wall had a rating of 20... 40-10-20= 10 feet past the wall.

Fun times :smallbiggrin:

[Slipperychicken]

Magic-users can absolutely be balanced.

I'd probably start by taking out flight and long-range teleport effects entirely. Those are OP no matter how you slice it, no matter what level you give them at, no matter how infrequently they can be used. Permanent, expensive portals get to stay because you can follow people through them and you can't use them to go somewhere unexpected on a whim.

Tie spells like knock and cause fear into the skill system by making them just give a bonus on the corresponding skill check (Spider Climb gives advantage on climb checks, Knock gives the caster a roll to pick a lock with advantage, Charm Person gives advantage on persuasion, Cause Fear gives an advantage'd Intimidate roll, Displacement gives dis to attack rolls, Glibness gives ad to bluff rolls, True Strike gives ad to an attack roll, Arcane Lock gives dis to open lock rolls, and so on). Invisibility would be more like camouflage, giving ad to hide checks, and Silence would be a dampener, giving ad to move silently.

Illusions allow a save the moment observers notice them, and additional saves each minute thereafter until the observer passes one. Being presented with evidence (like seeing an arrow fly right through an illusory wall) gives auto-success, and touching the illusion gives a save with advantage. Successful saves indicate noticing that the illusion is an illusion, and the ability see through it as if it was transparent.
Summoned creatures get "summoning sickness" (they need a round for their essence to materialize fully on this plane, during which time they're vulnerable).
Observers automatically notice any spellcasting unless the caster can make a concentration check to suppress the verbal and somatic components. If he fails, the spell fails, the casting attempt is noticed, and observers may roll to identify the spell he was trying to cast.

[Demonic Spoon]

Some of your suggestions remove the feel of powerful magic entirely. Sure, it would balance them, but not having iconic stuff like teleportation and flying in the world at all isn't ideal.

I like the path of simply limiting what any specific caster can do. "Wizard" should not be one class, but a bunch - If you choose to be powerful by being able to raise a large number of undead, then you shouldn't teleport across the world.

[Tehnar]

Regarding skeletons. Unles you have burst attacks its really hard to destroy a significant amount of them per round. Remember, with their numbers they can deal a upward of 200 damage per round, at range. While the greatest damage fighter deals damage only at melee range. This makes it troublesome for clerics to turn them as well. How do you get into 30' range of a lot of skeletons without looking like a pincushion first? OR a dragon with his 3 attacks?

[Slipperychicken]

Some of your suggestions remove the feel of powerful magic entirely. Sure, it would balance them, but not having iconic stuff like teleportation and flying in the world at all isn't ideal.

Their presence in a campaign setting renders iconic adventures like those seen in Lord of the Rings (and countless other fantasy works) impossible to run, and render irrelevant any enemy type which cannot fly or attack at range (the tarrasque is a major example, though countless examples exist, like zombies, city guards, animals, most dinosaurs, and so on). They can even make standard dnd quests irrelevant by teleporting to the final room of a dungeon and nicking the objective before teleporting out again.

Anyone trying to run such adventures or opponents while such powers are in play must either bend over backwards to contrive circumstances under which those powers do not work, damage immersion by providing those same powers to the opponents, secure a sort of "arms treaty" with his players (under which they agree not to use the powers), or must watch helplessly as definitive, iconic challenges are wiped away in the blink of an eye.

So I'd say keeping them in the core game is far from ideal. Maybe they could feature in a "hilariously OP magic" variant rule.

[Scirocco]

This. A concisely written post that describes how the game rules actually interfere with playing a fantasy game.

[HorridElemental]

Nerfing casters doesn't make non-casters better, it just makes a type of play unavailable.

Give me for both casters and non-casters, low and high powered cool stuff and we will be good to go.

[Falka]

Magic-users can absolutely be balanced.

I'd probably start by taking out flight and long-range teleport effects entirely. Those are OP no matter how you slice it, no matter what level you give them at, no matter how infrequently they can be used. Permanent, expensive portals get to stay because you can follow people through them and you can't use them to go somewhere unexpected on a whim.

Tie spells like knock and cause fear into the skill system by making them just give a bonus on the corresponding skill check (Spider Climb gives advantage on climb checks, Knock gives the caster a roll to pick a lock with advantage, Charm Person gives advantage on persuasion, Cause Fear gives an advantage'd Intimidate roll, Displacement gives dis to attack rolls, Glibness gives ad to bluff rolls, True Strike gives ad to an attack roll, Arcane Lock gives dis to open lock rolls, and so on). Invisibility would be more like camouflage, giving ad to hide checks, and Silence would be a dampener, giving ad to move silently.

Illusions allow a save the moment observers notice them, and additional saves each minute thereafter until the observer passes one. Being presented with evidence (like seeing an arrow fly right through an illusory wall) gives auto-success, and touching the illusion gives a save with advantage. Successful saves indicate noticing that the illusion is an illusion, and the ability see through it as if it was transparent.
Summoned creatures get "summoning sickness" (they need a round for their essence to materialize fully on this plane, during which time they're vulnerable).
Observers automatically notice any spellcasting unless the caster can make a concentration check to suppress the verbal and somatic components. If he fails, the spell fails, the casting attempt is noticed, and observers may roll to identify the spell he was trying to cast.


You do realise that half of your 'proposals' already apply in the rules, right? It sounds like you want to nerf to the ground casters because they do things mundanes can't. That's the whole point of magic, isn't it?

[Slipperychicken]

You do realise that half of your 'proposals' already apply in the rules, right? It sounds like you want to nerf to the ground casters because they do things mundanes can't. That's the whole point of magic, isn't it?

I want to nerf some parts of them because they severely outclass mundanes and their stronger powers make GMing very difficult.

[HorridElemental]

I want to nerf some parts of them because they severely outclass mundanes and their stronger powers make GMing very difficult.

That cuts off a play style though, why not give an option for everyone to be either low powered (LotR) or high powered (SCION rpg).

I love my CoDzillas and tier 1 casters just as much as I love my tier 4 casters.

I do think the spell lists should have been trimmed down and a lot of the more power spells put on an "epic" list that is part of the DMG. If the DM wants those spells in the game he or she can place them at whatever level they are on the epic list. So spells like True Polymorph would be a "Wiz/Sorc Epic 9" spell, which means that it is in the DMG as a level 9 spell.

That would cut out a lot of the problem spell.

And then give options for non-casters to be fricken awesome and we will have a good deal.

[obryn]

I keep seeing this complaint over and over, and I'm super curious as to what possible solutions you complainers have. How does one make a melee centric class compete with a magic centric class on a meta level?

The party barbarian can rage teleport 1000 miles away? A Fighter can do a special slice to an enemy's brain to make it charmed? I know you're not complaining about blasters, because they're pretty much on par - in 3.x specifically, a fighter with the proper feat chain can dance around the battlefield in one round and deal as much damage as a meteor swarm... It looks comparable in 5E.

So how do you put them on par with other support type magics?

Healing's taken care of. Buying cohorts = summoning/animating. Really, it's movement and environmental (flight, water breathing, energy resistance) that are the big things - or am I missing something?

Quit bellyaching over perceived lack of options and either come up with solutions (ie stop making someone else do the work, because that's obviously not going to happen) or realize that not everyone needs to be able to do everything. Even casters aren't omnipotent in this version.
Casters aren't omnipotent, but there's still a major difference in efficacy between casters and non-casters.

I can't cover everything, but here's where I'd start with the Fighter. Balancing can come later; this is just the idea stage. But - critically - capable full casters like Wizards, Clerics, and Bards should be the metric used for comparison. Balancing Fighter and Ranger is a non-starter, as far as I'm concerned.

So we have two archetypes now - Champion and Battlemaster.

First, as an overall goal, I'm strongly tempted to make it so Opportunity Attacks don't take their Reactions. In fact, let's make that part of the core class gained at some level.

Champions are for folks who just want to sword things. That's fine; it's valid. Champions don't cast spells; they're one of the few in the entire game who don't. They're already Mundane, but starting now, they are Super-Mundane. We won't add much complexity - but we will make them basically anti-magic. It starts at low levels with bonuses to saving throws, moves up to blanket immunity to things like mind-control and fear, and in time gets (say) Resistance to non-weapon damage and cool stuff like the ability to parry, reflect, or cut through spells. Basically, he keeps the archetype, but now has amazing defenses against all the magical threats the world throws at him.

Battlemasters, rather than being super-mundane, should veer towards the superhuman. Right now, they're not. Their abilities are generally sub-par and never scale. It would be crazy for 1st level casters to get Meteor Swarm or Shapechange, and it's crazy that Battlemasters are picking from the same list of maneuvers at 17th level that they were at 1st level. Maneuvers can start pretty much where they are now, but there should be higher-level maneuvers just like there are higher-level spells. So a Battlemaster might not be able to fly, but crazy jumps aren't out of the question. Higher-level maneuvers can be similar to - but somewhat weaker than, due to the Fighter chassis - high level spells. Say, a "behead" maneuver that outright kills a creature below a certain hit point threshold. Stuff to blind, stun, incapacitate, inflict long-term debilitating wounds, attack every creature within a 20' radius, cleave through armor, etc. Importantly, at higher levels, they can be super-human. Not magical - Superman isn't magical - but beyond the capabilities of mere mortals who aren't Battlemasters.

For out of combat utility, I'd tone down utility spells a bit. Make teleportation ritual-only, make stuff like Knock a bonus to lockpicking, etc. But if you bring the Fighter up to par, I'm a lot less worried if Wizards get to do more neat out of combat stuff.

[obryn]

That cuts off a play style though, why not give an option for everyone to be either low powered (LotR) or high powered (SCION rpg).
Because those have no business being in the same party in a cooperative game like D&D.

[HorridElemental]

Because those have no business being in the same party in a cooperative game like D&D.

Says who? And I never said they will be in the same party, that is for each group (the players) to decide not for you to decide for them.

Besides we already have LotR Fighter in groups with God Wizards (ok not Scion level but the principal is the same). Why not give me a God Fighter in a group with a LotR Wizard?

[Seppo87]

@Obryn
I think the huge leap stuff is more fitting for the Champion subclass. The Champion should be Superman, not the Battlemaster.
The increased survivability to magic effect should be part of the basic class as every mundane needs to find a way to deal with supernatural effects that threaten their life on a daily base, but a dedicated subclass is also possible.

[obryn]

@Obryn
I think the huge leap stuff is more fitting for the Champion subclass. The Champion should be Superman, not the Battlemaster.
The increased survivability to magic effect should be part of the basic class as every mundane needs to find a way to deal with supernatural effects that threaten their life on a daily base, but a dedicated subclass is also possible.
That could work too. I'm not a hundred percent wedded to either of these.

I went with Champion = Mundane = Super-mundane because I figured it would keep the simple class simple while giving it a unique niche.


Says who? And I never said they will be in the same party, that is for each group (the players) to decide not for you to decide for them.

Besides we already have LotR Fighter in groups with God Wizards (ok not Scion level but the principal is the same). Why not give me a God Fighter in a group with a LotR Wizard?
Because I think every class should have a contributing impact, and don't see a point to having both awesome and terrible versions of classes.

[Knaight]

A lvl 19 EK can control 18 skeletons. Which in total have 234 hp compared to the 215 average a fighter with 20 CON has. The skeletons with shortbows attack with +4 and do 1d6+2 damage (average 5.5). Against AC 18, each skeleton has a average of 0.3*5.5+0.05*9=1.65+0.45=2.1 DPR, or in total they have a 37.8 damage DPR, which is comparable the EK will have (0.65*13.13+0.05*21.26)*4= 38.4 DPR. That is for a great weapon style fighter with a greatsword, other options will do less damage.
The fighter is also still doing full damage having taken 214 damage. The skeletons total damage output decreases as they get injured.


I keep seeing this complaint over and over, and I'm super curious as to what possible solutions you complainers have. How does one make a melee centric class compete with a magic centric class on a meta level?

The party barbarian can rage teleport 1000 miles away? A Fighter can do a special slice to an enemy's brain to make it charmed? I know you're not complaining about blasters, because they're pretty much on par - in 3.x specifically, a fighter with the proper feat chain can dance around the battlefield in one round and deal as much damage as a meteor swarm... It looks comparable in 5E.
Pushing way more over to ritual magic and making the rituals take way longer would be a good step. Sure, you can teleport. It takes a month though, and it has accuracy problems, and it really isn't worth it for anything that takes all that long. Mental magic is either really obvious and remembered, or performed so slowly and gradually that it's not really substantively better than being persuasive most of the time.

This is a problem that has been solved, repeatedly, by a bunch of games that aren't D&D.


Melee classes are super fun. I don't have anyone complaining at my table, at least. People tried Wizard, but got bored of how vulnerable the class can get (and since I usually don't play mommy-DM games where people can rest after every fight, Wizards burn down their resorces really fast).
The melee classes are pretty fun, but the Wizard thing is a problem. You can characterize game where people can rest after every fight as "mommy-DM" games, but it's absurd. Outside of dungeon crawls, the very idea of routinely having multiple fights per day is absurd. Plenty of fantasy novels might feature the characters getting attacked once in a week of traveling. Adventures in a city probably don't feature four street fights per day for a number of reasons, starting with how that level of violence is just untenable, and thus a character is perfectly able to rest between the attempt on their life and when they strike back after spending a month in hiding. So on and so forth.

[Falka]

I want to nerf some parts of them because they severely outclass mundanes and their stronger powers make GMing very difficult.

I wonder how much of this doomsday theorycrafting ever affects your games.

If you nerf casters too much, there is no incentive to play them over Fighters.

Comparisons are mostly biased because people when they do these alwys give the Wizard the perfect situation or ask the Fighter to be good at situations that he isn't designed for (AoE).

Democracy of power levels doesn't mean the game will be more fun. Wizards cannot spam as much as they wanted anymore. Gamebreaking spells such as Gate are trimmed down.

And seriously, give a good read to spells before complaining. Teleport as it is, it's only for returning to previous locations like a town. Fly is limited to 10 minutes and it's Concentration based... etc.

[Tehnar]

The fighter is also still doing full damage having taken 214 damage. The skeletons total damage output decreases as they get injured.


The fighter is also more vulnerable to massive single target damage and save or sucks. So its mostly half a dozen up and six down.

When the EK, using animate dead, can double his DPR per round and his HP it pretty much means the spell is broken.

[Fable Wright]

When the EK, using animate dead, can double his DPR per round and his HP* it pretty much means the spell is broken.
*If he has access to the requisite number of corpses, and the undead can be brought to bear at the same time, and the target has an AC low enough that the skeletons can hit it reliably, and the Knight has spent the last few days burning all of his 3rd+ level spell slots to do nothing but cast this spell, and the opponent doesn't have access to reasonable-for-level-damage AoE effects, and the target doesn't have immunity/resistance to nonmagical piercing damage, and the target doesn't hit the dirt/find cover at the end of each turn, and the Knight doesn't use his bonus action for anything else, and the horde hasn't suffered appreciable damage to its numbers before the encounter it was designed to be used for.

With a disclaimer that long, I'm unsure I'd call it flat-out broken. It takes serious effort to actually get it to the size that it becomes game-breaking, and even then it can fall flat ridiculously easily and require days to rebuild. I propose the term 'theoretically broken' to describe it: broken wide open in theory, but results vary greatly in practice.

[Falka]

*If he has access to the requisite number of corpses, and the undead can be brought to bear at the same time, and the target has an AC low enough that the skeletons can hit it reliably, and the Knight has spent the last few days burning all of his 3rd+ level spell slots to do nothing but cast this spell, and the opponent doesn't have access to reasonable-for-level-damage AoE effects, and the target doesn't have immunity/resistance to nonmagical piercing damage, and the target doesn't hit the dirt/find cover at the end of each turn, and the Knight doesn't use his bonus action for anything else, and the horde hasn't suffered appreciable damage to its numbers before the encounter it was designed to be used for.

With a disclaimer that long, I'm unsure I'd call it flat-out broken. It takes serious effort to actually get it to the size that it becomes game-breaking, and even then it can fall flat ridiculously easily and require days to rebuild. I propose the term 'theoretically broken' to describe it: broken wide open in theory, but results vary greatly in practice.

Don't forget "if you can find enough bows and arrows to equip them" too.

[Tehnar]

I don't see how this disclaimer doesn't apply to the EK as well, if you replace relevant AoE with a relevant Save or Suck. Why wouldn't he use his spell slots on Animate dead, since its much much better then anything else he can cast? Its not like corpses are hard to come by in a adventurers line of work, or that shortbows are hard to come by at lvl 15+. Come on.

I mean I can go creating disclaimers for any class as well. If the EK is frightened, or in a force cage or held or poisoned, or the target is flying what then?





Also new broken spell: Contagion; Slimy doom. If you hit the creature, it probably won't recover from the stun before the end of the encounter.

[Falka]

I don't see how this disclaimer doesn't apply to the EK as well, if you replace relevant AoE with a relevant Save or Suck. Why wouldn't he use his spell slots on Animate dead, since its much much better then anything else he can cast? Its not like corpses are hard to come by in a adventurers line of work, or that shortbows are hard to come by at lvl 15+. Come on.

I mean I can go creating disclaimers for any class as well. If the EK is frightened, or in a force cage or held or poisoned, or the target is flying what then?





Also new broken spell: Contagion; Slimy doom. If you hit the creature, it probably won't recover from the stun before the end of the encounter.

Greater Invisibility.
Flaming Sphere.
Stoneskin.
Fireball.

You need to spend at least 2000gp just to equip the skeletons. Be my guest if you want to spend cash pointlessly. Still, just because you can do it, doesn't mean it's the greatest idea ever.

They don't even deal magic damage. And a level 3 party can already face wereewolves which have inmunity to non magic weapons. Just one of them destroys your skeleton cheese factory.

And wow, a single target spell that has no effect on constructs or undead, that has a save or it debuffs an enemy. If that's not broken, I'm a walrus.

[Tehnar]

Greater Invisibility.
Flaming Sphere.
Stoneskin.
Fireball.

You need to spend at least 2000gp just to equip the skeletons. Be my guest if you want to spend cash pointlessly. Still, just because you can do it, doesn't mean it's the greatest idea ever.

They don't even deal magic damage. And a level 3 party can already face wereewolves which have inmunity to non magic weapons. Just one of them destroys your skeleton cheese factory.

And wow, a single target spell that has no effect on constructs or undead, that has a save or it debuffs an enemy. If that's not broken, I'm a walrus.

I don't see, apart from fireball, how those spells matter more for skeletons, then for any PC.
If 2000 gp is hard to come by at lvl 15+, you have more problems in the campaign then ranged skeletons.
Also werewolves go through a lvl 3 PC's as well since I doubt they have more then 1 magic weapon; more likely they have none.


Contagion is a single target spell that:

inflicts disadvantage to saves
requires 3 saves to get rid of the effect
any time the target takes damage, it is stunned until the end of its next turn.
doesn't require concentration

[Fable Wright]

I don't see how this disclaimer doesn't apply to the EK as well, if you replace relevant AoE with a relevant Save or Suck. Why wouldn't he use his spell slots on Animate dead, since its much much better then anything else he can cast? Its not like corpses are hard to come by in a adventurers line of work, or that shortbows are hard to come by at lvl 15+. Come on.

I mean I can go creating disclaimers for any class as well. If the EK is frightened, or in a force cage or held or poisoned, or the target is flying what then?
In order, the EK uses Save vs. Effect/Damage spells instead of attacking, casts or shoots arrows through the bars/Misty Steps out/counters it with Counterspell, uses Indomitable and high stats to avoid taking the condition in the first place or again reverts to Save vs. Effect/Damage spells, and casts Fly/uses a Net to make the target fall down/Dispels the Flight/just uses a bow.

And corpses of specifically Small or Medium humanoids in the numbers that are required to replace the EK are hard to come by. Especially if local towns have adopted cremation. The Knight might choose not to cast Animate Dead so they can, say, cast Haste, Stoneskin, a 4th-level Magic Weapon, Greater Invisibility, Fly and/or Counterspell, all of which are applicable in more situations than an army of skeletons would be. Such as when you need to Fly over an obstacle to get to the boss fight. Or when you need to fight in cramped corridors. Or when you're fighting a Dragon who has a breath weapon. Or when your opponents realize that they can just go prone to avoid taking damage. Really, there are a lot of times when it seems like Animate Dead just doesn't compare to casting combat-relevant spells.


Also new broken spell: Contagion; Slimy doom. If you hit the creature, it probably won't recover from the stun before the end of the encounter.
I... okay, what were the designers thinking. There is no excuse for this. The other uses are fine for their level, probably, but Slimy Doom is just ban-on-sight material.


And wow, a single target spell that has no effect on constructs or undead, that has a save or it debuffs an enemy. If that's not broken, I'm a walrus.
Read closer. You suffer the effects of the spell with no save if the Wizard hits with a Spell attack roll, need to succeed on three saving throws with Disadvantage to shake it, and whenever you take damage you're stunned until the end of your next turn.

[Tehnar]

In order, the EK uses Save vs. Effect/Damage spells instead of attacking, casts or shoots arrows through the bars/Misty Steps out/counters it with Counterspell, uses Indomitable and high stats to avoid taking the condition in the first place or again reverts to Save vs. Effect/Damage spells, and casts Fly/uses a Net to make the target fall down/Dispels the Flight/just uses a bow.

And corpses of specifically Small or Medium humanoids in the numbers that are required to replace the EK are hard to come by. Especially if local towns have adopted cremation. The Knight might choose not to cast Animate Dead so they can, say, cast Haste, Stoneskin, a 4th-level Magic Weapon, Greater Invisibility, Fly and/or Counterspell, all of which are applicable in more situations than an army of skeletons would be. Such as when you need to Fly over an obstacle to get to the boss fight. Or when you need to fight in cramped corridors. Or when you're fighting a Dragon who has a breath weapon. Or when your opponents realize that they can just go prone to avoid taking damage. Really, there are a lot of times when it seems like Animate Dead just doesn't compare to casting combat-relevant spells.

He can actually still do both. He controls the undead in the evening, rests and then has spells for the day. If he needs those spells, he just casts them (and he still has skeletons). The worst that can happen is that he loses control of the skeletons in the evening again.

Also debuffs like Faerie fire really help those skeletons out.



I... okay, what were the designers thinking. There is no excuse for this. The other uses are fine for their level, probably, but Slimy Doom is just ban-on-sight material.

Read closer. You suffer the effects of the spell with no save if the Wizard hits with a Spell attack roll, need to succeed on three saving throws with Disadvantage to shake it, and whenever you take damage you're stunned until the end of your next turn.

Bonus points go to the sorcerer who spends 1 SP to cast it at 30' range. Or anyone who takes a 2 level dip into sorcerer.

[Falka]

I don't see, apart from fireball, how those spells matter more for skeletons, then for any PC.
If 2000 gp is hard to come by at lvl 15+, you have more problems in the campaign then ranged skeletons.
Also werewolves go through a lvl 3 PC's as well since I doubt they have more then 1 magic weapon; more likely they have none.
[/LIST]

Those spells are not only more efficient that your cheesy skeleton army, they can be more useful for a lot more situations.

Greater Invisibility works both for offensive and defensive strategies.

Stoneskin makes individual physical damage less relevant.

Assuming your not-very-likely hypothetical situation where you let an EK use an army of skeletons, facing another similar character, I don't see you winning when half your army gets blown up by a Fireball and the other half can't even attack your opponent because they cannot see it. "Attack the enemy" is quite a confusing command if you cannot see the enemy.

I'm just trying to make you notice that you're taking hypothetical "broken" things to a cheesy extreme when half of these things are imposible to do in a tabletop game. Yes, circumstances are relevant to do things, so you must take in acount all the conditions stated above to get a skeleton army.

Regarding the werewolf comment, you know people can buy silvered weapons if they pay an extra 100 g, right? That's a hell of a lot easier than pretending that you can take a Richard-esque army around without being crazy evil or something like that.

But again, the debate is pointless if we assume logic cannot be applied to the very basic consequences of keeping some spells active.

[obryn]

And wow, a single target spell that has no effect on constructs or undead, that has a save or it debuffs an enemy. If that's not broken, I'm a walrus.
Yeah, as the others have said, it's a doozy. No constructs/undead? Okay; no big deal. Remember that spell preparation is extremely flexible. It costs very little to have it prepared and never use it. Your offensive capability is barely affected.

[Malifice]

Regarding skeletons. Unles you have burst attacks its really hard to destroy a significant amount of them per round. Remember, with their numbers they can deal a upward of 200 damage per round, at range. While the greatest damage fighter deals damage only at melee range. This makes it troublesome for clerics to turn them as well. How do you get into 30' range of a lot of skeletons without looking like a pincushion first? OR a dragon with his 3 attacks?

How is this wizard running around with 200 skeletons anyway? Wheres the GM (and other denizens of the game world) in all of this? Is this some kind of bizzaro world where there is no GM, and the NPC's of said game world dont seem to care about undead hordes wandering around the place?

Also, Couldnt a few hundred skeletons (or 1st level NPCs) kill pretty much anything in every single edition of DnD printed ever? Natural 20's have always been auto hits, and those bad boys are pumping out 10 on average per round, even to unhittably high AC. Times 3 crit damage in 3.x also on a confirmed nat 20.

I just cant see a game world where running around with an army of skeletons is either feasable, or isnt simply asking for the local church to send a small army of clerics your way, the local lord come down on your ass with an equal sized small army. or the local authorities to hire some powerfull NPC's to come and slay your ass.

After all, getting hired to 'kill the Necromancer and his army of undead' is pretty much a fantasy staple.

I mean its good in theory, but really has limited practical applications to make such a tactic worthless.

Also; why not just hire the same amount of NPC mercenaries (like you could in any edition of the game) with equal effectiveness, and less in game 'undead panic from the population' problems?

You know; whats stopping the Fighter from simply hiring a small army of 200 1st level Warriors/ Mercs to take down those 200 skeletons? It'll only cost him gold, and not character resources to do it.

Im not sure the 'undead horde' necromancer is the problem most people think it is.

[Tehnar]

How is this wizard running around with 200 skeletons anyway? Wheres the GM (and other denizens of the game world) in all of this? Is this some kind of bizzaro world where there is no GM, and the NPC's of said game world dont seem to care about undead hordes wandering around the place?

Also, Couldnt a few hundred skeletons (or 1st level NPCs) kill pretty much anything in every single edition of DnD printed ever? Natural 20's have always been auto hits, and those bad boys are pumping out 10 on average per round, even to unhittably high AC. Times 3 crit damage in 3.x also on a confirmed nat 20.

I just cant see a game world where running around with an army of skeletons is either feasable, or isnt simply asking for the local church to send a small army of clerics your way, the local lord come down on your ass with an equal sized small army. or the local authorities to hire some powerfull NPC's to come and slay your ass.

After all, getting hired to 'kill the Necromancer and his army of undead' is pretty much a fantasy staple.

I mean its good in theory, but really has limited practical applications to make such a tactic worthless.

Also; why not just hire the same amount of NPC mercenaries (like you could in any edition of the game) with equal effectiveness, and less in game 'undead panic from the population' problems?

You know; whats stopping the Fighter from simply hiring a small army of 200 1st level Warriors/ Mercs to take down those 200 skeletons? It'll only cost him gold, and not character resources to do it.

Im not sure the 'undead horde' necromancer is the problem most people think it is.

I think the max is 144 skeletons at level 20 for any full casting class. The 200 damage a round comes from around 50 skeletons against AC 19 (which from the leaked MM we see is actually a pretty common AC). The reason I don't include the GM in my discussions is that there is no typical GM. Some GM's might handle things one way, and send cleric squads and others might just ignore it. In any case the game then becomes about the Necromancer and his skeletons, and is no longer about the party.

Additionally, if you argue that Animate Dead s not broken on the account that the GM can fix it, then you don't get to argue that any game system is broken, as a GM could fix any of them.

There is nothing stopping the fighter from hiring mercenaries (aside from the GM). The effect will be pretty much the same, except you need direct GM permission, as so far there are no rules about that. Large number of low level troops works because of Bounded Accuracy. In earlier systems you could be pretty much immune to low level troops, due to a combination of factors such as high AC, DR, immunity, fast healing etc. In 5e, none of this exists.

In 3.x there is no way some arbitrarily large number of lvl 1 warriors are a threat to a mid level character that is prepared. OR most high level monsters, like a Pit Fiend. I'm sure you can do it in other editions as well. In 5e this number is depressingly small. 83 skeletons, made by a high level necromancer shoot twice and go home, successfully killing the Pit fiend. OR a comparable number of mercenaries.

[emeraldstreak]

Also, Couldnt a few hundred skeletons (or 1st level NPCs) kill pretty much anything in every single edition of DnD printed ever?


Of course not. You could do the same in previous editions, but not with skeletons but say wights or wraiths. Hell, you could start as an Aristocrat in 3.5 and have an army of magebred mules. If 5e is limited to only an army of skeletons, that's great progress in balancing the game.

[obryn]

Also; why not just hire the same amount of NPC mercenaries (like you could in any edition of the game) with equal effectiveness, and less in game 'undead panic from the population' problems?

You know; whats stopping the Fighter from simply hiring a small army of 200 1st level Warriors/ Mercs to take down those 200 skeletons? It'll only cost him gold, and not character resources to do it.
From a statistical standpoint, hired mercenaries have nothing on a Necromancer's skelly bros. They have many fewer HPs and do significantly less damage. They might also have worse attack rolls; I can't say for sure yet, but at low level, +2 stat and +2 proficiency is about as good as it gets.

Otherwise, I'd love it if the Fighter got a small army as a class feature. But it should be small, just like the traveling skeleton tour should be kept small.

[eastmabl]

You know; whats stopping the Fighter from simply hiring a small army of 200 1st level Warriors/ Mercs to take down those 200 skeletons? It'll only cost him gold, and not character resources to do it.

Im not sure the 'undead horde' necromancer is the problem most people think it is.

Or, a party with a cleric. Just because the wizard/EK has 20 skeletons, it doesn't stop them from being 1/4 CR.

"Hello, I'm a 5th level cleric that the party hired from the big city temple to stay in the back and channel divinity once per fight. 12 of the 20 skeletons fails their saves and fall to pieces when I try to turn them. Your skeletons are not as scary anymore."

Or, for an equivalent-level cleric with a 20 wisdom, the skeletons need a 20 to pass their will save to avoid being destroyed (8+6+5=19 DC, roll of 20 - 1 wisdom modifier). If the 20th level cleric can get any +1 bonus to his turning DC, he can just go bowling for skeletons.

Strike!

[Tehnar]

Only problem is that he needs to get within 30' of the skeletons so he can turn them. I think he turns into a pincushion long before then.

[charcoalninja]

Yeah the GM in this can send the NPC people in protest against the Necromancer all they want. All that results in is more meat for the factory...

Bodies aren't hard to come by at all, since PCs are murderhobos killing the crap out of everything anyway.

As it stands right now, casters have all their crazy powers inside combat, their crazy powers outside combat, and all the skill based fun they could want, while martials are still stuck making the same attacks every round.

I don't think there's a need to give the mundanes a teleport for example, let the Wizard be the magic schoolbus. However the presence of a martial should inspire terror in all around him and a wizard looking at a high level fighter should seriously doubt if anything he has on hand can deal with him.

If the Wizard is Doctor Strange... Fighter should be Thor. Not Hawkeye.

[obryn]

For real, though, guys. Conjure Woodland Beings is the new Necromancer Ned's Skelly Horde.

Yeah, it may be Concentration, but you get 8 pixies per cast, since they're CR 1/4. What can a pixie do?

http://i.imgur.com/GiCn7M8.jpg

Well, each one can cast Polymorph and Confusion! For And heck, Sleep and Dispel magic if you need it. For the price of one 4th-level spell, you get 16 4th-level spells, and a lot besides. :smallbiggrin:

[hawklost]

For real, though, guys. Conjure Woodland Beings is the new Necromancer Ned's Skelly Horde.

Yeah, it may be Concentration, but you get 8 pixies per cast, since they're CR 1/4. What can a pixie do?

http://i.imgur.com/GiCn7M8.jpg

Well, each one can cast Polymorph and Confusion! For And heck, Sleep and Dispel magic if you need it. For the price of one 4th-level spell, you get 16 4th-level spells, and a lot besides. :smallbiggrin:

Can't help it but I just can't get my fear up against a 4th level spell that has a DC of only 12. I know that with Non-proficient saves that could be a 50% chance of failure, but I just can't fear its DC no matter what. (I think its the 3.5 in me. Must get rid of that)

[Tehnar]

Can't help it but I just can't get my fear up against a 4th level spell that has a DC of only 12. I know that with Non-proficient saves that could be a 50% chance of failure, but I just can't fear its DC no matter what. (I think its the 3.5 in me. Must get rid of that)

Maybe not 1 spell, but what about 8 at a time? Even if you have +10, you only have a ~45% chance to save against all of them.

[Z3ro]

As it stands right now, casters have all their crazy powers inside combat, their crazy powers outside combat, and all the skill based fun they could want, while martials are still stuck making the same attacks every round.


Except a lot of things have been un-coupled from class this edition. Skills, for example, are super easy for anyone to get, so the fighter could be unlocking doors, sneaking around, interrogating a suspect, and training his war hourse. He could use a healing kit to make potions, as another easy example.

Plus, several feats grant spellcasing, including all kinds of ritual spells. Mundanes have never had it so good, and certainly have plenty to do out of combat.


If the Wizard is Doctor Strange... Fighter should be Thor. Not Hawkeye.

I find this comparison amusing, given the amazing things Hawkeye can do with his arrows (out of combat utility especially) and the fact that more often than not, Thor just smashes things.

[hawklost]

Maybe not 1 spell, but what about 8 at a time? Even if you have +10, you only have a ~45% chance to save against all of them.

And if you have a +11 then you have a 100% chance to save against them all. If you have advantage for some reason, your 45% drops down quite a bit as well to less than 20% (estimate). Also, if they are all attacking a single person with every one of their spells, then that means they are not attacking anyone else. They are focused now and can be either killed or the Caster can be hit to cause him to have a chance to lose his concentration.

Also note their HP, one hit with Anything will take them out completely, no questions asked, no chance to fail. They get hit, they are down.

[obryn]

And if you have a +11 then you have a 100% chance to save against them all. If you have advantage for some reason, your 45% drops down quite a bit as well to less than 20% (estimate). Also, if they are all attacking a single person with every one of their spells, then that means they are not attacking anyone else. They are focused now and can be either killed or the Caster can be hit to cause him to have a chance to lose his concentration.
Yeah, if the save is high enough, there's a very low chance (only 5%) of failure.

Still, though, in most cases I'll take 8x spells @ DC 12 than 1x spell @ DC 17. You're getting 16 solid 4th-level spells for the price of one.

[hawklost]

Yeah, if the save is high enough, there's a very low chance (only 5%) of failure.

Still, though, in most cases I'll take 8x spells @ DC 12 than 1x spell @ DC 17. You're getting 16 solid 4th-level spells for the price of one.

Do they get to attack on the same turn you summoned them? Because if they don't get to do anything on that turn then they can be completely wiped out before you get a chance to use them.

[Tehnar]

And if you have a +11 then you have a 100% chance to save against them all. If you have advantage for some reason, your 45% drops down quite a bit as well to less than 20% (estimate). Also, if they are all attacking a single person with every one of their spells, then that means they are not attacking anyone else. They are focused now and can be either killed or the Caster can be hit to cause him to have a chance to lose his concentration.

Also note their HP, one hit with Anything will take them out completely, no questions asked, no chance to fail. They get hit, they are down.

Pardon, my math was wrong. +10 is enough for a 95% success rate (saves on a 2). So you still have a 65% chance to save; though that is the best you get since you always fail on a 1.

Against either non proficient save, or you didn't max attribute, lets say you have +4 (which is still pretty good). You have a 3% chance to save.

[obryn]

Do they get to attack on the same turn you summoned them? Because if they don't get to do anything on that turn then they can be completely wiped out before you get a chance to use them.
You roll initiative for them. So maybe?

They appear in "unoccupied spaces" within 60', which might as well be in the air, with them flying and all. Heck; scatter 'em all over the place! :smallbiggrin:

[Tehnar]

Do they get to attack on the same turn you summoned them? Because if they don't get to do anything on that turn then they can be completely wiped out before you get a chance to use them.

1 h duration, so you usually have them ready to go before the combat starts.

[eastmabl]

Only problem is that he needs to get within 30' of the skeletons so he can turn them. I think he turns into a pincushion long before then.

There are ways around that. Invisibility, for example, doesn't trigger until after the turn attempt goes off. Greater invisibility keeps him invisible longer. Concentration makes it a little trickier.

We could probably keep going back and forth about this, but I think the lesson of this exercise is that with Bounded Accuracy, generally there will be a lower level counter available for some things that you can do at high levels.

[charcoalninja]

Except a lot of things have been un-coupled from class this edition. Skills, for example, are super easy for anyone to get, so the fighter could be unlocking doors, sneaking around, interrogating a suspect, and training his war hourse. He could use a healing kit to make potions, as another easy example.

Plus, several feats grant spellcasing, including all kinds of ritual spells. Mundanes have never had it so good, and certainly have plenty to do out of combat.



I find this comparison amusing, given the amazing things Hawkeye can do with his arrows (out of combat utility especially) and the fact that more often than not, Thor just smashes things.

Mundanes have had it vastly better in 4e. They had access to all the utility magic of a full caster if they wanted, mundane ritual practices that accomplished incredible feats, and a scaling skill system that let them accomplish epic feats. 5e doesn't even come close to making mundanes matter as 4e did. You can keep the casters as is, fine, they're super strong, but that can be fun, I like D&D magic like 5e has. Just let the mundies DO something. Once again we have spells or deal damage forever in the same way, and that's crap. Over 3600 powers were made for 4e and they couldn't poach even a handful of them for even ONE martial class? It's so frustrating!

I know some people want their simple smash fighter, and that should be supported to, I feel in 5e that the Fighter is far too weak to matter in high level D&D just like he has been in 2e, 3e, 3.5, and Pathfinder. Fighter should have his great damage, like he does, but he should be hard as hell to stop and ATM he isn't.

And my Thor comment is because of thus:
- Thor is incredibly resistant to physical damage and can go blow for blow with titans and plant sized monsters such as Galactus. hawkeye is a normal guy that dies if he's shot.
- Thor is incredibly resistant to supernatural effects able to might he way through magical walls, blasts, resist mental domination, etc. Hawkeye is a normal guy with a normal brain.
- Thor has an iconic and fun way of fighting. He's versitile in melee, with strong ranged attacks (hammerthrow, lightning) and battlefield control (weather effects, brute strength). Hawkeye is 100% item dependant, and his performance in combat has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with him bringing along arrow X for the occation. And that's fine, if that's your thing, but Hawkeye, unlike ironman who's thing is also awesome tech does nifty things, Hawkeye can't take a hit from anything.
- Thor has a mobility and mythic endurance. He can fly all over the place and doesn't get tired until he's slaughtered an army. Hawkeye is just a guy that gets tired like all other guys.

At low to mid levels Hawkeye is awesome and is something an archer fighter should be. It's amazing. However once you're talking Doctor Strange levels of power, Hawkeye can't cut it and is outclassed in every way surviving only because of plot armour (DM fiat). Our Hawkeye fighter should graduate to Apollo once he reaches high level. Instead we have our D&D party being Thor(War Cleric), Doctor Strange (Wizard), Captain America (Protector Fighter), Hawkeye (Archer Fighter) and Black Widow (Rogue) against Thanos. Cap, Hawkeye and Widow are utterly screwed without some serious plot armour and the only way the Avengers movies keep them all relevant is by having them be separate and dealing with their level of things which doesn't work in a party based game like D&D.

EDIT: for those who know, the Anti magic barbarian with Superstision and Sunder Spell rage powers from Pathfinder is an example of a mundane class that has the tools to be the simple smasher that can endure the supernatural threats he must face.

[Z3ro]

Mundanes have had it vastly better in 4e. They had access to all the utility magic of a full caster if they wanted, mundane ritual practices that accomplished incredible feats, and a scaling skill system that let them accomplish epic feats. 5e doesn't even come close to making mundanes matter as 4e did. You can keep the casters as is, fine, they're super strong, but that can be fun, I like D&D magic like 5e has. Just let the mundies DO something. Once again we have spells or deal damage forever in the same way, and that's crap. Over 3600 powers were made for 4e and they couldn't poach even a handful of them for even ONE martial class? It's so frustrating!

I know some people want their simple smash fighter, and that should be supported to, I feel in 5e that the Fighter is far too weak to matter in high level D&D just like he has been in 2e, 3e, 3.5, and Pathfinder. Fighter should have his great damage, like he does, but he should be hard as hell to stop and ATM he isn't.

I'll be honest, I've played almost zero 4e so I can't comment on that.

But I will say that from the few 5e games I've played, the fighter is far more relevant at higher levels (12, in my game) than you seem to be giving him credit for. Our fighter was causing significant damage and was able to contribute out of combat. In fact, in our party (fighter, ranger, rogue, wizard), he was easily the best combatent, and even as the primary target, almost impossible to stop.


Thor stuff

I will be honest, I was basing my Thor/Hawkeye comparison primarily on the movie (not having read many Thor comics). You can call it plot armor if you like, but the Avengers movie had everyone fighting together, and no one was useless. If the comicon poster is to be believed, this will continue in the sequel.

[emeraldstreak]

anecdotal evidenve. your party let the fighter shine. that happened all the time in 3.x too. it wont change the proliferation of optimized full caster builds that do everything the fighter does and better in due time.

[hawklost]

anecdotal evidenve. your party let the fighter shine. that happened all the time in 3.x too. it wont change the proliferation of optimized full caster builds that do everything the fighter does and better in due time.

anecdotal evidence, your DM let your caster shine and didn't give more challenges magic couldn't solve.

See, the effect is the same because your DM is a player too and therefore is fully capable of making a game world change.

We are not playing a video game where the Caster will always be super powered and mundane characters useless because the system can't change based on who is playing.

[Seppo87]

Hawklost, you seem confused. Apparently you think that a system can be flawed because players and DM can fix it.
This is a flawed line of reasoning, as it's responsibility of the game designer to provide a product that's good as it is.

[EvilAnagram]

It's a bit rough. High level spells like Incendiary Cloud, Chain Lightning, and Meteor Swarm can turn the tide of entire battles, with the wizards essentially wielding the power of demigods.

Meanwhile, a level 20 Berserker gets to attack three times.

If he's STR 24 and wielding a greataxe, each hit deals 1d12+11 damage. You can also counterattack, and you're pretty durable, but even if you hit with all three, that's a max of 69 damage. Yeah, if you crit, we're talking 3d12+11, in one hit, but wizards get to deal 10d8 to multiple targets.

Why can't we have Life Ending Strike back?

[hawklost]

Hawklost, you seem confused. Apparently you think that a system can be flawed because players and DM can fix it.
This is a flawed line of reasoning, as it's responsibility of the game designer to provide a product that's good as it is.

There is not a single game out there that is at a minimum as complex as DnD (Either coded or pen and paper) that does not have major imbalances and is not flawed by your logic. It is NOT the responsibility of the designers to provide a flawless product. Their one goal (and even that is effectively a secondary effect) is to provide a Fun game. If it is majorly flawed but 80% of the people playing it love it, it is a great game. It is was flawless but only 10% of everyone who played it enjoyed it, it would be a total failure. (We will assume the same number of people played both games)

You seem confused about what is the objective of a game designer (ignoring the fact that it is most likely to make a product that sells more than even a product that is fun). Fun > balance.

[hawklost]

It's a bit rough. High level spells like Incendiary Cloud, Chain Lightning, and Meteor Swarm can turn the tide of entire battles, with the wizards essentially wielding the power of demigods.

Meanwhile, a level 20 Berserker gets to attack three times.

If he's STR 24 and wielding a greataxe, each hit deals 1d12+11 damage. You can also counterattack, and you're pretty durable, but even if you hit with all three, that's a max of 69 damage. Yeah, if you crit, we're talking 3d12+11, in one hit, but wizards get to deal 10d8 to multiple targets.

Why can't we have Life Ending Strike back?

And a Wizard who takes that 69 damage is almost dead. A barbarian has 20d12 + 100 hp (230 HP average). He could take 2 of the Wizards Meteor Storm and still be standing (since first time he goes to 0 he stays up and probably second and even possibly 3rd time). The wizard has 20d8 + (60 which is probably high) 150. He can take at max 3 rounds of the barbarians attacks before he is fully dead, not counting Crits or trying to flee from the Barbarian.

Now, your claim is a Wizard can turn the tide of battle, does that mean that a Barbarian who kills an enemy Wizard just effectively turned the tide as well?

[Seppo87]

I never defined "fun" as not being a good goal for a game designer.
Neither I ever defined "flawlessness" as the only responsibility of a game designer.

Providing a good product is responsibility of the makers of said products, and that's a simple fact.

Is it their only responsibility as producers? no.
Can other goals coexist? Yes.

Is the customer's responsibility to fix a producer's errors? No, that's bad reasoning.

[hawklost]

I never defined "fun" as not being a good goal for a game designer.
Neither I ever defined "flawlessness" as the only responsibility of a game designer.

Providing a good product is responsibility of the makers of said products, and that's a simple fact.

Is it their only responsibility as producers? no.
Can other goals coexist? Yes.

Is the customer's responsibility to fix a producer's errors? No, that's bad reasoning.

Yup, in a Pen and Paper game that requires you to use your imagination to play, it is fully a customers responsibility to fix errors that they created. Again, you have an infinite resource in a DnD game (its called imagination). It can break anything that exists and nothing a Designer/Producer or any other person creates can stop it without forbidding its use. Now, if you claim a game that has a rule for every possible scenario and says to only do what the rules say is broken because of imbalance then I will agree with you that it is the responsibility of the Designers to make a flawless game. Otherwise you demand something that is impossible and then complain when it fails.

the game rules give you potential and Options. It does not say, you cannot use anything but the way this is written. You as a player (DM included) must play responsibly enough to not screw up your own fun. I know some people find this a challenge and prefer all things rigidly set out but that is not the way this game was sold. It was sold as a way to use your imagination to play in a fantasy world.

[emeraldstreak]

anecdotal evidence, your DM let your caster shine and didn't give more challenges magic couldn't solve.

See, the effect is the same because your DM is a player too and therefore is fully capable of making a game world change.

We are not playing a video game where the Caster will always be super powered and mundane characters useless because the system can't change based on who is playing.

I don't quote my player experience, exactly because it's anecdotal evidence. When I talk on forums everything has been proofed in gauntlets, arenas, or at the very least solid CharOp theorycrafting. And yes, the 3.5 fighter is kind of useless party member compared to, say, CoDzilla. 5e is not as bad, but I do believe it has the seeds to skew in the same direction in time. How much/how fast remains to be mathematically proven.

[hawklost]

I don't quote my player experience, exactly because it's anecdotal evidence. When I talk on forums everything has been proofed in gauntlets, arenas, or at the very least solid CharOp theorycrafting. And yes, the 3.5 fighter is kind of useless party member compared to, say, CoDzilla. 5e is not as bad, but I do believe it has the seeds to skew in the same direction in time. How much/how fast remains to be mathematically proven.

The Problem with Gauntlets, Arenas and Theorcrafting is this. It Removes major aspect of the game. DMing a game is a huge part of it and as soon as you remove any options of the DM actually making calls it kinda makes the game Not DnD but instead just a Miniatures fighting game. If that was the way I wished to play a game, I would be happy to buy a DnD online game that allows 5 players to work against a computer. That is not why I spend my money buying books to make my chars though.

[Seppo87]

Yup, in a Pen and Paper game that requires you to use your imagination to play, it is fully a customers responsibility to fix errors that they created.
No, it's not.
If your product requires customer intervention to work correctly, you have no right to be called a professional.
It is your responsibility to understand and fulfill the customer's desires and needs better than they themselves can do.

That's why stuff like professional novelists exist.
A pro is someone whose ability to imagine is so good that other people like to see things as he do rather than imagine things themselves.

A game system must do this. It must provide a solid mechanical base that you couldn't come up with, because you aren't a professional game designer.

You *can* create your own mechanics but they probably won't be as good, unless you're a genius, because you're not a professional game designer.

And no, a game doesn't have to necessarily cover every possible options. But the areas you choose to cover are what define your game.

And it's perfectly reasonable to argue that "this are should have been covered". Just because it can be homevnbrewed it does not mean it's automatically ok to omit it

what if I sold you a blank book and told you to come up with your own system?

Again, you have an infinite resource in a DnD game (its called imagination)
But the system must provide good mechanics that support your imagination in a sensible way.
Otherwise there is no purpose in calling the game a "system"

If you choose to leave out something, that's because you believe it's not important for your game, and you believe it's not a defining aspect.

Should mundane stunts be covered by the rules? maybe. maybe not. But it's okay to argue about it.


Now, if you claim a game that has a rule for every possible scenario and says to only do what the rules say is broken because of imbalance then I will agree with you that it is the responsibility of the Designers to make a flawless game.
Okay


Otherwise you demand something that is impossible and then complain when it fails.

the game rules give you potential and Options. It does not say, you cannot use anything but the way this is written.
Read this
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_matter.html

System does matter, really. Try more games and see how the feel changes as rules change, see how the priorities and focus shift on different things, just because of a different organization of the mechanics.

Lacking a mechanic for something is not a flaw per se, but if there are good reason to wish they existed - and this is the case - and they don't, then it is a flaw.

[emeraldstreak]

The Problem with Gauntlets, Arenas and Theorcrafting is this. It Removes major aspect of the game. DMing a game is a huge part of it and as soon as you remove any options of the DM actually making calls it kinda makes the game Not DnD but instead just a Miniatures fighting game. If that was the way I wished to play a game, I would be happy to buy a DnD online game that allows 5 players to work against a computer. That is not why I spend my money buying books to make my chars though.

It doesn't remove anything. It provides a neutral middle ground for everyone playing the game. Everyone's table&friends experience is different and anecdotal. Math is universal.

This doesn't make table experience unworthy; on the contrary, it's exactly because everyone else's experience is as worthy as yours, you don't get to shove your version of it into everyone's throats.

[EvilAnagram]

And a Wizard who takes that 69 damage is almost dead. A barbarian has 20d12 + 100 hp (230 HP average). He could take 2 of the Wizards Meteor Storm and still be standing (since first time he goes to 0 he stays up and probably second and even possibly 3rd time). The wizard has 20d8 + (60 which is probably high) 150. He can take at max 3 rounds of the barbarians attacks before he is fully dead, not counting Crits or trying to flee from the Barbarian.

Now, your claim is a Wizard can turn the tide of battle, does that mean that a Barbarian who kills an enemy Wizard just effectively turned the tide as well?

Don't get me wrong, a Berserker's max damage output against a single character in a single turn (3 crits) is 141 points of damage, compared to a wizard's 80. This is pretty freakin' awesome. Of course, even if you got the three crits, the probability of hitting for that much is less than one in five billion. Still, a lot of martial characters have very high damage ceilings against single enemies, compared to the casters' ability to take on armies. Both are needed, but it's understandable for some people to be miffed.

[pwykersotz]

It doesn't remove anything. It provides a neutral middle ground for everyone playing the game. Everyone's table&friends experience is different and anecdotal. Math is universal.

This doesn't make table experience unworthy; on the contrary, it's exactly because everyone else's experience is as worthy as yours, you don't get to shove your version of it into everyone's throats.

I was going to reply and I thought about it for a while, but if you feel the GM isn't an integral part of the game I think the disconnect is so great that it would be far too much effort to bridge it.

I'm glad you enjoy the style you play. :smallsmile:

[obryn]

I was going to reply and I thought about it for a while, but if you feel the GM isn't an integral part of the game I think the disconnect is so great that it would be far too much effort to bridge it.

I'm glad you enjoy the style you play. :smallsmile:
I don't think that's emeraldstreak's philosophy at all.

Even when your basic philosophy is "system matters" - and mine certainly is - the DM has a big job to do. It's all about making cool scenarios and/or creating interesting challenges, along with the typical referee/NPC dealio. It's not about fixing broken rules, pixel-bitching about spell wording, and playing gatekeepeer for everything cool the Fighter wants to do. :smallsmile: A good DM makes a difference, of course, but ideally the game doesn't fall apart with a bad DM, either.

[Tehnar]

No one is saying the GM is not a integral part of the game. However we cannot discuss any mechanics if the default assumption is that the GM can change them. Of course he can, but the decisions not only vary from GM to GM, they vary from the same GM in the same session. You cannot guarantee that the GM will make the same rulings at the start of a session like he will at the end (in my experience that is around 2 to 3 AM, after a few bottles of wine).

The GM and the players usually agree on what game they want to play, at what power level. Outright broken things usually don't occur in any real games. However, poor mechanics allow players to unintentionally break the game. Sure the GM can fix them. However if there are too many instances, the question becomes, why is the GM trying to fix everything instead of playing a normal system where there are not so many game breaking instances? 5e has barely hit the shelves and there are already half of dozen broken spells/class features that break the game even if you are playing your class as intended.



Regarding the raging barbarian. The problem is the same as in 3.x. He can have +billion to hit and do a billion damage on each hit. The problem with optimized spellcasters is that he will get nowhere near the position to attack. In 5e the problem is even worse, since a simple forcecage will stop him for 1 hour while the wizard (or whatever full caster) does his thing. During that one hour he can kill the barbarian with cantrips.

[pwykersotz]

I don't think that's emeraldstreak's philosophy at all.

Even when your basic philosophy is "system matters" - and mine certainly is - the DM has a big job to do. It's all about making cool scenarios and/or creating interesting challenges, along with the typical referee/NPC dealio. It's not about fixing broken rules, pixel-bitching about spell wording, and playing gatekeepeer for everything cool the Fighter wants to do. :smallsmile: A good DM makes a difference, of course, but ideally the game doesn't fall apart with a bad DM, either.

I agree with this, but I also agree with hawklost. The DM frames the world. Are you on an epic quest to recover the supreme MacGuffin? Are you skulking rebels in an oppressive city? Are you wandering travelers who love to do right by the downtrodden?

These things matter when considering class abilities, and they have an effect on balance.

That said, I agree that math is important and a certain objective equity in the numbers is necessary. I think that all classes should have similarly grand ways of affecting the world that only they can do. I know that 5e, while improved from 3.5, is far from perfect. But I've seen too many people say "I'm not accounting for the DM because they could decide anything!" and then just throw common sense out the window, ruling that their broken, permissive interpretation is the right way to play.

[archaeo]

I agree with this, but I also agree with hawklost. The DM frames the world. Are you on an epic quest to recover the supreme MacGuffin? Are you skulking rebels in an oppressive city? Are you wandering travelers who love to do right by the downtrodden?

These things matter when considering class abilities, and they have an effect on balance.

That said, I agree that math is important and a certain objective equity in the numbers is necessary. I think that all classes should have similarly grand ways of affecting the world that only they can do. I know that 5e, while improved from 3.5, is far from perfect. But I've seen too many people say "I'm not accounting for the DM because they could decide anything!" and then just throw common sense out the window, ruling that their broken, permissive interpretation is the right way to play.

Gosh, it's almost like 5e was made with players and DMs having a conversation and creating the game they want to play in mind! Sort of like Mike Mearls has been saying for well over a year.

There are two things being overlooked in this thread:

1) The concern over bad DMs stumbling headlong into a broken situation is overblown and patronizing to people new to the hobby. It does not require a Ph.D. in D&Dology to see that casters gain access to magic that transforms the universe and martials get to hit harder and more often. If anything, I think the opposite problem is true: it's relatively hard to see, with a surface reading, the sheer amount of damage a martial character can throw down once s/he takes all the class features and buffs available.

2) This is the edition of D&D that was purposefully written for release on the game's 40th anniversary. It should surprise absolutely no one that it's aimed right at the hearts of people who were nostalgic for the D&D of old, and the PHB is definitely a document that is working very hard at presenting a "classic" D&D flavor. I think that everyone complaining about the system otherwise should wait for the entire set of core rules to come out before dismissing the edition as something "too broken to houserule," as I suspect that the WotC design team has already seen all of these complaints coming and loaded the DMG down with enough options to tune 5e to the table's tastes.

It's not like these people weren't part of the hobby before they got their jobs at WotC. It's not like anything in this thread surprises anyone at all, since it's the same damn argument that people have been having for something like a decade of D&D.

"Wait for the DMG" is a cliche that everyone's tired of hearing, but seriously, for those of you shouting down the defenses of 5e with "Oberoni Fallacy!!" (a eye-roll-worthy cliche itself), wait around and see if the system hasn't actually anticipated these needs. obryn himself posted a list not that long ago that included the kinds of options we'll see in the DMG, and in my view, it seems like the 5e core rules will include any number of ways to rebalance the game in whatever way you like. Is the PHB broken? Maybe! It seems like it's broken in all the ways that 30 years of D&D players love unambiguously. Are the core rules broken with the expectation that the player fix the problems? Nope! The core rules are way out in front of you, and will tell you if you want 5e to be something else, turn this dial, hit this button, and apply these templates, and boom, there is your balanced fantasy heartbreaker, all in the same vocabulary as the PHB-only game.

Like I said: it's almost like they wanted 5e to be a game you could make your own. Funny how they're doing what they've said they'd do for years!

[obryn]

[QUOTE=pwykersotz;17976001That said, I agree that math is important and a certain objective equity in the numbers is necessary. I think that all classes should have similarly grand ways of affecting the world that only they can do. I know that 5e, while improved from 3.5, is far from perfect. But I've seen too many people say "I'm not accounting for the DM because they could decide anything!" and then just throw common sense out the window, ruling that their broken, permissive interpretation is the right way to play.[/QUOTE]
Well, I think it's fair to consider reasonable consequences, but it's also fair to remember - as I learned long ago, and which can still be found in records of oldschool gameplay at Gary's table - that players always find ways to work around them.

Right now, we're not even finding the weird stuff. The pun-puns or the locate city nukes. You can sit down, write "necromancer" on your sheet, make a few skellies as your class advises you to, and break it on accident. Likewise, Contagion and Slimy Doom. Same with a horde of pixies from Conjure Woodland Creature. These aren't weird or hidden. There's no funny interpretations of rules. There's just the actual rules.

Those are the kinds of things that are most important to fix. You can't account for pun-puns, but this is surface level stuff, here.

[pwykersotz]

Well, I think it's fair to consider reasonable consequences, but it's also fair to remember - as I learned long ago, and which can still be found in records of oldschool gameplay at Gary's table - that players always find ways to work around them.

Right now, we're not even finding the weird stuff. The pun-puns or the locate city nukes. You can sit down, write "necromancer" on your sheet, make a few skellies as your class advises you to, and break it on accident. Likewise, Contagion and Slimy Doom. Same with a horde of pixies from Conjure Woodland Creature. These aren't weird or hidden. There's no funny interpretations of rules. There's just the actual rules.

Those are the kinds of things that are most important to fix. You can't account for pun-puns, but this is surface level stuff, here.

That is fair enough. :smallsmile:

[archaeo]

That is fair enough. :smallsmile:

How is that fair? How is something "broken" when it's so clearly the actual intent of the designers?

The only thing that seems actually "broken" to me is the Bard ability to take Ranger and Paladin capstone spells, which seems like an oversight that will almost certainly be errata'd. Otherwise, I think it requires treating Mearls & Co. like enormous idiots to suggest that they didn't notice the 150 skeletons in the closet. It took players just a few days to see these things; are we really supposed to believe that Mike Mearls is reading the Internet today, and thinking, "gosh, we really forgot about those dang pixies!"

No. It's totally reasonable to dislike 5e and the decisions of its designers. But "broken" implies something that isn't working right, and as far as we know right now, everything, including the Bard weirdness, is working exactly like it's supposed to.

[obryn]

How is that fair? How is something "broken" when it's so clearly the actual intent of the designers?
Well... 1. I have a different interpretation of "broken" 2. I don't agree that we can't call something "broken" until there's errata which proves it. 3. This is a large game. Everyone makes mistakes.

[archaeo]

Well... 1. I have a different interpretation of "broken" 2. I don't agree that we can't call something "broken" until there's errata which proves it. 3. This is a large game. Everyone makes mistakes.

You see mistakes, I see story hooks. Haven't we done this before, though?

Whatever the interpretation of "broken," as a third point to my rant above: Mearls & Co. have promised to keep this as a "living edition," and we should hold them to that promise. If the players of 5e agree that necromancers and woodland being summoners are ruining their games, then WotC will change that. Or, possibly, they have already anticipated this avalanche of complaints from one of the world's most fractious playerbases and has already written a sidebar for the DMG, "On Player Summoning and Necromancy," which advises DMs that, in fact, these spells really do a number on the action economy, so you should consider omitting them from the game if it bums you out.

Which I guess is just a long way of saying that I don't think we have to wait for errata to prove a mechanic's broken, but I do think we should give the designers the courtesy of releasing the full rule set before we declare it a broken disaster.

Not that I think you in particular are doing this obryn, though I always seem to be making my points in response to you.

[Arzanyos]

Yo Obryn, I really don't think Animate Dead is as broken as you think. Yes, horde of skeletons is powerful, but you know what's better? Four smaller skeleton hordes. If you are intentionally trying to obsolete your buddies by focus firing skeletons at the same targets as your buddies, that's your problem. You give your buddies a bunch of skeletons to play with, everything's just fine. Instead of Svogthir, be Jarad. Incidentally, now I want to homebrew the Ravnica Campaign Setting. That'd be fun actually. Big Good's of the setting are a Demon, a Red Dragon, and a Lich. It's great.

[Lokiare]

I wonder how much of this doomsday theorycrafting ever affects your games.

If you nerf casters too much, there is no incentive to play them over Fighters.

Comparisons are mostly biased because people when they do these alwys give the Wizard the perfect situation or ask the Fighter to be good at situations that he isn't designed for (AoE).

Democracy of power levels doesn't mean the game will be more fun. Wizards cannot spam as much as they wanted anymore. Gamebreaking spells such as Gate are trimmed down.

And seriously, give a good read to spells before complaining. Teleport as it is, it's only for returning to previous locations like a town. Fly is limited to 10 minutes and it's Concentration based... etc.

Fly for 10 minutes is enough to clear 8 encounters if you count the movement between the encounters and you don't take a short rest.

Teleport can be used with scrying to get close. Gate is just as broken as in previous editions, it just requires 2 casters instead of 1.

My comparisons assume the Wizard has used half their spell slots on utility and aren't white room evaluations. I've shown how the wizard can just about replace the fighter and still have more than half their spell slots left and that is just with basic. I also did the comparison based on single target damage.

Nerfing casters so their is no incentive to play them over fighters would be the whole point. So those that want to play a fighter can do so without feeling like they are giving something up, and those that want to play wizards can, without having to worry about accidentally breaking the game. This is the ideal.


Yup, in a Pen and Paper game that requires you to use your imagination to play, it is fully a customers responsibility to fix errors that they created. Again, you have an infinite resource in a DnD game (its called imagination). It can break anything that exists and nothing a Designer/Producer or any other person creates can stop it without forbidding its use. Now, if you claim a game that has a rule for every possible scenario and says to only do what the rules say is broken because of imbalance then I will agree with you that it is the responsibility of the Designers to make a flawless game. Otherwise you demand something that is impossible and then complain when it fails.

the game rules give you potential and Options. It does not say, you cannot use anything but the way this is written. You as a player (DM included) must play responsibly enough to not screw up your own fun. I know some people find this a challenge and prefer all things rigidly set out but that is not the way this game was sold. It was sold as a way to use your imagination to play in a fantasy world.

Actually 'this game' was originally sold as an expansion to the Chainmail war game where you commanded armies and was never meant to be a 'role playing game'. It was meant to be a more detailed look at an individual soldier in an army where you could customize their gear and their tactics rather than just making a single roll against another army or hazard.

Let me ask you this, if they made the game perfectly balanced, but it still resembled your preferred edition 100%, would you really complain? Would it affect you at all? The answer is probably not. You wouldn't notice because the game would play the exact same way for you. For the rest of us it would work as well. (Note: I'm not saying make it like 4E. It would play exactly like your preferred edition).


The Problem with Gauntlets, Arenas and Theorcrafting is this. It Removes major aspect of the game. DMing a game is a huge part of it and as soon as you remove any options of the DM actually making calls it kinda makes the game Not DnD but instead just a Miniatures fighting game. If that was the way I wished to play a game, I would be happy to buy a DnD online game that allows 5 players to work against a computer. That is not why I spend my money buying books to make my chars though.

Actually no. The DM creates the world and runs the NPCs and monsters, they also adjudicate situations that fall outside the rules. If they have to fix the game itself they aren't doing their job, they are doing the job of the developers. So a good DM can fix the 5 minute work day for instance by having random encounters or timers, but short of house ruling and changing an existing rule they cannot fix the wizard taking out an entire village with meteor swarm from a mile away. That should be fixed by the developers, not by the DM. What you are saying is that the DM should always outsmart their players and if they can't do that they need to go home.


How is that fair? How is something "broken" when it's so clearly the actual intent of the designers?

The only thing that seems actually "broken" to me is the Bard ability to take Ranger and Paladin capstone spells, which seems like an oversight that will almost certainly be errata'd. Otherwise, I think it requires treating Mearls & Co. like enormous idiots to suggest that they didn't notice the 150 skeletons in the closet.

Now you are beginning to understand. The only two options are 'it was intentional' and 'the designers didn't know any better'. I lean toward 'didn't know any better' because of the way the math was designed in some instances.


It took players just a few days to see these things; are we really supposed to believe that Mike Mearls is reading the Internet today, and thinking, "gosh, we really forgot about those dang pixies!"

No. It's totally reasonable to dislike 5e and the decisions of its designers. But "broken" implies something that isn't working right, and as far as we know right now, everything, including the Bard weirdness, is working exactly like it's supposed to.

So the game is designed to give the DM a headache and requires a DM that can guesstimate probability math in their head, while simultaneously making the world work around overpowered casters and underpowered non-casters while at the same time providing a fun time for everyone?

I seriously doubt that was their intent. So I'm going with 'they didn't know any better.'

[HorridElemental]

How is that fair? How is something "broken" when it's so clearly the actual intent of the designers?

The only thing that seems actually "broken" to me is the Bard ability to take Ranger and Paladin capstone spells, which seems like an oversight that will almost certainly be errata'd. Otherwise, I think it requires treating Mearls & Co. like enormous idiots to suggest that they didn't notice the 150 skeletons in the closet. It took players just a few days to see these things; are we really supposed to believe that Mike Mearls is reading the Internet today, and thinking, "gosh, we really forgot about those dang pixies!"

No. It's totally reasonable to dislike 5e and the decisions of its designers. But "broken" implies something that isn't working right, and as far as we know right now, everything, including the Bard weirdness, is working exactly like it's supposed to.

Well, I'm not saying Mike and Co are or are not idiots but they kinda dropped the ball on their "everyone can play at the same table" bit, if you want to play high powered or awesome you have yo play magic... There is no room in this game for a non-magical awesome class.

So no, I don't think it is working as intended, they put a glass ceiling in the game which stops a specific play style from being played.

Hell they made the warlock an encounter based class, why couldn't they make the battle master have cool stuff like that (that isn't magic)? Because as they were making the game they messed up on their own goals and broke their own game.

[Z3ro]

Gate is just as broken as in previous editions, it just requires 2 casters instead of 1.


What difference does two casters make?

[EvilAnagram]

Well, I'm not saying Mike and Co are or are not idiots but they kinda dropped the ball on their "everyone can play at the same table" bit, if you want to play high powered or awesome you have yo play magic... There is no room in this game for a non-magical awesome class.

So no, I don't think it is working as intended, they put a glass ceiling in the game which stops a specific play style from being played.

Hell they made the warlock an encounter based class, why couldn't they make the battle master have cool stuff like that (that isn't magic)? Because as they were making the game they messed up on their own goals and broke their own game.

I'm sorry, but what exactly is broken? You don't like the Battle Master class, and I'm sure other people aren't happy about it, but that doesn't make it broken. A barbarian can deal more damage more consistently to a single boss character than a wizard can. As can a rogue. As can a fighter.

If you want to point to something being broken, be specific and precise about what's broken.

Martial characters are perfectly capable of having fun, and they're perfectly capable of dishing out tremendous amounts of damage. If you want to be able to leap over a building and body slam a dragon into a mountain, you're going to be disappointed. Magic has to be capable of amazing people if they want it to be interesting to players. Martial characters don't get to create earthquakes or rain fire from the skies, but they do get to slash their way through dragons and giants, and that's still fun.

[Corvus]

So barbarians and fighters can hit things hard. That is about all they can do. Magic users can also hit things hard. Maybe not as hard against a single target, but they can do it to many, many more targets at once.

Oh, and for magic users they don't need to hit things hard. They have so many ways to shut down an enemy that hitting things hard in the end becomes irrelevant. Mundanes get to have fun only when magic users pull their punches.

[HorridElemental]

So barbarians and fighters can hit things hard. That is about all they can do. Magic users can also hit things hard. Maybe not as hard against a single target, but they can do it to many, many more targets at once.

Oh, and for magic users they don't need to hit things hard. They have so many ways to shut down an enemy that hitting things hard in the end becomes irrelevant. Mundanes get to have fun only when magic users pull their punches.

This. Also a caster doesn't have to put all their eggs in one basket.

The glass ceiling is what breaks 5e just as it broke 3.P. Non-casters are only allowed to go so far before automatically being rejected due to the fact they aren't casters.

It isn't even about class versus class or class versus game at this point but the overall theme of the system.

Casters rule, non-casters drool.

[archaeo]

Now you are beginning to understand. The only two options are 'it was intentional' and 'the designers didn't know any better'. I lean toward 'didn't know any better' because of the way the math was designed in some instances.

Don't patronize me, Lokiare, with this "now you are beginning to understand" nonsense. I'm not some deluded fool that WotC has tricked into liking their hateful caster edition. I think necromancers and conjurers/summoners are reasonable fantasy archetypes that I applaud D&D including without a bunch of "balance" thrown up around them so as to assuage pearl-clutching armchair game designers.


So the game is designed to give the DM a headache and requires a DM that can guesstimate probability math in their head, while simultaneously making the world work around overpowered casters and underpowered non-casters while at the same time providing a fun time for everyone?

I seriously doubt that was their intent. So I'm going with 'they didn't know any better.'

You're not really addressing my point so much as you are throwing up your usual objections to 5e.

Personally, I see a base system that is easy and clear to use, with very clearly demarcated zones of greater complexity. I see a forthcoming DMG we have every reason to believe will contain a plethora of information useful to players who, like yourself, find aspects of the base game unpalatable (do you honestly think the DMG will fail to include some information on reigning in magic?). I see math that is easy to use at the table for everyone from kids to math experts, and ample guidelines for designing encounters without "guesstimation." And I see, in all of this, a group of designers who have been honestly and forthrightly attempting to write a set of three core books that will be flexible enough to meet the needs of as many players as possible.

We're just reading different books, apparently!


Well, I'm not saying Mike and Co are or are not idiots but they kinda dropped the ball on their "everyone can play at the same table" bit, if you want to play high powered or awesome you have yo play magic... There is no room in this game for a non-magical awesome class.

So no, I don't think it is working as intended, they put a glass ceiling in the game which stops a specific play style from being played.

Hell they made the warlock an encounter based class, why couldn't they make the battle master have cool stuff like that (that isn't magic)? Because as they were making the game they messed up on their own goals and broke their own game.

I really don't have anything useful to add to this martial vs. caster argument anymore, as I've already written myself dry on the subject. Suffice it to say that I think it's working exactly as intended; casters can only "trivialize" the use of martial characters in a very small subset of builds, all of which have obvious and simple countermeasures, and the game otherwise has a very narrow band of player effectiveness in and out of combat.

But I might as well be saying this to the wall for all the good that it will do.

[Lokiare]

Don't patronize me, Lokiare, with this "now you are beginning to understand" nonsense. I'm not some deluded fool that WotC has tricked into liking their hateful caster edition. I think necromancers and conjurers/summoners are reasonable fantasy archetypes that I applaud D&D including without a bunch of "balance" thrown up around them so as to assuage pearl-clutching armchair game designers.

I'm not patronizing you. I'm glad to see that you have the same viewpoint as me. Either they did it on purpose or they messed up. In your case you think doing it on purpose was a good thing, and in my case I think it was a bad thing, which is why I give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they didn't do it intentionally.


You're not really addressing my point so much as you are throwing up your usual objections to 5e.

My usual objections do address your point. If D&D was intentionally made to require a DM that can guesstimate probability calculations in their heads while simultaneously using the game world to counter overpowered casters with reality altering spells, while still challenging the non-casters in a way that makes everything fun for everyone, then WotC failed in their goals of 'one game to rule them all' er... I mean 'a game for all play styles'.

If they didn't do it intentionally, then they made many errors which makes 5E nearly as broken as 3E.


Personally, I see a base system that is easy and clear to use, with very clearly demarcated zones of greater complexity. I see a forthcoming DMG we have every reason to believe will contain a plethora of information useful to players who, like yourself, find aspects of the base game unpalatable (do you honestly think the DMG will fail to include some information on reigning in magic?). I see math that is easy to use at the table for everyone from kids to math experts, and ample guidelines for designing encounters without "guesstimation." And I see, in all of this, a group of designers who have been honestly and forthrightly attempting to write a set of three core books that will be flexible enough to meet the needs of as many players as possible.

DM fiat is not 'clearly demarcated zones of greater complexity' its entirely possible that the most powerful spells in the game are simple and what the fighter improvises is super complex.

"I cast fireball, here's my damage."
vs.
"I jump on the chandelier, swing across the balcony, cut the rope to drop the chandelier on the bandits head then leap off and stab the fleeing aristocrat in the back."

I see a forthcoming DMG where (based on their articles, quotes, and math) they attempt to placate the tactical mythical crowd, but end up failing horribly because they don't understand the basic idea behind the play style. We can see this when they mentioned facing as a way to play tactically. To play tactically player choices have to matter more than dice and granting advantage or disadvantage isn't going to fix that. Only a fully balanced game where the tactics matter more than the rolls will do that.

As to designing encounters without guesstimation, the DM PDF threw that one out the window. It has horrendously bad calculations in it and the CR of monsters is way off. The Tarrasque can be killed by a slightly clever player at half the level its supposed to be encountered at. There are extremely low CR creatures that can cause TPKs with a few bad rolls.

The math isn't easy because of the addition of (dis)advantage its actually worse because you can't quickly gauge whether its going to help you or not. Especially in the case where you give up attacks or other things to gain advantage.


We're just reading different books, apparently!

No, we just have different play styles that require different game mechanics (and yes "DM make it up" is a mechanic). While 5E might be the perfect game for your fun type and play style its no where near my fun type and play style. Thus regardless of whether it was intentional or not WotC failed to meet their goals.


I really don't have anything useful to add to this martial vs. caster argument anymore, as I've already written myself dry on the subject. Suffice it to say that I think it's working exactly as intended; casters can only "trivialize" the use of martial characters in a very small subset of builds, all of which have obvious and simple countermeasures, and the game otherwise has a very narrow band of player effectiveness in and out of combat.

But I might as well be saying this to the wall for all the good that it will do.

Well since the only countermeasure for a caster is "DM fiat an anti-magic zone to let the non-casters have some fun", is not a regular part of the game or even a good way to go about it, I guess we are done then.

[EvilAnagram]

So barbarians and fighters can hit things hard. That is about all they can do. Magic users can also hit things hard. Maybe not as hard against a single target, but they can do it to many, many more targets at once.
So, you object to the fact that nonmagical characters aren't capable of casting magic...?


Oh, and for magic users they don't need to hit things hard. They have so many ways to shut down an enemy that hitting things hard in the end becomes irrelevant. Mundanes get to have fun only when magic users pull their punches.
Yeah... let's try a fight against a red dragon without tanks or heavy damage dealers.

[Lokiare]

So, you object to the fact that nonmagical characters aren't capable of casting magic...?


Yeah... let's try a fight against a red dragon without tanks or heavy damage dealers.

3 hold monsters + Dominate = pet dragon.

[Mr.Moron]

Fly for 10 minutes is enough to clear 8 encounters if you count the movement between the encounters and you don't take a short rest.

What kind of envrioments are you adventuring in where there is barely a minute of travel and obtacles between encounters? Some kind of empty half-mile long series of rooms linked by automatic doors?

I get spells are powerful too powerful even, I've already got a ban list. However folks are doing some serious hyperbolic goldfishing in this thread.

[Lokiare]

What kind of envrioments are you adventuring in where there is barely a minute of travel and obtacles between encounters? Some kind of empty half-mile long series of rooms linked by automatic doors?

Any dungeon or castle or small forest. You can fly your speed right? Which means you can travel 60 feet per 6 seconds. That's 60 * 10 * 60 = 36,000 feet per hour which is just over 6 miles per hour. You could reach any encounter within 6 miles give or take.

[Dark Tira]

3 hold monsters + Dominate = pet dragon.

So you're assuming that it auto fails all it's saves?

[Lokiare]

So you're assuming that it auto fails all it's saves?

Nope, I'm assuming the caster has enough spell slots to strip the dragon of its auto-saves and then catch it in an encounter trivializing condition. Both of which are easily possible.

[Dark Tira]

Nope, I'm assuming the caster has enough spell slots to strip the dragon of its auto-saves and then catch it in an encounter trivializing condition. Both of which are easily possible.

Shouldn't you numbers reflect that then? Assuming a DC 20 an ancient red dragon with a +9 to Wis saves will make 50% of it's saves so you should by using at least 6 hold monster spells to make it use it's auto-saves.

[Mr.Moron]

Any dungeon or castle or small forest. You can fly your speed right? Which means you can travel 60 feet per 6 seconds. That's 60 * 10 * 60 = 36,000 feet per hour which is just over 6 miles per hour. You could reach any encounter within 6 miles give or take.

Yes. If you can go in a straight line, without having to stop to open any doors,wait for 3rd party to do something, deal with events at differents times, look for anything, or react to unexpected circumstances you can totally get in 8 encounters spread across 6 miles with one 10-minute casting of fly at 6mph. My bad.jpg.

[Lokiare]

Yes. If you can go in a straight line, without having to stop to open any doors,wait for 3rd party to do something, deal with events at differents times, look for anything, or react to unexpected circumstances you can totally get in 8 encounters spread across 6 miles with one 10-minute casting of fly at 6mph. My bad.jpg.

Sure if you want we can limit it to 5 miles for a metric ton of free feet of movement to do other things or stand around waiting for doors to open or whatever, my point is still perfectly valid.

[EvilAnagram]

3 hold monsters + Dominate = pet dragon.
Really? A Will save of +9, with advantage if you've started the fight already, and that's your choice? You know the spell only lasts an hour right? And if its injured it gets to attempt the save again? With advantage?

Okay, you take a lone wizard to try that out and let's find out what happens.

[Lokiare]

Shouldn't you numbers reflect that then? Assuming a DC 20 an ancient red dragon with a +9 to Wis saves will make 50% of it's saves so you should by using at least 6 hold monster spells to make it use it's auto-saves.

Sure, 6 spells that require a save. You can start with things that are lower level though like web or fireball and work your way up, having a reasonable idea that by the 7th save the thing will probably fail one shortly after that. If you have more than one caster in the party you can even coordinate and take it down in half the time. If you have classes like monk that force saves you can do it in about 2 rounds.

Remember the original premise was "Yeah... let's try a fight against a red dragon without tanks or heavy damage dealers."

So a Cleric, a Wizard, and a Monk could trivialize it in 2 rounds.

[Mr.Moron]

Sure if you want we can limit it to 5 miles for a metric ton of free feet of movement to do other things or stand around waiting for doors to open or whatever, my point is still perfectly valid.

Yep. 5 miles. 5 miles in 10 minutes. 5 miles in 10 minutes at 6 miles per hour. myusername.gif that's me. duncehat.png, that's what I'm wearing. Yep.

[Lokiare]

Yep. 5 miles. 5 miles in 10 minutes. 5 miles in 10 minutes at 6 miles per hour. myusername.gif that's me. duncehat.png, that's what I'm wearing. Yep.

10 minutes? Ok, well I was under the impression it was an hour spell. 10 minutes means:

60 * 10 * 10 = 6,000 feet per 10 minutes. Which is 1 mile and 720 feet. That's still a pretty big area. That's plenty to run around a dungeon or a castle and even a small wilderness area.

[Arzanyos]

Hey Lokiare, doesn't legendary resistance let the dragon pick which saves it autopasses? And isn't it throwing around breath weapons, frightful presences, and giant attack sequences, and possibly lair actions during this whole time?

[Mr.Moron]

10 minutes? Ok, well I was under the impression it was an hour spell. 10 minutes means:

Man. Post #122 Lokiare and you should get together compare notes because you guys are like on totally different places with this. I mean if you weren't obviously entirely seperately people, I'd totally assume you were one guy moving the goal posts as convienent for your position. Seriously talk to that guy. He's using your username and avatar and totally making you look disingenuous. Which is so not a bro of move of him.

[Dark Tira]

Sure, 6 spells that require a save. You can start with things that are lower level though like web or fireball and work your way up, having a reasonable idea that by the 7th save the thing will probably fail one shortly after that. If you have more than one caster in the party you can even coordinate and take it down in half the time. If you have classes like monk that force saves you can do it in about 2 rounds.

Remember the original premise was "Yeah... let's try a fight against a red dragon without tanks or heavy damage dealers."

So a Cleric, a Wizard, and a Monk could trivialize it in 2 rounds.

Neither web nor fireball would make a red dragon use an auto-save and if that's how you begin your combat the only way you're ending the combat in 2 rounds is if it's a TPK. You obviously haven't put much thought into your argument so you might want to take a break to rethink it.

[Lokiare]

Hey Lokiare, doesn't legendary resistance let the dragon pick which saves it autopasses? And isn't it throwing around breath weapons, frightful presences, and giant attack sequences, and possibly lair actions during this whole time?

Sure, but I've already shown that a Wizard has the same defenses as the fighter, throw a Cleric in with it and their protective and healing spells more than make up for the Fighter not being there. Sure it can choose to fail on web and be restrained for 2-3 rounds while the party beats on it if it wants. I have no problem with that. No matter how you slice it a Wizard, Cleric, and Monk can take it down at a lower level than its meant to be encountered.

[Dark Tira]

Sure, but I've already shown that a Wizard has the same defenses as the fighter, throw a Cleric in with it and their protective and healing spells more than make up for the Fighter not being there. Sure it can choose to fail on web and be restrained for 2-3 rounds while the party beats on it if it wants. I have no problem with that. No matter how you slice it a Wizard, Cleric, and Monk can take it down at a lower level than its meant to be encountered.
Web burns with fire.

[Lokiare]

Man. Post #122 Lokiare and you should get together compare notes because you guys are like on totally different places with this. I mean if you weren't obviously entirely seperately people, I'd totally assume you were one guy moving the goal posts as convienent for your position. Seriously talk to that guy. He's using your username and avatar and totally making you look disingenuous. Which is so not a bro of move of him.

its not moving the goal posts when someone corrects you and you take that in stride and change your view on the matter, that's called progress in the discussion. Its moving toward the goal of mutual understanding. I understand that very few people do it and it totally looks foreign to see it on a forum on the internet, but it does happen.


Neither web nor fireball would make a red dragon use an auto-save and if that's how you begin your combat the only way you're ending the combat in 2 rounds is if it's a TPK. You obviously haven't put much thought into your argument so you might want to take a break to rethink it.

Sure, and the dragon is now trapped in the web and has around 28 less hp (assuming fireball was first). Their chances of escaping the web are about 50% to 75% which means they attack it for 2-3 rounds while the party beats on it and the cleric cures or buffs the group. Seriously you should rethink your statement and maybe read the books closer.

[Dark Tira]

its not moving the goal posts when someone corrects you and you take that in stride and change your view on the matter, that's called progress in the discussion. Its moving toward the goal of mutual understanding. I understand that very few people do it and it totally looks foreign to see it on a forum on the internet, but it does happen.



Sure, and the dragon is now trapped in the web and has around 28 less hp (assuming fireball was first). Their chances of escaping the web are about 50% to 75% which means they attack it for 2-3 rounds while the party beats on it and the cleric cures or buffs the group. Seriously you should rethink your statement and maybe read the books closer.

Red dragons are immune to fire. Your fireball is a wasted action.

[Arzanyos]

Which dragon is this, and also what level is this lower level than meant to be encountered? Because if it's a red dragon, web and fireball will do, in order, almost nothing, and absolutely nothing.

[Caelic]

Okay. I'll freely admit that I just picked up the PHB a couple of days ago, but...are massive skeleton hordes really going to be that much of a problem, given that you have to re-up the spell every 24 hours to maintain control?

I mean, by my quick mental math (which could be wrong) a 20th level wizard would, by expending all of his spell slots of 3rd level and above, be able to maintain control over 128 skeletons or zombies--a good number, but that's all he'd be doing for the day.

A necromancer could arguably control more with his level 6 ability (although his ability explicitly refers to CREATING additional undead,) and can definitely control an absurdly large number once he hits 14th level...but I'm not sure where the idea of undead swarms hundreds strong for EKs and the like is coming from.

Help me out here--what am I overlooking?

[Arzanyos]

You're overlooking that casters are OP. Once you realize that, everything makes sense, because reality will reshape itself to fit your views. According to Obryn, you actually only need about twenty skeletons with shortbows for any challenge.

[Dark Tira]

Okay. I'll freely admit that I just picked up the PHB a couple of days ago, but...are massive skeleton hordes really going to be that much of a problem, given that you have to re-up the spell every 24 hours to maintain control?

I mean, by my quick mental math (which could be wrong) a 20th level wizard would, by expending all of his spell slots of 3rd level and above, be able to maintain control over 128 skeletons or zombies--a good number, but that's all he'd be doing for the day.

A necromancer could arguably control more with his level 6 ability (although his ability explicitly refers to CREATING additional undead,) and can definitely control an absurdly large number once he hits 14th level...but I'm not sure where the idea of undead swarms hundreds strong for EKs and the like is coming from.

Help me out here--what am I overlooking?

Not much really. It's just an absurd thought experiment that is entertaining people. I'd be surprised if the issue ever appeared in a real game. It does distract people from broken things that will actually be played, like the Onion Druid for example.

[Lokiare]

Which dragon is this, and also what level is this lower level than meant to be encountered? Because if it's a red dragon, web and fireball will do, in order, almost nothing, and absolutely nothing.

Where do you get that? A failed Dex save means the dragon is restrained. Meaning if no one is in melee range they can't attack. If they use their breath weapon they better make sure people are in range of it.


Red dragons are immune to fire. Your fireball is a wasted action.

Sure, well in that case just use a different spell. Its not like you won't have enough prepared or anything.

[hawklost]

Sure, but I've already shown that a Wizard has the same defenses as the fighter, throw a Cleric in with it and their protective and healing spells more than make up for the Fighter not being there. Sure it can choose to fail on web and be restrained for 2-3 rounds while the party beats on it if it wants. I have no problem with that. No matter how you slice it a Wizard, Cleric, and Monk can take it down at a lower level than its meant to be encountered.

Which red dragon are you looking at? Because I want to fight it with my character! I mean, even a Young Red Dragon has a str of 26 and a dex save of +4.

Also, restrained does not stop it from slaughtering people, just stops it from moving and gives it disadvantage on attacks. Not sure what party really wants to get into close combat with a dragon so they must all be staying far away. Now, lets say they only have to be 60 ft away, they can get a Breath Weapon to the face (which destroys the webbing) approximately every 3 rounds.

[Arzanyos]

They can take their action to rip through the bonds with a strength check. Also, Fire breath recharges. You can afford to spam it. Also, Web only restrains if they are caught in it at the start of their turn. Hello there, wing attack legendary action.

EDIT: Also, it may very well be that you don't have enough spells prepared. Maybe you were specced to outdo the rogue today, and surprise dragon. You can't prepare infinite spells. And maybe you have some sort of theme to your casting.

[Dark Tira]

Which red dragon are you looking at? Because I want to fight it with my character! I mean, even a Young Red Dragon has a str of 26 and a dex save of +4.

Also, restrained does not stop it from slaughtering people, just stops it from moving and gives it disadvantage on attacks. Not sure what party really wants to get into close combat with a dragon so they must all be staying far away. Now, lets say they only have to be 60 ft away, they can get a Breath Weapon to the face (which destroys the webbing) approximately every 3 rounds.

I've been looking at the ancient red dragon so we can assume a level 20 party since dominate monster is in play.

[EvilAnagram]

Sure, 6 spells that require a save. You can start with things that are lower level though like web or fireball and work your way up, having a reasonable idea that by the 7th save the thing will probably fail one shortly after that. If you have more than one caster in the party you can even coordinate and take it down in half the time. If you have classes like monk that force saves you can do it in about 2 rounds.

Remember the original premise was "Yeah... let's try a fight against a red dragon without tanks or heavy damage dealers."

So a Cleric, a Wizard, and a Monk could trivialize it in 2 rounds.
Why would it attempt a save against fire magic? Why would it autosave against web? You're treating it like a computer. DMs are capable of intelligent planning and strategy. And ancient red dragons are capable of consistently making difficult saves, and you're acting as though they can be one shotted with a blowtorch and a pocket watch. Its rules allow it to ignore or easily resist trivializing spells, and it's capable of attacks that can decimate a party.

[obryn]

You're overlooking that casters are OP. Once you realize that, everything makes sense, because reality will reshape itself to fit your views. According to Obryn, you actually only need about twenty skeletons with shortbows for any challenge.
First off, as a general note, I have Lokiare on ignore, so my arguments are my own.

20 won't trivialize every encounter, near as I can tell, but it will out-damage your Fighter. But go ahead and run through some combats where a necromancer intelligently uses them against an enemy. In another thread, it looks like it only takes 3 to out - damage a Ranger's beast companion, for another example.

The huge horde is just funny, and I don't actually expect to see it in play. Not that a player won't find a way, mind you. Think of it as a funny, bony slippery slope.

[Arzanyos]

Oh hi Obryn. Yeah, I was talking to Caelic there. My opinion on necromancy is still just "Be Jarad, not Svogthir. Everything's better now."

[hawklost]

Where do you get that? A failed Dex save means the dragon is restrained. Meaning if no one is in melee range they can't attack. If they use their breath weapon they better make sure people are in range of it.



Sure, well in that case just use a different spell. Its not like you won't have enough prepared or anything.

Assuming a CR17 creature which would be an Adult Red Dragon

Melee Range, like 15ft?

Str check to break Web
Legendary Action to move and attack the party after it is free
Firebreath to shoot at a distance of 60ft

Other facts, having 3 hold Monsters in one encounter requires you be a lvl 18 caster. Assuming a DC 19, the Dragon would succeed about 45% of the time, so you better hope you are casting lots of things to waste its Legendary Resistance First. It is intellegent, it doesn't have to use its save on something minor. Also, you might want to figure that in 2-3 rounds that it takes it to fail it saves on the legendary actions, it is beating the crap out of the party. Have you actually figured if your Wizard, Cleric, Monk could survive all 3 rounds against it to be able to cast your 'I win' spell? Or are you just assuming you are so awesome it doesn't bother striking you?

[Dark Tira]

Why would it attempt a save against fire magic? Why would it autosave against web? You're treating it like a computer. DMs are capable of intelligent planning and strategy. And ancient red dragons are capable of consistently making difficult saves, and you're acting as though they can be one shotted with a blowtorch and a pocket watch. Its rules allow it to ignore or easily resist trivializing spells, and it's capable of attacks that can decimate a party.

Yeah, it's really pretty funny how he says he can take it down in 2 rounds and then comes up with perhaps the worst opener ever against a red dragon. It's almost realistic roleplaying for a group that has no idea what a red dragon is.

[Caelic]

In another thread, it looks like it only takes 3 to out - damage a Ranger's beast companion, for another example.




Well, that's a slightly different issue. I don't think I've met anyone yet who doesn't agree that the Ranger is underpowered and needs some love.

[obryn]

Well, that's a slightly different issue. I don't think I've met anyone yet who doesn't agree that the Ranger is underpowered and needs some love.
Yeah, pretty much for all skelly horde talk, my main thought is, "Well, how do other classes keep up?" and "At which point do you render other entire classes obsolete with a few spells?" more than "OMG OVERPOWERDZ." Which it is, but if everyone's overpowered, that's cool.

Also because I think it's hilarious.

[Lokiare]

Assuming a CR17 creature which would be an Adult Red Dragon

Melee Range, like 15ft?

Str check to break Web
Legendary Action to move and attack the party after it is free
Firebreath to shoot at a distance of 60ft

Other facts, having 3 hold Monsters in one encounter requires you be a lvl 18 caster. Assuming a DC 19, the Dragon would succeed about 45% of the time, so you better hope you are casting lots of things to waste its Legendary Resistance First. It is intellegent, it doesn't have to use its save on something minor. Also, you might want to figure that in 2-3 rounds that it takes it to fail it saves on the legendary actions, it is beating the crap out of the party. Have you actually figured if your Wizard, Cleric, Monk could survive all 3 rounds against it to be able to cast your 'I win' spell? Or are you just assuming you are so awesome it doesn't bother striking you?

So now the dragon auto passes strength checks vs. DC 20? It then uses its cheater moves to close with the party and then breath? Sorry, it gets one action after another character takes a turn meaning even if it broke free on its turn at least one other character gets a turn to do something nasty to it causing a save.

It can choose to fail those saves, but since spells with saves trivialize encounters even low level spells, that's not the best strategy for it. I mean it got caught in a web and now its used its action to break free, that means no multi-attack and no breath weapon. It has to wait or use its legendary actions to even get an attack, and if it failed the save it either spends one of its auto-wins or it sits there for a round or wastes its breath weapon to get free. If it doesn't have its breath weapon (from using it before) then it literally has to just sit there while everyone beats on it. They don't call them Save or Suck spells for nothing.

[Lokiare]

Yeah, it's really pretty funny how he says he can take it down in 2 rounds and then comes up with perhaps the worst opener ever against a red dragon. It's almost realistic roleplaying for a group that has no idea what a red dragon is.

I don't have the stat block in front of me or I would have called out a different spell.

[Dark Tira]

I don't have the stat block in front of me or I would have called out a different spell.
Here ya go:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?367457-Ancient-Red-Dragon-preview-needs-a-bit-more-to-unlock

Also if it's in it's lair it burns the web without even using it's breath or strength.

[Arzanyos]

Even better, it can dodge Web with it's wing attack. Legendary actions happen at the end of another character's turn, Web's dex save happens at the beginning of the dragon's turn.

[obryn]

Also ALSO ... way back when 5e was still being playtested, there were a bunch of arguments here about commoners with bows killing Asmodeus. I was of the opinion at the time that this was completely ludicrous, and that it's fine if the game doesn't model a horde of commoners because that's a weird, fringe edge case where the whole rule-system collapses, and therefore it wasn't fair to judge the game based on it.

I held that opinion - and argued it vigorously (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15857054&postcount=136) - until I found out "horde of monsters that are stronger than commoners with bows" was a class feature for an entire subclass. That, playing as intended by the subclass's perks, you get what I thought was a weird fringe case. Which means it's not actually a weird fringe case - it's actually a real possibility in the game, and I was completely wrong to pooh-pooh it.

(Although I think it's hilarious to note that they even implemented my not-officially-submitted fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15857165&postcount=143) for some monsters. Still doesn't help dragons or most normal enemies, though.)

[Lokiare]

Here ya go:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?367457-Ancient-Red-Dragon-preview-needs-a-bit-more-to-unlock

Also if it's in it's lair it burns the web without even using it's breath or strength.

Thanks, so everyone is pretty much agreeing that it would fail its +0 DC 19 (10% chance) initial dex save to get caught in the web right?

Ok, then all the wizard has to do is spam web on it to neuter its actions down to only legendary actions for at least 1 round. Then it has about a 60% chance to break free using strength. Which means around 1/3 of the time it won't break free and will be caught for another round.

Then of course it can use its get out of jail free card or use its breath weapon which is a 90' cone. If the party is smart they can spread out so that the dragon can only hit one of them at a time with it. Its recharge also means it only gains it back once every 3 rounds on average.

Hilariously the party probably didn't get close enough to be within breath range because of frightful presence. Which means the dragon has to close the distance by flying using their first action to do so. The DC for frightful presence is 21 which has about a 75%-80% chance of failure for those that are proficient or have a high save stat. Unfortunately for the dragon, spells aren't affected by this feature so only the monks attack rolls are affected.

I just threw hold monster and dominate monster out there off the top of my head, better spells would target dex like:

Cantrips:
Acid Splash

1st
Command (hilarious since it takes the targets action on its next turn and can be spammed, its also a wisdom save)

2nd
Suggestion

3rd
Lightning Bolt

4th
Ice Storm

6th
Blade Barrier
Chain Lightning
Otto's Irresistable Dance (wis save [+2] and disadv on dex save)
Heroes Feast (to make the party immune to frightened for 24 hours and gain some other bonuses)
Mass Suggestion ("You want to go away")

7th
Disintegrate

9th
Meteor Swarm
Imprisonment (any of the options pretty much end or trivialize the fight).

Basically any combination of the above spells which are a mix of Cleric and Wizard spells would trivialize the encounter. They would throw the damage and low level spells first to force it to lose actions or take damage or use up its auto-saves. Then after 7 saves (or 3 rounds) start popping the encounter enders like Imprisonment, Suggestion, Mass Suggestion, Command or Dominate/Hold Monster.

[Lokiare]

Even better, it can dodge Web with it's wing attack. Legendary actions happen at the end of another character's turn, Web's dex save happens at the beginning of the dragon's turn.

Nope the dragon entered the web when it was cast. It takes immediate effect.

[archaeo]

I'm just going to snip out everything we should probably just accept as water under the bridge; we disagree, fundamentally, on how important the concept of "balance" is, even in what you describe as your playstyle. If it cheers you up, I more or less agree that the version of 5e described by the PHB is going to poorly replicate the tactical style of play you desire.


I'm not patronizing you. I'm glad to see that you have the same viewpoint as me. Either they did it on purpose or they messed up. In your case you think doing it on purpose was a good thing, and in my case I think it was a bad thing, which is why I give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they didn't do it intentionally.

A rather backhanded "benefit," wouldn't you say? WotC isn't a backwater operation printing a niche game. They knew what they were doing when they designed 5e. You clearly feel that the result is horrifying, but give them the credit of admitting that these were conscious design decisions.


I see a forthcoming DMG where (based on their articles, quotes, and math) they attempt to placate the tactical mythical crowd, but end up failing horribly because they don't understand the basic idea behind the play style. We can see this when they mentioned facing as a way to play tactically. To play tactically player choices have to matter more than dice and granting advantage or disadvantage isn't going to fix that. Only a fully balanced game where the tactics matter more than the rolls will do that.

Well, let's look at what we know, shall we? obryn has some mysterious source that leaked some DMG previews to him (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?365354-Leaks-from-the-DMG), and they certainly sound reasonable. From that list, I see miniature rules, marking, 13th-age style skills, proficiency dice, "cleaving through the horde," flanking, action points, variant rests, weapon speed, and class modifications. One also imagines that there's no way the DMG won't also give advice on "low magic" variants.

So, assuming that 4e did a good job with your "mythic playstyle" or whatever, that sounds like a solid stack of mechanics. And that's just what got leaked; it seems reasonable to assume there's more, including something that replaces advantage/disadvantage. With all that extra stuff, is 5e still missing enough tactical crunch to make it fun?


As to designing encounters without guesstimation, the DM PDF threw that one out the window. It has horrendously bad calculations in it and the CR of monsters is way off. The Tarrasque can be killed by a slightly clever player at half the level its supposed to be encountered at. There are extremely low CR creatures that can cause TPKs with a few bad rolls.

Did you see the green box that says "Work in Progress!" in bright red letters? Or the part, right below it, where it basically talks about how CR is an organizing principle/rough guide compared to the XP budgeting system? The same system they used in the apparently-successful-in-your-view 4e? Can you point to said XP system being broken, and if so, also, since they told us they're still working on these numbers and probably soliciting feedback, so what? This is something not yet set in stone, and I'm willing to cut any designer some slack when it comes to balancing thousands of individual little numbers and mechanical bits.

As for your specific examples, the deadliness of low CR monsters is clearly a matter of taste. The Tarrasque can be killed -- if the DM lets it sit out in an open plain and accept being stung to death for rounds and rounds of combat. Given that an Int of 3 seems perfectly comparable to animal intelligence, my players will find this to be a strategy that results in chasing the Tarrasque to someplace where the Wizard can't fly so high.


The math isn't easy because of the addition of (dis)advantage its actually worse because you can't quickly gauge whether its going to help you or not. Especially in the case where you give up attacks or other things to gain advantage.

Please. I can quickly gauge that it will help me or hurt me to have advantage or disadvantage, since they're called "advantage" and "disadvantage" and I speak the English language in which those collections of letters have meaning. I may not be able to quickly guesstimate the precise numerical effect I can expect from adv/disadv but, since I am living in the year 2014, I can write "advantage disadvantage 5e math" into google and out pops any number of articles that peg the bonus in usual D&D terms (http://onlinedungeonmaster.com/2012/05/24/advantage-and-disadvantage-in-dd-next-the-math/) at somewhere between +/-4 or +/-5, give or take some decimals.

And they haven't even released the DMG, which seems like an awfully natural place to put something like a sidebar on "how big of an effect does advantage/disadvantage provide." As well as something for people who just really want flat numbers that different effects can stack up so they have something else to do at the table, I guess.

[Dark Tira]

You've started on a bad premise. They have a +7 dex save not a +0. Also you should get away from web. Any fire takes it out, it's a terrible spell against a red dragon.

[Arzanyos]

Naw Lokiare, Web only takes effect if the creature starts their turn in the web, or enters it... during their turn. does not take immediate effect.

[Dark Tira]

Naw Lokiare, Web only takes effect if the creature starts their turn in the web, or enters it... during their turn. does not take immediate effect.

Well, this is true. I hadn't noticed it before but it does make web even worse.

Also Imprisonment and Meteor Swarm are pretty hilarious picks for 9th level spells. Meteor Swarm only does half damage since the dragon is fire immune and Imprisonment has a 1 minute casting time.

[Lokiare]

I'm just going to snip out everything we should probably just accept as water under the bridge; we disagree, fundamentally, on how important the concept of "balance" is, even in what you describe as your playstyle. If it cheers you up, I more or less agree that the version of 5e described by the PHB is going to poorly replicate the tactical style of play you desire.

See, mutual understanding of a subject can be reached by two reasonable people on different sides of the debate.


A rather backhanded "benefit," wouldn't you say? WotC isn't a backwater operation printing a niche game. They knew what they were doing when they designed 5e. You clearly feel that the result is horrifying, but give them the credit of admitting that these were conscious design decisions.

WotC isn't a backwater operation, but the D&D side is, with just a few full time employees and borrowing people from the M:TG side to run tests on. These are the same people that produced 3E and only a few of them worked on 4E at all. Most of those people were laid off. Its also possible for people in high places to make mistakes, until you accept that, WotC can do no wrong in your eyes. This is called the fallacy of authority where you mistakenly believe someone in authority can't be wrong.


Well, let's look at what we know, shall we? obryn has some mysterious source that leaked some DMG previews to him (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?365354-Leaks-from-the-DMG), and they certainly sound reasonable. From that list, I see miniature rules, marking, 13th-age style skills, proficiency dice, "cleaving through the horde," flanking, action points, variant rests, weapon speed, and class modifications. One also imagines that there's no way the DMG won't also give advice on "low magic" variants.

So, assuming that 4e did a good job with your "mythic playstyle" or whatever, that sounds like a solid stack of mechanics. And that's just what got leaked; it seems reasonable to assume there's more, including something that replaces advantage/disadvantage. With all that extra stuff, is 5e still missing enough tactical crunch to make it fun?

This statement is a pretty clear indicator that you are unfamiliar with 4E or what made it tactical and enjoyable for our play style.

Miniature rules were in 1E, 2E, and 3E. They don't make the game have a tactical play style. N/A

Proficiency Dice create more randomness, not enhance player choice. This is a negative.

"Cleaving through the horde" already exists and is a fighter using action surge. N/A

Marking was a means to an end. If its not properly implemented in a balanced system it is worthless. If the fighters best option each round is to just make their 4 attacks instead of marking something, then marking is a wasted mechanic. This can be a negative.

Flanking isn't going to help because it will just grant advantage which is granted by 50 other things and will be undervalued and under used.

Action points only work if they are balanced. If they are too powerful they break the game further. If they are not powerful enough, they will be ignored.

The problem with resting was never how long it took, it was what you did while resting. Limited healing throughout a day was the big one, that balanced a number of other things in 4E.

Weapon Speeds just slow the game down and don't really add anything in the D&D initiative. It would work in an open initiative where you could have fast weapons attacking 1.5 times for each time a slow weapon attacked. Unfortunately we don't have that. This is purely a negative thing for my play style.

Low magic is built into the system when it comes to items. To fix the spells would take hundreds of pages of rewrites to make them balanced. That's not going to happen in the DMG.

Basically all of the suggestions don't point toward a balanced tactical game, and it just reinforces my belief that WotC doesn't understand the game.


Did you see the green box that says "Work in Progress!" in bright red letters? Or the part, right below it, where it basically talks about how CR is an organizing principle/rough guide compared to the XP budgeting system? The same system they used in the apparently-successful-in-your-view 4e? Can you point to said XP system being broken, and if so, also, since they told us they're still working on these numbers and probably soliciting feedback, so what? This is something not yet set in stone, and I'm willing to cut any designer some slack when it comes to balancing thousands of individual little numbers and mechanical bits.

Yep, but how much did you think would change from then and the printing of the DMG which is probably at the printers by now? Its not the same system as 4E. In 4E each monster falls within a very narrow range on its hp, ability scores, defenses, and the damage it deals and the conditions it inflicts based on its level, role, and whether its a minion, normal, elite, or solo. 5E is nothing like that. Monsters stats are all over the place and it looks like they just threw numbers at a wall and saw what stuck with zero testing.


As for your specific examples, the deadliness of low CR monsters is clearly a matter of taste. The Tarrasque can be killed -- if the DM lets it sit out in an open plain and accept being stung to death for rounds and rounds of combat. Given that an Int of 3 seems perfectly comparable to animal intelligence, my players will find this to be a strategy that results in chasing the Tarrasque to someplace where the Wizard can't fly so high.

Animals have much higher intelligences than D&D gives credit for. Dogs have the intellect of a toddler. Dolphins have much higher intelligences than that. Some scientists even theorize that animal intelligence is higher than ours and that they simply have different goals. I think Douglas Adams said it best:

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."
-- Douglas Adams

At the last count there were at least 3 classes that could solo the Tarrasque by kiting it.


Please. I can quickly gauge that it will help me or hurt me to have advantage or disadvantage, since they're called "advantage" and "disadvantage" and I speak the English language in which those collections of letters have meaning. I may not be able to quickly guesstimate the precise numerical effect I can expect from adv/disadv but, since I am living in the year 2014, I can write "advantage disadvantage 5e math" into google and out pops any number of articles that peg the bonus in usual D&D terms (http://onlinedungeonmaster.com/2012/05/24/advantage-and-disadvantage-in-dd-next-the-math/) at somewhere between +/-4 or +/-5, give or take some decimals.

And they haven't even released the DMG, which seems like an awfully natural place to put something like a sidebar on "how big of an effect does advantage/disadvantage provide." As well as something for people who just really want flat numbers that different effects can stack up so they have something else to do at the table, I guess.

See this proves it. Even you don't understand how (dis)advantage works (http://anydice.com/program/168e). It isn't a flat +/-5. It is in fact between +2 and +6 and is based entirely on the number you need to roll on the D20. If you need to roll a 19 or 20 then its equivalent to a +2. If you have to roll an 11 its closer to a +6. Which means if you need to roll high or low you get less of an advantage. If you need to roll in the middle you get a massive Bounded Accuracy shattering bonus.

Which means if are aiming for a high number on the d20, giving up an extra attack to gain advantage will lower the amount of damage you do on that round on average. This is exactly what I'm talking about.


You've started on a bad premise. They have a +7 dex save not a +0. Also you should get away from web. Any fire takes it out, it's a terrible spell against a red dragon.

Hmmm... I was looking at the Dex mod. Looks like they randomly added proficiency to make up for its lack of a dex save. How nice. So 45% chance to make the save. That still means they fail about half the time. This is why I don't like 5E. They are just pulling numbers out of nowhere to fix their design mistakes. "Huh, the red dragon has a +0 dex save, we better fix that, ok just give all legendaries 4 out of 6 save proficiencies.".


Naw Lokiare, Web only takes effect if the creature starts their turn in the web, or enters it... during their turn. does not take immediate effect.

Even if that's true, it still forces the dragon to waste its legendary action that turn by flapping its wings and moving.

[Dark Tira]

Even if that's true, it still forces the dragon to waste its legendary action that turn by flapping its wings and moving.

It's not really a waste since it's pretty much the best legendary action and would be likely to be used anyways.

You aren't doing very well at this so I'll help you out. It won't be in 2 rounds since that's ridiculous without a lot of preparation beforehand.

1. Cleric spams Contagion for Slimy Doom and Blinding Sickness. Uses Guided Strike from War Domain to ensure it works.
2. Monk chain stuns the dragon.
3. Wizard spams Polymorph until it works. Then can use imprisonment.

It still takes a bit of luck since any number of things can go wrong and contagion is super cheesy, but odds are it would likely work barring some unlucky rolls.

Anyways, please think before making assertions you can't back up in the future.

[archaeo]

Lordy.


WotC isn't a backwater operation, but the D&D side is, with just a few full time employees and borrowing people from the M:TG side to run tests on. These are the same people that produced 3E and only a few of them worked on 4E at all. Most of those people were laid off. Its also possible for people in high places to make mistakes, until you accept that, WotC can do no wrong in your eyes. This is called the fallacy of authority where you mistakenly believe someone in authority can't be wrong.

I'm aware of the fallacy of authority, thank you. I'm also aware that D&D probably has one of the largest and best-equipped/funded staffs in the entire TTRPG market. I imagine that, if they so desired, they could hire virtually anyone in the industry, especially when they dangle "design the new edition of D&D" at the beginning. I don't think it's unreasonable for me to assume that the system, in broad strokes, does exactly what it does because they wanted it to do that. I acknowledge they can make mistakes, but I imagine that they will be relatively minor instead of things like "Necromancers do exactly what it says on the tin" or "Casters get more buttons to press than Fighters."

An appeal to authority would be me saying, "5e is a good game because WotC has expertise at game design." That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying, "WotC has expertise at game design, so it's likely that they designed a game that does what they want it to do." I can see how that's a subtle point, but I don't think it's fallacious.


This statement is a pretty clear indicator that you are unfamiliar with 4E or what made it tactical and enjoyable for our play style. ...Basically all of the suggestions don't point toward a balanced tactical game, and it just reinforces my belief that WotC doesn't understand the game.

This statement is a pretty clear indicator that you're once again being patronizing. I've listened to 200+ episodes of Critical Hit, which is literally a 4e game (and worth listening to, everybody, look it up on iTunes), and read through the rules; I don't think I'm just talking out of my bum here, anyway.

Otherwise we're just going to have to wait and see. I suspect that the DMG will offer a suite of "tactical" stuff as well as sufficient rules to tune the balance of magic and whatnot. My list was just examples, and while I'm sorry that I clearly don't understand exactly what you want out of D&D, I can't help but notice that even when I suggested something that would probably be useful to you, you've just assumed the worst possible outcome.

Flanking is a good example; if they're going to bother including it, why would they just make it duplicate advantage? It seems more likely to give another type of bonus. Why do you assume "low magic" modules will just leave all those spells untouched? It could just as easily be "All full spellcasting classes are either a) outright removed or b) advance in spells known and spell slots as the Eldritch Knight." Or "For 4e-style play, treat the Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, and Monk as having both of their 'martial' subclasses at once (excluding Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, and Way of the Four Elements)." Or "Treat all Wizards as though their School restricts them to only those spells. Bards must take the following ability instead of Magical Secrets, etc."

Those are just the balance knobs I thought up in about five minutes, so take it with a grain of salt (I think combining Battle Master and Champion sounds like a fun houserule if you're worried about Fighters being useless, though). I suspect Mearls & Co. will spend somewhat more time. The difference in our opinions about the DMG right now are literally only based on my optimism and your pessimism, however, so perhaps you want to let it go? Neither of us is right yet. We're just arguing about our assumptions.


Yep, but how much did you think would change from then and the printing of the DMG which is probably at the printers by now? Its not the same system as 4E. In 4E each monster falls within a very narrow range on its hp, ability scores, defenses, and the damage it deals and the conditions it inflicts based on its level, role, and whether its a minion, normal, elite, or solo. 5E is nothing like that. Monsters stats are all over the place and it looks like they just threw numbers at a wall and saw what stuck with zero testing.

More pessimism! Or can you show me some monster examples where the XP budget seems wildly off? Exclude, if you will be so kind, examples involving big XP multiplier corner cases, where you get things like dozens of worthless creatures presenting a "deadly" encounter; CR and XP are, I think we can both agree, probably too inexact to really model every character between "subhuman who doesn't understand how D&D works" and "hyperprepared Wizard player who has precisely the right spells prepared."

Either way, it looks to me like the numbers are working out ok, judging by the large number of people I see online enjoying 5e and not complaining about constantly wiping their party or giving them encounters that are too easy. Also, the DMG isn't going to be published until November; I feel pretty confident in assuming that the D&D team probably wanted to give themselves some time after GenCon (and after a big crowd of new players came in to play their game on their turf, where I'm sure they collected data) to finalize things before sending it off.


Animals have much higher intelligences than D&D gives credit for. ...At the last count there were at least 3 classes that could solo the Tarrasque by kiting it.

So your point is the Tarrasque is probably smart enough to run away from the obnoxious Wizard flying overhead? For example, by perhaps using its 80' dash so that every character will have to waste most of its flying actions dashing to keep it in range? All while it gets advantage versus pretty much any attack that it doesn't outright reflect, and just uses legendary resistance to ignore your save-or-suck effect? And sort of owns you in any location that isn't a featureless grassy plain? Or if you're not expecting to deal with a Tarrasque today and don't have one of those hyperoptimal builds?

That Douglas Adams quote is something we can both agree on, however. :smallsmile:


See this proves it. Even you don't understand how (dis)advantage works (http://anydice.com/program/168e). It isn't a flat +/-5. It is in fact between +2 and +6 and is based entirely on the number you need to roll on the D20. If you need to roll a 19 or 20 then its equivalent to a +2. If you have to roll an 11 its closer to a +6. Which means if you need to roll high or low you get less of an advantage. If you need to roll in the middle you get a massive Bounded Accuracy shattering bonus.

Which means if are aiming for a high number on the d20, giving up an extra attack to gain advantage will lower the amount of damage you do on that round on average. This is exactly what I'm talking about.

So, between a +/-2 and a +/-6 -- so about a +/-4, on average? Which is probably just about all I need to know in order to make a decision that actually matters, instead of breaking out my TI-86 every turn? I was aware that the range is swingier than a flat bonus; I just don't think it makes a huge difference to me on average. If I know I have to hit, I want a +something. Advantage works out to always be equivalent to or better than 4e's combat advantage, by your reckoning, so there's another easy rule of thumb. It also helps if you're not sweating over falling short of your optimal DPR, but we both know that's not "tactical."

Sure, advantage and disadvantage are simply more swingy than flat bonuses. I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages to the mechanic, ha ha ha. It speeds up play by eliminating bonus accounting, which, in my experience, is a huge drag on combat. This is an opportunity cost I'm willing to take. You find that it introduces too much chaos; you could always just rule it as a flat +4 or -4, but then you're houseruling, so 5e fails once again, I guess.

[Malifice]

Only problem is that he needs to get within 30' of the skeletons so he can turn them. I think he turns into a pincushion long before then.

Hes a 20th level Cleric. Im sure he can find a way to get close, even if caught in the open.

[Malifice]

Yeah the GM in this can send the NPC people in protest against the Necromancer all they want. All that results in is more meat for the factory...

You may be in for a shock in my campaign ;)


As it stands right now, casters have all their crazy powers inside combat, their crazy powers outside combat, and all the skill based fun they could want, while martials are still stuck making the same attacks every round.

Dont play a martial. Understand that some people like making the same attack every round.

And no-one is stuck 'making the same attack' every round. Lack of options increases options rather than pigeon holes people into fixed routines. 'Leap on the Ogres back, spin his helmet around and blind him' is no longer a power, spell or manouver - its an ability check.

Use your imagination. Its your only limit.


I don't think there's a need to give the mundanes a teleport for example, let the Wizard be the magic schoolbus. However the presence of a martial should inspire terror in all around him and a wizard looking at a high level fighter should seriously doubt if anything he has on hand can deal with him.

As it stands at the moment, both high level PC's (Wizard and Fighter) will be hoping they win initiative (or that the other guy is out of resources, hit points, spell slots, manouvers or actions surge). Thats going to make all the difference.

Both classes can pretty much garantee a high probability of killing the other in one round.

[Caelic]

WotC isn't a backwater operation, but the D&D side is, with just a few full time employees and borrowing people from the M:TG side to run tests on. These are the same people that produced 3E and only a few of them worked on 4E at all. Most of those people were laid off. Its also possible for people in high places to make mistakes, until you accept that, WotC can do no wrong in your eyes. This is called the fallacy of authority where you mistakenly believe someone in authority can't be wrong.


Again, you seem to be attributing to incompetence what most would attribute to rational business decisions.

WotC produced fourth edition. Fourth edition was very different from prior editions of D&D, and catered to a more tactical playstyle.

Paizo, in the meantime, produced a game that was essentially a continuation of the less-tactical 3.5.

Paizo won, hands down. For whatever reason, the "more tactical" edition of D&D failed to attract a sufficient playerbase to maintain its position as the number one game on the market, whereas the "less tactical" Pathfinder attracted a sufficient playerbase to overtake it for that spot.

Given all of that, which makes the most sense, from WotC's perspective and from a business standpoint? To emphasize the tactical style of play enjoyed by diehard 4e players, or do emphasize the less-tactical, more freeform style of play preferred by those who rejected 4e?

Now, you may disagree with those business decisions; you may think that in the long run they'll hurt WotC. But I don't think anyone can make a sound case for the shift away from 4e being something they blundered into unwittingly.

[emeraldstreak]

Given all of that, which makes the most sense, from WotC's perspective and from a business standpoint?

To do as you say, but claim incompetence over admitting they are ditching 4e fans because of PF's success.

[Seppo87]

I want to see Person_Man and Lokiare flamming each other to decide if D&D 5E was an error or a design choice. Seriously, that's like the most interesting part of the whole discussion

[Lokiare]

Again, you seem to be attributing to incompetence what most would attribute to rational business decisions.

WotC produced fourth edition. Fourth edition was very different from prior editions of D&D, and catered to a more tactical playstyle.

Paizo, in the meantime, produced a game that was essentially a continuation of the less-tactical 3.5.

Paizo won, hands down. For whatever reason, the "more tactical" edition of D&D failed to attract a sufficient playerbase to maintain its position as the number one game on the market, whereas the "less tactical" Pathfinder attracted a sufficient playerbase to overtake it for that spot.

Given all of that, which makes the most sense, from WotC's perspective and from a business standpoint? To emphasize the tactical style of play enjoyed by diehard 4e players, or do emphasize the less-tactical, more freeform style of play preferred by those who rejected 4e?

Now, you may disagree with those business decisions; you may think that in the long run they'll hurt WotC. But I don't think anyone can make a sound case for the shift away from 4e being something they blundered into unwittingly.

You are making the classic mistake of thinking that I think that 4E is the only way to make a great game. Or that my opinion stems from 5E not looking like 4E. You are wrong on both counts.

I would be perfectly happy with a well designed 3E clone that was balanced and allowed the mythic tactical play style that I enjoy. 5E is not that. Not only that they threw out everything they learned and produced a game that is only slightly more balanced than 3E which was a mess when it came to balance.

My opinion is that Paizo won not because of making a better game than WotC (let's face it Pathfinder is only marginally better than 3.5E), but because they knew how to treat their customers and they knew how to make great interesting adventures and splat books, they took away the prize. They knew the one thing WotC still doesn't seem to grasp: When you have a near costless way to mass produce products, quality is the defining factor.

You'll also note that 4E didn't start losing traction until after Essentials and after they slowed down their book schedule. Basically they shot 4E in the foot and watched it bleed out.

Sadly I myself on various forums have shown how 5E could have been made to allow for all play styles and all players from the 0E fantasy vietnam crowd to the mythical tactical crowd of 4E and everyone in between, but instead they decided to go with a 2.75 retroclone that doesn't bring anything new to the table.

That's my biggest complaint. Its like when you watch your nephew light his allowance on fire a dollar bill at a time and you are like 'why are you doing that, don't you understand what that is? you could be using that to buy things.' and their response is 'I don't care. I'm having fun and its my money. I can do what I want.'

[Soras Teva Gee]

My opinion is that Paizo won not because of making a better game than WotC (let's face it Pathfinder is only marginally better than 3.5E), but because they knew how to treat their customers and they knew how to make great interesting adventures and splat books, they took away the prize. They knew the one thing WotC still doesn't seem to grasp: When you have a near costless way to mass produce products, quality is the defining factor.

While that perhaps helps since this is such a niche field thus customer relationships are of increased importance... that would still require as an underlying premise that 'game balance' as a feature is ultimately still not a very important selling point to the customer base.

Ergo if you follow the common wisdom that 4E was designed with balance as its primary guiding philosophy still leaves a very big problem.

Furthermore for every debate about insufficient popularity I have ever seen the first excuse offered is essentially something wrong with the marketing. That's what you offer here. While there are undoubtably cases where this is probably true, I can never escape the impression its a bit too convienent. Afterall its scapegoating, nothing was wrong with the product so I don't have to ask more serious questions of if I was selling a turd or solid gold. Which I phrase that way since I'm of the opinion that the opposite of the old saw "you can't polish a turd" is "you can't tarnish gold" or that ultimately the product will at some level speak for itself.

If nothing else word of mouth applies and that is some of the most powerful marketing you can get. Or maybe even "no bad publicity" since even negative attention will get people to try it, like why at least a few people actually played FATAL just to see how terrible it could be.

Just in general I can't agree with bad marketing applying as a general excuse. If your product fails... there is something wrong with the product. For a game suspect number one is always the game system itself, that's how you get people to engage in the first place.

[Caelic]

You are making the classic mistake of thinking that I think that 4E is the only way to make a great game. Or that my opinion stems from 5E not looking like 4E. You are wrong on both counts.


...and nothing I said presumed either of those points, and neither of those assumptions is relevant to what I did say, so I'm not entirely sure why you're attributing them to me.




I would be perfectly happy with a well designed 3E clone that was balanced and allowed the mythic tactical play style that I enjoy. 5E is not that. Not only that they threw out everything they learned and produced a game that is only slightly more balanced than 3E which was a mess when it came to balance.



As I've pointed out before, decades of RPG sales indicate that "balanced" is not a big selling point for the majority of gamers.




My opinion is that Paizo won not because of making a better game than WotC (let's face it Pathfinder is only marginally better than 3.5E), but because they knew how to treat their customers and they knew how to make great interesting adventures and splat books, they took away the prize. They knew the one thing WotC still doesn't seem to grasp: When you have a near costless way to mass produce products, quality is the defining factor.



Having had to deal with the costs of printing high-quality hardcover books, I dispute the "near costless," unless you're talking solely about PDF distribution. Other than that, I agree with this provisionally; WotC handled the marketing of fourth edition very poorly.




You'll also note that 4E didn't start losing traction until after Essentials and after they slowed down their book schedule. Basically they shot 4E in the foot and watched it bleed out.



Here, I disagree. WotC didn't publicly ACKNOWLEDGE falling sales until after Essentials, but if sales hadn't flagged, WotC wouldn't have produced Essentials and wouldn't have started bending over backwards attempting to recapture lost market share. The rerelease of 3.5 books, the attempt to recapture the look of the old red box--companies don't shift direction like that unless they need to. Add in the fact that WotC was gambling heavily on D&D Insider being the backbone of their new profit model for D&D, and that it failed to meet their expectations quite badly, and I think it's safe to conclude that the boat was sinking well before Essentials.




That's my biggest complaint. Its like when you watch your nephew light his allowance on fire a dollar bill at a time and you are like 'why are you doing that, don't you understand what that is? you could be using that to buy things.' and their response is 'I don't care. I'm having fun and its my money. I can do what I want.'



Essentially likening WotC to an irrational child making bad decisions for no logical reason other than that they can. Again, I disagree.

[Tehnar]

So a new variation of the infinite elementals trick, one that works with only 1 caster.

Get true polymorph, and use it on a nearby rock to create a CR 9 creature you want to bind. Wait 1 hour so it becomes permanent. Mr. Rock is now friendly. Tell him to stand there quietly for a hour. Cast magic circle around Mr. Rock so he doesn't get any ideas. Cast planar binding.

Repeat on the next day.

[Arzanyos]

Where will you find that many CR9 rocks?

[pwykersotz]

Where will you find that many CR9 rocks?

True Polymorph can turn any inanimate object into any creature of CR 9 or lower.

[Arzanyos]

Okay, then why would they be friendly? Also, why are your buddies letting you halt the game for several days to satisfy your ego by enslaving a bunch of elementals?

[pwykersotz]

Okay, then why would they be friendly? Also, why are your buddies letting you halt the game for several days to satisfy your ego by enslaving a bunch of elementals?

The spell explicitly says they are friendly and obey directives when the spell is in effect. If the polymorph is made permanent, they might remain friendly depending on how you treated them. So the likelyhood is decent they remain so.

[hawklost]

I would give you the ability to True Polymorph a Rock into a CR 9 Creature and then Bind it too you. Note, I would probably have it be upset at you after the Binding (unless you convince it that the binding was a good thing) and therefore take all your commands literally and twist them like a pretzel when it can (So says the rules of Planer Binding)

I would also make it so the new creature has all the stats of a CR 9 creature but has no memories, it can do basic things but it doesn't have any experience. It will have to learn to do everything except the basic (Think full amnesia with only being able to speak the language). You will get loads of time training it to do normal tasks for your castings here.

Now, if you have the loads of time or the way to train it, I shall give you this army of CR9 creatures. but who knows what might notice all that magical energy being thrown around.

[Caelic]

Seems more efficient just to hire the damned things, really.

[Angelalex242]

Speaking of which, if casters can break the game...even if we can't save full mundanes, can we at least save half casters? Can we fix it so they can keep up with full casters with the spells they do get?

That is, Paladin needs enough Cleric, and Ranger needs enough Druid...to be able to keep up with the full caster of their type.

[HorridElemental]

Speaking of which, if casters can break the game...even if we can't save full mundanes, can we at least save half casters? Can we fix it so they can keep up with full casters with the spells they do get?

That is, Paladin needs enough Cleric, and Ranger needs enough Druid...to be able to keep up with the full caster of their type.

We can save non-casters (mundane is such an ugly word full of bad connotation), people just need to stop thinking that non-casters in fantasy elf games have to equal normal people (or themselves) in the real world.

Make non-casters with the idea that they are not real world people and you can get somewhere.

[hawklost]

We can save non-casters (mundane is such an ugly word full of bad connotation), people just need to stop thinking that non-casters in fantasy elf games have to equal normal people (or themselves) in the real world.

Make non-casters with the idea that they are not real world people and you can get somewhere.

Well, people do. There are many Shonun games out there that give non-casters huge crazy powers. There are even other games that do the same (Scion is one that you are a demi-god but not a spell caster). DnD just isn't one of the games where the majority of players want a Mundane (non-caster) to be able to split mountains or jump across 100ft caverns (unless we move to Epic Level, where things get really wonky)

[Angelalex242]

Neither of which answers 'can we at least save half casters, the rangers and paladins of the world?'

[Corvus]

DnD just isn't one of the games where the majority of players want a Mundane (non-caster) to be able to split mountains or jump across 100ft caverns (unless we move to Epic Level, where things get really wonky)

I would disagree. It is just there is a very vocal subset of players adamant that non-casters should never, ever be able to match what magic users can do. Unfortunately a number of those are involved in designing the game.

[Falka]

I would disagree. It is just there is a very vocal subset of players adamant that non-casters should never, ever be able to match what magic users can do. Unfortunately a number of those are involved in designing the game.

What's the point of learning magic if it doesn't give you an advantage?

[SpacemanSpif]

What's the point of learning magic if it doesn't give you an advantage?

Everyone learns to do something, and requires the same amount of experience to achieve it.

[Falka]

Everyone learns to do something, and requires the same amount of experience to achieve it.

That's bollocks. Mostly because there is a huge opportunity cost into taking Wizard levels that people who make the 'power democracy' argument fail to take in account.

Wizards without magic cannot do absolutely anything. They're just glorified commoners.

They do not have Action Surges, Extra Attacks, d10 HD, armor proficiencies, etc. They are probably on the lower end of Physical Abilities, so they will have problems to interact with their surroundings. If they take a hit, they are far more punished than Fighters, because they have lower defenses and endurance.

The only reason why a person would find a good idea to not train physically at all and just devote themselves to acquire raw knowledge is when that knowledge is quite valuable. Aka, magic. In studying magic, the Wizard takes a great opportunity cost: he will be less tough, his martial prowess will be lackluster compared to many others and they will lack features to interact with the world.

Why would I be stucked with a d6 HD if I couldn't do better things with magic than if I just devoted myself into training with a very sharp and pointy stick? Or became a scoundrel who's an expert in dodging stuff and kicking people on the crotch?

Yes, it takes 300 XP to both get to Fighter 2 and Wizard 2. It doesn't mean that you gain the same knowledge or that the experience should give you the same tools. I think it's obvious that if you spend 5 years studying Law, and if society finds lawyers to be more importants than cooks, you will be able to do more with a Law degree than a cook certificate. Yet both students took 5 years to get their degrees, and probably trained both as hard. But training to be tough and to stab stuff only makes you good at... being tough and stabbing stuff?

[Malifice]

Fly for 10 minutes is enough to clear 8 encounters if you count the movement between the encounters and you don't take a short rest.

As long as you dont want to concentrate on any other spells during your flight, the monsters dont have ranged attacks (or flight of their own) and the adventure supports flight (i.e. not a dungeon).


Teleport can be used with scrying to get close. Gate is just as broken as in previous editions, it just requires 2 casters instead of 1.

The Wizard isnt two casters. And its still dangerous. And its 7th level (teleport doesnt come online untill 13 whole levels of walking from the dungeon to town and back again and relying on the Ranger to get you there safely).


My comparisons assume the Wizard has used half their spell slots on utility and aren't white room evaluations. I've shown how the wizard can just about replace the fighter and still have more than half their spell slots left and that is just with basic. I also did the comparison based on single target damage.

I have a fighter (with a few levels in Paladin and a smattering in Cleric) doing around 350 DPR in another thread.

Top that with your wizard.


So the game is designed to give the DM a headache and requires a DM that can guesstimate probability math in their head, while simultaneously making the world work around overpowered casters and underpowered non-casters while at the same time providing a fun time for everyone?

Non casters are not underpowered. In fact, at pretty much every single level, initiative is king.

No 20th level Wizard is going to soak up 9 greataxe attacks at +6 doing 2d12+15 (+1d12 on a Crit) or 9 Longbow attacks at +8 doing 1d8+1d12+15 odd and survive. Which Joe the Fighter 20 can do twice per short rest. All freaking day long.

And the above doesnt even include magic weapons, or girdles etc (which we can reasonably assume a 20th level fighter has a good chance of having).

Yeah, the Wizard might have Clone ready (losing all his magic items) or a Contingency, but the Fighter has feats to burn to ensure he has a higher Con and Dex and proficiency in both saves (he comes out of the box with nearly double the HP of the Wizard in any case) and also has his two main saves covered (Wisdom and Con) and also probably has an extra +5 to initative and cant ever be surprised thanks to Alert. Ever. Tack on Mage killer and/ or Sentinel and your Wizard might be in some serious trouble.

Im just not seeing some 'massive power disparity' between say a Wizard and a Fighter of equal levels.

[obryn]

That's bollocks. Mostly because there is a huge opportunity cost into taking Wizard levels that people who make the 'power democracy' argument fail to take in account.

Wizards without magic cannot do absolutely anything. They're just glorified commoners.

They do not have Action Surges, Extra Attacks, d10 HD, armor proficiencies, etc. They are probably on the lower end of Physical Abilities, so they will have problems to interact with their surroundings. If they take a hit, they are far more punished than Fighters, because they have lower defenses and endurance.
For balance reasons, these must all be considered. They need to be honestly evaluated vs. the power & flexibility of spellcasting. I know I've been taking them into account when I'm talking about caster/non-caster balance.

So compared to a Fighter, a Wizard (specifically) has (1) 2 fewer HP on average, and (2) A generally lower AC, though both spells and racial abilities can make them roughly equivalent.

Action Surge is a limited use feature. At low levels, it's worth about a 1st level spell in damage. At higher levels, it's worth maybe a 4th-level spell.

Extra Attacks are the big thing a Fighter gets. I just don't think they stack up to spells, past middle levels.

[SpacemanSpif]

I wasn't trying to say that magic users shouldn't get nice things. My position is that that having learned magic should not, by itself, justify getting nicer things than people who have used the same amount of experience learning to do other things, because magic is no more difficult to learn than any other class skill. These things include hit points, action surges, etc.


A five year culinary school that costs as much money and requires as much effort and previous training as a five year law school will probably be training the best chefs in the world, who will go on to earn plenty of money and prestige. You have the impression that cooks are less impressive than lawyers because the vast majority of cooks undergo way less training than the vast majority of lawyers.

[Malifice]

For balance reasons, these must all be considered. They need to be honestly evaluated vs. the power & flexibility of spellcasting. I know I've been taking them into account when I'm talking about caster/non-caster balance.

And the power and flexibility of spellcasting has to be weighed against the reliability and all day sustainability of the Fighter.


So compared to a Fighter, a Wizard (specifically) has (1) 2 fewer HP on average, and (2) A generally lower AC, though both spells and racial abilities can make them roughly equivalent.

The wizard also has two less feats which is a big deal in this edition.


Action Surge is a limited use feature. At low levels, it's worth about a 1st level spell in damage. At higher levels, it's worth maybe a 4th-level spell.

At 20th level, 4 extra attacks at 2d12+15 (+1d12 on a crit) is at least a 5th level spell equivalent. For single target damage, it outpaces most other 5th level single target spells on average DPR. And seeing as the Fighter can do it twice a short rest at higher levels, that places him on about the same equal footing as the Warlock (in fact Battlemaster Fighters and Warlocks have the most to gain from DM's who allow reasonably generous pacing for short rests).


Extra Attacks are the big thing a Fighter gets. I just don't think they stack up to spells, past middle levels.

I disagree. At higher levels they increase in power. Adding 2 more longbow attacks doing 1d8+1d12+15, and 2 more at 1d8+15 (not including magic bonuses) is pretty scary to any wizard on the losing side of initiative.

6 x attacks at +8 doing an average of 26 damage a hit and 2 x attacks doing 20 odd a hit at range isnt something I would want to be facing with 82+Con HP for a 20th level Wizard.

5/8 of those attacks hit, and assuming average damage rolls (and a wizard with a 14 Con) and its game over for the wizard.

[Caelic]

That's bollocks. Mostly because there is a huge opportunity cost into taking Wizard levels that people who make the 'power democracy' argument fail to take in account.

Wizards without magic cannot do absolutely anything. They're just glorified commoners.

They do not have Action Surges, Extra Attacks, d10 HD, armor proficiencies, etc. They are probably on the lower end of Physical Abilities, so they will have problems to interact with their surroundings. If they take a hit, they are far more punished than Fighters, because they have lower defenses and endurance.


We should also note, though, that the wizard had these problems to a far greater degree in earlier editions. The 5e wizard has more hit points than the 3.5 wizard and can wear armor. He is more versatile in the skills department than the 3.5 wizard, and has the same proficiency bonus as any fighter. Assuming a reasonably high Dexterity, he's at least competent at hitting and dealing damage, which the 3.5 wizard was not.

These limitations didn't stop the 3.5 wizard from being an overly-dominant class, so the major question that needs to be asked here is whether the weakening of magic is enough that the lesser limitations of the 5e wizard will make a more significant impact.

My tentative answer is that they will. One of the reasons wizards (and other full casters) dominated 3.5 was their ability to trivialize their weaknesses through magic. Polymorph trivialized the wizard's poor stat bonuses and attack capabilities. Stacked defensive spells trivialized his lack of armor and generally poor saving throws.

The 3.5 wizard was in a position to do what Sun Tzu advised: place himself beyond the possibility of defeat and then destroy the enemy.

I don't think the 5e wizard can do that. He can't stack defensive spells; he can't casually assume a massively-strong form with many attacks and demolish foes physically. Many of the capabilities which made him so potent in 3.5 are gone. Now, others (such as summoning) remain strong, and have even arguably gotten stronger...but those don't ameliorate HIS personal weaknesses. Summon a conga line of skeletons, and you're still vulnerable to the fighter's arrow storm.

Time will tell.

[Seppo87]

Magic vs Mundanes is just like Firearms vs MMA
You can make the shooting guy as weak as you want, that's not a limitation at all if he still gets to use an AK-47
More on topic, a wizard with 1 HP is still going to win a duel against a barbarian with Forcecage, Irresistable Dance etc

[Caelic]

Magic vs Mundanes is just like Firearms vs MMA
You can make the shooting guy as weak as you want, that's not a limitation at all if he still gets to use an AK-47
More on topic, a wizard with 1 HP is still going to win a duel against a barbarian with Forcecage, Irresistable Dance etc


...assuming he wins initiative, Seppo. What if the Barbarian wins initiative?

[Seppo87]

...assuming he wins initiative, Seppo. What if the Barbarian wins initiative? There's still a chance that the barbarian does not hit.
On the other hand, the wizard's arsenal includes spells that never fail. That's the difference.

[Caelic]

There's still a chance that the barbarian does not hit.
On the other hand, the wizard's arsenal includes spells that never fail. That's the difference.

A chance, yes. Not a very GOOD chance, given advantage and multiple attacks, but a chance.

In the meantime, the wizard has the spells you mentioned--assuming he's made it to 13th level.

Now, Forcecage is sort of a foolish choice, IMO.

Wizard: "HAHA! I cast Forcecage! You are trapped, foolish Barbarian!"

Barbarian: "You did remember that I have a bow, right? And your cage has bars, not solid walls?"

Wizard: "..."

Barbarian: *TWANG*


Now, in a more realistic duel, the wizard wouldn't be quite as hosed by this--but your hypothetical 1 hp wizard would likely die, looking pretty silly, and then the barbarian would wait an hour for the forcecage to end.

As for Otto's, you're right: it's unstoppable. Unless the barbarian happens to be a berserker, in which case he ignores it entirely and proceeds to gut you. Again, the terms of the scenario you set sort of work against you: you picked an opposing class where half the members are going to be immune to the unstoppable spell.

[Malifice]

...assuming he wins initiative, Seppo. What if the Barbarian wins initiative?

Im gonna go with the Barbarian who has advanatage on his Initiative checks and almost certainly a higher Dexterity.

:smallwink:


There's still a chance that the barbarian does not hit.

2-3 attacks with advantage vs the Wizard? Its a statistically small enough of a chance to not be that much of an issue.

I'd have my money on the Barbarian in this fight every tme.


On the other hand, the wizard's arsenal includes spells that never fail. That's the difference.

Assuming he still has them prepped and has available slots.

Forcecage is a 7th level spell. You get 3 of them a day (4 if you rest and recover one). Max.

This Wizard would be better served using one of those 7th level spells for teleporting the heck outa there on the off chance he wins initiative.

You can shoot arrows out of cages with bars.

[Arzanyos]

No, only 3. Arcane recovery is capped at fifth level spells.

[Soras Teva Gee]

This Wizard would be better served using one of those 7th level spells for teleporting the heck outa there on the off chance he wins initiative.


Which is basically loosing... unless the DM is running the game in truly video game style where the plot will just wait while you teleport away anytime you loose it seems like it might still be better put towards actually winning fights with the rest of the party.

Though avoiding a TPK isn't bad running away should still probably have consequences. At any rate its really the DM letting you get away with it so it really doesn't need 'balancing' anymore.

[Lokiare]

As long as you dont want to concentrate on any other spells during your flight, the monsters dont have ranged attacks (or flight of their own) and the adventure supports flight (i.e. not a dungeon).

With scaling cantrips you don't have to use other concentration spells. Many monsters don't actually have ranged attacks. Mainly humanoids have ranged attacks and everything else is just fodder. Many dungeons have rooms taller than 10' meaning a flying wizard is a flying wizard.


The Wizard isnt two casters. And its still dangerous. And its 7th level (teleport doesnt come online untill 13 whole levels of walking from the dungeon to town and back again and relying on the Ranger to get you there safely).

Yes, but the wizard + cleric is two casters and you just about have to have both of those in a group for it to function without the DM having to twist the world to make it possible (unlimited shop of healing potions). Teleport is nice for scry and die. Also the scry spells can tell you where you are and how to get to where you are going.


I have a fighter (with a few levels in Paladin and a smattering in Cleric) doing around 350 DPR in another thread.

The price of tea in china is 6.98 yen. Seriously this has no bearing on the discussion. You are adding spell casting classes to a non-casting class to justify the non-casting classes equality to a casting class.


Top that with your wizard.

I'm sure I could if I sat down with 2 other classes and mixed and matched. I mean a few levels of EK and the ability to cast a spell and make a physical attack would probably do it. Of course then we aren't really comparing casters to non-casters are we?


Non casters are not underpowered. In fact, at pretty much every single level, initiative is king.

That's not an endorsement for equality, that's an endorsement of how non-tactical 5E is, which many of us don't like.


No 20th level Wizard is going to soak up 9 greataxe attacks at +6 doing 2d12+15 (+1d12 on a Crit) or 9 Longbow attacks at +8 doing 1d8+1d12+15 odd and survive. Which Joe the Fighter 20 can do twice per short rest. All freaking day long.

yeah, actually they are. Wizards have around 82 HP at 20th level with +0 Con mod. With the use of Mage armor and mastered shield spell (they can cast it basically at-will) and an average Dex of say +3 modifier that gives them AC 21. That means the fighter that has a +11 to attack will hit the Wizard 55% of the time. Which means out of those 9 attacks only 5 of them land (rounded up). Now if the wizard is in melee with the fighter it would stand to reason they would take precautions so they would use a spell like Stone Skin, Mirror Image, Blur, or Blink. Blink limits the fighter to 1 readied attack per round. Blur further decreases the number of attacks that hit. Mirror Image gives a virtual bonus to raise AC into the 30's meaning many less hits by the fighter. Lets see what stone skin does:

Assuming the Wizard took the 2 feats that give them advantage on Con checks for concentration and proficiency in Con saves (basically feat taxes), this means the fighter has to deal more than 21 damage with each hit to trigger a chance to fail the save, since with those two feats the Wizard has a 97.75% chance to pass the DC 10 save. The fighter will be dealing half damage every round (oh and 9 great axe attacks is once per encounter and probably not more than 2x per day on average). So lets look at the fighters damage now.
I don't know where you are getting some of your numbers. Each attack does 2d12+15? Where did that come from? Even so we'll use your numbers.
2d12+15 with one out of 20 doing 3d12+15. It would take 12 hits before we even saw a crit so we can safely discard that. The fight will be over long before 12 hits. The average damage for the fighter is 28 but with Stone Skin that number drops to 14. So it would take at least 6 hits to drop the Wizard.

In other words the fighter is going to have to work for his kill and may in turn get killed before the Wizard goes down. I mean after surviving the first round the Wizard could just force cage the Fighter and cantrip them to death.

Of course this is totally ignoring that D&D is a co-op game and not a PvP game.


And the above doesnt even include magic weapons, or girdles etc (which we can reasonably assume a 20th level fighter has a good chance of having).

Actually last I check magic items aren't assumed in 5E.


Yeah, the Wizard might have Clone ready (losing all his magic items) or a Contingency, but the Fighter has feats to burn to ensure he has a higher Con and Dex and proficiency in both saves (he comes out of the box with nearly double the HP of the Wizard in any case) and also has his two main saves covered (Wisdom and Con) and also probably has an extra +5 to initative and cant ever be surprised thanks to Alert. Ever. Tack on Mage killer and/ or Sentinel and your Wizard might be in some serious trouble.

Im just not seeing some 'massive power disparity' between say a Wizard and a Fighter of equal levels.

That's because you are doing a PvP comparison. If you did an 'effectiveness' comparison against certain groups of monsters then you would see that the fighter gets shafted.


A chance, yes. Not a very GOOD chance, given advantage and multiple attacks, but a chance.

I've shown otherwise above. A wizard has a really good chance of surviving the first round and then after that totally showing up the fighter.


In the meantime, the wizard has the spells you mentioned--assuming he's made it to 13th level.

Now, Forcecage is sort of a foolish choice, IMO.

Wizard: "HAHA! I cast Forcecage! You are trapped, foolish Barbarian!"

Barbarian: "You did remember that I have a bow, right? And your cage has bars, not solid walls?"

Wizard: "..."

Barbarian: *TWANG*

Where in the spell description does it say it has bars and not solid walls?


Now, in a more realistic duel, the wizard wouldn't be quite as hosed by this--but your hypothetical 1 hp wizard would likely die, looking pretty silly, and then the barbarian would wait an hour for the forcecage to end.

Not unless your reading of the spell is correct, or of course the DM hand waves the actual rules to give the barbarian an advantage.


As for Otto's, you're right: it's unstoppable. Unless the barbarian happens to be a berserker, in which case he ignores it entirely and proceeds to gut you. Again, the terms of the scenario you set sort of work against you: you picked an opposing class where half the members are going to be immune to the unstoppable spell.

How so? At best they cancel it out.

[Falka]

With scaling cantrips you don't have to use other concentration spells. Many monsters don't actually have ranged attacks. Mainly humanoids have ranged attacks and everything else is just fodder. Many dungeons have rooms taller than 10' meaning a flying wizard is a flying wizard.

A flying wizard who can't cast spells while he flies is not that useful.

[Chen]

A flying wizard who can't cast spells while he flies is not that useful.

You can still cast spells, just not other concentration spells.

[hawklost]

With scaling cantrips you don't have to use other concentration spells. Many monsters don't actually have ranged attacks. Mainly humanoids have ranged attacks and everything else is just fodder. Many dungeons have rooms taller than 10' meaning a flying wizard is a flying wizard.

I'd like to know where you get your information on Dungeon Rooms, since in most games I have seen, the Dungeons are lots of hallways with rooms that are either 10 ft high or sometimes more rarely 20-40 but those rooms have usually ranged creatures in it.



Yes, but the wizard + cleric is two casters and you just about have to have both of those in a group for it to function without the DM having to twist the world to make it possible (unlimited shop of healing potions). Teleport is nice for scry and die. Also the scry spells can tell you where you are and how to get to where you are going.
Scrying only works on a creature or a place you have seen before, you can't use it on things you have never seen, it does not tell you where it is and does not seem very useful if you are standing there to cast Scry in your location, unless you are comparing it to where you are and hoping to tell how far away it is based on that. Even with Scry, you have a mishap chance on your Teleport since Scy is neither a Permanent Teleport Circle nor an Associated object. It is true it would probably be Very Familiar so the off target and lower is only 24% chance but you still have a chance of missing.



yeah, actually they are. Wizards have around 82 HP at 20th level with +0 Con mod. With the use of Mage armor and mastered shield spell (they can cast it basically at-will) and an average Dex of say +3 modifier that gives them AC 21. That means the fighter that has a +11 to attack will hit the Wizard 55% of the time. Which means out of those 9 attacks only 5 of them land (rounded up). Now if the wizard is in melee with the fighter it would stand to reason they would take precautions so they would use a spell like Stone Skin, Mirror Image, Blur, or Blink. Blink limits the fighter to 1 readied attack per round. Blur further decreases the number of attacks that hit. Mirror Image gives a virtual bonus to raise AC into the 30's meaning many less hits by the fighter. Lets see what stone skin does:

Stoneskin: lvl4, Concentration 1 hour, costs some gold, resist nonmagical B, P and S damage.
Blink, 50% chance for fighter to have 1 attack, otherwise the Wizard didn't go to his happy place and the Fighter gets his full attack
Mirror image gives you 1 turn of protection effectively, after that they would be gone on 4 attacks against you and you would have to spend your action recasting them. your images only have ac of 10+your Dex, any hit destroys them.
Blur is a concentration spell but does provide disadvantage on attack rolls against you, hope



Assuming the Wizard took the 2 feats that give them advantage on Con checks for concentration and proficiency in Con saves (basically feat taxes), this means the fighter has to deal more than 21 damage with each hit to trigger a chance to fail the save, since with those two feats the Wizard has a 97.75% chance to pass the DC 10 save. The fighter will be dealing half damage every round (oh and 9 great axe attacks is once per encounter and probably not more than 2x per day on average). So lets look at the fighters damage now.
I don't know where you are getting some of your numbers. Each attack does 2d12+15? Where did that come from? Even so we'll use your numbers.
2d12+15 with one out of 20 doing 3d12+15. It would take 12 hits before we even saw a crit so we can safely discard that. The fight will be over long before 12 hits. The average damage for the fighter is 28 but with Stone Skin that number drops to 14. So it would take at least 6 hits to drop the Wizard.
Or the Fighter could take the Mage Slayer Feat and stop your advantage, dropping your Chance down to 95% (with 21 or less damage on a hit), getting a reaction on your spells and having Adv to resist your spells against him.

Not sure where he is getting those number either, a Fighter can't get that and a Barbarian gets completely differently. I will use the same numbers then, even though they make no sense to me. You are now giving yourself the assumed Stone Skin and the Fighter not having a basic magical weapon (which if they don't have it by lvl 20 then you are effectively in a No magic campaign, not even a low magic). 6 hits to drop the caster, alright. Mage Slayer gives him a Reaction if you cast a spell, so he gets 10 attacks on you in a single round. Fighter attacks and hits with 5/9 of his attacks (55% chance here). On each of those attacks, there is a 5% chance your wizard loses his Stone Skin, so we will assume it is still up. There is then a 55% chance he will hit with his Reaction, which by probability, he would have a 50/50 chance here after all the previous rolls. So your Wizard could be down on the first time he tries to move away without Disengage or to cast a spell. Seems like a pretty big damage to the caster with those numbers, not that I understand where those numbers appeared from.



In other words the fighter is going to have to work for his kill and may in turn get killed before the Wizard goes down. I mean after surviving the first round the Wizard could just force cage the Fighter and cantrip them to death.
Your Force cage can either be a wall, at which point, none of your spells can harm the person inside anymore than he can harm you on the outside OR you can have it as a cage, at which point he can still shoot you or stab you if you are within 5 feet of him.



Of course this is totally ignoring that D&D is a co-op game and not a PvP game.

Yes, yes it is, kinda like you assumed that noone was enhancing the Fighter before or during his attacks on the Wizard.



Actually last I check magic items aren't assumed in 5E.

Not assumed? Nothing in the PHB indicates that there are No magical items in the world. There are just much less than 3.5/4e. That said, if the Fighter even went through either one of the starting adventures, he would have probably picked up a Magic sword. Since even those two low level adventures have magical items, it can be pretty easily assumed that Magic items exist and can be gotten, just not easily or at a magic shop on the corner market.



That's because you are doing a PvP comparison. If you did an 'effectiveness' comparison against certain groups of monsters then you would see that the fighter gets shafted.

Yes, on some monsters the Fighter sucks, on some monsters the Fighter rules
If you pick and choose your monsters so that it screws the Fighter over he will look worse for wear.



I've shown otherwise above. A wizard has a really good chance of surviving the first round and then after that totally showing up the fighter.

Yes, assuming the Wizard knew the Fight was going to occur and cast his spells beforehand (stone skin). Assuming the Fighter did not have someone to help him or a Magical Weapon. Assuming the Wizard took feats to enhance himself while the Fighter chose to not take any feats to help him. Assuming that the either 5 or 15% chance (depending on Fighter) does not occur and cause a crit, your Wizard in your example survives 1 round. Next round, unless he takes out the Fighter or escapes will be his last in that scenario you gave.



Where in the spell description does it say it has bars and not solid walls?

It gives either, but a solid Wall cannot be cast through by anyone, your Wizard included.



How so? At best they cancel it out.
Otto's only provides disadvantage on attacks, the Fighter still gets his full attack action that round to (I assume the wizard moved away) shoot the wizard while dancing. Honestly, if anyone dies while the person is dancing I would laugh my a-- off as a DM for the sheer absurdity of the picture.

[Soras Teva Gee]

You can still cast spells, just not other concentration spells.

Umm No.

Casting a spell breaks Concentration. Things you can't do while concentrating says nothing about the duration of the spell you are casting.

[obryn]

Umm No.

Casting a spell breaks Concentration. Things you can't do while concentrating says nothing about the duration of the spell you are casting.
No, it absolutely doesn't. You can cast spells that don't require concentration.

Basic Set p. 80.

[hawklost]

Umm No.

Casting a spell breaks Concentration. Things you can't do while concentrating says nothing about the duration of the spell you are casting.

Basic Page 80 under Concentration

Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn’t interfere with concentration. The following factors can break concentration:
- Casting another spell that requires concentration
- Taking Damage
- Being incapacitated or Killed

[Caelic]

Where in the spell description does it say it has bars and not solid walls?


Paragraph 2. 1/2 inch diameter bars spaced 1/2 inch apart. I was assuming that you'd choose the option which leaves you able to actually DEFEAT the barbarian.

Now, it IS possible to make a smaller cage with solid walls, but why would you do that? Congratulations; the barbarian is now immune to anything else you can throw at him. You've inconvenienced him for one hour. Now, granted, making a barbarian an hour late to get to the tavern is a serious matter, but it's not exactly a resounding defeat.



How so? At best they cancel it out.



Offering an example of a spell that "never fails," and then selecting a target class against which it fails half the time, sort of undermines the strength of the spell as a "never fail" example, don't you think?

[Fwiffo86]

(Other stuff)....Assuming the Wizard took the 2 feats that give them advantage on Con checks for concentration and proficiency in Con saves (basically feat taxes)....(more stuff)

and....



Actually last I check magic items aren't assumed in 5E.

Feats aren't assumed either. Remember, bonus to stats is the default, allowing you to sacrifice this bonus in favor of a feat.

Can you revamp your argument without the benefit of feats for comparison purposes?

[Soular]

I read a fair way into this thread, but quit after most of the arguments just went around in circles. I apologize if what I am posting has already been covered.

I would bet that almost any game can be broken by gamers looking to do so. But the ability to "break" a game does not mean it is inherently flawed. Too many people expect the game to have perfect balance among character classes with regards to both damage output and the ability to affect the world around them. The problem is that they expect the rules to enforce this. Well, guess what... 4th edition tried this, and many gamers rebelled. So much so that WoTC lost their ass to Paizo.

The fact is that game balance ultimately lies in the hands of the DM. As it should, as it had from White Box all the way to 3.5. The skeleton army hack is a nice concept. But as it has been stated, what player honestly expects to go adventuring with 100+ undead minions? First you have to find the bodies. I assume you'd want cadavers of individuals that died healthy, and at the prime of their lives. What good is a one legged, or one armed skeleton? Also, it seems that the two best places to stock up on undead are cemeteries and at the scene of a large battle. Although battle-seasoned skellies would likely have all manner of missing/broken limbs. Most cultures would see this as the ultimate desecration of their dead, and would consider it their duty hunt the player down and kill him/her for it. There would be absolutely no shortage of good AND evil NPCs looking to settle that score.

Once you have the minions, you have to take care of them. That means transporting 100+ undead. I can't think of any ship captain that would be willing to do so at any price. In a hurry? You gonna buy 100+ mounts for them? Going into any settlement is impossible. You'd have to leave them behind in a forest or something, and I can't imagine that's gonna fly for long before some local heroes assemble to wipe them out. Don't forget that if someone is looking (or hunting) for you a retinue of this sort is pretty damn distinctive!

Basically, this is so improbable that a DM doesn't even have to work to relegate this to the level of impossible. As a niche use, I could see it as a very cool deus ex machina, but the requirements for it to work to the extent that some are taking for granted would require the DM to tailor the adventure in such a way to allow it, as opposed to having to tailor the adventure to prevent it.

Don't get me started on dungeon-crawling through 10'x10' corridors with all of them. And stealth, forget it.

My point is that at high levels magic-users are somewhat game breaking, but trying to level the playing field with rules like 4E did only served to break the game. I understand that some people love 4E, but Pathfinder spanking 4E like a Japanese dominatrix in a German BDSM dungeon, as well as WoTC's complete 180 says otherwise. The rules are there so you can simulate high fantasy whether you want to play Conan, Raistlin, or Frodo. It's the DM's job to create balance by manipulating the environment (sometimes on the fly) based on players' decisions, actions, needs and wants. 4E was "fire and forget." The DM set the stage, and the players knocked it down. Old school is much more hands on, and the DM was expected to adapt to crazy things that the characters did that were found on no card, or in any list or rule. Similarly, he also had that same open-ended, toolbox to use on the players. This made for very organic, and dynamic playing; balance through rulings, not rules.


My anecdote:

I was a 16th level human fighter in an AD&D game over a decade ago. I was constantly shown up by my party members. Not so much in raw power, as I could get stuck in and pack more fudge than an army of gay Keebler elves. But with regards to being part of the actual story, I was pretty much left out. So the DM crafted a side-adventure where we were plundering an ancient evil temple of a being that once sought godhood. One thing led to another, and I unwittingly became its first acolyte. I know, I know... it sounds dumb, but it was really well done. It got extremely tense, and there were a lot of "Oh ****!" moments. We all barely escaped at all.

The evil being's mark granted me almost instant recognition in some circles; often times for better, a few times for much worse. I was "gifted" a few minor abilities (like non-damaging cantrips), but using them could take a toll on my soul. Essentially, without giving me any real power boost, I now had much more to contribute to the team. And was pivotal in a new, kick-ass story arc for the entire party.

The DM assessed what each player wanted with regards to the game, and built the adventures around the party.

Balance through rulings, not rules.

[Caelic]

What good is a one legged, or one armed skeleton?

Oh, that's easy. They're hysterical in a conga line, and a good way to keep the Barbarian amused.

[SpacemanSpif]

I don't have access to a PHB at the moment, but are we really arguing that forcecage is not an encounter ending power?

For one thing, the bars of the cage are 1/2 inch apart. Most weapons won't fit through an opening that size. Does the entry say anything about whether the bars are parallel or meshed? Even if they're parallel, if we assume a cube shaped cage of 1/2 inch bars 1/2 inch apart, simply standing with a corner of the cage between you and the person inside it makes direct attacks on you impossible, since they can only shoot arrows in a direction perpendicular to the walls of the cage. Then cast cloudkill, or any other spell that doesn't require direct line of sight.

Regardless, a forcecage with solid walls allows the caster time to leave and come back, set traps, cast other spells, find friends, etc. I would honestly be shocked if a character in a forcecage (who can't get himself out) has even a 10% chance of surviving long enough to attack the caster again.

[Tehnar]

Stuff about DM intervention.

The problem here is not that stuff is broken (almost every system can be), but that it is evidently broken. The broken stuff found so far are not Locate city bombs, the Omnimancer or Pun Pun; things requiring several different splatbooks and dubious rulings. No, these things are broken when functioning as intended. There is no room for interpretation in how Conjure wooldland beings, Contagion, Planar binding and Animate dead work. That just by having these spells makes encounters that would otherwise tax the party trivial means they are broken spells.

It means the GM has to design encounters to deal with those spells; to me that means they are broken.

[Mr.Moron]

The problem here is not that stuff is broken (almost every system can be), but that it is evidently broken. The broken stuff found so far are not Locate city bombs, the Omnimancer or Pun Pun; things requiring several different splatbooks and dubious rulings. No, these things are broken when functioning as intended. There is no room for interpretation in how Conjure wooldland beings, Contagion, Planar binding and Animate dead work. That just by having these spells makes encounters that would otherwise tax the party trivial means they are broken spells.

It means the GM has to design encounters to deal with those spells; to me that means they are broken.

Without the need to get into specific examples, if we accept something is broken why is the only option for the GM to design encounters do deal with the spells?

That is to say once it's been an accepted that a problem has been found "This is degenerate mechanic when used as written", isn't it time to start proposing and discussing solutions? Introducing in-game consequences for an action (as in the post you quoted), is certainly one potential solution to a problem. So are things like house rules to modify the effects, bans, or OOC agreements to use the mechanics in a limited enough fashion such that they don't become degenerate.

Simply restating that it's a problem and GMs are just gonna have to "Deal" with it, is anywhere from redundant to counter-productive.

[Falka]

I'm going to say something that will probably enrage rule-lawyer purists, but when a rule is dumb, you can houserule it. What does exactly stop me from interpret what True Polymorph does (when it comes to the example of polymorphing rocks into CR 7 celestials) as a DM? Anything that is transmuted from a rock should be stupid as ****, regardless of its Intelligence score. It doesn't know anything even though it has the capacity to learn now. But until then, it was a rock. Maybe it can understand you, but it's still dumb.

You can argue that it's fiat, Oberoni, whatever. For me, pretending that something should be applied just because it comes as written when its stupid, is trying to use the rules to cheat (especially when you seek to cause cheesy effects like infinite rock polymorph). Unless you guys think that your DMs are stupid or somehow deprived of the right to reintrerpret a rule in a way that is fair for everyone, I'm sure that half of the situations described are going to be solved. For Contagion, I'll add a save throw. I don't care if the RAW spell doesn't have it.

[Tehnar]

Without the need to get into specific examples, if we accept something is broken why is the only option for the GM to design encounters do deal with the spells?

That is to say once it's been an accepted that a problem has been found "This is degenerate mechanic when used as written", isn't it time to start proposing and discussing solutions? Introducing in-game consequences for an action (as in the post you quoted), is certainly one potential solution to a problem. So are things like house rules to modify the effects, bans, or OOC agreements to use the mechanics in a limited enough fashion such that they don't become degenerate.

Simply restating that it's a problem and GMs are just gonna have to "Deal" with it, is anywhere from redundant to counter-productive.

Actually, the thing I found that works the best is just to talk to your players and tell them not to be break the game on purpose. This works out if you can point out what is broken, and why it is broken, and one of the reasons threads about broken stuff are good.

[INDYSTAR188]

I'm going to say something that will probably enrage rule-lawyer purists, but when a rule is dumb, you can houserule it. What does exactly stop me from interpret what True Polymorph does (when it comes to the example of polymorphing rocks into CR 7 celestials) as a DM? Anything that is transmuted from a rock should be stupid as ****, regardless of its Intelligence score. It doesn't know anything even though it has the capacity to learn now. But until then, it was a rock. Maybe it can understand you, but it's still dumb.

While I think this is reasonable I think this takes away from the fun of the game, which is my top concern at the table. I would certainly consider this type of ruling if I felt the player was abusing spells and breaking the game or constantly owning encounters.



Actually, the thing I found that works the best is just to talk to your players and tell them not to be break the game on purpose. This works out if you can point out what is broken, and why it is broken, and one of the reasons threads about broken stuff are good.


I agree with this 100%. I will break out a list of spells I want to ban and make that clear as well. I think just talking to your players like adults and asking them to have fun and be creative with their use of magic but be careful not to break the game is the way to go.

[EvilAnagram]

I don't have access to a PHB at the moment, but are we really arguing that forcecage is not an encounter ending power?

For one thing, the bars of the cage are 1/2 inch apart. Most weapons won't fit through an opening that size. Does the entry say anything about whether the bars are parallel or meshed? Even if they're parallel, if we assume a cube shaped cage of 1/2 inch bars 1/2 inch apart, simply standing with a corner of the cage between you and the person inside it makes direct attacks on you impossible, since they can only shoot arrows in a direction perpendicular to the walls of the cage. Then cast cloudkill, or any other spell that doesn't require direct line of sight.

Regardless, a forcecage with solid walls allows the caster time to leave and come back, set traps, cast other spells, find friends, etc. I would honestly be shocked if a character in a forcecage (who can't get himself out) has even a 10% chance of surviving long enough to attack the caster again.

Let's say you use Forcecage on a caster. I know my wizard villains aren't going to be alone, and they certainly won't be without Counterspell. Even if the Dread Lich of the Tower of the Damned is all alone, you've essentially forced a caster duel since your companions without magic won't be able to touch him. Way to go, you've successfully kept your barbarians, rogues, and fighters from contributing their dps.

On the other hand, maybe you've trapped a terrible tyrant who's of the slashy type. Well, you've successfully stopped him from attacking you. But if this is the last chamber of a dungeon crawl, there's no way it's going to end there. Traps, goons, and magic escapes are all possible, and a DM would be silly not to use them. After all, by the time the party reaches level 13, the DM should be prepared for this stuff.

[Doug Lampert]

I'm going to say something that will probably enrage rule-lawyer purists, but when a rule is dumb, you can houserule it.

Yes I can, that's why most of the time when I start a non-homebrew game I email my players a setting information document that includes the houserules a week or so in advance.

When using a published system I expect the setting information to be the bulk of this document and the houserules an afterthought. If the houserules dominate the document, then maybe I'm playing the wrong system....

Based on that criteria I'm not clear on just what 5th edition is the RIGHT system for!

Houseruling 2 or 3 spells because they don't fit the setting, fine. But houseruling a dozen because the designers put them in with a broke BASIC FUNCTION for the alleged default setting and they overshadow entire classes? And is it only a dozen? Just how much stuff like summon woodland creature is there in this ruleset?

To the extent possible I want my houserules in advance, when using a system with rules that's just being fair to the players. If I need to make it up on the fly, I don't need a rulebook AT ALL. (Note: we have in fact done this game, no rules, no character sheets, just say what you're trying to do and the GM says what happens.)

tldr: Yes I can houserule spells. And if this is needed for the system to work then the easiest houserule is "we're playing ACKS or 13th Age or fourth edition or Pendragon or Ars Magica or whatever. This also avoids players needing to play guessing games with the GM over just what level of effectiveness they can have without spoiling someone else's fun.

[obryn]

I'm going to say something that will probably enrage rule-lawyer purists, but when a rule is dumb, you can houserule it. What does exactly stop me from interpret what True Polymorph does (when it comes to the example of polymorphing rocks into CR 7 celestials) as a DM? Anything that is transmuted from a rock should be stupid as ****, regardless of its Intelligence score. It doesn't know anything even though it has the capacity to learn now. But until then, it was a rock. Maybe it can understand you, but it's still dumb.

You can argue that it's fiat, Oberoni, whatever. For me, pretending that something should be applied just because it comes as written when its stupid, is trying to use the rules to cheat (especially when you seek to cause cheesy effects like infinite rock polymorph). Unless you guys think that your DMs are stupid or somehow deprived of the right to reintrerpret a rule in a way that is fair for everyone, I'm sure that half of the situations described are going to be solved. For Contagion, I'll add a save throw. I don't care if the RAW spell doesn't have it.
I wouldn't say "enrage" - I don't generally get mad about elfgames - but I'm with Doug up there, in that I want to houserule as little as possible. What's more, I'd rather houserule in pursuit of setting flavor than to fix something the designers broke.

I am not going to go so far as to say Necromancer Ned's Traveling Skeleton Tour or Contagion or Conjure Woodland beings means 5e is a broken game. It is, however, a game that's in need of errata, and I have no idea if it will ever get that - especially when the collective wisdom is either "it's fine, and better for ~*flavor*~ to let necromancers have giant skeleton hordes" or "roleplay restrictions" or (in your case) "I don't need it to be fixed, because I can just houserule the stuff that doesn't work for my group, oberoni be damned."

[Demonic Spoon]

you can houserule dumb rules, and if they are truly dumb you should. However, houseruling has a few problems.

1. You have to keep a list of all your houserules and hand it to your players
1a. Your players will get confused because now there are multiple sources of truth. If they play in multiple campaigns, or yours finishes and they go onto another, this gets worse.
2. Your houserules will probably break other stuff and have unintended consequences. If you determine a rule is broken and throw in a houserule that fixes the problem, you may have made it better, but you may also have introduced new problems you didn't anticipate because you are not a game designer and you did not playtest this houserule for years.
3. This is all contingent on the DM accepting a mechanic as a problem and being willing to change it. I think most of us on the giantITP forums are perfectly happy analyzing the rules and changing them where we think they're flawed. A lot of people aren't, and don't think too hard about things like mechanical balance. Even if a bad mechanic is easy to houserule, the vast majority of D&D games will not do so (save completely absurd things like the 3.5 multiclass XP penalty rules).


In an ideal world, houseruling is something you do to tweak the game to fit better for your specific group or campaign, not to fix bad mechanics. All the time and effort you spend doing the former also hurts your ability to do the latter.

[Dark Tira]

I'm going to say something that will probably enrage rule-lawyer purists, but when a rule is dumb, you can houserule it. What does exactly stop me from interpret what True Polymorph does (when it comes to the example of polymorphing rocks into CR 7 celestials) as a DM? Anything that is transmuted from a rock should be stupid as ****, regardless of its Intelligence score. It doesn't know anything even though it has the capacity to learn now. But until then, it was a rock. Maybe it can understand you, but it's still dumb.

You can argue that it's fiat, Oberoni, whatever. For me, pretending that something should be applied just because it comes as written when its stupid, is trying to use the rules to cheat (especially when you seek to cause cheesy effects like infinite rock polymorph). Unless you guys think that your DMs are stupid or somehow deprived of the right to reintrerpret a rule in a way that is fair for everyone, I'm sure that half of the situations described are going to be solved. For Contagion, I'll add a save throw. I don't care if the RAW spell doesn't have it.

I don't think you understand rules-lawyers that well. The only rules-lawyer that cares about your houserules is the one that is at your table. Online rules-lawyers are fine with you houseruling whatever you want as long as you recognize that they are houserules and not RAW. If you actually want to rile up rules-lawyers you should claim something is not RAW because it doesn't make sense in real life (i.e dual-wielding hand crossbows).

[Person_Man]

I wasn't trying to say that magic users shouldn't get nice things. My position is that that having learned magic should not, by itself, justify getting nicer things than people who have used the same amount of experience learning to do other things, because magic is no more difficult to learn than any other class skill. These things include hit points, action surges, etc.

A five year culinary school that costs as much money and requires as much effort and previous training as a five year law school will probably be training the best chefs in the world, who will go on to earn plenty of money and prestige. You have the impression that cooks are less impressive than lawyers because the vast majority of cooks undergo way less training than the vast majority of lawyers.

Terrible, pedantic nitpic:
Mean annual wage for chefs and head cooks in the US is currently $46,620. The top 10% of chefs and head cooks earn an average of $74,240.
Mean annual wage for lawyers in the US is currently $131,990. The top 10% of lawyers earn an average of $187,199.
So at least in terms of money (and not happiness, contribution to society, etc) capitalism has decided that lawyers are more then twice as valuable as chefs, and that lawyers do in fact get nicer things.

Having said that, I agree with the actual point you were making. It's just that the statistician in me is a terrible jerk sometimes. I apologize.

[obryn]

If you actually want to rile up rules-lawyers you should claim something is not RAW because it doesn't make sense in real life (i.e dual-wielding hand crossbows).
That's mostly because real life is terrible at being heroic fantasy.

[Giant2005]

This thread is pretty absurd.
Yes casters can do amazing things and yes they should be able to - if a caster can't use magic to achieve extraordinary results, then he is as mundane as the next guy and not really much of a caster at all.
The question is whether or not it is balanced and whether or not that even matters. The answer to the former is yes, the latter is subjective.
The non-magic users excel at single target damage while mages excel AOE. Regardless of how much weight you personally attribute to either of those traits, both aspects are useful. While the Fighter type takes out the big threat such as the enemy mage, the mages take out the mininions. I don't know why anyone even questions that dynamic - it is a staple in pretty much every RPG from MMOs, to tabletop, to anything; and has been so for as long as most of us have been alive. If you don't get it at this point in this game, you probably never will but that isn't the fault of the game developers that are using a tried and tested format, that fault lies in user error and a refusal to accept the role you chose.

Some of these attempts at "breaking" the system are farcical. If a wizard is walking around with hundreds of skeletons, people are going to notice and they tend to not appreciate people summoning armies of undead. They are going to stop you. I would be too cautious to even be running around with a couple of skeletons - an entire army is sheer lunacy.
The question is, how difficult would it be to stop that army? The answer is, not difficult at all. Once the insane mage had been noticed, the church would send out some Clerics to sort the issue, or even a single Cleric as that would be all it would take.
A Cleric with Plate Armor, a Shield and both the Sanctuary and Shield of Faith spells is virtually untouchable by the skeletons regardless of how many there are. Let's just take a look at the math:
Cleric DC: 19, skeleton wis save -1 (needs to roll a natural 20 to save; 5% chance)
Cleric AC: 18 (Plate) + 2 (Shield) + 2 (Shield of Faith) = 22 AC (Skellies need to roll an 18 or higher to hit; 15% chance; 2.25% with disadvantage)
95% of the skeletons are going to be unable to make their wisdom save to attack the Cleric at all. Instead they are going to attack each other or perhaps their wizard master.
The 5% that can attack the Cleric have a low attack bonus against a high AC and aren't likely to hit at all. Advantage is easily attained - the Cleric could simply be dodging to get it.
The net result? 95% of the Skeletons attacking each other or their master, 4.8875% missing the Cleric and 0.1125% hitting the Cleric. Those 0.1125% are negligible enough that the Cleric could endure that for a considerable amount of time before he felt it was an issue - much longer than the Skeletons and their master could endure attacking each other. If he did give more credence to the threat than existed, he could hasten the process by using his turn dead ability and killing the entire undead army in one swift move. That isn't even some super munchkinned Cleric, it is just a cleric using two level 1 spells and possibly a class power; that has a 20 in his primary spellcasting attribute.
The skeleton army is absolutely farcical and not worth the trouble that the Wizard seems stupidly willing to get himself into.

[EvilAnagram]

If you actually want to rile up rules-lawyers you should claim something is not RAW because it doesn't make sense in real life (i.e dual-wielding hand crossbows).

As someone who took issue with a crossbow build, I'd like to defend myself by saying that I never claimed it went against RAW. Just that it was silly for someone to be able to move at sonic speeds, but only when reloading a crossbow, and that I wouldn't allow it at my table.

[Falka]

I don't think you understand rules-lawyers that well. The only rules-lawyer that cares about your houserules is the one that is at your table. Online rules-lawyers are fine with you houseruling whatever you want as long as you recognize that they are houserules and not RAW. If you actually want to rile up rules-lawyers you should claim something is not RAW because it doesn't make sense in real life (i.e dual-wielding hand crossbows).

Probably, for me it means "someone that picks the rules and argues with you ad nauseam to do something just because the rules say it. Even if it's dumb".

I am not even a fan of houseruling, I like to keep it to a minimum. My houserules will be small, like giving a save to Contagion, making everything that you Polymorph from a rock, be initially dumb, etc. Reasonable things because it makes no sense that a disease lacks a save (I'm sure it's errata).

Admittedly, the good thing about these threads is that they detect really cheesy stuff quite early, so you'll be prepared by the time players come up with it.

[Jacob.Tyr]

What is wrong with contagion? Reading the spell, it looks like there is a series of saving throws, set up to be best of 5.

[Grynning]

What is wrong with contagion? Reading the spell, it looks like there is a series of saving throws, set up to be best of 5.

the "Slimy Doom" option gives the target disadvantage on Con saving throws, making it very unlikely to be able to save, and it stuns the creature whenever it takes damage. the initial attack of the spell doesn't offer a save, so this combination is extremely nasty and pretty much one-shots a bad guy.

[Jacob.Tyr]

the "Slimy Doom" option gives the target disadvantage on Con saving throws, making it very unlikely to be able to save, and it stuns the creature whenever it takes damage. the initial attack of the spell doesn't offer a save, so this combination is extremely nasty and pretty much one-shots a bad guy.

Interesting, my reading of the spell made me think it was actually pretty terrible.

"On a hit you inflict a creature with a disease of your choice from a list. At the end of each of it's turns the victim can make a Con save. If they fail three they stop making saves and are sick for the full duration. If they pass three saves before they fail the 3rd the effect ends."

I read it as "inflict" being more of an "expose". Such that upon landing the touch attack the target of the spell is at the incubation phase. Then they would only get "sick" upon failing three saves.


This may have been due to it not making sense for a no-save or suck spell to exist, in my opinion. I just read it in a way that you could make someone incredibly ill for days, but instead of it being a no-save, due to the long duration it actually requires multiple saves. Sort of a good utility spell, not so much great for straight up combat.

[obryn]

What is wrong with contagion? Reading the spell, it looks like there is a series of saving throws, set up to be best of 5.
Yeah, it's a very powerful encounter-long stun lock without a save against the original effect.

Sure, you need a touch attack, but it's a minimum of 3 rounds of stun (but likely 7 days), disadvantage on other important saves, etc., without an hp cap. The fact that it gives disadvantage on the save you need in order to remove it is all kinds of crazy, too. It needs errata.

e: your suggested reading would be one way to fix it, yep. But given the "effect ends" wording, it's not how the spell works, now.

[Grynning]

It says "After failing three of these saves, the disease's effects last for the duration, and the target stops making these saves. After succeeding on three of these saves, the creature recovers from the disease, and the spell ends."

It can't recover from the disease if it isn't suffering from it already. It's pretty clear that the disease's effects start immediately, because otherwise it becomes a touch spell that has the potential to have no effect whatsoever, which just makes it really bad. The Slimy Doom mode just needs a rider that says "except on saves to end this spell" after the disadvantage on con saves part and then it would be ok. Still a very strong spell, but not broken.

[Jacob.Tyr]

It says "After failing three of these saves, the disease's effects last for the duration, and the target stops making these saves. After succeeding on three of these saves, the creature recovers from the disease, and the spell ends."

It can't recover from the disease if it isn't suffering from it already. It's pretty clear that the disease's effects start immediately, because otherwise it becomes a touch spell that has the potential to have no effect whatsoever, which just makes it really bad. The Slimy Doom mode just needs a rider that says "except on saves to end this spell" after the disadvantage on con saves part and then it would be ok. Still a very strong spell, but not broken.
Nah, if I were running a game and it came up, creatures are asymptomatic during the first five rounds. You can, and do, in fact recover from infections without suffering from them.

If you're running with the disease insta-symptoms, I would honestly just remove Slimy Doom all together, the stun lock for 3-5 rounds alone is absurd.

I think it makes for a pretty great flavor spell if you delay the onset of symptoms. A druid could punish someone for clear-cutting a sacred grove without killing them, you can incapacitate a rival with a touch, and I bet more than one group of people in-world would have used it on themselves in some sort of idiotic ritual of badassery akin to doing shots of sriracha.

[obryn]

Still a very strong spell, but not broken.
No, I think 3 rounds of stun-locking is pretty broken, period, and out of sync with every other spell that takes a combatant out of the fight. (Those usually require Concentration and allowing saves to end the effect each round).

[Giant2005]

Sorc/Warlock combinations are pretty nasty.
Warlock 2 and Sorc 18 is probably the most powerful combo. Warlock's have some incredibly powerful level 1 spells such as Hex and Hellish Rebuke which is usually balanced by the Warlock's poor spell slot totals and a maximum of 4 castings before resting. With the Sorc levels, that changes drastically. They would be able to cast them 6 times before resting which doesn't sound like much of an improvement but via Sorc Points and Flexible Casting, that number could rise significantly.
The Warlock gets pretty much everything it needs for damage from the first two levels: Eldritch Blast, Agonizing Blast and a second Invocation which I'd recommend being Eldritch Spear. What does Sorc bring to the table other than more spell slots and an increased spell selection? Metamagic.
Empowered Spell increases the damage of Eldritch Blast and can be used with the other Metamagics so I am going to ignore it and assume it will be in play when necessary but there are some other Metamagics that also synergize with Eldritch Blast for crazy effects. Quickened Spell is an obvious choice for the ability to cast two potentially Empowered Eldritch Blasts per round. The less obvious but potentially far more powerful Metamagic is Distant Spell.
With Distant Spell, Eldritch Spear and the Feat "Spell Sniper", your Eldritch Blast has the ridiculous range of 1200'. If you are in an environment where you can take advantage of that range, you are going to be able to gun down pretty much anything before it gets anywhere near close enough to fight back.

[Soular]

No, I think 3 rounds of stun-locking is pretty broken, period, and out of sync with every other spell that takes a combatant out of the fight. (Those usually require Concentration and allowing saves to end the effect each round).

Its a gnarly spell to be sure. But it does require the caster to go toe to toe with the enemy. And in most of the battles that my characters are in, we are outnumbered. Great, the Wizard took one mook of 6-8 out of the fight. He can, of course, try to use the spell on a harder target, but that has its own risks. After you hit with the spell, you still have to keep damaging the enemy to stun them. So it's not like it totally removed them from the fight. And it's not like enemy parties won't have their own healers and such. Hell, a Cleric can cure that with a 1st level spell.

All you really did was remove one character's attacks for a few rounds provided you keep attacking them in order to stun them. It seems that enemy casters and/or bosses at the level you'd be fighting would have safeguards for such a spell (whether to cure it, or avoid it altogether), so quite likely you wasted a fifth level spell to take a peon out for a few turns... yay!

Think about what YOU would do if struck by this spell. Would you call for aid? Back up behind your companions. Perhaps drop you sword, back off, and draw a bow or cast a spell.

What would you do if you suspected that you were going to fight someone that has the spell?

I will say Contagion is just a bit OP, but not particularly game breaking. Unless you lack imagination.

[obryn]

The spell's clearly aimed at removing a single high-value target from contention.

Imagine a fight vs. a dragon.