D&D 5E Do most striker builds weaken a party?

[CapnZapp]

Overall I feel as though for a glass cannon to be a viable asset to a party, it either needs to inflict considerably more damage than a tank character, or it needs to offer versatility to help the party out in a variety of situations. Strikers such as the rogue and the ranger feel like they avoid taking their fair share of the aggro from enemies, deal out average damage themselves in return, and don't offer a great deal of party support capabilities to make up for this.

What do you guys think?

The thing is that for a combat-centric campaign, "glass cannons" and "strikers" are sidelined. That is because they do not deal more damage than tanks.

Even the utility of something as versatile as a Wizard is much less in this edition than previously. That is because 5E adventures do not presume the existence of an arcane caster, and offers much fewer challenges that only spells can deal with.

Monte Cook, for instance, was a strong proponent of the idea that (high level) adventures should offer challenges that only smart use of high level spells could defeat, circumvent or considerably lessen. The adventures would let you use spells like Prismatic Orb to activate ancient thingamagogs. BBEGs would be protected by force fields only magic could defeat, or make their lairs in exotic protodimensions only wizards could access.

Not to mention how the old chestnut of the scry-buff-buff-buff-teleport-timestop-bloodbath-word of recall-afternoon tea sequence made life much easier for the adventurers!




All of the above means that unless your campaign actively incorporates challenges from the other "pillars of play" social and exploration, there is nothing that speaks in favor of those "glass cannons", "strikers", "skill monkeys" and "versatiles".

That's old baggage of previous edition thinking.

What you need in 5th edition is a strong core of fighters. Not even melee fighters.

Let's assume a party of ranged fighters centred around a paladin and a barbarian (for that extra toughness) is the optimal.

Then it follows that each bard, thief or warlock you add can only weaken the party.

But you know what? That would be missing the point!

Since the only reward for "beating" the game by making up a "too strong" party is... boredom.

If you instead optimize on player fun, a party of precisely those classes you find most fun to play, is the best. As an added bonus, combats will probably be more exciting and fun!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

TotM doesn't mean distance is handwaved. It just means that you don't manually track everything down to five-foot precision and draw it out, because everyone can keep a close-enough image in their heads. I assure you that there is still a huge distance between effective javelin ranged and effective longbow range.

Er, at least, that's the way we always do TotM around here. I guess you could just not care about ranges, but at that point, it's arguable whether you're even playing the same game anymore.

Honestly? I'm going to bow out of this conversation. Previous attempts on my part to understand how TotM works have left me not only frustrated, but more confused than I was when I started--and that was with a game that still used some level of formalism (13th Age, specifically). If we push any further in this direction, I doubt any progress will be made, so I'll just leave it at "I flat-out don't understand how you are able to do that" and call it done.

If you instead optimize on player fun, a party of precisely those classes you find most fun to play, is the best. As an added bonus, combats will probably be more exciting and fun!

One man's..."fun"...combats are another man's, "F**k it, I gave this edition a chance and it shat on me before I even got to the part everyone said I was supposed to wait for."

This may or may not be anecdotal evidence as well.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Honestly? I'm going to bow out of this conversation. Previous attempts on my part to understand how TotM works have left me not only frustrated, but more confused than I was when I started--and that was with a game that still used some level of formalism (13th Age, specifically). If we push any further in this direction, I doubt any progress will be made, so I'll just leave it at "I flat-out don't understand how you are able to do that" and call it done.

To be honest, the way 13A handles TotM gives me a headache as well, with its formal-yet-abstract range bands. I could never tell exactly what was going on there. The way we've always done it in D&D, it's exactly like we're using miniatures on a grid, except the DM is the only one who can see it.

Instead of the players looking down at a map to see that the lizard-folk shaman is 45 feet away and there's a column of rock giving partial cover, the player asks the DM to describe it, and the DM tells them that the lizard-folk shaman is 45 feet away and there's a column of rock giving partial cover. If there's any mechanical difference, it's just that the players are less inclined to pull of complicated positioning maneuvers since it becomes cumbersome for the DM to describe every time.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

First off, a nice topic

Second, i'm with the band that doesn't consider the 5E rangers as "strikers" or "glass cannons". The way they are designed is as a versatile magic augmented combat class (melee or ranged). I won't be going into my criticism over the designer's choice (there is a whole separate thread about this), but my impression so far (low level 1-4 Hoard of the Dragon Queen) is that the class works (at least the hunter does) mechanically. That is, i don't feel it lags significantly behind the other classes if played as intended.

That being set aside, it's time for #3. Ambushing. Me and my group are fairly new to DnD (we started with 4E a couple of years ago) and VERY new at 5E (look our current part level in our very first campaign). I am quite enthusiastic about the older editions though, especially 1E and 2E and over the years i have acquired some material on the subject. which i read when ever possible. My latest PC being modeled around a 2E kit (justifier) ranger, i have read quite a lot about the ambushing mechanics. It seams that back then, people actually rolled d6 to figure out who ambushed and who got ambushed. Aside from that, the class itself had a feature that gave his/her party a chance to surprise the enemy. This is why i look favorable at the UA variant spell less ranger's "ambuscade". But that is still not tested or in any PHBs.

My questions is, how do you more experienced DMs here (would) handle ambushes in 5E? The PHB doesn't seam to have a clear cut mechanic for it. Just to illustrate, our current part is made of one dwarf barbarian, one half elf sorcerer, one half elf fighter, to MC to a ranger and 3 rotating characters, one half orc paladin, one dwarf cleric and one halfling rogue. We may get semi regular bard soon.

4th, How do you guys handle ranged combat? My limited experience so far is that most fighting does start at 60ft or less, so dedicated skirmishing can be a bit harder to pull off.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I find 5e generally balanced, though a bit of the balance responsibility is in the hands of the DM. Just because a group has two tanks doesn't mean the (more intelligent) monsters will not just go for the damage dealers first. The only class that can pretty effectively avoid any damage is the rogue with double proficiency on stealth and full DEX, then he can just hide after every attack and hidden enemies will usually not be attacked because nobody knows their location.

I imagine that having a more offensive party is more fun in the long run, though. Better have quick battles where every single round can be the end for either side than having stretched out battles that involve lots of "Going unconscious -> Heal again" type of play.

 

[Bradley Hindman]

Eschewing dungeons, caverns (that is, "natural" dungeon environments), and cities seems like a pretty substantial change. And even beyond that, I have rarely experienced a combat that began with more than 60' between the closest combatants in any game.

I should have been clearer. What I usually avoid is dungeon crawls. There are lots of encounter locations that consist of half a dozen rooms or chambers. Some are in buildings, some are in twisty canyons or other regions of restricted terrain, and others are indeed underground. Of course, in such locations encounter distances are short. But, I also have many wilderness encounters and that issue is what I was directly addressing. The post I was quoting seemed to be implying that even in the great outdoors most encounter distances are short. That is point with which I disagree.

That's a huge area--I find it difficult to buy that it's being used by anyone other than TotM players. And if you're already using TotM, movement and distance are handwaved anyway, making it impossible to meaningfully distinguish between the range of a javelin and a longbow.

I tend to use a hybrid TotM and battlemap system. For combats occurring in a confined location I tend to use just TotM. For outdoor encounters with terrain I use a white board to quickly draw a map of the encounter region so that everyone is then on the same page. We don't use the white board as battle mat. Instead its just a visual aid to help everyone maintain a common image in their heads. All distances are then described in terms of full moves. Yes, as the DM I must often decide how far two points might be from each other. Most of the time the choice doesn't make too much difference or has a relatively obvious answer. But, in those cases where the outcome isn't clear, I find that no one complains if I base my decision on what would be most fun for the table.

 

[CapnZapp]

The only class that can pretty effectively avoid any damage is the rogue with double proficiency on stealth and full DEX, then he can just hide after every attack and hidden enemies will usually not be attacked because nobody knows their location.

I have a secret for you.

Avoiding being attacked (hiding) does not help the party. Avoiding being hit (wasting attacks) does.

Any monster that can't find the rogue, but can find somebody else to whack, that's not a net gain for the party as a whole. One important job for any party member is to offer his or hers hit points as a buffer, so that nobody goes down.

A rogue that hides in order to pull off awesome damage spikes, that's a helpful ability (sadly, I don't think 5E rogues can do this).

A rogue that simply hides to save his own skin, that is what I would call a trap ability. It looks fantastic from the individual's point of view, but it's actually worthless (in straight-up combat) from the party's point of view.

 

[mellored]

Avoiding being attacked (hiding) does not help the party. Avoiding being hit (wasting attacks) does.

Depends on the party.

If you have 18 AC, and the enemy goes to attack the guy with 16 AC, then that's not helping.

If you have 18 AC, and the enemy goes to attack the guy with 20 AC and heavy armor mastery, then you did help.

A rogue that hides in order to pull off awesome damage spikes, that's a helpful ability (sadly, I don't think 5E rogues can do this).

It's there, it's just a little bit more hidden since a hidden rogue doing 20 damage might seem the same as a melee rogue hitting for 20 damage. Except the hidden rogue hits more due to advantage. (though TWF in melee keeps it more or less on par).

And the rogue doesn't exactly spend much effort hiding in the first place.


Most other classes though giving up a full action is a big waste.

 

[Merchant of Shadows]

Strikers are useful when the tanks have a notable mean to punish enemies for going after the strikers and then there are high priority and low hp targets among the enemies for the strikers to go after.

 

[TwoSix]

You may very well be right about urban or underdark encounters. But, any woodland that doesn't allow anyone to see further that 60 feet on a regular basis is more of a thicket. In many forests in the Western US (my primary experience) the biggest impediment to seeing far isn't necessarily the trees, its the folds in the terrain and the rocks. In old-growth deciduous forests the undergrowth dies out and the encounter distance might require several move actions to cover. On open terrain without tall corn growing everywhere, the sighting distance could very well a mile or more (once again depending on the topography). My players are paranoid sorts and if they see a potential enemy 200 feet away, they aren't going to let that enemy approach to within 60 feet before the parlay begins.

So in the games I run (which tend to lack dungeons) encounter distances are often beyond effective javelin range.

It's always interesting to me the different ways people visualize natural environments and the way to model them in the game. In my own games, most of the players assume that any missile fire in a wooded area is going to be, at minimum, half cover, and longer shots are assumed to be either 3/4 or total cover.