D&D 5E Some spells _really_ powerful?

[Bryk]

Haste doesn't do that. It lets you take an action that only lets you Attack(one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object. Nothing in there let's you cast a second cantrip.

How are you maxing them all? I assume you are using Overchannel. It's...technically legal to use it on cantrips. Though Mike Mearls said that it was legal "as written", which implies that he doesn't want to issue errata without discussing it with the rest of the team. He then proceeds to say that even he would house rule it to increase the damage by 1d12.

I would just not allow Overchannel on cantrips.

Well, it is legal. You would be house ruling. Yes, Haste they nerfed from Alpha, I missed the change where they moved cantrips. Never the less, they can cast a channeling damage spell, and spam cantrips very easily for high levels of sustain.

 

[Bryk]

Why?

They cap out at 2 attacks of 1d10, with one free bonus, or 2 free bonus action with spending a ki.

 

[Bryk]

I don't have PHB in front of me but i'm confused.

Barbarian can't get 3 attacks? Multi-attack only give 2 attacks? What is Frenzy?

+5 from Str. The +10 from Great Weapon Master is only if you kill a creature and take a bonus action of -5 to ad +10 so it's only if a creature dies that you can use this? It's not on every attack?

SO you're saying you get 3 attacks because monsters are dying and you still hit even with the -5 penalty?

Glad i reread barbarian because i thought they didn't get bonus actions in rage but i guess they just don't get "reactions". ??

Just something doesn't add up but i'd like to understand it

"

Before you make a m elee attack with a heavy w eapon
that you are proficient with, you can ch o o se to take a
- 5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add
+10 to the attack’s damage.
"

It has NOTHING to do with a critical or kill, that just gives a free bonus, which a barbarian can get level 3:

"

F r e n z y
Starting w hen you ch o o se this path at 3rd level, you
can go into a frenzy w hen you rage. If you do so, for
the duration o f your rage you can make a single melee
w eapon attack as a bonus action on each o f your turns
after this one. When your rage ends, you suffer one level
o f exhaustion (as described in appendix A

"

 

[pemerton]

Spells are supposed to be powerful, aren't they?

<snip>

casters are likely to be more powerful in 5E than non-casters; that's part of D&D's history

<snip>

If you're finding that your sorcerer is nova-ing too much, try putting more pressure on the party so that the casters aren't always able to stay fully rested.

<snip>

I definitely believe you should put more encounters on the party during each day. For example, if the party is crawling through the Redbrand hideout (Lost Mine of Phandelver), they shouldn't be able to take more than one short rest in that whole dungeon before the BBEG escapes and all the enemies start scouring the place for the party that's infiltrated them; if the party does any fighting down there and then leaves for a long rest, when they return the base should be either abandoned (and most of the treasure already taken) or completely fortified against another incursion. This should be true for almost any dungeon on intelligent creatures.

Isn't 5e meant to be flexible and modular? Or has it been built to mandate only a rather narrow playstyle (along the lines you describe - powerful casters constrained by time-pressure scenario design)?

And a related but different question - if the players decide to have their PCs rest, and then get TPKed by the scouring enemies, or find that the adventure has gone away (either literally - abandoned dungeon, no loot - or functionally - impregnable fortress that the PCs can't hope to successfully assault), then how does the group fill the rest of the play session? Put away D&D and pull out a boardgame?

To answer my own rhetorical question - the game has to be fun for the participants. In D&D that means places to explore, loot to collect, enemies to oppose, etc. A GM who continually blocks those things to enforce pacing requirements doesn't seem, to me, to be doing a very good job.

 

[TheGorramBatman]

1/2 RP a session, 1/2 encounter. I don't go, okay guys, 1, 2, 3 roll! 1,2,3 roll! Players try to assess the situation they are about to enter, and come up with a plan, it isn't all move in, attack rinse repeat.

This is even with my house rule of requiring a reaction to talk when it isn't your turn in combat with something that could take up to 6 seconds.

I really don't mean to come off as elitist or jerky, and I certainly don't want to put anyone off of this game or any other but:

Have you considered that maybe 5th edition D&D isn't the best fit for your group? Dungeon World is rules-light, free flowing, encourages player-story participation, and the less the players know about the rules the better. If they're the type to converse over wall sconces for hours at a time then I think checking out Dungeon World would be worth your time.

Or if you guys are that into planning then maybe Shado... *hork*... Shad.... *hrrnnnnng*... Shadowru... *hawwwk*... I keep throwing up a little bit in my mouth, sorry.

Anyway, a four hour encounter in 5th edition would outright slay me. I'm trying to get everyone over to 5th from Pathfinder because I can't stand 2 hour encounters. I admire your dedication to the sport. o7

 

[Mistwell]

That's fine if that was their intent, but when a hard encounter = 4 hours, and we are supposed to get 8 in, Two months for 1 day of play????

Something has gone terribly wrong if any encounter is taking you that long, or even 25% that long.

 

[Scorpio616]

How is a single hard encounter taking you four hours?

DM needs to be on the players to take their actions or skip them. Lollygagging, looking stuff up and talking tactics have to be quashed.

 

[doctorhook]

Isn't 5e meant to be flexible and modular? Or has it been built to mandate only a rather narrow playstyle (along the lines you describe - powerful casters constrained by time-pressure scenario design)?

And a related but different question - if the players decide to have their PCs rest, and then get TPKed by the scouring enemies, or find that the adventure has gone away (either literally - abandoned dungeon, no loot - or functionally - impregnable fortress that the PCs can't hope to successfully assault), then how does the group fill the rest of the play session? Put away D&D and pull out a boardgame?

To answer my own rhetorical question - the game has to be fun for the participants. In D&D that means places to explore, loot to collect, enemies to oppose, etc. A GM who continually blocks those things to enforce pacing requirements doesn't seem, to me, to be doing a very good job.

"Modular" is a word that's been associated with 5E for a while. It might be accurate, but we haven't seen much of it yet (feats? 5Basic?) since it's supposed to reside mainly in the as-yet-unreleased Dungeon Master's Guide.

With regards to the narrow playstyle, D&D has always been a fairly specific type of high-fantasy by default. 5E is true to that tradition, but at the same time it also does perhaps the best job of minimizing the power-gap between casters and non-casters; bounded accuracy, paucity of high-level spell slots, and the limit to concentration spells all help keep magic-users from overwhelming non-caster classes completely.

As for adventure-hooks running away due to the PCs' slow pace, I believe it's still the responsibility of the DM to keep the adventure moving (in whatever direction the PCs are going). A DM should be willing to remind players of opportunities they ignored, and to provide in-game clues to keep the PCs on track. In the Lost Mine of Phandelver example, the adventure as-written has many alternative ways for the party to learn about their next destination, even if they do let the Redbrand BBEG escape.

You are entirely correct about fun: it's the only reason we play this game. The DM should never "block" paths to continue the story, but I think there's a lot of good (and possibly fun) reasons for a DM to encourage plausible behaviour from his players and his NPCs.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Well, it is legal. You would be house ruling. Yes, Haste they nerfed from Alpha, I missed the change where they moved cantrips. Never the less, they can cast a channeling damage spell, and spam cantrips very easily for high levels of sustain.

That's fine. The formula as it has been designed in 5e is that casters get to do about half the damage of fighters on any round they haven't used a spell slot to do more damage. On any round they do spend a spell slot(or have spent one in a previous round to do continuous damage), they get to do more damage.

Which is precisely why overchanneling cantrips is bad. It breaks the formula. Which is why I can tell it wasn't intended to work the way it is written.

Plus, Overchannel pretty much reads "Take X disadvantage to get X advantage". In one particular case(cantrips) you can get the advantage without the disadvantage....but only due to a specific reading of the wording of the ability. Normally when there is an exception, it is specifically called out. In order to find out that cantrips are level 0 spells you have to consult an entirely different part of the book. Almost every time this is the case, it's because they were written by two different authors and one didn't take the other into account.

 

[variant]

That's fine. The formula as it has been designed in 5e is that casters get to do about half the damage of fighters on any round they haven't used a spell slot to do more damage. On any round they do spend a spell slot(or have spent one in a previous round to do continuous damage), they get to do more damage.

Which is precisely why overchanneling cantrips is bad. It breaks the formula. Which is why I can tell it wasn't intended to work the way it is written.

Plus, Overchannel pretty much reads "Take X disadvantage to get X advantage". In one particular case(cantrips) you can get the advantage without the disadvantage....but only due to a specific reading of the wording of the ability. Normally when there is an exception, it is specifically called out. In order to find out that cantrips are level 0 spells you have to consult an entirely different part of the book. Almost every time this is the case, it's because they were written by two different authors and one didn't take the other into account.

Mike Mearls tweeted, "Overchannel questions: Not intended to work with cantrips, but it works out if you increase the damage by 1d12 per cantrip"