The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sacrosanct]

Labeling a post "The Final Word," is the internet equivalent of putting a "Kick Me" sign on your own back.

By the laws of the internet, even if you want to agree with the OP, you are duty-bound to disagree.

Well, he did make the post and then not post again in the thread, so...

 

[TwoSix]

Labeling a post "The Final Word," is the internet equivalent of putting a "Kick Me" sign on your own back.

By the laws of the internet, even if you want to agree with the OP, you are duty-bound to disagree.

I disagree.

 

[FrogReaver]

I disagree.

Is that the final word?

 

[TwoSix]

Is that the final word?

(fnord)

 

[Warpiglet]

It is interesting to read some of the different takes on this thread. It would be interesting to know how some posters would summarize the OP position in three or four lines. It seems clear to me.

I generally disagree with the position while respecting the desire for every sort of character to have an impact.

Of note, the group is really the thing with DM as a lead. A DM could say that the desire is to have a lot of cooperation and to tone down optimization to the extent that different kinds of characters. There is a freedom in making something cool without being beholden to MOAR damage or whatever.

I am DMing a 5e campaign currently. We're fourth level. The only outlier is a forge cleric who takes spells and has scavenged splint in order to have a fabulous AC.

I am still trying to figure out at which point GWM and SS are out of hand. Is it by level five? I don't think two attacks with these feats would be outrageous. When do FIGHTERS get three? 11th?

I would like to know what the concern really is about. Is this about fighters of 11th level or higher with GWM or SS?

You see, when we operationalize the problem and stop with generalizations, we can actually take a hard look at things. I know I need to do a better job too.

When we are talking about spellcasters running away with the show are we talking about with or without disadvantage in melee range?

If we are talking about sorcerers, what level are they gonzo with cantrips and metamagic? It matters, I think. When we say they can kick butt this way plus have utility, how many spells do they have left for utility after doing metamagic that matched a featless fighter?

If we get down to brass tacks, are those with balance concerns really just concerned about a few corner cases? If so, the remedy for them would not be to throw out the whole system but much more localized.

Unless they just hate the system and want to return to an earlier one...in which case it would be great if those books were still around (I would part with mine for cheap as an aside!).

 

[Oofta]

By the laws of the internet, even if you want to agree with the OP, you are duty-bound to disagree.

So if I post that "The Final Word is that paladin is an awful class", you would be duty-bound to disagree? AWESOME!

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Oofta]

Yes, I would disagree. The Paladin is not just an awful class, it is the worst class, the class that other awful classes can look at and go, "Hey, at least we aren't that class."

Thanks for the clarification. Hmmm ... I wonder how long a posting topic can be ...

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't agree with this.

Mearls wrote a lot during the 5e design period about 4e's inability to retain new players: that lots of new players tried it, and had some fun with it, but didn't stick with it.

Not how I recall it, at all. The fretting was over /attracting/ new players, not retaining them (which, IMX, 4e did startlingly well compared to every other edition I've ever run for new players), and, of course, moving books...

I've run a lot of introductory games over the decades, at conventions, and in organized play. The flow of new players trying 4e for the first time wasn't exactly huge, 5e is huger, that way, for instance and 1e obviously was (while 2e was deadsville once M:tG dropped). But, while in any other edition, a new player would show up, try the game, and never be seen again, at Encounter's they'd pretty consistently stay the season, often a second, and more often and much more quickly than I was accustomed to, step up and DM. It was so dramatic and unexpected I find it hard to believe it was some aberration that kept happening from early 2010 up to the playtest.
OTOH, 'new' players coming from prior eds would very often try it once and never be seen again. I had one couple that stayed for a whole season before going to PF. And one compared to dozens of newbies, old-timer who stuck it out the whole time.

But I can believe there were many potential players who never got as far as sitting down to that first session....

He attributed this to various things, but the two I remember are (i) marketing complexity (the "wall of books" thing), and (ii) PC build complexituy (the number of choices needed to build a starting fighter character).

Organized play used pregens, and when I'd run at cons I would, likewise. Maybe that's why I saw 0 issues with 'build complexity.' Or maybe it was that the old off-line CB was /so/ easy to get your digital mitts on (even once they went to on-line whole tables, even two tables at a time, would share one account).

(Or, maybe it was that there really wasn't much of anything to building a 1st level character. You choose a race & class, the class description tells you which stats to emphasize, recommends a few possible feats, you pick 2 of several at-wills, 1 of several encounters, 1 of several dailies, a few skills. It's less complexity than building a 5e caster or half-caster, and significantly less than planning a viable 3.x build. From there, each level you pick one or two things, and maybe change one thing)

But, the 'wall of books' was certainly a thing. On occasions, someone would come in and ask about the books on the shelf, which were a solid shelf of D&D, and more than a few of PF, and after the involved explanation, just walk away.

The run-up to Essentials included the same set of concerns - shelf-shock, rapid product cycling, lack of appeal to returning players, complexity of fighter builds, specifically, and offered similar solutions - and failed to make any impact that I noticed (it neither pulled in more people, nor retained more, IMX).

And, of course, Mearls was reluctant to address the fact the product he tried to push was subject to constant, virulent, negativity, he'd euphemistically say "divide in the community" or "support for more play styles" or something...

...but, 5e /did/ take care of that issue, and is doing very well. It did not meaningfully reduce build complexity (especially compared to Essentials), but it did reduce shelf-shock.

Another big difference I see is in retention. 5e doesn't retain and transition to DMing totally new players like 4e did, but it attracts & retains long-time & returning players extremely well. People come in to AL, now, saying "I played in high school" or something, and they're still there two years later. Amazing. I though those folks were a wild-goose chase, that they'd never really been into the game (some aunt bought them the basic set and they never played it or something). But, nope, the come-back finally came back. Best thing that's happened to D&D in a very long time.

I speculate that one of those things is a chance to make "good" play decisions. In MtG this means building a good deck, or playing a clever combo. A designer (I am assuming) wants to build these possibilities into the game. And I think it's hard to build a common framework that both provides those sorts of possibilities to a new player, while at the same time immunises the system against exploitation of those possibilities by an experienced player.

IDK, that sound suspiciously like the "MMO" or 'board game like' play that's become downright pejorative. But, yes, it /is/ hard to design a balanced game that's both easy to get into, and has great depth for the experienced player, and, no, it seems like 5e hasn't quite done it - it's been too busy threading a different needle: the delicate act of acceptability to hard-core fans vs appeal to new (casual/mainstream) fans.

But I'm not surprised that there are some experienced players, like the OP, who are having the sorts of problems the OP reports.

I'd say it'd be fair to be surprised that there aren't many more. Perhaps most of them are still playing PF?

DPR is important. For martial classes without spells, it's their single largest contribution. But that doesn't mean DPR is king. "DPR is king" would mean that only measurements of DPR would count towards measuring the effectiveness of a class.

And if DPR were King, the fighter would be King, or at least still Lord @9th or Baronet or something...

It has that aspect as well, but I am going back to 1st edition, where the Magic User easily out-damaged all other classes (and out crowd-controlled most of them) in exchange for being extremely squishy and resource limited.
The wizard (which these days includes sorcerer and warlock) still out-damages other classes, but the margin is narrower, in exchange for not dying if a goblin sneezes on them.

That's pretty fair, really. In 2nd, the fighter got a big boost in damage if they (ab)used specialization correctly, while some spells got damage caps, and each edition has loosened the limitations on casters (more spells, at-will spells, concentration check to avoid interruption, removing interruption entirely, easier handling of components, etc, etc... by 4e there were virtually no meaningful limitations on casting, ranged/area spells provoked just like ranged attacks was the main one - in 5e, that's gone - and don't start on 'Concentration' so some spells have a duration of 'concentration,' just like some 1e spells did, and much like 4e 'sustain' spells but without an action required to do so, just, if they'd be broken in 5e, you get a roll to keep 'em going, anyway).

I always thought of the wizard more as a battlefield controller and utility kit rather than damage dealer.

The wizard has been both those, and a major damage-dealer, and pretty near whatever else it wanted, through much of D&D's history. 4e tried to constrain the wizard to 'controller,' but even that was a muddy, double-dipped role that included area blasting, battlefield control (walls, zones &c), and direct 'hard' control - /and/ free access to the utility kit of Rituals.

What I was replying to was all those people who are dismissive of the increase to AC from dual wielder or using a shield. You know, that "other aspect" of a fighter. But saying "your AC will be lower" is met with "that doesn't matter" which then leads me to conclude that "DPR is King" but then I get "DPR IS NOT KING" which then means that AC does matter, but of course it doesn't only DPR matters but DPR is not king ...

AC, hps, & DPR are all part of the same race-to-0-hps of simplistic combat analysis. And, yes, DPR is the biggest baddest variable in that calculation (well, really attacks/round is). That doesn't make it King, the local petty robber-Baron, perhaps, whom the actual King (magic) can dispatch at a moment's notice. ;P

Seriously, though, the point is that the swing you can get in DPR with weapon, style & feat choices is a lot more significant than the +1 hp/level for having a d10 instead of d8 or the +1 AC from a shield.

It's just math.
/Very simple/ math. ;|

That being said, building for AC is certainly feasible. If there was a feat that gave you +5 AC for -5 to hit, I would certainly also point out that feat as being problematic.

What? Like Combat Expertise?