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Test of High Level 5E: Design 4 or 5 lvl 13 PCs for 6 to 8 encounter adventuring day
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<blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6840464" data-attributes="member: 5834"><p>I wasn't even thinking of this. The goal in this setting was to show how a coordinated, min-maxed group handles encounters. You didn't seem to understand this point and thus made suboptimal characters.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Have you fought giants before? I have to ask because it doesn't seem like you've fought many given how you think about them. Running in daylight against giants is an extremely bad idea. They have a 40 foot movement rate and rock throwing of 60 feet. That means given plenty of open ground, no difficult terrain, and utilizing your action for the dash action will take you two rounds to get out of their rock throwing range. That is two rounds of getting possibly pelted by 4d10+6 rocks. Then they have wolves, which also move at 40 feet and have breath weapons. Not to mention if the wolves close the distance and attack, their bites can trip. That means they trip a target, pack tactics rip it up. and the giants hammer that person with rocks. That person has to spend half their move to stand up and then attempt to run avoiding AoOs which can trip them again. If they want to use their Disengage action to avoid AoOs, they can't dash. Which slows them down and opens them to attack. Then what do you do if one or two members of your party drop to rock throwing? What do you do? Leave them to die since you don't have to fight the giants?</p><p></p><p>Running was a bad idea not because one of the members of the group wants xp. It was because one player wasn't thinking about the capabilities of what they're fighting. That was the difference in the first round. Not only did you choose a bad tactic against enemies with the ability to counter such tactics, but you were woefully unprepared for dealing with such enemies.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>XP is useless in this context. What you could do is min-max your character and then play in an optimal fashion showing an understanding of the enemy capabilities and the way <strong>Flamestrike</strong> has designed the encounter to make it difficult to avoid fighting them specifically so he can drain your resources.</p><p></p><p>You did not understand the goal of this test, <strong>Bold Italic</strong>. I accept part of the blame for not explaining it to you well enough. You were supposed to construct min-maxed characters or at least partially min-maxed characters and work in a highly coordinated fashion showing a keen understanding of the game mechanics as they are used against the environment. </p><p></p><p>Players like <strong>CapnZapp</strong>, <strong>Zard</strong>, and myself don't really care about standard party going against 6 to 8 encounter day. It's about parties like we play with going against the 6-8 encounter day. Perhaps you have not been involved in those discussion is the reason you missed the point of the test. We're getting told by DMs like <strong>Flamestrike</strong> and <strong>Iserith</strong> that they can consistently (roughly 50% of the time) create encounters using the 6-8 encounter day that challenge a min-maxed party that uses coordinated tactics. the aforementioned people on this forum are not finding that to be true. So <strong>Flamestrike</strong> and I decided to give this little test a shot. It was pretty much a no go from the beginning as soon as you made a weak paladin and wizard that would never exist in my groups. </p><p></p><p>A paladin with a 13 Con at level 13? What min-maxer do you think does that? All his Concentration spells would likely be broken all the time. He would be wasting resources just recasting spells. And an extra 13 hit points for a tank class? The bard had more hit points than your paladin. In 5E hit points are the primary defense you have. You hamstrung yourself right out of the gate with a low Con.</p><p></p><p>Then a wizard with a garbage spell list and no spell strategy. No <em>polymorph</em> or <em>wall of force</em> at 13th level? Who kept that useless guy in the group? <em>Polymorph</em> is a major offensive, defensive, and utility spell all rolled into one and you don't take it? No min-maxer avoids that spell. No <em>wall of force</em>? This spell has been a battlefield control spell since it was introduced. It's still great after five editions of D&D. This could have been somewhat overlooked if you made some kind of enchanter type with <em>suggestion</em> spells, but nope. A diviner trying to be a blaster? No optimizer is going to make a wizard like that. It shows a complete lack of awareness of spell power.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure what you're thinking, but I know this game. What you did ruined this test from the beginning. Your character's actions and lack of understanding of the mobility and ranged capabilities of giants should not be excused by attempting to paint me as desirous of experience points. I read the battlefield that <strong>Flamestrike</strong> set up and acted accordingly. Part of coordinated group fighting is reading the battlefield. You should looked at the layout, how long it would have taken you and the entire party to make it to the door, and how many rounds of attacks the giants and wolves would have been able take on you including the obvious difficult terrain with the rubble spread near the exit. <strong>Flamestrike</strong> put a neon sign over that rubble that said difficult terrain and you didn't seem to care. You just ran for that exit. Then we would have hit half move allowing the giants more attacks on us. Your strategy would have left us low on hit points and still fighting giants without having done much damage to them at all.</p><p></p><p>I'm going to assume you're not used to the type of encounters <strong>Flamestrike</strong> was running. You don't usually take time to assess your parties capabilities or capabilities of opponents. You're a wing it type of player. That's fine the vast majority of the time, But not during a test of this kind.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celtavian, post: 6840464, member: 5834"] I wasn't even thinking of this. The goal in this setting was to show how a coordinated, min-maxed group handles encounters. You didn't seem to understand this point and thus made suboptimal characters. Have you fought giants before? I have to ask because it doesn't seem like you've fought many given how you think about them. Running in daylight against giants is an extremely bad idea. They have a 40 foot movement rate and rock throwing of 60 feet. That means given plenty of open ground, no difficult terrain, and utilizing your action for the dash action will take you two rounds to get out of their rock throwing range. That is two rounds of getting possibly pelted by 4d10+6 rocks. Then they have wolves, which also move at 40 feet and have breath weapons. Not to mention if the wolves close the distance and attack, their bites can trip. That means they trip a target, pack tactics rip it up. and the giants hammer that person with rocks. That person has to spend half their move to stand up and then attempt to run avoiding AoOs which can trip them again. If they want to use their Disengage action to avoid AoOs, they can't dash. Which slows them down and opens them to attack. Then what do you do if one or two members of your party drop to rock throwing? What do you do? Leave them to die since you don't have to fight the giants? Running was a bad idea not because one of the members of the group wants xp. It was because one player wasn't thinking about the capabilities of what they're fighting. That was the difference in the first round. Not only did you choose a bad tactic against enemies with the ability to counter such tactics, but you were woefully unprepared for dealing with such enemies. XP is useless in this context. What you could do is min-max your character and then play in an optimal fashion showing an understanding of the enemy capabilities and the way [b]Flamestrike[/b] has designed the encounter to make it difficult to avoid fighting them specifically so he can drain your resources. You did not understand the goal of this test, [b]Bold Italic[/b]. I accept part of the blame for not explaining it to you well enough. You were supposed to construct min-maxed characters or at least partially min-maxed characters and work in a highly coordinated fashion showing a keen understanding of the game mechanics as they are used against the environment. Players like [b]CapnZapp[/b], [b]Zard[/b], and myself don't really care about standard party going against 6 to 8 encounter day. It's about parties like we play with going against the 6-8 encounter day. Perhaps you have not been involved in those discussion is the reason you missed the point of the test. We're getting told by DMs like [b]Flamestrike[/b] and [b]Iserith[/b] that they can consistently (roughly 50% of the time) create encounters using the 6-8 encounter day that challenge a min-maxed party that uses coordinated tactics. the aforementioned people on this forum are not finding that to be true. So [b]Flamestrike[/b] and I decided to give this little test a shot. It was pretty much a no go from the beginning as soon as you made a weak paladin and wizard that would never exist in my groups. A paladin with a 13 Con at level 13? What min-maxer do you think does that? All his Concentration spells would likely be broken all the time. He would be wasting resources just recasting spells. And an extra 13 hit points for a tank class? The bard had more hit points than your paladin. In 5E hit points are the primary defense you have. You hamstrung yourself right out of the gate with a low Con. Then a wizard with a garbage spell list and no spell strategy. No [I]polymorph[/I] or [I]wall of force[/I] at 13th level? Who kept that useless guy in the group? [I]Polymorph[/I] is a major offensive, defensive, and utility spell all rolled into one and you don't take it? No min-maxer avoids that spell. No [I]wall of force[/I]? This spell has been a battlefield control spell since it was introduced. It's still great after five editions of D&D. This could have been somewhat overlooked if you made some kind of enchanter type with [I]suggestion[/I] spells, but nope. A diviner trying to be a blaster? No optimizer is going to make a wizard like that. It shows a complete lack of awareness of spell power. I'm not sure what you're thinking, but I know this game. What you did ruined this test from the beginning. Your character's actions and lack of understanding of the mobility and ranged capabilities of giants should not be excused by attempting to paint me as desirous of experience points. I read the battlefield that [b]Flamestrike[/b] set up and acted accordingly. Part of coordinated group fighting is reading the battlefield. You should looked at the layout, how long it would have taken you and the entire party to make it to the door, and how many rounds of attacks the giants and wolves would have been able take on you including the obvious difficult terrain with the rubble spread near the exit. [b]Flamestrike[/b] put a neon sign over that rubble that said difficult terrain and you didn't seem to care. You just ran for that exit. Then we would have hit half move allowing the giants more attacks on us. Your strategy would have left us low on hit points and still fighting giants without having done much damage to them at all. I'm going to assume you're not used to the type of encounters [b]Flamestrike[/b] was running. You don't usually take time to assess your parties capabilities or capabilities of opponents. You're a wing it type of player. That's fine the vast majority of the time, But not during a test of this kind. [/QUOTE]
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