The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

[devincutler]

Regarding knife throwing, I seem to recall the 2e Player's Option book having an option that made dart throwing fighters the most powerful fighters in the game. I assume that could be translated into a knife thrower.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Regarding knife throwing, I seem to recall the 2e Player's Option book having an option that made dart throwing fighters the most powerful fighters in the game. I assume that could be translated into a knife thrower.

That was Unearthed Aracana in 1e, with weapon specialization. And it was dumb.

 

[Satyrn]

That was Unearthed Aracana in 1e, with weapon specialization. And it was dumb.

I was gonna joke that "yeah, that Players Option book was the 2e PHB."

 

[Lanefan]

That was Unearthed Aracana in 1e, with weapon specialization. And it was dumb.

I have one of those in my game right now - a dart specialist with a girdle of giant strength.

It gets a bit crazy sometimes.

 

[Zardnaar]

I have one of those in my game right now - a dart specialist with a girdle of giant strength.

It gets a bit crazy sometimes.

Thats the combo.

I last used it 2002 but it was WS+dart+ strength spell to get 18/00 strength. Being immune to non magical attacks shut the combo down for the most part as its unlikely you had 6+ magical darts.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Regarding knife throwing, I seem to recall the 2e Player's Option book having an option that made dart throwing fighters the most powerful fighters in the game. I assume that could be translated into a knife thrower.

Yeah, but with RoF 2 instead of 3 before you started piling on, they wouldn't be /as/ broken as the deadly darter.

(Thanks for reminding me of that one, BTW.)

 

[devincutler]

Everybody forgets about my best friend, Poison Spray

And Toll the Dead. But I was going to post this same response when I saw the poster said "best" not "most damaging". Poison spray is not the best cantrip despite its slightly higher damage for multiple reasons.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I sorta agree: the kind of action he wants - official changes to the game - is pretty clearly off the table for the life of 5e (which may well be the foreseeable life of D&D). They are 'required' to actually correct the issues, with the game, tautologically enough, they are just not going to happen. I think it's clear Zapp (& his players) can correct the issues they perceive in the context of their own game, he just seems to be tired of doing so, and/or chaffing under the restrictions that fixing-up/working-around the system's failings imposes.

It's not an unreasonable thing to want, a balanced game that requires less sheer effort to keep running smoothly even with more experienced players having their wicked ways with it, it's just futile to want that from D&D, at least until something at least as apocalyptic as the edition war happens to cause WotC to wince & change course again. (Sorry Zapp, you're just out in the cold on this one.)

I don't know if he's actually implemented any of the possible solutions that people have offered to him about the problem. His posts acknowledge that he's heard such solutions, and he often tries to head people off at the pass before they're even brought up in discussion....but I've never read one of his threads where he says "We made this change to account for that problem, and then it caused X to happen...."

So, I agree that his desire is not unreasonable. However, his seeming unwillingness to actually try and resolve some of the issues himself I would say borders on the unreasonable. Calling out the designers as having designed something incredibly flawed, but then not being willing to accept anyone else's solutions also seems a bit unreasonable....a bit paradoxical.

No, they are definitely issues with the game, itself, they are, after all, issues with the RAW, which is, however pedantically, what the game /is/, the B&W collected between the covers, even as it's not how the game is intended to be played.

They are an issue with a mismatch of what a group expects of play and what the rules deliver. The game plays a part, yes....but if they played a game where combat was a rare thing, then they would not find the rules to be such a big issue.

Frankly, most of the push-back he gets on the forum is prettymuch saying, implying, or in the spirit not of not caring or not having an issue but having no problem with him addressing the issue, but in the form of /not wanting the issue fixed under any circumstance, for anyone, ever/. Which is bizarre, and probably an artifact of the medium, rather than what anyone's really trying to say. Maybe it's just that any push-back in text, lacking the nuance of in-person communication, just comes off as confrontational or dismissive or whatever. The medium is certainly very prone to long back-and-forth verbal(textual?) shoving matches.

That first sentence....whoo, no idea what you're saying.

I know that I probably come off a bit confrontational with him when I discuss this topic, but I think that's largely because he sets that tone. His posts are confrontational. But, I try to offer him advise that I think will help rather than simply telling him that his desire is wrong or bad.

It's not like he didn't seriously consider that option. He feels, and he's not exactly off base, that without leveraging those feats, the fighter (at least), is not competitive with other classes, not in the sense of not doing the same DPR as them, but in the sense of not doing enough additional DPR to make up for the class's relative lack of utility in other areas. (I don't agree, I don't see how the feats actually do make up the difference - no amount of DPR can, really. DPR is an easy to measure, but clumsy factor, and, like its sole purpose of reducing an enemy to 0 hps, it's balance by walking towards a cliff, it makes no difference until you actually fall of the cliff, a character 'balanced' by high DPR is either under-contributing, or OP - and can even manage to be /both/.)

Well... then there's SS, which is an obvious pick for any would-be Robin Hood type, based on the name, alone, and while the -5/+10 won't win you any archery competitions, ignoring disadvantage at long range will probably help...

But if his group was not so beholden to DPR, then the Fighter would be free to take any number of other background and feat options that would allow him to contribute in ways other than DPR.

I mean, it's pretty simple logic right there.

As for the Sharpshooter/Robin Hood archetype....do you need the Sharpshooter feat to emulate Robin Hood? Yes, it's fitting....but woudln't just a Ranger or Fighter with the Archery Style be enough to get that vibe if the SS Feat didn't exist? This is my point about the -5/+10 feats....they're just unimaginative and exist solely to appeal to the DPR-is-all folks. They are not necessary to come up with any archetypal character.

For more reasons than just DPR, sure. If we discount DPR, entirely, we might as well retire the Fighter, Barbarian, & Rogue, at minimum.

Now you're just being silly.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't know if he's actually implemented any of the possible solutions that people have offered to him about the problem. His posts acknowledge that he's heard such solutions, and he often tries to head people off at the pass before they're even brought up in discussion....

Considered and discarded, is the impression I get. Sure, he could just not use feats, but his players want the options, he wants the options out there, /and/ he feels that the feats are needed to balance the fighter with other classes - so the feats stay, and the problem of them imbalancing certain weapon-using builds remains to be solved in some other way...

Calling out the designers as having designed something incredibly flawed, but then not being willing to accept anyone else's solutions also seems a bit unreasonable....a bit paradoxical.

IDK, the design stays flawed even if some 3rd party comes up with a 'fix.' Pointless, in the environment of 5e, probably, but not paradoxical.

They are an issue with a mismatch of what a group expects of play and what the rules deliver. The game plays a part, yes....but if they played a game where combat was a rare thing, then they would not find the rules to be such a big issue.

This I do find a little paradoxical. If you never encounter a problem because you never had occasion to encounter it, piping up doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't chime into discussion of violent crime in Chicago with the fact I've never been attacked in Chicago (leaving out the fact that I've never been anywhere near it), but I suppose some of the folks who jump on Zapp's thread /would/...

That first sentence....whoo, no idea what you're saying.

That's a bad sentence, even by my standards. Sorry. ;(

However people put it when they take a shot at Zapp's observations about the game, they seem to be pushing back against the very idea of it being changed. Which is both unnecessary (the current design/marketing philosophy has little room for errata or incremental improvement of any kind), and, IDK, kinda petty.

But if his group was not so beholden to DPR, then the Fighter would be free to take any number of other background and feat options that would allow him to contribute in ways other than DPR.

It's not "beholden to DPR," it's "High enough DPR can make up for lack of versatility." Zapp's thesis, and it's fairly conventional, is that the fighter lacks versatility, but it's combat (mainly DPR) potential makes up for that. Pushing back that he shouldn't focus on DPR is at best non-responsive.

As for the Sharpshooter/Robin Hood archetype....do you need the Sharpshooter feat to emulate Robin Hood? Yes, it's fitting....but woudln't just a Ranger or Fighter with the Archery Style be enough to get that vibe if the SS Feat didn't exist?

I'd think so, but the point isn't do you 'need' it, the point is it /does/ support an archetype, and it's something a player would intuitively take even if he wasn't powergaming and the campaign didn't 'over value' DPR. In fact, in that case, it might even turn out to be more disruptive to the campaign, since it probably means it's not running at a high level of optimization...

This is my point about the -5/+10 feats....they're just unimaginative and exist solely to appeal to the DPR-is-all folks. They are not necessary to come up with any archetypal character.

Obviously, they each do something other than -5/+10, and they have appeal to concept-driven folks, too. Should my Robin Hood type be a "Sharpshooter?" I don't even have to look it up, he's supposed to be splitting arrows, /of course/! You can't dismiss game elements as having no other purpose than to appeal to pathological play styles just because they do appeal to pathological playstyles. (Heck, you could dismiss the whole game that way!)
It's not some sort of B&W morality.

 

[tglassy]

Totally didn’t read all the responses, but regarding the monster stats, just because a particular DM doesn’t play the monster like an intelligent being who would strategize just as effectively as the party, doesn’t mean the stat blocks need to be modified. Bad guys wouldn’t jump out at an ambush and stand there being gunned down by the party like enemy soldiers in an old Arnold Action movie. They’d move around. And have had a plan. And maybe lead the group into a bigger ambush. And actually play smart.