why to never blindly trust the Forums as a new DM or player

[Danielqueue1]

So I have been around the forums a few times trying to get advice and sometimes give some, but I have found that people who take the forums too seriously will find they are hilariously inconsistent.

Healers are useless, everyone just uses hit dice on all the short rests we are taking all the time.
Monk is useless, ki recharges on a short rest and nobody ever takes short rests, EVER.

Metamagic should be a wizard feature, sorcerers have no reason to exist!
Wizards are too powerful and we should nerf some of their features.

Rogue should just be a fighter subclass
Barbarian should be a fighter subclass
Ranger should be a fighter subclass like eldritch knight
Paladin is just just a fighter-cleric and should be a fighter subclass.
-there aren't enough classes, when is wizards of the coast going to release a new one?!?

(See also Cleric/druid/sorcerer/warlock should just be wizards threads)

My game has a wizard who's crowd control or Area damage spells make a fight too easy, oh well that's what they're supposed to do. Everything working as intended.
My game has a martial character that deals so much single target damage the fights are too easy, well duh just add more minions and monsters until the fighter's damage is meaningless compared to area spells and crowd control.

Damage is the least effective way for a caster to affect the battlefield. Blasting is stupid.
Most optimization threads focus exclusively on damage dealing

Battlemaster maneuvers come back on a short rest so you will have them available for every single fight.
Warlock spell slots come back on a short rest, but no one ever takes any short rests ever so you only get 2 spell slots all day. Gosh warlocks suck.

Spinning a quarterstaff between the fingers of one hand to hit with both sides while using a shield in the other hand is perfectly normal, not cheesy at all and should be the standard against which we measure the damage of all other martial builds.
Dual wielding lances on the back of a mount is way too cheesy and unrealistic, here's 12 reasons it wouldn't work in real life and a DM shouldn't allow it.

Anyone who doesn't pick a character with darkvision is intentionally hurting the party because it is now impossible to use stealth ever!
Skulker sucks as a feat because no DM ever actually uses the lighting rules.
Also everyone picks variant human because a level 1 feat is so good! (This one less after Tasha's came out.)

-Here's a martial build with a bunch of options other than just doing pure damage. Useless! By completely changing your build and getting rid of all those other options you can consistently do 5 more DPR!
-Martials suck and have no out of combat features!

Cleric concentrating on spirit guardians should dodge every round as their action, it's better to reduce the incoming damage than deal a little more outgoing damage with your action.
The monk ability to dodge as a bonus action is useless and no one will ever use it over flurry of blows because dealing more damage is always better!

And any thread that discusses what spells a caster should *always* have prepared, the list is consistently longer than what a caster of that level can prepare.

Just something to look out for. Just try to remember when looking for advice, people tend to treat what happens in their own games as though it is what happens in everyone's games.



Cooler head edit: After a few pages of this thread I have come to the realisation that a better way of expressing it is that it is not so much that people have differing opinions and share them, but rather the attitude that not only are all other opinions wrong, but that it is important to make sure new DMs "know" that the opinions the poster have are the only valid ones.

[OldTrees1]

If we pretend the forum is an alien that honestly simultaneously holds every belief every stated on the forum, no matter how rare or minority a position, then we will see a very confused and irrational alien.


On the other hand, if we pretend the forum is a crowd of people, where each question is answered by some random but not representative subset of the crowd, then we will see a much less alien or irrational population.

[JNAProductions]

Seems like the forum is not a monolith-different people have different opinions, and sometimes, it’ll be helpful. Other times it won’t be.

[Keltest]

Large groups of people are not uniform in opinion, news at 11.


While I do agree that it's generally a bad idea to treat any internet group's advice as gospel, these forums at least are pretty good about making sure any offered advice is applicable to the game in question, to the extent that's feasible. It's only white room hypotheticals that can really be safely tuned out IMO.

[Greywander]

Not only is the forum not a monolith, but the individuals who hold certain opinions do so for a reason. It's not always a good reason, but there's usually at least some truth to their reasoning. Hear them out. Also hear the competing argument. Evaluate both sides and try to find the truth behind both opinions. One person's situation may not apply to you, which doesn't make them wrong, it just means what they're telling you might not be applicable to your situation, right now. Understanding why they hold their position might help you in the future, however, should you ever find yourself in a similar position.

It's not so much that you can't trust the forums, it's more that you're listening to the drunken ramblings of an entire village, and it's up to you to put it all together into something coherent. It's like looking at an object from different angles; each person's opinion is merely a snapshot from a specific angle, and doesn't really show you what that object is. By gathering a lot of such 2D snapshots, you can begin to figure out what the 3D object actually looks like. And it's not that each person only has a 2D snapshot, it's that they can only communicate a 2D snapshot of the 3D object they think they see. By talking more with the same person, you can get a better idea of the 3D image in their mind, but by talking to many people you can begin to comprehend the 4D hyper-object. If that makes sense. Which it might not, because it takes levels of IRL Wisdom that few people can achieve to reach that point, and even then that level of clarity doesn't always last.

[Spo]

People have different opinions? Really?

[Danielqueue1]

It's not so much that you can't trust the forums, it's more that you're listening to the drunken ramblings of an entire village, and it's up to you to put it all together into something coherent.

Love the phrasing. And yeah this post was mostly me just venting my annoyance and not an actual declararion of absolute truth. I recently dealt with a random group where a couple players ardently believed the hype so common on these types of forums.

I do wish *more* people (some do an excellent job already) would use qualifiers like "in the type of games I play" or "if you are optimizing for X" instead of making absolute declarations.

Yes I know I used several absolute declarations in the initial post :)

[Rynjin]

I do wish *more* people (some do an excellent job already) would use qualifiers like "in the type of games I play" or "if you are optimizing for X" instead of making absolute declarations.

Seems like a waste of time when you could simply assume those words.

[tKUUNK]

Ha. To the OP: that's a scary-accurate analysis. And hilarious. Thanks for posting this.

I will say though, we're usually pretty great (collectively) about hearing "the specifics of the case" and doing our best to offer relevant & balanced advice.

The amount of conflicting opinions is usually helpful in this process. I think. hahaha...

[Willowhelm]

Seems like a waste of time when you could simply assume those words.

What other words do you just assume? How does the reader know what to assume?

[animorte]

-snippery doo da-
That was an absolute treasure to read, thank you.

People also get extremely caught up in their RAW vs RAI vs DM fiat.

Remember folks: Opinions are like PCs, everybody's got one (or 217).

[Rynjin]

What other words do you just assume? How does the reader know what to assume?

Given that I assume we're all adults here, we should have basic social and language skills.

[Jervis]

You see forums are just a single human with severe multiple personality syndrome.

[Willowhelm]

Given that I assume we're all adults here, we should have basic social and language skills.

More assuming I see. Do I just need to assume some answers to my questions too? Or did you assume they were rhetorical?

[Rynjin]

More assuming I see. Do I just need to assume some answers to my questions too? Or did you assume they were rhetorical?

Feel free to do what you want. If you need a ten page dissertation on how to have a conversation, there's not much anybody else can do for you.

Real talk, do you actually go through life like this? Do you frequently have misunderstandings with people because they clip their sentences?

Somehow I doubt that. If somebody asks you "How's it goin'?", you are capable of making the assumption of what "it" means, and what a proper response to that question would be.

"In my opinion" is a redundant statement in most cases. Of course it's your opinion. You're saying it. it's not an objective fact. it is, by default, an opinion. The "in my opinion" is implied. You may assume it exists.

You may also choose not to assume it exists...but why would you? Why deliberately read something in such a way that it irritates you when you could do the opposite?

[Willowhelm]

Feel free to do what you want. If you need a ten page dissertation on how to have a conversation, there's not much anybody else can do for you.

Real talk, do you actually go through life like this? Do you frequently have misunderstandings with people because they clip their sentences?

Somehow I doubt that. If somebody asks you "How's it goin'?", you are capable of making the assumption of what "it" means, and what a proper response to that question would be.

"In my opinion" is a redundant statement in most cases. Of course it's your opinion. You're saying it. it's not an objective fact. it is, by default, an opinion. The "in my opinion" is implied. You may assume it exists.

You may also choose not to assume it exists...but why would you? Why deliberately read something in such a way that it irritates you when you could do the opposite?

It all depends on context. If someone says how’s it going, I can determine what “it” is. Maybe it’s the repair job on the car I’m working on, maybe it’s just a greeting.

In a pure text medium with an international audience spanning multiple age groups across decades… that context is sorely lacking. Statements made as fact where the reader has to “assume” that it is an opinion, or only valid in certain (unmentioned) situations, or based on an (unmentioned) “common understanding”… yes. I see frequent misunderstandings. I’d wager every single thread in this forum that has a reply has an example.

“In my opinion” is the most innocuous but also the most insidious. With it, you can determine what the author believes are opinion vs fact. Without it, every statement they make has the same weight - what is fact and what is opinion? How does one determine which is which, and which the author believes is which? Just assume the ones that you disagree with are opinion and the ones you agree with are facts? If I state a fact do you assume it’s prepended with “in my opinion”?

‘Cos you may have a high degree of English comprehension and critical thinking but… not everyone does. Same for the math and statistics knowledge and all the examples in the OP

“Never trust the forums” is another way of saying don't treat the opinions here as fact. Another thing you could just assume but quite obviously some people need to learn it still.

I wonder what else you’re assuming? Was our earlier discussion not “real talk”? Should I only assume that someone is actually engaging on the topic if they say real talk first?

If you don’t have misunderstandings in your communications then you’re exceptional. Especially text based. Especially on the internet.

[Greywander]

If you're getting conflicting or unhelpful advice, it's usually because you haven't provided enough information about either your specific situation or what exactly you're trying to do. Which is fair, you don't want to give your life story. But this is one of the reasons why I tend to take a hard line on RAW; unless you tell me exactly what rules you're using, I have to make some assumptions, and unless you tell me otherwise, RAW is the safest assumption. Most DMs run most things RAW. But most DMs also run at least one thing not RAW, but if I don't know which rule they're not running RAW, I can't assume anything.

But yeah, a lot can change the value of something. If you're running a High Seas game, then swim speeds and water breathing are probably going to be more important. If you're in Underdark, then darkvision and climb speeds become more useful. If you're unconcerned about DPR, then it might make more sense to drop PAM for Ritual Caster on your barbarian. I do enjoy optimizing, but sometimes I come up with weird concepts, and then I can use my min/maxing powers for Good by trying to build a competent character who also fulfills the concept.

[Pex]

Welcome to the internet.

The Forum has been useful to me for clarification on specific rules and inspiration. I enjoy the philosophical debates, but I have never used the Forum as a means to how to play the game. I've changed my opinion on a few issues over the years but only based on personal play. The Forum is entertainment. It's fun to talk about the game.

[Eldariel]

Most of these issues are either misunderstandings or parroting. Observe:


So I have been around the forums a few times trying to get advice and sometimes give some, but I have found that people who take the forums too seriously will find they are hilariously inconsistent.

Healers are useless, everyone just uses hit dice on all the short rests we are taking all the time.

Actual statement:
- In-combat healing spells are (largely) much weaker than the amount of damage enemies can do, and contribute less to combat victory than a spell that debuffs enemies, buffs allies or does direct damage.

Righting common misunderstandings:
- Out-of-combat healing spells can be just fine. Aura of Vitality, Healing Spirit, Goodberry, etc. can be very efficient.
- Some healing abilities like Preserve Life, Lay on Hands, Heal-spell, Mass Heal, etc. can be worth it. Class features commonly, spells very occasionally.


Monk is useless, ki recharges on a short rest and nobody ever takes short rests, EVER.

Actual statement:
- Monk has too small a ki pool on Tier 1-2 to keep doing their things on comparable lev and the action economy and framework of the class is too busy (highly incentivized to be melee but with a cap of 16 AC and d8 HD; Patient Defense only does so much since it takes a part of your offense and a ki point, coming back around to the previous point) which make reaching their full output very difficult.

Righting common misunderstandings:
- Monks are not useless. They're just at quite a few points the weakest class in the game. They can still contribute decently, other class in their shoes simply could often contribute better.
- Short rests don't save the Monk even if you take one after every fight. However, few short rests exacerbate the already significant issues.


Metamagic should be a wizard feature, sorcerers have no reason to exist!

Actual statement:
- Sorcerers lack class identity beyond metamagic which doesn't feel rewarding (and indeed, is very restricted in its uses). They also lacked spells known for the longest time making them both, the least mechanically unique and the weakest full caster.

Righting common misunderstandings:
- Sorcerer are not weak in the absolute sense: they're still a top 7 class by all rights. However, compared to their peers they are weaker which looks bad on the paper (or used to be before Clockwork Sorcerer and Aberrant Mind).
- Metamagic isn't weak. It's just overspecialized: you need to pick the few spells that make each specific metamagic worth using and there aren't many for any. Sorcerers are also starved for sorcery points, making their ability to wield metamagic highly restricted.


Wizards are too powerful and we should nerf some of their features.

Actual statement:
- Wizards are the strongest class in the game largely due to having everything in the kitchen sink on their spell list and the freedom to prepare stuff they want coupled with their unique flavour of ritual casting. If you want to bring them on par, you need to somehow restrict them and a favoured solution is restricting their spell access somehow.


Rogue should just be a fighter subclass
Barbarian should be a fighter subclass
Ranger should be a fighter subclass like eldritch knight
Paladin is just just a fighter-cleric and should be a fighter subclass.

These aren't commonly held. Actual statement could be: "Fighter should have more options out of combat so they could get some more skills á la Rogue; Barbarian isn't distinct enough as it stands".


-there aren't enough classes, when is wizards of the coast going to release a new one?!?

This I have literally never encountered.


My game has a wizard who's crowd control or Area damage spells make a fight too easy, oh well that's what they're supposed to do. Everything working as intended.
My game has a martial character that deals so much single target damage the fights are too easy, well duh just add more minions and monsters until the fighter's damage is meaningless compared to area spells and crowd control.

Well, fact is you can't make a Wizard useless without literally just making the whole campaign take place in a dead magic zone. If they want, they can do just as much single target damage as a Fighter, and if they opt not to, they can still restrict the single target hard enough that said target can't do anything while you kill them. However, making Fighter useless is frighteningly easy. This is simply a byproduct of Wizards being able to do anything while Fighters only have one thing they can do and they aren't even especially good at it.


Damage is the least effective way for a caster to affect the battlefield. Blasting is stupid.
Most optimization threads focus exclusively on damage dealing

This is mostly because there's just not much to optimize in crowd control. You have crowd control ability and you cast it, you win a fight. Meanwhile, damage has a magnitude too which you can improve upon and find the best ways to maximize the damage magnitude meaning there's more levers to pull in spite of it being less relevant to winning fights in the grand scheme of things than just CC vast majority of the time.

In other words, both are true at the same time, and for a reason.


Battlemaster maneuvers come back on a short rest so you will have them available for every single fight.
Warlock spell slots come back on a short rest, but no one ever takes any short rests ever so you only get 2 spell slots all day. Gosh warlocks suck.

To be fair, Warlocks have 2 slots for most of the game while Battlemasters have 4-6 maneuvers. Also, Battlemasters' natural comparison are classes that have basically no useful resources while Warlocks' are casters who have about infinite resources come Tier 2 (9 spell slots plus some recovery abilities for 2/4; fun times).


Spinning a quarterstaff between the fingers of one hand to hit with both sides while using a shield in the other hand is perfectly normal, not cheesy at all and should be the standard against which we measure the damage of all other martial builds.
Dual wielding lances on the back of a mount is way too cheesy and unrealistic, here's 12 reasons it wouldn't work in real life and a DM shouldn't allow it.

This one I'll give you. That said dual wielding Lances just isn't efficient no matter how realistic or unrealistic it is; meanwhile PAM Duelist just is the best way to do damage if you must have a shield as a martial because of how the system is designed (poorly).


Anyone who doesn't pick a character with darkvision is intentionally hurting the party because it is now impossible to use stealth ever!
Skulker sucks as a feat because no DM ever actually uses the lighting rules.
Also everyone picks variant human because a level 1 feat is so good! (This one less after Tasha's came out.)

I dunno who seriously says that about Darkvision. Making a Rogue without Darkvision can kinda suck since it can foil your sneak attack triggers at many points but that's about it; casters barely ever cared.


-Here's a martial build with a bunch of options other than just doing pure damage. Useless! By completely changing your build and getting rid of all those other options you can consistently do 5 more DPR!
-Martials suck and have no out of combat features!

Actual statement:
- Skill system is kinda arbitrary and whether or not martial features matter or not is entirely down to DM.



Cleric concentrating on spirit guardians should dodge every round as their action, it's better to reduce the incoming damage than deal a little more outgoing damage with your action.
The monk ability to dodge as a bonus action is useless and no one will ever use it over flurry of blows because dealing more damage is always better!

This one is kinda natural since Spirit Guardians makes getting past the Cleric pretty hard so they're essentially forcing melee enemy to attack them (and Concentration is a great red herring to have enemies focus you anyways). Meanwhile the Monk using Patient Defense...well, enemies really have little reason to pay then much heed since they don't really do much damage or anything else. They aren't concentrating on a relevant spell, they aren't making it hard to reach others, they aren't doing damage, they just really are hitting you twice for 1d8+4 or something if they do hit.


And any thread that discusses what spells a caster should *always* have prepared, the list is consistently longer than what a caster of that level can prepare.

This really doesn't match my experience. It's usually the reactions, which there are only 4 of in the entire game. Other than that, yeah, casters should probably prepare like Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon and Command as Clerics, Conjure Animals and Spike Growth as Druids or Web and Hypnotic Pattern as Wizards but that still leaves them a few slots to prepare.


Hyperboles be hyperboles. But let's be fair, there are lots of people here who largely know how the system works at least in its natural environment. Of course, house rules and such can change that, and some DMing decisions impact the value of various options, but rarely to the point that e.g. the classes would significantly change in comparison to one another.

[Imbalance]

Given that I assume we're all adults here, we should have basic social and language skills.

Worst assumption and projected correlation in the history of the Internet.

Let's start at the back - not everybody who uses this forum is speaking the same language, though often English is what we read here. For many, there is a translation effort that is part of their discussion. Add to that, English isn't even taught identically in different English-speaking countries. Further, most of us end up typing in our head-dialects. Then, you assume that everyone is on the same skill level?

Social skills? Wow. About the only consistent observation I can make from the arguments that spill out of threads where OP initially asked simple advice is the absolute lack of social skills. Are you talking about this forum?

Real big assumption on the adulthood range. Saying nothing about the maturity level of many adults, in general, you're betting the farm that there are no children here, like, at all? I've got a bridge you'd love to buy.

OP nailed it, but sadly for too many noobs they have to learn the hard way. That's not to say that this community is inherently dishonest or deliberately useless, rather you have to learn to dig through the malaise to find genuinely helpful points of view.

[Kane0]

-Snip-


I cant like or upvote posts so I'm writing this instead.

[Jak]

snip

There one I feel the most is battle master vs monk.
These are some good points. Advice from forums should generally be taken with a grain of salt, if the advice is making generalizations such as these.

[Blatant Beast]

Hyperboles be hyperboles. But let's be fair, there are lots of people here who largely know how the system works at least in its natural environment. Of course, house rules and such can change that, and some DMing decisions impact the value of various options, but rarely to the point that e.g. the classes would significantly change in comparison to one another.

Well Said!!!

I would also like to point out, that no one posting here is getting paid to do so. Meanwhile, there are many D&D articles/videos posted where the creator was paid for their article or expects to receive compensation based off viewership.

Many of those monetized D&D musing also contain errors, or Wild assumptions.

We can even extend this out to D&D Designer Tweets. Jeremy Crawford has certainly issued contradicting rulings on topics before…especially on Twitter.

All D&D Knowledge is suspect….act accordingly.

[Rynjin]

Worst assumption and projected correlation in the history of the Internet.

Off the bat you prove that you understand the concept of hyperbole, so you should be able to understand basic concepts like assumptions and implications as well. Good job!


Let's start at the back - not everybody who uses this forum is speaking the same language, though often English is what we read here. For many, there is a translation effort that is part of their discussion. Add to that, English isn't even taught identically in different English-speaking countries. Further, most of us end up typing in our head-dialects. Then, you assume that everyone is on the same skill level?

I haven't seen anyone here on the level of incomprehensibility, so it looks like everyone hits that "basic" metric to me. Unless their native language is Lojban, mastery of English is not a requirement to understand, conceptually, that statements can be implied and not spoken. That is not something unique to any language.


Social skills? Wow. About the only consistent observation I can make from the arguments that spill out of threads where OP initially asked simple advice is the absolute lack of social skills. Are you talking about this forum?

Again, the keyword here is "basic". I don't trust the advice of most people here when it comes to complex social situations, but I do know y'all can talk. Boy can we talk.


Real big assumption on the adulthood range. Saying nothing about the maturity level of many adults, in general, you're betting the farm that there are no children here, like, at all? I've got a bridge you'd love to buy.

I would be willing to bet a lot that if there are any children here, there are very, very few of them. Traditional forums are not the place where the yutes of today like to hang out. This is two generations back in the social media evolution line.

[JNAProductions]

I would be willing to bet a lot that if there are any children here, there are very, very few of them. Traditional forums are not the place where the yutes of today like to hang out. This is two generations back in the social media evolution line.

I'd also be willing to bet that any children (more likely teenagers) on this forum are going to be reasonably mature. Obviously they'll lack experience relative to older folk, but they're capable of understanding what's said just fine.

[Demonslayer666]

You need to consider the source, and when it comes to the internet, trust should not be given lightly.

I trust these forums to give me other people's perspective on their experience with the game. I have found them extremely useful on learning how other people think and interpret rules so I can better define my game.

The character guides and third party resources are great.

[animorte]

I trust these forums to give me other people's perspective on their experience with the game. I have found them extremely useful on learning how other people think and interpret rules so I can better define my game.
This is exactly why I'm here. I also like to join in presenting my own perception from experiences and research. That's one of the ways we can learn so much more.

While there is a great deal of floccinaucinihilipilification,* there is also an exceptional amount of respect I have witnessed and been a part of myself. There have been several people I've had in-depth disagreements with, but I hold them in high regard because of how we handled the conversation. Not giving any names, you likely know who you are.

*I happened upon this word some 11 years ago or so and used it in a college presentation on the subject of the misinterpreted definition of ignorance, in that we are all infants of omniscience. I find it is suitable for our present circumstance.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I like that there are many here who do play the game very differently than I do, the additional perspective is amazingly helpful even if the advice attached isn't always the solution I'm looking for.

[Danielqueue1]

Seems like a waste of time when you could simply assume those words.

Really quite difficult when the statements are more like, "[X] sucks and never has any use ever and anyone who choses it is intentionally hurting the party."

[JNAProductions]

Really quite difficult when the statements are more like, "[X] sucks and never has any use ever and anyone who choses it is intentionally hurting the party."

There are people who speak in extremes and absolutes.

But there’s a lot more people here who are reasonable and speak with moderation.

[AdAstra]

In addition to the good stuff about differing perspectives and experiences, not every opinion is equally valid, based in reality, or expressed on a way that accurately conveys its meaning. You shouldn't dismiss things out of hand, but you do have to seriously consider that what someone's saying was not said with honesty and thought put into it.

People are just wrong on the internet sometimes.

[Danielqueue1]

Going to be honest, this thread got a lot more attention than I was expecting. I mostly posted it out of annoyance and frustration with the types of threads that, looking back, have maybe half a dozen people yelling absolutes while the rest are actually trying to be helpful.

I totally agree that there are a lot of people who genuinely discuss topics beneficently and explain their points well and actually discuss things, there are also those who don't accept any possibility of things being other than their experience. And I admit I probably get way Way too annoyed when I am trying to get ideas on magical defenses for a castle and the thread gets derailed by another "Assassins are the worst rogue subclass" argument that goes on for two pages.

One poster on this thread (sorry I am on mobile on an old phone so I won't quote it) went through a lot of trouble pointing out far more valid arguments that have been made by more considerate posters than the people I was mostly whining about. I was mostly pointing out the bad arguments made and their inconsistencies, not stating that there weren't valid criticisms to be made. But I do appreciate your attention to detail.

[Danielqueue1]

Also, how does one edit a thread title? I neglected to include the word "blindly" when I originally rage-posted it.

[JNAProductions]

Also, how does one edit a thread title? I neglected to include the word "blindly" when I originally rage-posted it.

Edit the first post.

[Danielqueue1]

Edit the first post.
thank you.

[rel]

It honestly isn't that bad. People will give their advice and opinions and you can take what's useful to play your own way and discard the rest.

As long as you remember that the wailing and lamentations of the internet peanut gallery when they hear you're ignoring the optional rules of feats and multi-classing along with any books published after 2014 doesn't actually stop you having fun at your own table you should be fine.

[Leon]

New or Seasoned, take anything on a gaming forum (some would say anything online as well) with a grain of salt. Lot of Hot air in these places for an ounce of reasonable use.

[Gryndle]

To paraphrase an old quote (from a source I can't remember)
"An individual can be intelligent, but people as a group are stupid" I try to keep that in mind when dealing with the internet

[Mastikator]

To paraphrase an old quote (from a source I can't remember)
"An individual can be intelligent, but people as a group are stupid" I try to keep that in mind when dealing with the internet

Isn'tt from Men in Black?

[KorvinStarmast]

People are just wrong on the internet sometimes. Oh dear, where can I go for Truth with at Capital "T" if not the internet?


"An individual can be intelligent, but people as a group are stupid" I try to keep that in mind when dealing with the internet There's a variation on this that goes something like "none of us is as stupid as all of us" that is related to mob behavior. :smallcool:

[Gtdead]

Since you joined in 2016, you are probably aware of the commonly held views for this game's balance back then. Things like Lore Bard, Fighter and Bearbarian making it into S tier, tier lists being "inconsequential due to 5e being very balanced", Wizard barely making the A tier and usually being behind Clerics and Warlocks, Ancients Paladin being the best Paladin by far and eventually single classed Paladin being crowned as the best martial, the noob PAM+Sentinel Cleric craze etc (basically every other optimization thread was about how to build a weapon based cleric), the Valor bard swift quiver archer, the lack of consensus on Druid as a support caster etc.

Nowadays Fighter is average, bearbarians popularity has declined, the commonly held view for balance is that it's utterly broken, Lore bard is respected but Eloquence and Swords are more commonly talked about, Paladin is a 7 level prestige class for Hexblade and a lot of builds actually don't even build for melee because the current meta involved around maximizing range, Wizards are considered as the gods of this edition, Clerics STR builds are almost non existent, the community acts as if Swift Quiver doesn't even exist, Druid is considered an amazing caster etc.

My point being: who can you trust when it comes to optimization and tier listing? Especially if you are a newbie and mostly act on your biases while trying to relate to a class as a starting point.

This is a game where a statement can be both true and false depending on the DM. Monk's stunning strike can be both amazing and useless. Wizard can be a god, but most players will have a hard time against a campaign which features a lot of fiends. Druid can be the best thing since sliced bread, or a fairly low impact character, depending on how the DM rules Conjure Animals.

And that's before taking into account various optimization misconceptions and the actual ability to do math. I'm fairly sure that you are aware of these "highest damage" threads that exist on the internet, where people calculate maximum potential dpr, assuming that everything hits and all dice are maximized.

It's also important to not misrepresent the views of others. Communities consist of different people with differing views. Creating an amalgamation of various opinions on a topic is bound to sound contradictory. It's also a good idea for newbies to not just read a statement, and instead research it. A great thing about this forum at least is that most people are never bored to write lengthy and elaborate responses. They can be hard to follow at times, due to abbreviations and assumed common knowledge, but it's all there to dissect and eventually challenge.

[animorte]

A+ essay

Hold on, I’m still grading your paper…

Well done!

[Kuu Lightwing]

Since you joined in 2016, you are probably aware of the commonly held views for this game's balance back then. Things like Lore Bard, Fighter and Bearbarian making it into S tier, tier lists being "inconsequential due to 5e being very balanced", Wizard barely making the A tier and usually being behind Clerics and Warlocks, Ancients Paladin being the best Paladin by far and eventually single classed Paladin being crowned as the best martial, the noob PAM+Sentinel Cleric craze etc (basically every other optimization thread was about how to build a weapon based cleric), the Valor bard swift quiver archer, the lack of consensus on Druid as a support caster etc.

Nowadays Fighter is average, bearbarians popularity has declined, the commonly held view for balance is that it's utterly broken, Lore bard is respected but Eloquence and Swords are more commonly talked about, Paladin is a 7 level prestige class for Hexblade and a lot of builds actually don't even build for melee because the current meta involved around maximizing range, Wizards are considered as the gods of this edition, Clerics STR builds are almost non existent, the community acts as if Swift Quiver doesn't even exist, Druid is considered an amazing caster etc.

My point being: who can you trust when it comes to optimization and tier listing? Especially if you are a newbie and mostly act on your biases while trying to relate to a class as a starting point.


I remember a lot of discussions about "PAM Quarterstaff + Shield" melee builds, and entire threads about how to justify this rather... unconvetional fighting style being technicaly the best melee build, I wonder what happened to that now.

[Willie the Duck]

I remember a lot of discussions about "PAM Quarterstaff + Shield" melee builds, and entire threads about how to justify this rather... unconvetional fighting style being technicaly the best melee build, I wonder what happened to that now.

I accidentally rekindled it in another (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?647046-Is-coffeelock-actually-broken)current thread. Apparently there are a large number of people who will proverbially look at you like you had three heads if you suggest it is ridiculous and doesn't show up in your games. I think WotC saying effectively 'oh, and spears too' to that build option gave it a lot of legitimacy (lots of people upset that spear was a tactically unsound option for a martial character). Also I think it's acknowledged that wanting to make a strong melee damage-dealer is not a bad thing, and if the rather ridiculous staff+PAM outpaces greatswords or longsword and shield or two-weapon-fighting, the preferred response is to complain about the later rather than the former.

[Gryndle]

Isn'tt from Men in Black?

Might've been used in that but the original quote is much older I think. Though a quick & lazy Google didn't turn up anything, so I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time, seriously doubt it will be the last.

[Gtdead]

I remember a lot of discussions about "PAM Quarterstaff + Shield" melee builds, and entire threads about how to justify this rather... unconvetional fighting style being technicaly the best melee build, I wonder what happened to that now.

It's still used and WotC normalized it by making spears work with PAM so players don't have to deal with the visual absurdity of a full plated champion wielding the mighty broomstick (although I guess refluffing is free). It does have a few problems as a playstyle though, because it applies strictly to STR builds (meaning that the characters have trouble with range, and that's a big no no in most optimization circles), and you need dueling style to make the most of it, when Defense is arguably better.

Paladins are the defacto users of this playstyle since there aren't any good DEX builds. It also allows the Paladin to get a significant boost in output early and provides a good use for it's reaction while allowing the builder to focus on it's caster side, with Hexblade dips and CHA focus.

[KorvinStarmast]

Apparently there are a large number of people who will proverbially look at you like you had three heads if you suggest it is ridiculous and doesn't show up in your games. I think WotC saying effectively 'oh, and spears too' to that build option gave it a lot of legitimacy (lots of people upset that spear was a tactically unsound option for a martial character). My orc battlemaster had a +1 spear and PAM, sword and board guy. Really enjoyed him. Game ended with him at level 7.

[Kuu Lightwing]

It's still used and WotC normalized it by making spears work with PAM so players don't have to deal with the visual absurdity of a full plated champion wielding the mighty broomstick (although I guess refluffing is free). It does have a few problems as a playstyle though, because it applies strictly to STR builds (meaning that the characters have trouble with range, and that's a big no no in most optimization circles), and you need dueling style to make the most of it, when Defense is arguably better.

Paladins are the defacto users of this playstyle since there aren't any good DEX builds. It also allows the Paladin to get a significant boost in output early and provides a good use for it's reaction while allowing the builder to focus on it's caster side, with Hexblade dips and CHA focus.

Since you raised this point, I often see how STR is considered too weak of a stat and that it requires some "help" and so on. But last time when I built a character, which I wanted to be a Polearm Master + Sentinel Battlemaster fighter, and which is considered a strong combo - I didn't see much options other than STR for a build like that. So I do find it pretty strange how STR is considered a weak stat, but builds that are generally considered pretty strong (PAM + Sentinel), Paladins, etc are all STR based.

[diplomancer]

Since you raised this point, I often see how STR is considered too weak of a stat and that it requires some "help" and so on. But last time when I built a character, which I wanted to be a Polearm Master + Sentinel Battlemaster fighter, and which is considered a strong combo - I didn't see much options other than STR for a build like that. So I do find it pretty strange how STR is considered a weak stat, but builds that are generally considered pretty strong (PAM + Sentinel), Paladins, etc are all STR based.

The Paladin can focus on CHA with an Hexblade dip. And I don't think it is so much "Str is a weak stat" but "Str is weaker than Dex" (it's direct competitor).

[Gtdead]

Since you raised this point, I often see how STR is considered too weak of a stat and that it requires some "help" and so on. But last time when I built a character, which I wanted to be a Polearm Master + Sentinel Battlemaster fighter, and which is considered a strong combo - I didn't see much options other than STR for a build like that. So I do find it pretty strange how STR is considered a weak stat, but builds that are generally considered pretty strong (PAM + Sentinel), Paladins, etc are all STR based.

Paladin is STR based but STR is actually an afterthought. The vast majority of optimized builds care mostly about CHA and the Warlock synergy.

I wouldn't say that PAM+Sentinel is considered "strong". It's a way to lock down enemies because it creates a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario with the new AoO triggers, but there are cheaper alternatives. For example you can pick up Booming Blade on EK and it does something similar. PAM+Sentinel is probably better than BB, but considering the cost of 2 feats compared to a cantrip choice for most builds, I don't think that it has a clear advantage. It's effectiveness also depends a lot on party makeup. If the Fighter is always the best target to attack because everyone else is ranged/kiting/using cover, then Sentinel is kind of wasted.

Another problem with STR builds in general is that they are effectively glass cannons. A 16-18 AC GWM Fighter is a very weak frontliner defensively. Barbarian is more durable during rage of course but still the low AC can create problems, like when facing enemies with condition inducing rider effects. CON proficiency helps quite a lot, but it's still dangerous. While these monsters are not too common, they are a fairly good option for a DM to use in high op games so it's more likely to face them when playing optimized characters. There really isn't any downside in going DEX with Archery if you want to deal damage. There isn't any hard requirement for Tanks to exist in the party.

Lastly, STR is pretty much the only stat that can be reduntant to increase, thanks to giant belts. In high magic games this is a huge problem, especially for Fighters that tend to maximize STR early thanks to extra feats. You need to discuss the possibility with the DM and act accordingly. It's such an odd design.

I don't want to get too much into the STR vs DEX debate, just consider that a DEX EK can be a full archer and outdamage pretty much every martial in melee thanks to Shadowblade. Additionally Stealth, and Initiative key of DEX (two extremely important stats, that a lot of DEX builds can exploit even further with access to PWT, which is fairly easy to get nowadays) and DEX saves are more frequent than STR saves. Additionally Acrobatics can substitute for Athletics in combat. So really, STR, aside from Athletics which is mainly an exploration tool for the early levels, isn't really that useful, other than weapon damage calculations.

[Willie the Duck]

My orc battlemaster had a +1 spear and PAM, sword and board guy. Really enjoyed him. Game ended with him at level 7.
Yes, and that does go a long way to rehabilitate it for me. Given their prevalence throughout history, no one should besmirch someone wanting to make a viable shield and spear warrior. It is much more of a problem when one the optimal choices is someone wielding a shield and a quarterstaff in one hand (something that you can physically do, and any number of youtube videos have shown you can kinda sorta fight like that for a hot second, but clearly is not an optimal technique), specifically with a feat which is coded as attacking with the reverse end*. Mind you, this is also an edition were a decidedly unoptimized optimal two-weapon fighting style would be rapier and dagger; and where an optimal ranged option is spamming shots with hand crossbows which, to the best of our historical understanding, were medieval desk toys (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_toy) for the wealthy. However, I've moved to where I think lots of others have -- the problem isn't that PAM+spear+shield and XBE+SS+handcrossbow or even halberd+pam+GWM+sentinel exist, it is that equivalents for rapier+dagger, longbow, and shield with battleaxe/warhammer/1h sword do not.
*Side note opinion: Reverse end striking was a thing, especially common in 1:1 polearm-spear dueling. As was pommel strikes. Both these are the norm of fighting with these weapons and the concepts should be included in D&D's abstraction of normal weapon attack and damage (especially since you can now choose to have the strike which takes someone to 0 hp be non-lethal, which better include pommel/shaft strikes). If there is a design space need for a feat which grants consistent bonus action attack (but lessoned damage), some other framing would have been better.


Since you raised this point, I often see how STR is considered too weak of a stat and that it requires some "help" and so on. But last time when I built a character, which I wanted to be a Polearm Master + Sentinel Battlemaster fighter, and which is considered a strong combo - I didn't see much options other than STR for a build like that. So I do find it pretty strange how STR is considered a weak stat, but builds that are generally considered pretty strong (PAM + Sentinel), Paladins, etc are all STR based.
It's complicated, and does not exclusively focus on feat and situation-optimized characters exclusively doing that at which they are best. A fully optimized Str-melee character is similar to a fully optimized Dex-ranged character, excepting that archery fighting style synergizes well with Sharpshooter's -5/+10, and the basic issue that the melee character has to be up in melee to start doing their thing (which 1- sometimes is a challenge to do, and 2- means you will be attacked).

Also issues surrounding which is better when not doing their optimal choice actions. A Dex-archery character forced to melee can pull out two shortswords which at levels 1-4 (other than the bonus action cost of 2wf) do the same as a default str character does with a greatsword; or they can pull out rapier and shield, which does the same as default str-character does with longsword and shield. When the Str-melee character is forced into ranged, they throw a javelin, which is not on par with the default levels of dex-archery. This changes as you level up and extra attacks come online, mostly not in the str-guy's favor.

Beyond that, it is side issues like Dex save being more often rolled than Str saves; stealth and acrobatics being more often rolled than athletics (unless you are choosing to be a grappling attacker); Dex informing initiative while Str informs... encumbrance I guess; Str-based characters only getting a minor AC advantage at 1st level (if using default equipment) and once 1500 gp is attainable.

However, predominantly I think it is the case that it isn't mostly about what an optimized str-pam-gwm-sentinel (or str-pam-sentinel for shield+spear) build does compared to a Dex-XBE-SS-EA build; it is about what a cleric or Valor bard who is going to put their ASIs into resilient:con and warcaster does, and what a non-hexblade bladelock does (and which of str/dex a hexblade bladelock has above 10, I suppose), and what a single-classed paladin that isn't looking for maximum damage but instead focuses on party support like maxing Cha and Inspiring Leader and gets by with a decent AC and two one-handed+dueling attacks with smites at opportune times. If you weren't going to be taking GWM/PAM (or HAM) in the first place, you lose very little by choosing Dex and gain very little for choosing Str.

Caveat: and the DM does not drop a lot of magic str-based weapons... and someone is doing the melee role. This all gets more complicated if no one in the party is str-based and are all fighting over the one +1 rapier they find, or the like. Also more complicated in that if no one is the frontliner, then the whole battlefield is the front line (and suddenly all the lore bards in the party shift towards valor bards, and all the wizards are bladesingers or take a level of cleric, and all the archers take crossbow expert before Sharpshooter, etc.).

[Dr.Samurai]

Since you raised this point, I often see how STR is considered too weak of a stat and that it requires some "help" and so on. But last time when I built a character, which I wanted to be a Polearm Master + Sentinel Battlemaster fighter, and which is considered a strong combo - I didn't see much options other than STR for a build like that. So I do find it pretty strange how STR is considered a weak stat, but builds that are generally considered pretty strong (PAM + Sentinel), Paladins, etc are all STR based.
The forum, in general (queue pitchforks and torches), greatly undervalues Strength.

The meta here is that frontliners don't really need to resist Strength saving throws or Strength checks to hold the line; getting pushed around, knocked prone, grappled/restrained... none of these are as bad as other things, so they are unimportant to a frontliner. Frontliner means "person in front of the party", as opposed to "person that can't be moved and can hold or move the enemy in turn".

Terrain is always easy to navigate; there will never be a need to have to jump to avoid gaps, hazards, difficult terrain, or to reach anything. And if there is, well you probably have Fey Touched so just use Misty Step you doofus! And if for some reason you aren't a paladin/hexblade or artificer/bladesinger, just ask your DM if you can sub Acrobatics for Athletics. They will say YES because why not?

And... would it be helpful if you could actually lock down monsters with a Grapple check so they can't skirmish or burrow or flyby or get extra damage on Charges, etc? And then move them to where you want? Nah! Grapple just completely shuts down a monster's movement against an ability check they don't have proficiency in, so what?

And carrying stuff and busting down doors? That's what mules are for, hello! We don't track stuff that relies on Strength in this game, that stuff is BORING!

But if for some reason, you really really really want a useless high strength score, just buy any of the Strength boosting magic items at Ye Ol' Ubiquitous Magic Shoppe. You can definitely count on one of these popping up in your game, and there are more types of Strength boosting items than there are types of elves, so you'll be sure to find the exact kind you need!

But long and short of it is, as far as the forum is concerned, if you can make weapon attacks with literally any ability score other than Strength, DO IT! And you will be stronger for it. But not like... stronger stronger, because your Strength sucks, the other kind of stronger.

[Segev]

Strength is easy to undervalue. It is only useful for some very specific builds, or against a very limited number of tactics (and those can be mitigated/avoided with a high dex a lot of the time).

That said, it is a stat you can build for VERY effectively, and if you have built for it, you can be very good at a number of things. Strength is, deceptively, a high mobility stat, due to its connection to the jumping rules. Remember that climbing is also a Strength (Athletics) check, if it isn't automatic, and (without the Athlete feat) is as fast as moving while prone. (With the feat, you're a wall-crawler if you want to be; the only thing spider climb has on you is free hands, which isn't nothing, but also isn't the end of the world. Strength-based monks are COOL if you can handle the MAD, which is admittedly not easy. Tavern Brawler is a good feat to couple in, if not, because unarmed strike doesn't need free hands.)

While it's a bit frustrating that dexterous things can squirm out of your grapples as much as big and strong things can contest them, grappling is still a viable strategy. And if you've got a high strength, remember that jumping and climbing are both tied to it, as well, and dragging a grappled creature with you is an option. Aerial suplex, or climb up a wall and drop, are both viable options.

Plus, 5e was pretty clever in making heavy armors have strength requirements ,and then decoupling heavy armor from dexterity. It doesn't fully mitigate the problem that Dexterity is a god-stat for defense, but it cuts it down significantly, making the strength-focused melee type very viable. (Thrown weapons also use strength rather than dex, so javelin-wielding barbarians don't need dex if they're willing to wear armor. I would have loved to see Barbarian Unarmed Defense permit their choice of Str or Dex in the formula that adds Con, but maybe that would've been too much AC.)

In short, I agree that this forum can undervalue Strength, but I don't blame them: it isn't a stat that naturally is required in most builds, and is a stat you have to build around a lot more in 5e than in 3e if you really want it to be useful.

[Keltest]

Strength is easy to undervalue. It is only useful for some very specific builds, or against a very limited number of tactics (and those can be mitigated/avoided with a high dex a lot of the time).

That said, it is a stat you can build for VERY effectively, and if you have built for it, you can be very good at a number of things. Strength is, deceptively, a high mobility stat, due to its connection to the jumping rules. Remember that climbing is also a Strength (Athletics) check, if it isn't automatic, and (without the Athlete feat) is as fast as moving while prone. (With the feat, you're a wall-crawler if you want to be; the only thing spider climb has on you is free hands, which isn't nothing, but also isn't the end of the world. Strength-based monks are COOL if you can handle the MAD, which is admittedly not easy. Tavern Brawler is a good feat to couple in, if not, because unarmed strike doesn't need free hands.)

While it's a bit frustrating that dexterous things can squirm out of your grapples as much as big and strong things can contest them, grappling is still a viable strategy. And if you've got a high strength, remember that jumping and climbing are both tied to it, as well, and dragging a grappled creature with you is an option. Aerial suplex, or climb up a wall and drop, are both viable options.

Plus, 5e was pretty clever in making heavy armors have strength requirements ,and then decoupling heavy armor from dexterity. It doesn't fully mitigate the problem that Dexterity is a god-stat for defense, but it cuts it down significantly, making the strength-focused melee type very viable. (Thrown weapons also use strength rather than dex, so javelin-wielding barbarians don't need dex if they're willing to wear armor. I would have loved to see Barbarian Unarmed Defense permit their choice of Str or Dex in the formula that adds Con, but maybe that would've been too much AC.)

In short, I agree that this forum can undervalue Strength, but I don't blame them: it isn't a stat that naturally is required in most builds, and is a stat you have to build around a lot more in 5e than in 3e if you really want it to be useful.

Isnt naturally required? High str is exactly as good as you would expect for any melee offense build, especially because it has the distinction of being one of the only stats that can boost much above 20 via items.

Thats like saying Charisma isnt a good stat because its only naturally required by charisma casters.

[Alcore]

So… if I was an experienced player/GM I *should* trust the forum? :smallconfused:


Feels more like a lack of critical thinking than any fault of the forum. Always question and then question the answers.

[Willie the Duck]

So… if I was an experienced player/GM I *should* trust the forum? :smallconfused:

Where was that said or implied?

[Gtdead]

@Segev

Grappling is a curiosity that I personally choose to ignore. I consider it more of an "artsy" playstyle than something solid because I think that the grappler comes online around the time casters get the really good control spells, and AoE effect beats Single Target, especially when the effect is primarily immobilization. Certainly, a grappler can force the enemy to waste actions, but it depends on the targets available. Additionally, grappler builds work very differently than weapon based STR builds so there needs to be some distinction between the two when discussing STR builds in general.

@Keltest

You have a choice between STR and DEX (or some other stat) for most of the builds. Your Charisma example isn't valid because a Charisma class can't use another attribute. Unless of course we are talking about Barbarian who doesn't have any other playstyle that makes sense.

The fact that you can pump STR through items is actually an argument against STR due to the design. There are two ways to build a STR weapon user. One is going all out with GWM+PAM, the other is just getting PAM and using a shield.

For the first scenario, if you raise STR, then your progression is fine, but you eventually waste ASIs. If you don't raise STR your progression is way worse due to GWM's -5, but eventually you get the item that makes everything alright. You either sacrifice early game or late game. The sane thing to do is to get STR ASIs, because early game is far more important especially for martial types, and items are not set in stone.

For the second scenario, it doesn't matter if you are a STR or a DEX character, you can just pick PAM with your next ASI and turn into a High DEX + Ultra High STR character. The only downside is having to wait for a couple of levels. Any melee weapon user will benefit from a giant's belt, even if melee is their secondary style. You may miss on dueling but with a possible +9 STR, it's pretty much irrelevant.

[Dr.Samurai]

In short, I agree that this forum can undervalue Strength, but I don't blame them: it isn't a stat that naturally is required in most builds, and is a stat you have to build around a lot more in 5e than in 3e if you really want it to be useful.
Hmm... I'm not sure I agree with this.

It's naturally required in all barbarian builds, all heavy weapon builds, all PAM builds, Grapple builds, etc. You can do these things with other stuff in 1 or 2 ways, but the default is Strength.

I think the point is that despite the power of PAM and GWM and Reckless Attack, the forum, generally (queue all the "how dare you?!"s) does not value the other stuff Strength does, like all the things you and I just mentioned.

No one considers Strength a mobility stat even though it is THE mobility stat in the game. No one worries about getting restrained and having Disadvantage or getting swallowed whole because Grapple just doesn't register for people. (Yes, Acrobatics helps here, but after Stealth and Perception, people are usually grabbing skills that line up with their secondary, like Social skills or Knowledge skills.)

Strength is associated with "make melee attacks", so once you have a way to do that with a different stat, Strength is easily discarded.

[KorvinStarmast]

... it is that equivalents for rapier+dagger, longbow, and shield with battleaxe/warhammer/1h sword do not. You are singing my song. :smallsmile:
If there is a design space need for a feat which grants consistent bonus action attack (but lessened damage), some other framing would have been better. Yes, and maybe worth the team putting some time and energy into.


When the Str-melee character is forced into ranged, they throw a javelin, which is not on par with the default levels of dex-archery. This changes as you level up and extra attacks come online, mostly not in the str-guy's favor. My Tier 1 clerics often do this. Better damage than sacred flame in most cases. :smallyuk:


The forum, in general (queue pitchforks and torches), greatly undervalues Strength. Preach it, brother!

[Gtdead]

Hmm... I'm not sure I agree with this.

It's naturally required in all barbarian builds, all heavy weapon builds, all PAM builds, Grapple builds, etc. You can do these things with other stuff in 1 or 2 ways, but the default is Strength.

I think the point is that despite the power of PAM and GWM and Reckless Attack, the forum, generally (queue all the "how dare you?!"s) does not value the other stuff Strength does, like all the things you and I just mentioned.

No one considers Strength a mobility stat even though it is THE mobility stat in the game. No one worries about getting restrained and having Disadvantage or getting swallowed whole because Grapple just doesn't register for people. (Yes, Acrobatics helps here, but after Stealth and Perception, people are usually grabbing skills that line up with their secondary, like Social skills or Knowledge skills.)

Strength is associated with "make melee attacks", so once you have a way to do that with a different stat, Strength is easily discarded.

You present this like having high strength automatically solves the problem, but it's a check and it can fail, especially when most of the STR classes don't have a native way to gain expertise and dipping rogues and bards isn't an amazing choice. People are aware of mobility denial, and that why they want to maximize range. Because the majority of the effects come from melee enemies. Being STR based makes you more likely to have to deal with these effects. An archer on the other hand wants to shoot and move out of effective range, either through mundane movement, or getting flight/climb speed and teleports. Not being attacked is the perfect defense.

[Dr.Samurai]

You present this like having high strength automatically solves the problem, but it's a check and it can fail, especially when most of the STR classes don't have a native way to gain expertise and dipping rogues and bards isn't an amazing choice.
I present it exactly as it is. In fact, you yourself posted the below while I was typing:

Grappling is a curiosity that I personally choose to ignore. I consider it more of an "artsy" playstyle than something solid...

I suppose you can say that it at least "registers" with you, but I think my point still stands.

You don't need Expertise to have a good chance of beating a grapple/restrained effect if you're Strength based and a frontline class. But if you're a charisma frontliner, or an intelligence frontliner, and you dumped Strength and also don't have Proficiency in Strength saving throws, well, it goes without saying that your chances of passing are even lower.

People are aware of mobility denial, and that why they want to maximize range. Because the majority of the effects come from melee enemies. Being STR based makes you more likely to have to deal with these effects. An archer on the other hand wants to shoot and move out of effective range, either through mundane movement, or getting flight/climb speed. Not being attacked is the perfect defense.
I'm clearing talking about frontliners that use a stat other than Strength. I wouldn't expect ranged characters to have to invest in Strength as a primary stat.

[Gtdead]

I present it exactly as it is. In fact, you yourself posted the below while I was typing:

Grappling is a curiosity that I personally choose to ignore. I consider it more of an "artsy" playstyle than something solid...

I suppose you can say that it at least "registers" with you, but I think my point still stands.

You don't need Expertise to have a good chance of beating a grapple/restrained effect if you're Strength based and a frontline class. But if you're a charisma frontliner, or an intelligence frontliner, and you dumped Strength and also don't have Proficiency in Strength saving throws, well, it goes without saying that your chances of passing are even lower.

Agreed, and it's likely that most DEX characters won't have proficiency in Acrobatics anyway. It's a boring skill. However there are other ways to deal with things like that. A lot of the STR save effects are attack riders. If you don't get hit, you don't get grabbed. I won't be easily persuaded that STR saves are so important. I'd rather have DEX/WIS/CON than STR any time of the day. There is nothing you can really do against these effects. DEX saves are usually spells that have long ranges, WIS and CON saves are save or suck. STR saves are usually milder.

INT for example is a very dangerous save. It's rare to have on your character, INT is a common dumb stat and there are monsters that force instant kills. In most games you will never encounter them, but if you do, the chances for TPK are significantly higher than any STR targeting ability.



I'm clearing talking about frontliners that use a stat other than Strength. I wouldn't expect ranged characters to have to invest in Strength as a primary stat.

And the argument is that STR locks you into melee, while everyone else can attack from various ranges, so the notion of a strictly melee DEX/CHA based character is not realistic. There is absolutely no reason to focus on melee if you are a dex or a cha attacker. It's a tool if you are forced into it, or if it allows you to do something unique (like going nova with Shadowblade as per my EK example earlier, or perhaps a stunning strike). Even monk, who is a primarily melee character, has enough build in support for ranged playstyles. Output can be a problem, but you don't necessarily care about output when you can avoid getting hit all together.

Rogue doesn't need to get into melee, Hexadin and Ranger too. All these classes have a range of 120 (longbow/cantrip range), some have even more. A lot of DEX builds also have high stealth and possibly access to PWT, which means that they can attack from far enough that the enemy will require 2 dashes at least, and they are well optimized to force a surprise round, meaning that it's possible for the party to never get attacked in 3 rounds, before factoring kiting in this equation.

The only reason to get into melee, is if you are forced into an arena. I don't think that anyone in their right mind argues that DEX is strictly superior to STR in melee combat. It's the versatility of the stat along with more convenient saves and skills that come with it.

[Keltest]

@Keltest

You have a choice between STR and DEX (or some other stat) for most of the builds. Your Charisma example isn't valid because a Charisma class can't use another attribute. Unless of course we are talking about Barbarian who doesn't have any other playstyle that makes sense.

The fact that you can pump STR through items is actually an argument against STR due to the design. There are two ways to build a STR weapon user. One is going all out with GWM+PAM, the other is just getting PAM and using a shield.

For the first scenario, if you raise STR, then your progression is fine, but you eventually waste ASIs. If you don't raise STR your progression is way worse due to GWM's -5, but eventually you get the item that makes everything alright. You either sacrifice early game or late game. The sane thing to do is to get STR ASIs, because early game is far more important especially for martial types, and items are not set in stone.

For the second scenario, it doesn't matter if you are a STR or a DEX character, you can just pick PAM with your next ASI and turn into a High DEX + Ultra High STR character. The only downside is having to wait for a couple of levels. Any melee weapon user will benefit from a giant's belt, even if melee is their secondary style. You may miss on dueling but with a possible +9 STR, it's pretty much irrelevant.

I really dont though? I can't use dex with a greatsword, period. In fact, I don't think there are any two handed melee finesse weapons. Likewise, I cant use Str with a bow, ever. If I'm shooting arrows, I'm using dex. There are actually only a very small number of weapon builds that can genuinely use either Str or Dex, and Dex is usually going to win that one simply due to other factors like armor proficiency or class feature requirements.

[Alcore]

Where was that said or implied?
Heavily implied by the thread title. Language can be a fickle and curious thing...


For instance in a follow-up post the Opening Poster said "And yeah this post was mostly me just venting my annoyance and not an actual declararion of absolute truth" which means... what? He doesn't want to enter into discussion of his own topic? Am I supposed to take this as a pseudo blog post? (Which implies it has no reason to exist here at all)


It reminds me of that one person last year who made a thread, insulted a great number of gamers and was offended we didn't validate his opinion as right... I am glad this person took the mocking in the first page with grace.



I recently dealt with a random group where a couple players ardently believed the hype so common on these types of forums. and i feel for you...

I had one player who was convinced that if your character had a penalty (say from my character lacking Proficiency in an exotic shield) that it was IMPOSSIBLE to perform said action. Cue a long argument where i claimed i could use any weapon around (might not be true but no exceptions comes to mind) and he said "no, you can't". I had all the penalties documented and, eventually, the GM praised my outside thd box thinking... I still don't feel it was "outside the box" as that implies out of RAW and i was clearly in RAW.

I was just outside the box most stuff themselves into...

[Gtdead]

I really dont though? I can't use dex with a greatsword, period. In fact, I don't think there are any two handed melee finesse weapons. Likewise, I cant use Str with a bow, ever. If I'm shooting arrows, I'm using dex. There are actually only a very small number of weapon builds that can genuinely use either Str or Dex, and Dex is usually going to win that one simply due to other factors like armor proficiency or class feature requirements.

If you are dead set in using particular weapons then sure. The game does offer alternatives that can be just as good though. This is more of a concept vs optimization discussion. As far as pure optimization is concerned, you don't have to use a Greatsword if another weapon setup can offer similar (or better) output. Optimizing your concept is a different process than attempting to create the most powerful build out of a class. I don't think that anyone says people should never play STR characters because the alternative is better. The argument is that if you get to chose, DEX will serve you better for reasons.

[Dr.Samurai]

A lot of the STR save effects are attack riders. If you don't get hit, you don't get grabbed.
I think we're beginning to see the sentiment in the OP form in real time, as this is just an unreasonable expectation for a frontliner and cannot serve as sound advice.

I won't be easily persuaded that STR saves are so important.
If the frontline is important, then Strength saves are important, because Strength saves will prevent you from holding the line by moving you out of the way, knocking you prone or restraining you so you have DA on your OAs, or swallowing you and removing you from the battlefield. They are also common in Lair Actions and can prevent you from even reaching your target, which is important for melee characters.

I'd rather have DEX/WIS/CON than STR any time of the day. There is nothing you can really do against these effects. DEX saves are usually spells that have long ranges, WIS and CON saves are save or suck.
Classes with Str prof have either Con or Dex prof as well.

Wisdom is excellent. As a frontliner, your Strength save or Athletics check will be tested waaaaaaaaaaay more than your Wisdom save.

STR saves are usually milder.
Dex saves too.

INT for example is a very dangerous save. It's rare to have on your character, INT is a common dumb stat and there are monsters that force instant kills. In most games you will never encounter them, but if you do, the chances for TPK are significantly higher than any STR targeting ability.
Yes, Intellect Devourers are incredibly dangerous, but Strength saves/checks are still important to the frontline.

And the argument is that STR locks you into melee, while everyone else can attack from various ranges, so the notion of a strictly melee DEX/CHA based character is not realistic. There is absolutely no reason to focus on melee if you are a dex or a cha attacker. It's a tool if you are forced into it, or if it allows you to do something unique (like going nova with Shadowblade as per my EK example earlier, or perhaps a stunning strike). Even monk, who is a primarily melee character, has enough build in support for ranged playstyles. Output can be a problem, but you don't necessarily care about output when you can avoid getting hit all together.

Rogue doesn't need to get into melee, Hexadin and Ranger too. All these classes have a range of 120 (longbow/cantrip range), some have even more. A lot of DEX builds also have high stealth and possibly access to PWT, which means that they can attack from far enough that the enemy will require 2 dashes at least, and they are well optimized to force a surprise round, meaning that it's possible for the party to never get attacked in 3 rounds, before factoring kiting in this equation.

The only reason to get into melee, is if you are forced into an arena. I don't think that anyone in their right mind argues that DEX is strictly superior to STR in melee combat. It's the versatility of the stat along with more convenient saves and skills that come with it.
It's all relevant but I'm bolding the give-away line. Again, we see the OP's complaint form right before our eyes lol.

The game assumes melee combatants, and not because they are forced to. It's just an assumption of the game, a reality of playing D&D. Everything is built upon melee combat. Your table may play things differently, but it's not a truth of the game that melee only happens when forced.

[x3n0n]

The game assumes melee combatants, and not because they are forced to. It's just an assumption of the game, a reality of playing D&D. Everything is built upon melee combat. Your table may play things differently, but it's not a truth of the game that melee only happens when forced.

Both can be true, right?

Many combat encounters in printed material involve many enemies that are effective only in melee. A team that can reliably stay entirely at range in those encounters and be effective is at a huge advantage in those encounters.

If the encounter is structured to ensure that the combatants will be in melee, it is valuable to have some kind of front line to keep the melee enemies away from the teammates that are more effective at range than in melee.

Having at least one teammate (and perhaps more) that can survive while keeping the melee enemies away is one way to accomplish that; traditionally, that is often a Str/Athletics melee martial.

There are other options.

[Dr.Samurai]

Both can be true, right?
I don't think so. I take the comment to mean that the game is intended to be played this way. That figting in melee is a failure of of enacting the proper strategy --> ranged combat. I don't think this is true at all.

You can play the way that was mentioned, attempting to stealth everywhere and get an ambush set up and staying entirely at a distance. That's fine and best of luck.

But I don't think it is true that this is the way you're supposed to play, or the right way. Dungeons don't really facilitate this kind of combat.

Many combat encounters in printed material involve many enemies that are effective only in melee. A team that can reliably stay entirely at range in those encounters and be effective is at a huge advantage in those encounters.
Yeah but this is an understatement. This encounter would be a curbstomp. I'm not sure you'd even need to roll dice.

Most monsters are melee monsters. Most monsters can't retaliate with any impact at Sharpshooter distances.

And most encounters simply don't occur at these types of distances anyways. Again, it's not to say that a game can't be run that way, but a different claim was made and I don't think it's true.

Dungeons, of all kinds, basically guarantee melee combat. And, as I said, the game assumes it and revolves around it.

[Willie the Duck]

Heavily implied by the thread title. Language can be a fickle and curious thing...
We could probably spend several pages debating contraposition, but things like that always feel like nerddom pissing contests to me (of which I don't enjoy from others, and thus which I won't subject anyone else). Suffice to say, I think the OP was concerned that new gamers might come here and take those things people regularly treat as inarguable as... if not truths, than at least truisms that have stood the test of time and rigor. That people who aren't new ought trust the forums was, at best, and accidental implication, and the real reason for the 'as a new DM or player' clause was to declare a population of concern (perhaps because veterans of the forums can take care of themselves, or something).


For instance in a follow-up post the Opening Poster said "And yeah this post was mostly me just venting my annoyance and not an actual declararion of absolute truth" which means... what? He doesn't want to enter into discussion of his own topic? Am I supposed to take this as a pseudo blog post? (Which implies it has no reason to exist here at all)
I'm assuming we are to take it at face value. The primary purpose was to vent, and the reason it exists here is that this is where they wanted to vent. Subtextually, I read into it, 'I'm a little frustrated with you guys, and I want you to know that. I'm not really looking for validation or agreement, I just wanted to get that off my chest.'


It reminds me of that one person last year who made a thread, insulted a great number of gamers and was offended we didn't validate his opinion as right... I am glad this person took the mocking in the first page with grace.
There are certainly similarities. OP isn't shy about the fact that they're reading us the riot act. At the same time, they seem to have gone in the opposite direction with regards to expecting validation.
Overall, it's not wonderful, but it's not as grating as ten other things I've seen in forums in recent memory. I'm both frustrated with forum culture and an active participant too (and undoubtedly someone's primary example of frustrating behavior). Maybe we should all write 1000 word essays about 'what's wrong with being a D&D forum-goer (and why you should all feel bad about being one)' and share them. I bet everyone will come out looking and smelling just as bad as everyone else (and if taken in good fun, be crazy cathartic).


and i feel for you...
I had one player who was convinced that if your character had a penalty (say from my character lacking Proficiency in an exotic shield) that it was IMPOSSIBLE to perform said action. Cue a long argument where i claimed i could use any weapon around (might not be true but no exceptions comes to mind) and he said "no, you can't". I had all the penalties documented and, eventually, the GM praised my outside thd box thinking... I still don't feel it was "outside the box" as that implies out of RAW and i was clearly in RAW.
I was just outside the box most stuff themselves into...
I think the worst I've personally seen is someone declare (I think in regards to familiars using magic items, but can't remember which way they wee arguing) that 'everywhere online people have looked this over and cleared it as good.' I mean, I at least want to hear the argument people have made, not just take it at face value that nameless online people have vetted something (even if I trusted these people, I wouldn't know that the person was accurately portraying their position or that their position was actually pertinent to the question at hand).

[x3n0n]

I don't think so. I take the comment to mean that the game is intended to be played this way. That figting in melee is a failure of of enacting the proper strategy --> ranged combat. I don't think this is true at all.

You can play the way that was mentioned, attempting to stealth everywhere and get an ambush set up and staying entirely at a distance. That's fine and best of luck.

But I don't think it is true that this is the way you're supposed to play, or the right way. Dungeons don't really facilitate this kind of combat.

Yeah but this is an understatement. This encounter would be a curbstomp. I'm not sure you'd even need to roll dice.

Most monsters are melee monsters. Most monsters can't retaliate with any impact at Sharpshooter distances.

And most encounters simply don't occur at these types of distances anyways. Again, it's not to say that a game can't be run that way, but a different claim was made and I don't think it's true.

Dungeons, of all kinds, basically guarantee melee combat. And, as I said, the game assumes it and revolves around it.

I agree that most dungeon fighting occurs with combatants within (say) 60' of each other, and, unless something prevents it, that allows the melee-preferring side (typically the monsters) to engage at least some of the other side in melee.

I think a generous reading of the "optimizer" side is that the statement you had quoted was hyperbole, and that they "just" meant that it is highly desirable to avoid melee when possible (especially if the enemy is unable to engage at range effectively), and furthermore that there are reasonable and effective ways to significantly reduce the frequency with which the monsters get early melee engagement with the PCs through things like surprise, initiative, nova damage, battlefield control (e.g., difficult terrain, hazards, direct restraint), and putting "disposable" allies (typically summons in this framing) in the way.

I agree that this is not the only way to engage with the game, that it is not *always* the most effective way, and that it certainly doesn't invalidate other ways of playing.

However, having a party that is *unable* to meaningfully engage at range just invites the same conditions in reverse, and am sad to agree that players with Extra Attack PCs that have no better way to engage at range than to throw javelins may find themselves frustrated and bored, sometimes during key combats in which the main enemy has superior mobility, e.g., fast flight plus (an AoE or ranged attack).

[LudicSavant]

So I have been around the forums a few times trying to get advice and sometimes give some, but I have found that people who take the forums too seriously will find they are hilariously inconsistent.

Healers are useless, everyone just uses hit dice on all the short rests we are taking all the time.
Monk is useless, ki recharges on a short rest and nobody ever takes short rests, EVER.

Metamagic should be a wizard feature, sorcerers have no reason to exist!
Wizards are too powerful and we should nerf some of their features.

Rogue should just be a fighter subclass
Barbarian should be a fighter subclass
Ranger should be a fighter subclass like eldritch knight
Paladin is just just a fighter-cleric and should be a fighter subclass.
-there aren't enough classes, when is wizards of the coast going to release a new one?!?

(See also Cleric/druid/sorcerer/warlock should just be wizards threads)

My game has a wizard who's crowd control or Area damage spells make a fight too easy, oh well that's what they're supposed to do. Everything working as intended.
My game has a martial character that deals so much single target damage the fights are too easy, well duh just add more minions and monsters until the fighter's damage is meaningless compared to area spells and crowd control.

Damage is the least effective way for a caster to affect the battlefield. Blasting is stupid.
Most optimization threads focus exclusively on damage dealing

Battlemaster maneuvers come back on a short rest so you will have them available for every single fight.
Warlock spell slots come back on a short rest, but no one ever takes any short rests ever so you only get 2 spell slots all day. Gosh warlocks suck.

Spinning a quarterstaff between the fingers of one hand to hit with both sides while using a shield in the other hand is perfectly normal, not cheesy at all and should be the standard against which we measure the damage of all other martial builds.
Dual wielding lances on the back of a mount is way too cheesy and unrealistic, here's 12 reasons it wouldn't work in real life and a DM shouldn't allow it.

Anyone who doesn't pick a character with darkvision is intentionally hurting the party because it is now impossible to use stealth ever!
Skulker sucks as a feat because no DM ever actually uses the lighting rules.
Also everyone picks variant human because a level 1 feat is so good! (This one less after Tasha's came out.)

-Here's a martial build with a bunch of options other than just doing pure damage. Useless! By completely changing your build and getting rid of all those other options you can consistently do 5 more DPR!
-Martials suck and have no out of combat features!

Cleric concentrating on spirit guardians should dodge every round as their action, it's better to reduce the incoming damage than deal a little more outgoing damage with your action.
The monk ability to dodge as a bonus action is useless and no one will ever use it over flurry of blows because dealing more damage is always better!

And any thread that discusses what spells a caster should *always* have prepared, the list is consistently longer than what a caster of that level can prepare.

Just something to look out for. Just try to remember when looking for advice, people tend to treat what happens in their own games as though it is what happens in everyone's games.

"Never blindly trust internet forums" is a good rule of thumb for online activity in general. Gotta fact check everything.

[Sigreid]

To be blunt about it, regardless of the topic you should take any advice received from strangers on the internet of unknown mental state and qualifications with a metric ton of salt. Nothing more than perspectives to consider as you make your decision.

[KorvinStarmast]

We could probably spend several pages debating contraposition, but things like that always feel like nerddom pissing contests to me Some of us refer to that as internet forums. :smallbiggrin:

As to taking it all with a grain of salt ... add a wedge of lime and a shot of tequila, and Bob's your uncle!

[Leon]

So… if I was an experienced player/GM I *should* trust the forum? :smallconfused

With a grain of salt, you see what the forum has to say and make your own choices.


I really dont though? I can't use dex with a greatsword, period. In fact, I don't think there are any two handed melee finesse weapons.
Not in the hodgepodge mess that is "Core" 5e, Iron Kingdoms Setting tho has one.

[Gtdead]

It's all relevant but I'm bolding the give-away line. Again, we see the OP's complaint form right before our eyes lol.

The game assumes melee combatants, and not because they are forced to. It's just an assumption of the game, a reality of playing D&D. Everything is built upon melee combat. Your table may play things differently,

Won't comment on saves because we mostly agree on their effect. It's their application framework where we disagree.

I don't understand why you think everything is built upon melee combat. The game has systems for both and claiming that one is more important than the other ("built upon") is way too bold.

The basic mechanism of attacking is hit resolution and Weapon Range. If a weapon has 0 range for example, you can only attack if you exist in the same tile as the enemy. If it has 3 miles range, you get to attack from 3 miles away as long as you have vision. If you use a projectile, it's a ranged attack. If not it's a melee attack. There is no rule that states what is the max range for a melee attack, or the minimum range for a ranged attack. WotC can design a melee weapon which attacks at 100 yards and there is nothing wrong with it mechanically, other than verisimilitude.

There are systems in place that take advantage of melee and ranged attacks, along with different weapon attributes, to create a better and more plausible simulation, but there is no reason to assume anything about the importance of these various mechanisms. Melee attacks tend to be tied to more advantageous mechanics, like being eligible for OAs, getting advantage against prone etc, which is a double edged sword because it can be employed by the enemy too. Ranged attacks tend to have disadvantages in close range which is counterbalanced by being able to attack without needing to trade blows.

It's also not a "table" thing. Is there anything anyone can do to force you into not using ranged attacks? You are my DM and I'm the player. I decide to play 100% algorithmically, and my action is to first move at maximum possible range, then using my attack action on a ranged attack. Can you do anything at all to stop this behavior? I'm not aware of anything that makes it possible. Player preferences are not a "reality" that we have to accept. There are low op tables, high op tables, players that only play concepts and players that only play whatever they find on the internet, and anything in between.

And since you stated that somehow my views prove the OP's sentiment, I'm interested to know how a new DM doesn't benefit from knowing that ranged PCs have way more options than STR PCs and act accordingly, while claiming that STR saves are very important because the game assumes melee combat is a perfectly acceptable thing to say.

When this DM faces an all ranged party then, the argument he is expected to make is that the players play the game wrong?


but it's not a truth of the game that melee only happens when forced.

This discussion is about optimal decisions in builds/play, not RAW. I said that a PC character doesn't have to be in melee unless he is forced to by the environment. The world is supposed to be a huge and continuous thing, which means that if a player wants to just run away, it can technically be done.

Some DMs run things differently though, restricting the environment, either through "arena" type combat (which can be either an actual ring, or a dungeon where the doors close behind you, or some other restriction) or by just pulling a grid and defining the battlespace. Other DMs allow continuous environments but limit the battlespace through plausible constraints.

It doesn't matter how it is done, what matters is that if a PC can wield both a bow and a sword, there is absolutely no mechanical reason to prefer engaging in melee unless forced to (or wanting to hold a very advantageous choke point in a closed environment and has no other option, like hazards, minions and walling it off). "Forced" in this context means that the enemy is in a position to reach him without dashing (thus wasting the attack move or any other offensive action). The player may want to engage due to roleplaying reasons, but that's his prerogative. It's not the best possible action though. It's like chess. There are winning moves and losing moves for certain positions. There is no rule that states you have to choose the winning move, but it's the optimal thing to do.

[Keltest]

It doesn't matter how it is done, what matters is that if a PC can wield both a bow and a sword, there is absolutely no mechanical reason to prefer engaging in melee unless forced to (or wanting to hold a very advantageous choke point in a closed environment and has no other option, like hazards, minions and walling it off). "Forced" in this context means that the enemy is in a position to reach him without dashing (thus wasting the attack move or any other offensive action). The player may want to engage due to roleplaying reasons, but that's his prerogative. It's not the best possible action though. It's like chess. There are winning moves and losing moves for certain positions. There is no rule that states you have to choose the winning move, but it's the optimal thing to do.

Well first off, I think the fact that you had to build in an exception into your post right away pretty severely undermines the idea that there is no mechanical advantage to being in melee. Holding off enemy melee attackers from your (probably squishy) ranged characters is a mechanical reason all on its own. But "There is no mechanical reason to be in melee except to allow the ranged characters to actually function at range in a game where many monsters can outrun PCs and close to melee better than they can retreat, or are otherwise in situations where heavy ranged options without melee support are nonviable." doesnt seem to be as good a point.

This argument seems to be coming from the exact bizarre white room scenario that never occurs at a real table that the OP is complaining about.

[Dr.Samurai]

I don't understand why you think everything is built upon melee combat. The game has systems for both and claiming that one is more important than the other ("built upon") is way too bold.
CR is calculated, in part, by taking the monster's damage dealing into account. You take the monster's most effective (highest damage) attacks and plug them into your calculations. For most monsters, these are going to be melee attacks. Most monsters have special abilities that go out to limited distances, or Blindsight that goes out to a limited distance. A medusa's gaze, a grimlock's blindsight, and a balor's fire aura don't extend out to the length of a football field.

The game is built for characters to engage monsters in melee. Your HP is expected to go down, and you are expected to rest and replenish your hit dice. The game doesn't assume that you have unlimited space to kite enemies around and maintain distance while dealing ranged damage.

There are systems in place that take advantage of melee and ranged attacks, along with different weapon attributes, to create a better and more plausible simulation, but there is no reason to assume anything about the importance of these various mechanisms.
See above. See also... combat encounters in published modules. See also, dungeoneering. See also, class features that only work in melee. Etc etc etc.

It's also not a "table" thing.
If you want to play a party full of only ranged attackers, the DM will have to modify the campaign to accommodate that. If we put my position and your position before every D&D table in the world, the vast majority of them will look more like what I'm describing than what you're describing.

And since you stated that somehow my views prove the OP's sentiment, I'm interested to know how a new DM doesn't benefit from knowing that ranged PCs have way more options than STR PCs and act accordingly, while claiming that STR saves are very important because the game assumes melee combat is a perfectly acceptable thing to say.
You said that there is no reason to engage in melee; you should only be in melee if you're forced.

That is different than "ranged PCs have more options than Str PCs".

And strength saves are important if you're on the frontline. They aren't deadly. I never said that. Other saves can be deadly or take you completely out of a fight. But if you're the frontliner, and a monster pushes you back 15ft and then moves up to the squishies behind you... you're a poor frontliner.

When this DM faces an all ranged party then, the argument he is expected to make is that the players play the game wrong?
I don't think so. But you literally think being in melee is wrong so, what point are you trying to make here? Only you can judge?

This discussion is about optimal decisions in builds/play, not RAW.
This discussion is about white room theory crafting on the forums being taken at face value by readers that don't understand the game isn't supposed to be played the way "optimizers on the internet" say it is supposed to be played.

Your position on melee combat is, in my opinion, very far removed from the intent of the game and wouldn't serve as good advice.

It doesn't matter how it is done, what matters is that if a PC can wield both a bow and a sword, there is absolutely no mechanical reason to prefer engaging in melee unless forced to (or wanting to hold a very advantageous choke point in a closed environment and has no other option, like hazards, minions and walling it off).
Are Thunder Gauntlets or a Steel Defender a "mechanical reason" to be in melee? How about being a Barbarian? What about wildshaping into beasts with melee natural attacks? What about Blade Flourish? What about just being a Monk? Divine Smite? Beast Master or Drakewarden? Any number of close range spells? Any number of class features that only work within 15ft, 30ft, 60ft? Halo of Spores? Fiery Teleportation? The list goes on and is very long.


This argument seems to be coming from the exact bizarre white room scenario that never occurs at a real table that the OP is complaining about.
Agreed.

[Gtdead]

Well first off, I think the fact that you had to build in an exception into your post right away pretty severely undermines the idea that there is no mechanical advantage to being in melee. Holding off enemy melee attackers from your (probably squishy) ranged characters is a mechanical reason all on its own. But "There is no mechanical reason to be in melee except to allow the ranged characters to actually function at range in a game where many monsters can outrun PCs and close to melee better than they can retreat, or are otherwise in situations where heavy ranged options without melee support are nonviable." doesnt seem to be as good a point.

This argument seems to be coming from the exact bizarre white room scenario that never occurs at a real table that the OP is complaining about.

Sorry but I feel like your are making fun of me at this point. You seriously offer a counter argument by blowing the exception I myself provided out of proportion? If it was such an important thing, it would alter my perception of melee vs ranged. It doesn't because it's not. Holding choke points with melee PCs is the most primitive way to control the battlefield and the point is to outgrow it and set (spell) traps instead, or use expendables to do the same job. Plus it's not a bulletproof tactic. For your argument to hold any water, you need to assume that all (or at least the majority of) the enemies are melee. What happens if every enemy is ranged instead and the big stupid fighter holds a choke point that the enemies have no intention of passing through while taking potshots from range? Or is that white room too?

And even if the enemies are actually melee, no ranged build needs help in melee. Even assuming that kiting is literally impossible (easier said than done), Rangers, Warlock dipped Paladins, Rogues, Fighters, Monks, make no distinction between ranged and melee AC. Rogues, Monks and Hexadins have similar AC no matter the configuration, Fighters and rangers can pull out a shield. All examples have the exact same Hit Points, they were the same armor between ranged and melee modes. The most common difference is the 1 AC from defense style, and that's not a given, since people generally like Dueling Fighting Style. Certainly a range optimized character won't be that effective in dealing melee damage, but defensive numericals are fairly similar and the ranged party has already dealt some damage to the enemy while he closes the distance. And that's not considering various options that a lot of ranged builds have, like basic crowd control spells (web, spike growth for example) which work amazingly well in choke points. Well guess what, melee counterparts can't make use of these spells. They will need to attack from range, due to friendly fire.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Sorry but I feel like your are making fun of me at this point. You seriously offer a counter argument by blowing the exception I myself provided out of proportion? If it was such an important thing, it would alter my perception of melee vs ranged. It doesn't because it's not. Holding choke points with melee PCs is the most primitive way to control the battlefield and the point is to outgrow it and set (spell) traps instead, or use expendables to do the same job. Plus it's not a bulletproof tactic. For your argument to hold any water, you need to assume that all (or at least the majority of) the enemies are melee. What happens if every enemy is ranged instead and the big stupid fighter holds a choke point that the enemies have no intention of passing through while taking potshots from range? Or is that white room too?

And even if the enemies are actually melee, no ranged build needs help in melee. Even assuming that kiting is literally impossible (easier said than done), Rangers, Warlock dipped Paladins, Rogues, Fighters, Monks, make no distinction between ranged and melee AC. Rogues, Monks and Hexadins have similar AC no matter the configuration, Fighters and rangers can pull out a shield. All examples have the exact same Hit Points, they were the same armor between ranged and melee modes. The most common difference is the 1 AC from defense style, and that's not a given, since people generally like Dueling Fighting Style. Certainly a range optimized character won't be that effective in dealing melee damage, but defensive numericals are fairly similar and the ranged party has already dealt some damage to the enemy while he closes the distance. And that's not considering various options that a lot of ranged builds have, like basic crowd control spells (web, spike growth for example) which work amazingly well in choke points. Well guess what, melee counterparts can't make use of these spells. They will need to attack from range, due to friendly fire.

Note: pulling out a shield requires an action. Same as taking it off. So no, switching out to shields is not something you can meaningfully do in combat without sacrificing an entire turn.

[Keltest]

Sorry but I feel like your are making fun of me at this point. You seriously offer a counter argument by blowing the exception I myself provided out of proportion? If it was such an important thing, it would alter my perception of melee vs ranged. It doesn't because it's not. Holding choke points with melee PCs is the most primitive way to control the battlefield and the point is to outgrow it and set (spell) traps instead, or use expendables to do the same job. Plus it's not a bulletproof tactic. For your argument to hold any water, you need to assume that all (or at least the majority of) the enemies are melee. What happens if every enemy is ranged instead and the big stupid fighter holds a choke point that the enemies have no intention of passing through while taking potshots from range? Or is that white room too?

And even if the enemies are actually melee, no ranged build needs help in melee. Even assuming that kiting is literally impossible (easier said than done), Rangers, Warlock dipped Paladins, Rogues, Fighters, Monks, make no distinction between ranged and melee AC. Rogues, Monks and Hexadins have similar AC no matter the configuration, Fighters and rangers can pull out a shield. All examples have the exact same Hit Points, they were the same armor between ranged and melee modes. The most common difference is the 1 AC from defense style, and that's not a given, since people generally like Dueling Fighting Style. Certainly a range optimized character won't be that effective in dealing melee damage, but defensive numericals are fairly similar and the ranged party has already dealt some damage to the enemy while he closes the distance. And that's not considering various options that a lot of ranged builds have, like basic crowd control spells (web, spike growth for example) which work amazingly well in choke points. Well guess what, melee counterparts can't make use of these spells. They will need to attack from range, due to friendly fire.


If every enemy is ranged instead, then your "big stupid fighter" can just run up to them and hit them really hard while simultaneously denying them effectiveness with their primary form of attack, since they'll have disadvantage with any ranged option with a target in melee. Even if he isnt able to hit all of them he's still forcing them to react to his presence and mitigate their damage potential to deal with him, by running away at the very worst, which is still advantageous for your team.

You know, the exact reason why you would have a frontline in the first place.

So yeah, I am poking fun at you a little bit. I think your examples are inherently nonsensical and have to be specifically crafted in a very precise manner in order to "prove" anything, which mostly just goes to show how niche an all-ranged party would actually be. Hence "bizarre white room scenario."

[Gtdead]

CR is calculated, in part, by taking the monster's damage dealing into account. You take the monster's most effective (highest damage) attacks and plug them into your calculations. For most monsters, these are going to be melee attacks. Most monsters have special abilities that go out to limited distances, or Blindsight that goes out to a limited distance. A medusa's gaze, a grimlock's blindsight, and a balor's fire aura don't extend out to the length of a football field.

The game is built for characters to engage monsters in melee. Your HP is expected to go down, and you are expected to rest and replenish your hit dice. The game doesn't assume that you have unlimited space to kite enemies around and maintain distance while dealing ranged damage.

So you expect the Dragon to just land and fight the party in melee, right? Because all these things you said somehow force a behavior. It's completely preposterous for the dragon to take into the skies and stay there, no matter if the party can fight it or not? That's kiting, and it's how Dragons are commonly played.



See above. See also... combat encounters in published modules. See also, dungeoneering. See also, class features that only work in melee. Etc etc etc.

Oh right, because never ever people voiced the opinion that published modules are too easy. Let me guess why this happens.. Again, doesn't force the behavior.



If you want to play a party full of only ranged attackers, the DM will have to modify the campaign to accommodate that. If we put my position and your position before every D&D table in the world, the vast majority of them will look more like what I'm describing than what you're describing.

And he is welcome to do so. It doesn't matter in the least if people play the iconic party more than my or other optimizers' proposal. How many times have you seen threads about "help with optimizer breaking my game", or "if I do this, will it be too strong? will my DM have a problem with this", etc? I'm certain that all of these threads are about Barbarians being too damn overpowered. A new DM will never ever have a problem with melee specialists. They may get a bit annoyed with stunning strike because it's an easy to use CC, but that can easily be countered by just using more enemies per encounter.



You said that there is no reason to engage in melee; you should only be in melee if you're forced.

That is different than "ranged PCs have more options than Str PCs".


Yes, for optimal play. Instead of engaging, just shoot from where they can't reach you. Fairly simple. Why did you make it about rules? Seriously, read the whole paragraph. I'm explicitly saying that classes "don't have to go into melee and even those which are mainly melee like Monks have enough support for ranged playstyles, so instead of getting hit, they should attack from range". You quote my last sentence and somehow distort the meaning into "Gtdead says melee is illegal". No, Gtdead says melee is a tool when you can't shoot from safety. Going out of your way to attack in melee when you can just shoot from safety is idiotic, it's unrealistic and forced behavior.



This discussion is about white room theory crafting on the forums being taken at face value by readers that don't understand the game isn't supposed to be played the way "optimizers on the internet" say it is supposed to be played.

Your position on melee combat is, in my opinion, very far removed from the intent of the game and wouldn't serve as good advice.

Yes, because shooting from range is such a white room thing. Because being 24 tiles away and forcing surprise is such a white room thing. We aren't discussing soloing the tarrasque as a lvl 1 aaracokra here, nor we need to kite for miles.



Are Thunder Gauntlets or a Steel Defender a "mechanical reason" to be in melee? How about being a Barbarian? What about wildshaping into beasts with melee natural attacks? What about Blade Flourish? What about just being a Monk? Divine Smite? Beast Master or Drakewarden? Any number of close range spells? Any number of class features that only work within 15ft, 30ft, 60ft? Halo of Spores? Fiery Teleportation? The list goes on and is very long.

So if you are chasing a guy while holding a gun, you will obviously throw the gun away and pull out your pocket knife, because you aren't such a great shot. Of course you are going to use melee attacks if that's all you can do. The question is, how often do you need to? What if you as a Barbarian can get some flying boots and throw javelins against an enemy incapable of dealing ranged damage? Will you engage in melee? Stop turning the notion that it's safer to attack from range, into the absurdity you are describing. I never said "don't ever attack in melee", I said try to avoid it till the last second. I also gave a Monk example while quoting you that should answer your question, but you obviously prefer to strawman me. Let me say it again: You have no reason to engage in melee, if you can shoot. No simpler way to put it. You have no reason to use melee abilities if the situation doesn't force you into melee, you have no reason to use expendable resources that are forced into melee by design (like minions, polymoprh) unless there is a good reason to do it, and that good reason usually means to buy more time for the ranged characters in the party (who should include you as well) or that the minion comes with control spells and other support options, you have no reason to maximize your output by forcing a melee engagement if you can attack without trading blows.


Note: pulling out a shield requires an action. Same as taking it off. So no, switching out to shields is not something you can meaningfully do in combat without sacrificing an entire turn.

You are right, Rangers and Fighters do have that problem (the others either don't wear shields, or have them already equipped). Still a worthwhile thing to do and there is ample chance to engineer a situation where it will be a neutral round at least, by kiting out of reach and forcing a dash instead. Won't always work, but if it can be done, it's fairly easy to calculate.


If every enemy is ranged instead, then your "big stupid fighter" can just run up to them and hit them really hard while simultaneously denying them effectiveness with their primary form of attack, since they'll have disadvantage with any ranged option with a target in melee. Even if he isnt able to hit all of them he's still forcing them to react to his presence and mitigate their damage potential to deal with him, by running away at the very worst, which is still advantageous for your team.

You know, the exact reason why you would have a frontline in the first place.

So yeah, I am poking fun at you a little bit. I think your examples are inherently nonsensical and have to be specifically crafted in a very precise manner in order to "prove" anything, which mostly just goes to show how niche an all-ranged party would actually be. Hence "bizarre white room scenario."

You know, in some threads we discuss about falling prone/using dodge to force disadvantage, getting cover and forcing a stalemate where your side has superior ballistic or skirmishing options. It's some of the components of thriving in the CaW style of combat. Scouting, managing logistics, range, etc. Obviously the answer was to give Rambo here a sword and have him slay all the goblins. Good advice. Clearly I'm using white room here and your big stupid fighter doesn't have to deal with kiting, traps, verticality, difficult terrain, focus fire.

[PhoenixPhyre]

24 "tiles" is 120 ft.
a) in my experience, that's actually pretty rare to start combats that far away. Most combats start at the 30-50' range. Which is well within a single turn's regular movement for most enemies.
b) assumes zero cover. Because cover degrades ranged people pretty fast. Especially spell-slingers, whose spells tend to be shorter range (90' is a pretty common max) and can't ignore cover quite as easy as ranged people[1]. And no cover is the epitome of white room thinking.
c) most monsters are substantially faster than PCs. 40' is fairly normal, with a bunch being 50'+. Or they have alternate movement modes, including teleportation. Flight generally ends up being 60' or so.

This all assumes that
a) the party always has the strategic initiative, that the party is always the one initiating combat. That's...not true.
b) the enemies always and only every come from one direction. That's...rarely true.
c) if there are chokepoints, the enemies will stand out in the open and attack one by one, instead of denying clear shots by hiding behind cover themselves and forcing you to come to them.
d) the enemies are basically mindless and just charge forward.
e) getting out of melee is trivial and costs very little.
f) action economy for switching weapons is ignored (if you drop your bow, someone else can move it away).

So no. In my experience, ranged isn't nearly as good as it looks on paper and in white rooms. And outside of specialized builds, no, ranged aren't as durable or defensively capable as frontliners.

It also drastically restricts the palette of choices. Like...you have 5 builds or so that can do this. Period. Want to be a barbarian? Nope, sorry, can't do. Paladin? Nope, have to be mostly a warlock. Fighter? Well, you have to choose these particular abilities and feats. Etc.

Apropos of the OP, that makes it very white room, forum-optimization. Not anything like how most people play. Or how the game expects. It's basically an meta-exploit, exploiting things that work well if you make all the right assumptions.

[1] I will admit that the "ignore cover" bullet point of SS is borked and should not exist. If you remove that, ranged actually has to care about cover. Which is good. Similarly, the "no disadvantage in melee" part of CBE should only work with crossbows.

[Dr.Samurai]

So you expect the Dragon to just land and fight the party in melee, right? Because all these things you said somehow force a behavior. It's completely preposterous for the dragon to take into the skies and stay there, no matter if the party can fight it or not? That's kiting, and it's how Dragons are commonly played.
The DMG expects the dragon to land and fight the party in melee.

Page 278: If a monster's damage output varies from round to round, calculate its damage output each round for the first three rounds of combat, and take the average. For example, a young white dragon has a multiattack routine (one bite and two claw attacks) that deals an average of 37 damage each round, a well as a breath weapon that deals 45 damage, or 90 if it hits two targets (and it probably will). In the first three rounds of combat, the dragon will probably get to use its breath weapon once and its multiattack routine twice, so its average damage output for the first three rounds would be (90+37+37)/3, or 54 damage (rounded down).

Melee attacks are part of the calculation. If you play a game where there is no melee because the party is a group of ninja sniper assassins, it throws the CRs off. Not to mention, what does the dragon do after its used its breath weapon? Fly away and return once it has recharged?

Oh right, because never ever people voiced the opinion that published modules are too easy. Let me guess why this happens.. Again, doesn't force the behavior.
But the question is... if your DM runs published modules, how well can an "all ranged party" perform? I suspect not that well because the game designers don't publish modules where melee combat isn't expected. We're speaking to your expectations vs what actually happens at the tables of the people that frequent this forum.


Yes, for optimal play. Instead of engaging, just shoot from where they can't reach you. Fairly simple. Why did you make it about rules? Seriously, read the whole paragraph. I'm explicitly saying that classes "don't have to go into melee and even those which are mainly melee like Monks have enough support for ranged playstyles, so instead of getting hit, they should attack from range". You quote my last sentence and somehow distort the meaning into "Gtdead says melee is illegal". No, Gtdead says melee is a tool when you can't shoot from safety. Going out of your way to attack in melee when you can just shoot from safety is idiotic, it's unrealistic and forced behavior.
"... forced behavior."

Yes. The game forces you into melee. It is built in/expected/assumed/etc. The majority of the game is combat, and the majority of the monsters are meant to engage you in melee. I honestly don't know what the difficulty is here. The game is built for melee combat. Full stop. It's not idiotic to have frontliners.

Yes, because shooting from range is such a white room thing. Because being 24 tiles away and forcing surprise is such a white room thing. We aren't discussing soloing the tarrasque as a lvl 1 aaracokra here, nor we need to kite for miles.
Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly but didn't you mention Pass Without Trace? Didn't you basically say that the party will be Stealthing all the time and should expect to ambush enemies and get Surprise regularly and keep the combat at distance so they can just shoot and never get into melee?

Because YES, that is whiteroom.


Let me say it again: You have no reason to engage in melee, if you can shoot. No simpler way to put it.
Yes, this is true in the same way "you have no reason to engage in adventuring if you can earn coin with a traditional job" is also true. It's true in a technical sense that isn't helpful to the conversation.


You have no reason to use melee abilities if the situation doesn't force you into melee,
Hi, welcome to D&D. You will be forced into melee.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Hi, welcome to D&D. You will be forced into melee.

This. Additionally, and crucially, those builds that can better avoid melee? They come online mostly by mid-late T2. Which is where most games end. This isn't an MMO, where the end-game is all that matters. Someone who needs two feats to function is going to be in melee and hurting until level 4 at the earliest. And then will have much-reduced potential (missing at least one ASI, possibly 2). And if you have to multiclass, it's even worse.

And the monsters only have to win once. Because they're fundamentally disposable. The PCs have to win (or at least survive) every fight. And the worst-case of "no frontline" is way worse than the worst case of a more balanced squad.

[langal]

Hi, welcome to D&D. You will be forced into melee.

Not following this whole thread ... so just chiming in.

A Strength meleer can also hide behind a corridor or something too, or drop prone.

Once they get in range they can grapple too.

I agree. Not all combat is done in a white room or empty field.

A party full of range attackers just isn't going get too far in most adventures. They will wipe the enemy in some situations but will have to engage in melee at some point.

I'm not even sure what the original point was. But I think even the most ardent "range fans" have their range characters carry a couple of short swords or daggers - because they know that melee is not always optional.

[Gtdead]

Melee attacks are part of the calculation. If you play a game where there is no melee because the party is a group of ninja sniper assassins, it throws the CRs off. Not to mention, what does the dragon do after its used its breath weapon? Fly away and return once it has recharged?

Why would the players care about the CR. And yes, it flies away and then comes back. Have you ever played Skyrim? Dragons just fly around and use their breath till you drop their health low enough and they don't have the strength to keep to the skies, so they land. If you don't have ranged options then you can't possibly win. Does it look out of place? Absolutely not. They are dragons, they burn stuff with their breath. Claws are for kittens. Alduin in the opening sequence just flies to a position, uses his breath, then moves somewhere else, uses it again on as many people as possible. He doesn't land in the middle and starts chasing peasants around. His objective is to destroy them, not to engage in melee and chase them around like headless chickens.

Seriously, just google "5e would dragon ever land" or something and see what people think about it. I mean it's completely prepostorous to even think that the dragon won't engage in melee, but obviously all these people are playing the game wrong, and the new player/dm coming here will get misinformed by me claiming that range > melee.



But the question is... if your DM runs published modules, how well can an "all ranged party" perform? I suspect not that well because the game designers don't publish modules where melee combat isn't expected. We're speaking to your expectations vs what actually happens at the tables of the people that frequent this forum.

The only thing that is expected is that enemies will try to engage in melee because they may lack other ways of fighting. OotA, in the prison, if you provoke the guards, they just shoot you as stated in the text. Later in Ch2, the first possible encounter are 2 Hooked Horrors that deal 44 damage at +6 hit. That's not easy to facetank at level 2 or 3. With grease or web, repelling blast and ray of frost however, it's possible that you kill them without them even touching you. It's also possible to bait the gnolls in attacking them, which still favors ranged parties.

Now frankly I don't have module experience, so I'm a bit over my head here. It's quite apparent though, that the whole Hooked Horror Lair is really good for range optimized parties.




"... forced behavior."

Yes. The game forces you into melee. It is built in/expected/assumed/etc. The majority of the game is combat, and the majority of the monsters are meant to engage you in melee. I honestly don't know what the difficulty is here. The game is built for melee combat. Full stop. It's not idiotic to have frontliners.

Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly but didn't you mention Pass Without Trace? Didn't you basically say that the party will be Stealthing all the time and should expect to ambush enemies and get Surprise regularly and keep the combat at distance so they can just shoot and never get into melee?

Because YES, that is whiteroom.

Why the hell PWT is the whiteroom? I never said that the party will be stealthing all the time. PWT is a 1h buff and it can literally be up for pretty much all the daily encounters. Which means that the caster becomes a supreme scout, easily beating passive perceptions. Additionally ranged parties have casters who have familiars. They have locate objects, invisibilities, etc. Scouting is not a white room tactic or a new concept. It has been around for decades. I'm not counting on getting surprise in every battle, but whenever the party has stategic advantage, it can really push the advantage with PWT. A level 5 GS at night is a supreme scout. Is engaging at night a white room tactic too?

I also never said that you will never get into melee. I said that you use melee when forced to. Why is this so hard to understand?

White room also is thinking that your melee characters will never have to chase after kiters, never have to deal with difficult terrain and traps, and enemies will deliberately disregard their ranged capabilities to engage in melee.



Yes, this is true in the same way "you have no reason to engage in adventuring if you can earn coin with a traditional job" is also true. It's true in a technical sense that isn't helpful to the conversation.


Is that because DnD is meant to be played in melee? Sure. Good talk.


Hi, welcome to D&D. You will be forced into melee.

Good, and when I do, the enemies will have lost a good chunk of their health and some of them will be dead. I wonder, do you think that people who support the idea of range optimization haven't played DnD before or something?

[KorvinStarmast]

And the monsters only have to win once. Because they're fundamentally disposable. The PCs have to win (or at least survive) every fight. And the worst-case of "no frontline" is way worse than the worst case of a more balanced squad. Oh, for that party optimization thread :smallannoyed:

[Danielqueue1]

-Snip full of great points I hope people take the time to read-

It's also important to not misrepresent the views of others. Communities consist of different people with differing views. Creating an amalgamation of various opinions on a topic is bound to sound contradictory. It's also a good idea for newbies to not just read a statement, and instead research it. A great thing about this forum at least is that most people are never bored to write lengthy and elaborate responses. They can be hard to follow at times, due to abbreviations and assumed common knowledge, but it's all there to dissect and eventually challenge.
Yeah, My original post was rather inflammatory and I admit that I intended it that way when I wrote it. given the chance to do so again I would have worded it better, that being said I think if I did word it better it would probably have been forgotten with only one or two responses.

I do find that groups of people who hold a view to be self evident "Rangers are worse at everything than anyone and everyone agrees" (until gloom-stalker showed up then they tended to re-direct) tend to burden down otherwise polite threads and while I do agree Ranger could use some adjustments (I have a few home-brew adjustments that I like) for a time a person couldn't read a page long thread that involved rangers that wasn't chock full of either "no you should literally play anything else." or "they need to be completely thrown out and rewritten."






Heavily implied by the thread title.
nah, the multiplicative inverse of the statement "you should never blindly trust the forums." would be closer to "A person who blindly trusts the forum shouldn't be you. I don't know how the original sentence structure with "why" affects formal logic formulas though.



For instance in a follow-up post the Opening Poster said "And yeah this post was mostly me just venting my annoyance and not an actual declararion of absolute truth" which means... what? He doesn't want to enter into discussion of his own topic? Am I supposed to take this as a pseudo blog post? (Which implies it has no reason to exist here at all)
Nah I totally intend to be involved in the discussion of my own topic, but I have cooled off since my original posting. If cooling off and coming back later are not allowed...
also I have been busy and my phone sucks, give me time to respond



It reminds me of that one person last year who made a thread, insulted a great number of gamers and was offended we didn't validate his opinion as right... I am glad this person took the mocking in the first page with grace.
mocking? I'm not sure who was doing the mocking, there was a couple with a bit of sarcasm, but the only mocking I really found was your attempt at inverting my post title.

wait, there is someone who I haven't seen around here in a long while. Is it the person who kept insisting that they were the only ones that understood initiative rules, and also stated that all spells had a huge visible effect at both the point of origin and target and required screaming the verbal components loud enough to be heard over a dragon roaring and that everyone everywhere that may at some point be effected by the spell automatically know not only that it was being cast but also what the spell does and who cast it, and that all Paladins everywhere should be forced to change their alignment to Evil because they regularly genocide all the Hobgoblin cities that are for sure part of the Forgotten realms setting which is of course the only setting in D&D?

because if it is that guy or the Sorcerer king I am totally cool with them not coming back.


-snip- yeah that sounds annoying[/QUOTE]



The only reason to get into melee, is if you are forced into an arena.

See this is the kind of absolute statement I was trying to bring attention to. While we could argue back and forth on the subject, this is the kind of absolute statement that even with your surrounding explanation isn't all that great.
it really assumes so much about the situation surrounding it. If I had this quote running through my head when I was writing this (assuming same heated state of mind) I would have definitely included it.

as a side note, thank you for giving an example and within the same thread even!


Some of us refer to that as internet forums. :smallbiggrin:

As to taking it all with a grain of salt ... add a wedge of lime and a shot of tequila, and Bob's your uncle!

and maybe some pretzels :)



This discussion is about optimal decisions in builds/play, not RAW.

Well the thread is about not blindly trusting absolute statements on the forums, but several people have started derailing it first about comparing stats, to now melee vs ranged.

see my comment about threads on magical defenses getting overruled by arguments stating Assassin is the worst rogue subclass about a page and a half ago.



It doesn't matter how it is done, what matters is that if a PC can wield both a bow and a sword, there is absolutely no mechanical reason to prefer engaging in melee unless forced to (or wanting to hold a very advantageous choke point in a closed environment and has no other option, like hazards, minions and walling it off). "Forced" in this context means that the enemy is in a position to reach him without dashing (thus wasting the attack move or any other offensive action). The player may want to engage due to roleplaying reasons, but that's his prerogative. It's not the best possible action though. It's like chess. There are winning moves and losing moves for certain positions. There is no rule that states you have to choose the winning move, but it's the optimal thing to do.

See here is another example. Absolute statements declaring that there is no reason for something. while also declaring that your opinion on the matter is absolutely most optimal. This is the exact kind of thing I was expressing dissatisfaction over.

how about these for mechanical reasons?
•the target is prone ranged attacks have disadvantage while attacks within 5 feet have advantage.
•the target has ranged attacks and asymmetrical cover
•My spellcaster ally is awesome with Hold person and I want to take advantage of that sweet sweet critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature
•My DM uses the Flanking optional rule and our group has the numbers advantage. (see also Rogue party member)
•The enemy is using a spell and The attack rolls of ranged weapon attacks have disadvantage if the attacks pass in or out of the wind.

or these "story" reasons
•The enemy chooses not to engage you until you are close enough for their attacks to be effective. (you don't always have the strategic initiative)
•I have class features and feats that work specifically on melee attacks
•Opportunity attacks are effective deterrents from running away or passing me to get to my squishier allies especially if I have the above mentioned class features and feats
•there is some kind of effect shortening visibility to a limited range something like "it being dark," or "foggy"
•Enemies who live and work in the location know it better than you and running away is a great way to get separated and ambushed again and again. (Kobolds!)
•the enemy installed a door on their hideout that they can just close and bar until you come close enough for them to engage you, but now they are ready and your surprise is ruined.

yeah, teaming up with party members using spells and class features that benefit a ranged style in specific situations is great, but you keep leaving out melee characters also taking advantage of similar spells and class features. "ranged attacker" becomes "Warlock with repelling blast and grease" that isn't inherent to ranged attackers, that is specific to that type of ranged attacker. yes you work with a lot of encounters in your CaW style game that gives you alot of environments and opponents that are conducive to skirmishing and ranged attacks. you declaring that it is universal and that New DMs should know this just shows that you missed the point of the entire (admittedly rather aggressive) first post.

Skirmishing is great. I love using the tactic, I used it as a player in a recent Curse of Strahd game to trivialize an encounter on a wide open map with a lot of melee characters who couldn't keep up with my boosted movement speed. That being said, "there is absolutely no mechanical reason to prefer engaging in melee unless forced to" is not only patently untrue, but also another great example of exactly the kind of statement that the original post is all about.

[Gtdead]

Well the thread is about not blindly trusting absolute statements on the forums, but several people have started derailing it first about comparing stats, to now melee vs ranged.

see my comment about threads on magical defenses getting overruled by arguments stating Assassin is the worst rogue subclass about a page and a half ago.


It was a specific tangent about PAM+Sentinel which progressed to a STR vs DEX comparison. Some people claimed DEX is clearly superior (myself included), others claimed STR builds and STR in general is undervalued or even superior.




See here is another example. Absolute statements declaring that there is no reason for something. while also declaring that your opinion on the matter is absolutely most optimal. This is the exact kind of thing I was expressing dissatisfaction over.

how about these for mechanical reasons?
•the target is prone ranged attacks have disadvantage while attacks within 5 feet have advantage.
•the target has ranged attacks and asymmetrical cover
•My spellcaster ally is awesome with Hold person and I want to take advantage of that sweet sweet critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature
•My DM uses the Flanking optional rule and our group has the numbers advantage. (see also Rogue party member)
•The enemy is using a spell and The attack rolls of ranged weapon attacks have disadvantage if the attacks pass in or out of the wind.



1) Exposes the melee to danger, there are other ways to deal with ranged disadvantage, like obscurement.
2) Depends on the party. SS users and save targeting cantrips can completely bypass this problem. There are also a few cheeses like using spiritual weapon to force enemies to relocate while hiding, since it's untargetable
3) & 4) The distance you have between your enemies is a resource. Deplete it and when you can't kite anymore, engage. Flanking and Hold Person won't go anywhere but if you rush to take advantage of them, you may lose a round of attacking for free without trading.
5) Obscurement solves. It's silly how that works.



or these "story" reasons
•The enemy chooses not to engage you until you are close enough for their attacks to be effective. (you don't always have the strategic initiative)
•I have class features and feats that work specifically on melee attacks
•Opportunity attacks are effective deterrents from running away or passing me to get to my squishier allies especially if I have the above mentioned class features and feats
•there is some kind of effect shortening visibility to a limited range something like "it being dark," or "foggy"
•Enemies who live and work in the location know it better than you and running away is a great way to get separated and ambushed again and again. (Kobolds!)
•the enemy installed a door on their hideout that they can just close and bar until you come close enough for them to engage you, but now they are ready and your surprise is ruined.


1) That's a stalemate. I've been in some of these. Diving can solve them. So can haste/greater invis hit and runs, summons, blasts depending on how the environment is.
2) As with 3&4, on the previous quote, these don't go anywhere, deplete distance, then engage in melee.
3) A melee combatant has 1 reaction, it's not guaranteed that he has enough speed to get in position or may have to trade the attack action for dash to do so, the chances of success are around 65% and here I am advocating that instead of engaging, just move a bit further back. What do you think is more likely to work better defensively? Moving in the opposing direction or using Sentinel? A PAM+GWM Fighter is more likely to make enemies ignore the backline due to the threat of damage. Problem is that he is squishy.
4) If dispels, gusts and light/darkvision/blindsight doesn't work, and the effect literally makes you unable to attack past a certain range, let's say 20, then you are forced into melee. Not much anyone can do about it. Remember to send expendables first.
5) Assuming that places where you've already visited and cleared were being repopulated? That sounds a bit iffy. You kite towards the path you have already cleared. In any case, if there is some kind of repopulation, tough luck. I mean, it's possible to kite vertically, but this usually needs specific races/classes/magic items. However I'm not sure why these enemies wouldn't just surround and attack together.
6) I'm just going to parrot the same thing, no matter whatever scenario, contrived or not. If you are forced into melee, you fight in melee. It's right there in one of the quotes, the arena thing. If you are not forced into melee, you take advantage of distance.




yeah, teaming up with party members using spells and class features that benefit a ranged style in specific situations is great, but you keep leaving out melee characters also taking advantage of similar spells and class features. "ranged attacker" becomes "Warlock with repelling blast and grease" that isn't inherent to ranged attackers, that is specific to that type of ranged attacker. yes you work with a lot of encounters in your CaW style game that gives you alot of environments and opponents that are conducive to skirmishing and ranged attacks. you declaring that it is universal and that New DMs should know this just shows that you missed the point of the entire (admittedly rather aggressive) first post.

This isn't about viability, it's not about synergy and the like. It's the simple fact that ranged PCs don't have to trade blows. A DM will never have problems dealing with melee PCs at any levels of play. Ranged and casters on the other hand present problems that are not solvable with the primitive mechanics. If you can't get out of the Force Cage, you die. If you can't reach the kiter, you lose. For melee, if you can't beat the Barbarian, use a stronger monster. Eventually one of them will be strong enough to challenge him. You can't beat the other playstyle with stronger monsters. You can only beat it with abilities that directly counter the playstyle or by literally constricting the battlespace, either through contrived or natural/plausible means. The problem is that contrived means are bad form, and natural/plausible means are tied to lore and can be countered more often than not.



Skirmishing is great. I love using the tactic, I used it as a player in a recent Curse of Strahd game to trivialize an encounter on a wide open map with a lot of melee characters who couldn't keep up with my boosted movement speed. That being said, "there is absolutely no mechanical reason to prefer engaging in melee unless forced to" is not only patently untrue, but also another great example of exactly the kind of statement that the original post is all about.

I'm really not sure why people have trouble with this statement. It's a really simple turn-to-kill analysis. If you can attack without getting attacked, then you have perfect turn-to-kill ratio. Why would anyone want to lose the perfect ratio just to take advantage of some melee synergy? Fun can be a reason, and there is no counter argument to fun, as long as it's not to the expense of others. No matter how strong a move may seem, there is nothing stopping you from executing it in the next turn, assuming that you won't take damage in the current turn. The only classes that have such a "problem" (well not really, but it's a time sensitive event) are AoE blasters/controllers because they can lose their chance to affect the maximum number of targets that may cause a snowball. Melee don't have that problem at all.

Or to rephrase it: In competitive gaming (and other sports I guess) we use the term "win condition". Usually such a condition needs to be generated. For example you are doing PvP in some MMO and someone misses a crucial counterspell. That can be a win condition, because now you get to control him uninterrupted, focus fire his ally and then finish him off. In this game, by just having a party that can kite and attack from far enough away can be a win condition in on itself. You don't have to do anything. So you may sacrifice let's say 25% melee performance to gain a default win condition against the majority of published monsters and I I think that this is a worthwhile trade off. It's also a bit absurd, just winning by existing. Some may disagree that this is the case, but I think once you see it happen, you understand the totallity of it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It was a specific tangent about PAM+Sentinel which progressed to a STR vs DEX comparison. Some people claimed DEX is clearly superior (myself included), others claimed STR builds and STR in general is undervalued or even superior.



1) Exposes the melee to danger, there are other ways to deal with ranged disadvantage, like obscurement.
2) Depends on the party. SS users and save targeting cantrips can completely bypass this problem. There are also a few cheeses like using spiritual weapon to force enemies to relocate while hiding, since it's untargetable
3) & 4) The distance you have between your enemies is a resource. Deplete it and when you can't kite anymore, engage. Flanking and Hold Person won't go anywhere but if you rush to take advantage of them, you may lose a round of attacking for free without trading.
5) Obscurement solves. It's silly how that works.



1) That's a stalemate. I've been in some of these. Diving can solve them. So can haste/greater invis hit and runs, summons, blasts depending on how the environment is.
2) As with 3&4, on the previous quote, these don't go anywhere, deplete distance, then engage in melee.
3) A melee combatant has 1 reaction, it's not guaranteed that he has enough speed to get in position or may have to trade the attack action for dash to do so, the chances of success are around 65% and here I am advocating that instead of engaging, just move a bit further back. What do you think is more likely to work better defensively? Moving in the opposing direction or using Sentinel? A PAM+GWM Fighter is more likely to make enemies ignore the backline due to the threat of damage. Problem is that he is squishy.
4) If dispels, gusts and light/darkvision/blindsight doesn't work, and the effect literally makes you unable to attack past a certain range, let's say 20, then you are forced into melee. Not much anyone can do about it. Remember to send expendables first.
5) Assuming that places where you've already visited and cleared were being repopulated? That sounds a bit iffy. You kite towards the path you have already cleared. In any case, if there is some kind of repopulation, tough luck. I mean, it's possible to kite vertically, but this usually needs specific races/classes/magic items. However I'm not sure why these enemies wouldn't just surround and attack together.
6) I'm just going to parrot the same thing, no matter whatever scenario, contrived or not. If you are forced into melee, you fight in melee. It's right there in one of the quotes, the arena thing. If you are not forced into melee, you take advantage of distance.



This isn't about viability, it's not about synergy and the like. It's the simple fact that ranged PCs don't have to trade blows. A DM will never have problems dealing with melee PCs at any levels of play. Ranged and casters on the other hand present problems that are not solvable with the primitive mechanics. If you can't get out of the Force Cage, you die. If you can't reach the kiter, you lose. For melee, if you can't beat the Barbarian, use a stronger monster. Eventually one of them will be strong enough to challenge him. You can't beat the other playstyle with stronger monsters. You can only beat it with abilities that directly counter the playstyle or by literally constricting the battlespace, either through contrived or natural/plausible means. The problem is that contrived means are bad form, and natural/plausible means are tied to lore and can be countered more often than not.



I'm really not sure why people have trouble with this statement. It's a really simple turn-to-kill analysis. If you can attack without getting attacked, then you have perfect turn-to-kill ratio. Why would anyone want to lose the perfect ratio just to take advantage of some melee synergy? Fun can be a reason, and there is no counter argument to fun, as long as it's not to the expense of others. No matter how strong a move may seem, there is nothing stopping you from executing it in the next turn, assuming that you won't take damage in the current turn. The only classes that have such a "problem" (well not really, but it's a time sensitive event) are AoE blasters/controllers because they can lose their chance to affect the maximum number of targets that may cause a snowball. Melee don't have that problem at all.

Or to rephrase it: In competitive gaming (and other sports I guess) we use the term "win condition". Usually such a condition needs to be generated. For example you are doing PvP in some MMO and someone misses a crucial counterspell. That can be a win condition, because now you get to control him uninterrupted, focus fire his ally and then finish him off. In this game, by just having a party that can kite and attack from far enough away can be a win condition in on itself. You don't have to do anything. So you may sacrifice let's say 25% melee performance to gain a default win condition against the majority of published monsters and I I think that this is a worthwhile trade off. It's also a bit absurd, just winning by existing. Some may disagree that this is the case, but I think once you see it happen, you understand the totallity of it.

What you're doing is stacking the deck by making assumptions that a bunch of us with significant experience actually playing the game find to be unrealistic and slanted exactly to the perfect condition for your case. And that's exactly what's bright complained of. White room thinking that depends on narrow assumptions being portrayed as the ultimate all-purpose truth. I've played with my fair share of ranged types. Rarely were they the stars, and they ended up in melee as often as anyone. And suffered much worse when they were forced into melee compared to the real front line.

Does ranged have its advantages? Sure. But they're not overwhelmed except in very narrow, uncommon situations. And have their disadvantages as well.

[Dr.Samurai]

Why would the players care about the CR.
The DM cares about CR. This is the ENTIRE POINT of this conversation.

You, as a player, making all of these claims about how to play the game are 100% irrelevant if someone's DM doesn't modify their campaign to allow for these tactics. In other words, forum advise has to be taken with a grain of salt because the inherent assumptions won't always be true.

Another way to put is that your assumptions as a player are less important for someone seeking advice than how their DM plans to run the game at the actual table.

And yes, it flies away and then comes back. Have you ever played Skyrim? Dragons just fly around and use their breath till you drop their health low enough and they don't have the strength to keep to the skies, so they land. If you don't have ranged options then you can't possibly win. Does it look out of place? Absolutely not. They are dragons, they burn stuff with their breath. Claws are for kittens. Alduin in the opening sequence just flies to a position, uses his breath, then moves somewhere else, uses it again on as many people as possible. He doesn't land in the middle and starts chasing peasants around. His objective is to destroy them, not to engage in melee and chase them around like headless chickens.
No, I don't play Skyrim. I play D&D, where a dragon's main attack is Multiattack. Where a dragon is expected to open up with a breath weapon attack and then lash out with claws, bites, tails, wings, etc. Where the dragon is in a lair and also using lair actions. ETC ETC ETC

Seriously, just google "5e would dragon ever land" or something and see what people think about it. I mean it's completely prepostorous to even think that the dragon won't engage in melee, but obviously all these people are playing the game wrong,
I don't need to google it. I am explaining to you that the game expects the dragon to land, because the majority of a dragon's attacks are melee attacks. If the dragon was not expected to use its melee attacks, its CR would be lower, because its damage output would be much lower, because it's only getting breath weapon every few rounds and then not dealing any damage between those rounds.

and the new player/dm coming here will get misinformed by me claiming that range > melee.
The problem is that I never, ever, ever, ever, ever made a claim that ranged was better or worse than melee, or that Strength was better than Dexterity, etc.

I said Strength is undervalued because the things that Strength provide are undervalued. Resisting forced movement/restraints is not considered when thinking of melee frontliners. Grappling is not considered.

When you said ranged characters don't have to worry about those things, I clarified that I was clearly talking about melee characters that use a stat other than Strength. You then made the very dubious claim that there is absolutely no reason to engage enemies in melee in D&D unless the DM forces it in some sort of arena situation.

Why the hell PWT is the whiteroom?
The idea that Pass Without Trace will always allow you to ambush your enemies and get a surprise round is what is whiteroom.

I never said that the party will be stealthing all the time. PWT is a 1h buff and it can literally be up for pretty much all the daily encounters. Which means that the caster becomes a supreme scout, easily beating passive perceptions. Additionally ranged parties have casters who have familiars. They have locate objects, invisibilities, etc. Scouting is not a white room tactic or a new concept. It has been around for decades. I'm not counting on getting surprise in every battle, but whenever the party has stategic advantage, it can really push the advantage with PWT. A level 5 GS at night is a supreme scout. Is engaging at night a white room tactic too?
Explaining a tactic is totally different from making blanket generalizations about how to play the game. Please be consistent and don't pretend I'm attacking things you haven't said.

If you're saying "attack at night when you're able, try to get a surprise round whenever possible, scouting ahead will help with this", that's fine.

But that is not what you've said or have been saying.

I also never said that you will never get into melee. I said that you use melee when forced to. Why is this so hard to understand?
Because the game will force you into melee more often than not. It comes across as either meaningless, or as representing that players can realistically play most of the game at a distance kiting enemies. But whenever I attack that second option, you pivot to "I'm just saying that there are advantages to ranged combat".

Yes, we know there are advantages. Yes, if you can avoid melee, try to avoid melee. D&D does not make that a realistic approach to the game.

White room also is thinking that your melee characters will never have to chase after kiters, never have to deal with difficult terrain and traps, and enemies will deliberately disregard their ranged capabilities to engage in melee.
LMAO, Strength characters can deal with difficult terrain better than others due to Jump. But I never represented that Strength characters have no limitations, so I don't need to engage here.


Good, and when I do, the enemies will have lost a good chunk of their health and some of them will be dead. I wonder, do you think that people who support the idea of range optimization haven't played DnD before or something?
You're not putting forth "range optimization". You're saying that melee shouldn't happen very often.

Optimization is always limited because of table parameters. It's why a lot of conversation on the forum is boring and eye-rolling, because "if your DM allows exactly every single thing I'm about to mention, you too can totally win at D&D in these easy steps" is completely uninteresting to me. Your description of kiting every enemy into oblivion strikes me as exactly that. It's so unrealistic for most games and anyone reading your comments should understand that.

Your DM has facilitated a style of gameplay and you and your party have adapted to it extremely well. That's great and I'm certain you all have a great time. But it's not representative of most tables, so talking about it like it's just the way to play D&D is not helpful.

[Corran]

It's also not a "table" thing. Is there anything anyone can do to force you into not using ranged attacks?
You dont have to force a player to enter melee (though I guess there are ways to even do that), though you can do things to make getting into melee the better option (I can expand if you are interested). Not the better option for any given pc, but the better option in general. How much the pc is built to take advantage of that is part of the optimization. I am not saying that I'd be right to be expecting melee specialist builds to make it into most scenarios we might be optimizing against, just that melee still has its function in the game and that it does not always end up as your backup option in practice by your own choices, even if in theory you would prefer to fight under different conditions; sometimes you just cannot. You may be able to retreat or choose not to engage, but the same could be said about a melee heavy group choosing not to deal with fliers. Optimization is also about being able to do well under different circumstances, and having the option to do well by getting into your opponents' faces (or when they manage to get into yours -the party's) is part of it.

RE on kiting: I think there is a very reasonable assumption to be made here, that at a lot of tables kiting is not a thing because players simply dont do it. But even if when you do it, you need to figure out what you'll be doing when it goes wrong (I can expand on this with examples, through which a good argument may arise or it may not). And if you are employing the whole party instead of, say, 2 or 3 characters who have a far easier time optimizing to be good at kiting than everyone else (who may still be good at kiting, but not as good as the aforementioned 2 or 3 characters), then melee becomes a much more widely applicable plan B (because every other alternative I can think of can easily be less reliable when kiting with more characters than it would be optimal for a better/safer kiting performance).

RE on STR vs DEX for melee builds with similar damage output: There are some situations I can think of (the already mentioned choke point included) where I would prefer a STR based paladin or EK to a DEX ones, simply because I would prefer a better chance at grappling/shoving and at being more likely to succeed against the same to the benefits a better dex comes with. But if I was going blindly in, I'd probably pick DEX too.







I don't need to google it. I am explaining to you that the game expects the dragon to land, because the majority of a dragon's attacks are melee attacks.
The CR assumes that because it has to calculate something. That does not mean it translates well to a DM's or player's expectations. As a DM I am not compelled to have the dragon land because the CR reads a certain number. I may do that because the dragon does not want to burn the shinnies that will add to their horde after it pressumably kills the pc's, or because there is (seemingly) a good opportunity to land and take down (or up in the air) someone, or because it does not like strangers touching its horde. Or anything else that I would not find it impossible to make sense from an in game world perpective. Additionally, I would not find it peruassive if a player told me that a dragon should land and fight on the ground because the CR assumes that's what happens. The dragon may respond to some challenge or insult and accomodate the pc's, or it may not.

CR is just a number that tries to approximate the difficulty when running the monster a certain way. Not a guideline or a recommendation on how you should run the monster. That's entirely up to the DM.

[animorte]

CR is just a number that tries to approximate the difficulty when running the monster a certain way. Not a guideline or a recommendation on how you should run the monster. That's entirely up to the DM.

That, and it's based on combating a 4-PC group. So, others complaining about it being too easy when they have seven PCs, or that it's too hard with 2-3 folks.

[Dr.Samurai]

The CR assumes that because it has to calculate something. That does not mean it translates well to a DM's or player's expectations. As a DM I am not compelled to have the dragon land because the CR reads a certain number. I may do that because the dragon does not want to burn the shinnies that will add to their horde after it pressumably kills the pc's, or because there is (seemingly) a good opportunity to land and take down (or up in the air) someone, or because it does not like strangers touching its horde. Or anything else that I would not find it impossible to make sense from an in game world perpective. Additionally, I would not find it peruassive if a player told me that a dragon should land and fight on the ground because the CR assumes that's what happens. The dragon may respond to some challenge or insult and accomodate the pc's, or it may not.

CR is just a number that tries to approximate the difficulty when running the monster a certain way. Not a guideline or a recommendation on how you should run the monster. That's entirely up to the DM.
I said the game was built around melee combat and I was told that assertion was bold. I think the fact that CR factors in damage dealt per round, and the vast majority of that damage is melee damage lends itself to my claim.

The game is in part storytelling so DMs will always have the discretion to play NPCs/Monsters as is appropriate to the context of the scene. But when determining CR (which can't really be dismissed in this case), the designers chose to give dragons an always-on melee attack routine, and a breath weapon attack that has a 33% chance to recharge. D&D dragons are not movie dragons that can just breath fire all the time and strafe the sky raining down infernos on everyone. The designers didn't give them at-will breath weapon attacks and a tail sweep that recharges on a 5 or 6. Legendary Actions and Lair Actions also suggest being in melee range.

So I would agree that DMs are free to run monsters however they see fit. I've already agreed that people can play "range-only" games; I'm not here to tell anyone you can't play a certain way. But to say that you're not expected to go into melee with a dragon, when 95% of its damage options require being in melee is not something I can really agree with. The dispute here is whether a frontline is necessary, with Gtdead saying it's only ever a last resort and it's idiotic to have frontliners, and me saying that the game assumes melee combat, so frontliners are a reality of the game.

[Bigmouth]

Interesting thread as posters unintentionally demonstrate the odd polarization effects of forum posters. Some posting from both directions that borders on "You're dumb if you don't agree". Some barbs. Some venom.

Oh, and for that poster on the first page of responses who has never seen anyone say there should be more classes. "There should be more classes!" I'm guessing you haven't noticed others say that because you don't agree. But as someone who thinks there is plenty of room for more classes in D&D, I definitely notice. Also, the statement about the thought that Rangers, Rogues, Barbarians, and Paladins should just be fighter subclasses being rare...for being rare, it seems to show up on every thread about Rangers. So, perhaps not a majority of GITP forum users, but enough that I see it on the threads I read. (Which is skewed towards rangers often)

Oh! And there should definitely be more classes! Not everything needs to be forced into subclasses!

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Maybe this is just me (and I don't think it is) but I try to DM in such a way that everyone's character gets chances to shine. Dependent on the location of course there are going to be biases, but putting as much variety into encounters as possible will do this. A high seas campaign is going to lean way more towards ranged than a dungeon; for example, when I was DMing GoS there just happened to be substantial fog or high seas occasionally so that every battle didn't result in the 2 archers playing by themselves for extended periods.

Additionally, 5e is balanced enough that an extra magic item or 2 will make up for shortcomings of the vast majority of 'weaker' builds. Then there are the issues of people effectively boosting many of the perceived stronger classes by running way fewer than recommended encounters / LR, and boosting some of the supposed OP reaction spells by rolling open (then complaining about them).

In short, when I read that this, that, or the other thing is either 'OP' or 'crap' my first thought is: what the heck is the DM doing?

[Dr.Samurai]

Maybe this is just me (and I don't think it is) but I try to DM in such a way that everyone's character gets chances to shine. Dependent on the location of course there are going to be biases, but putting as much variety into encounters as possible will do this. A high seas campaign is going to lean way more towards ranged than a dungeon; for example, when I was DMing GoS there just happened to be substantial fog or high seas occasionally so that every battle didn't result in the 2 archers playing by themselves for extended periods.

Additionally, 5e is balanced enough that an extra magic item or 2 will make up for shortcomings of the vast majority of 'weaker' builds. Then there are the issues of people effectively boosting many of the perceived stronger classes by running way fewer than recommended encounters / LR, and boosting some of the supposed OP reaction spells by rolling open (then complaining about them).

In short, when I read that this, that, or the other thing is either 'OP' or 'crap' my first thought is: what the heck is the DM doing?
Semi-related to the discussion but more that you reminded me of it, our most recent BG:DIA session had us fighting in a town square to defend a temple. The enemies came onto the map 300ft away from us so the Sharpshooter ranger, despite protest from the wizard, decided to attack and begin the encounter. We were all peeved as we sat there turn after turn waiting for the enemy to engage us in our fortified position while the ranger took shots at the advancing demons. BUT, just the previous session the situation was reversed. We entered the town 300ft away and encountered gnolls and a giant hyena. At the temple, a demon was trying to break down the doors to the temple (300ft away). Before we could cover the distance, the demon broke the doors down and went inside to attack the townsfolk. Because the ranger could shoot at that distance and ignore cover, he hit the demon with 2 Sharpsooter attacks, which caused the demon to rage and come rampaging toward us instead of attacking the townsfolk. It was awesome, and the ranger saved the day in a desperate situation.

In the second session, a marilith teleported next to the bladesinging wizard and he bemoaned his bad luck. I was stuffing chips in my mouth at the time so my mic was muted; I messaged him on the side and said "You're going to love this". The wizard has a Cloak of Displacement and his AC is pretty high when Bladesinging (I don't know the exact number). The marilith rolls a bunch of attacks against him, most miss, one hits. He pops Shield and avoids it. The marilith then crits, but our Grave Cleric turns it into a normal hit. So the wizard tanked all of the marilith's attacks and felt like a god lol. It was awesome!

I wholeheartedly agree with making characters shine. It always feels good when it happens :smallcool:

[Dalinar]

Apologies for not reading the whole thread. I have some thoughts I want to get out while they're still up in my brain.

I think people making very... categorical? Blunt? Statements that assume certain things won't be contradicted--is a pretty universal problem, not just a forum thing.

I think what works "on paper" (be it literally just in a vacuum, or versus the average of all monsters in official 5e content, or some subset of those, or homebrew critters) versus what's a good idea powerful and/or interesting character to run for a specific campaign with a specific DM is always going to leave a huge gap. For example, playing a paladin in Curse of Strahd might be a very different experience from playing one in Strixhaven versus playing one in an "invade the Upper Planes" campaign some random DM decided to run.

The number of encounters between rests is rather infamously a huge variable to consider as well. Typically more long rests leads to full caster dominance, while very few long rests with some short rests sprinkled in are good for warlocks and most martials.

I think new forum readers may want to adopt the attitude that any plan you make is likely not going to survive session zero, and so it's worth taking any character build with a grain of salt (even the incredibly talented people [and me] over in the Eclectic Collection thread). I say this as someone who absolutely loves coming up with character builds.

[OldTrees1]

I think people making very... categorical? Blunt? Statements that assume certain things won't be contradicted--is a pretty universal problem, not just a forum thing.

Yeah. It helps to assume anything someone says on a forum is their opinion (a fair assumption) and mentally add "in my opinion" to every sentence (including this quote). That helps blunt (soften) the blunt (unreserved) categorical statements.

[Rynjin]

Yeah. It helps to assume anything someone says on a forum is their opinion (a fair assumption) and mentally add "in my opinion" to every sentence (including this quote). That helps blunt (soften) the blunt (unreserved) categorical statements.

Be careful, some people in this thread have a vendetta against assumptions. I think one might have killed their dog once.

[Willowhelm]

Be careful, some people in this thread have a vendetta against assumptions. I think one might have killed their dog once.

As a side note, yes. I have had a dog killed thanks to an assumption. They were run over. It was incorrectly assumed that they were elsewhere and it was safe for the vehicle to reverse.

Just goes to show… you assumed that was a harmless joke and a bit of fun.

Turns out it was also a traumatic childhood memory for me (and probably others)

Maybe there’s something to the idea that assumptions can be problematic?