D&D 3E/3.5 Thoughts of a 3E/4E powergamer on starting to play 5E

[dave2008]

This is the list in question



Most of this list is either situational or requires burning daily resources. I look at this list and don't see how anyone is getting advantage most of the time unless they are something like a darkness monk, barbarian, or spamming stealth(and spamming stealth is such a murky rules issue that I wouldn't take it for granted it was available). Not in terms of getting advantage most of the time over the course of a 6-8 encounter day.

Well, here is a quick list I put together that can give you advantage on attack rolls (not mention checks, saves, and causing disadvantage):

Action
Help

Class
Assassinate
Bardic Inspiration (not technically advantage, but similar)
Cloak of Shadows = invisible in shadows = advantage
Chains of Carceri = hold monster = restrained = advantage/.;;;;;;;;;;;???????
Disarming strike = advantage
Feinting attack = advantage
Precision attack = add superiority die to attack (not advantage, but similar)
Ranger’s Companion = help = advantage
Reckless attack = advantage
Stunning Strike = stunned = advantage
Trip attack = prone = advantage
Vow of Enmity = advantage


Feats
Grappler = advantage
Lucky = advantage (essentially)
Mounted Combatant = advantage (unmounted creature)

Spells
Blinding smite = blinded = advantage
Blindness = blinded = advantage
Command – grovel = prone = advantage
Divine word= blinded or stunned = advantage
Ensnaring strike = restrained = advantage
Entangle = restrained = advantage
Eyebite = unconscious = advantage
Faerie Fire = advantage
Flesh to Stone = restrained = advantage
Foresight = advantage
Grease = prone = advantage
Greater invisibility = advantage
Hold Monster = paralyzed = advantage
Hold Person = paralyzed = advantage
Imprisonment = restrained = advantage
Invisibility = advantage
Otto’s Irresistible Dance = advantage
Power Word Stun = stunned = advantage
Prismatic Spray = restrained = advantage
Prismatic Wall = restrained = advantage
Shocking Grasp = advantage (if wearing metal armor)
Sleep = unconscious = advantage
Sunbeam = blinded = advantage
Symbol = stunned = advantage
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter = prone = advantage
Web = restrained = advantage

with all of those options, my players have found it fairly easy to keep up when they want to.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Some ran games with slow, challenging but less numerous combat(which avoided grind by making things interesting from the challenge). Some ran games with fast and fun combat that really wasn't that challenging.

The latter was the way 5e went, if it was acceptable then, why not now?

Ive heard it from enough different sources to believe it exists.

Like the 5MWD that often leads to it, it's one of those things clearly a potential issue based on the rules, but that you can always find an anecdote to confirm or deny. In 5e you can always toss the rules aside, though, so just because the rule clearly point to a given stumbling block doesn't mean any given DM will actually stumble over it.

I've mostly played at low levels, resources are scarce enough that basic attack use is a necessity. Unless something unforeseen drastically changes, I can't see how it'll be different as even with higher level resources we'll be falling back on spam given how the game has run so far.

More resources are forthcoming as you level. It's not quite like 3e where your lower level slots become useful only for utility & buffing (it's close, /damaging/ spells cast with low level slots become irrelevant pretty quickly, but save DCs are based on your caster stat + prof, not spell/slot level).

like being told that you need to do extra work because your boss wants to "empower you"

Very much like that. ;P

Me, when someone gives me a book and tells me to do a job, I expect to be told how to do that job.

You've clearly never been a consultant. Yeah, the book gives you some useful information, but it's up to you to decide what needs to be done and how to proceed to complete the job successfully.

You will get some feedback: players who are sleeping, playing on their mobile devices, foaming at the mouth, or calling in sick are subtle clues...

An RPG can't stop it in the sense that they're never going to come to your house, beat you up, take your lunch money and burn your books.

Videos of burning rulebooks and C&D orders aside, that's exactly right. You can always run a game how you want. If there are players interested in playing that way.

A lot of players, though, are interested in playing a specific game - D&D - not in playing it a specific way. So a D&D that makes it painfully obvious that they can't play it without a DM issuing rulings is a D&D you can run with a great deal more ad hoc latitude than a D&D that gives the players clear, unequivocal rules and options - let alone one that has a rabid fan base that decries house rules or change of any other kind.

An RPG can, however advise against it. RPGs with stricter rule sets and more codified systems often DO. They do this by putting the power in the hands of the players to be justified when they say "Hey! That's not what the rules say!" whenever a DM attempts to deviate from them.

Which sucks for the DM, unless the rules are really good, and really robust and really flexible... and really not what D&D rules have generally been like.

Bringing this discussion back around to my original point that I made early in this thread: It's not that 5E lacks the ability to powergame. What 5E lacks is reliability. It's unreliability is reinforced through their systems of "rulings not rules" by essentially saying that the "game" is whatever the DM happens to feel like it should be. There's no consistency.

There's as much consistency as the DM cares to impose, which may be quite a bit, or virtually none, sure. But that does suggest a very effective way to powergame: you just game the DM, not the system.

That doing so generally means playing up to what the DM wants from the campaign is in no way a conspiracy to get players to dance for DMs' amusement like trained monkeys.

I didn't say that out loud, did I?

Every table has always been different, but the difference is different in 5E. You can't even count on the rules to be the same.

That's NOT a good thing for a game.

It's not a good thing for a board game or a casino or a lottery to see who is sacrificed to the corn god this year - but for an RPG it's just fine.

Much like not needing the Holy Trinity in a party

Do I want to know what that means?

you shouldn't expressly need a DM.

Blasphemy! (Hmmm... you're 18th, so anyone non-evil & 8th or less is Killed, paralyzed, weakened, & dazed - no save).

Seriously, though, isn't being Needed a reasonable prerequisite for being Empowered. You can't very well be both empowered and superfluous.

You should be able to reasonably open the book and everyone mechanically plays the same game. That doesn't exist in 5E. You're not supposed to picture the mechanical resolution of an action differently in the way that everyone can picture Aragorn or Gimli differently.

To some degree, any two such visualizations are going to be different.

You're not supposed to have different "interpretations" of how class abilities work, in the way you have different interpretations about how the One Ring affects Frodo's mind.

But, inevitably, different people do have different interpretations, which is why you need the DM to have the final say.

5E is a game that is trying to be a story.

Almost like a Storytelling Game? Could be.

 

[TwoSix]

Do I want to know what that means?

The Holy Trinity is a MMO term, meaning "healer, tank, DPS". The three roles you need to bring into organized group content in order to be successful.

 

[dave2008]

It could, but I never saw it impact play to the point where I'd call it a problem. The main problem I encountered in 4E was grind, where combat went on for too long in a boring manner. There were two basic choices, you could either make fun encounters that were fast or fun encounters that were challenging. It was very difficult to do both at the same time consistently. Most DMs picked one or the other. Some ran games with slow, challenging but less numerous combat(which avoided grind by making things interesting from the challenge). Some ran games with fast and fun combat that really wasn't that challenging.

I ran a level 30 (4e) one shot once where the PCs were fully powered and over the course of 2 days (real time) they took down a demon horde, Dagon, Torog and then Tiamat ( a very beefed up tiamat). The battle against tiamat took three hours (PCs at full resources) and left 4 PCS dead, one dying, and one with less then 20 HP when the finally banished her. It was very epic. The funny thing is we played the whole thing in a car while driving to and back from St. Louis (my wife was kind enough to drive), so we played it all TotM. Who said you can't play 4e without minis and a grid!

I imagine that changes things a bit from the stereotypical 5E game played under the guidelines in the book.

I'm sure it changes things up from the guidelines, but I find it unlikely the stereotypical 5e group runs 6-8 encounters a day. We also have 6 PCs which changes the resource allocation as well.

Ive heard it from enough different sources to believe it exists.

I'm sure it exist for some, but I have also seen people complain for fighter dominance. I think it mostly comes down to your perspective and how you play. The optimizers I've seen on this forum who have played high levels commented that they would never take a pure caster, preferring either to multi-class or take a partial caster. I'm not sure if that is caster dominance or not, 50/50 I guess. The problem at higher level for casters is monsters have magic resistance and legendary resistance.

I was talking about 4E.

OK, I thought you were talking about 5e, that makes more sense now.

I was mostly talking about the casters with 9th level magic. I'm really curious how your game runs, because though I've mostly played at low levels, resources are scarce enough that basic attack use is a necessity. Unless something unforeseen drastically changes, I can't see how it'll be different as even with higher level resources we'll be falling back on spam given how the game has run so far.

I don't typical do play logs, but I will try to keep track and write something up the next time we play.

 

[RandallS]

A lot of 'support' people demanded during the playtest was nothing more than the exclusion of support for other people or things said people didn't want.

That's because a lot of what one group of people want out of D&D is 180 degrees away from what another group of people want. In August 2011 (before 5e was even announced) I made a blog post (A New Edition of D&D Designed to Unite D&D Players -- Can It Be Done?) about how it would be almost impossible to develop an edition of D&D that "almost everyone" would be able to play and really enjoy. I list some 12 points where different groups really want almost completely opposite things from D&D -- and mentioned that there were probably many more. As far as I can tell advocating for anything one wants/does not want in an D&D edition is going to be asking that what at least some other major group of players wants be excluded. People simply want too many almost completely opposite things in their D&D to have one edition that works well for most people.

 

[MoonSong]

There's as much consistency as the DM cares to impose, which may be quite a bit, or virtually none, sure. But that does suggest a very effective way to powergame: you just game the DM, not the system.

That doing so generally means playing up to what the DM wants from the campaign is in no way a conspiracy to get players to dance for DMs' amusement like trained monkeys.

I didn't say that out loud, did I?

You know that lack of consistency also reduces hackability? Yes 5e empowers DMs by having less rules, but it doesn't mean they will know how to make the right rulings or the effects of houserules. 3e is extremely hackable as is 4e, 5e on the other hand isn't that good for it, it is just too unreliable to know.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You know that lack of consistency also reduces hackability? Yes 5e empowers DMs by having less rules, but it doesn't mean they will know how to make the right rulings or the effects of houserules.

the 'right' rulings is a matter of what you're trying to accomplish, and, of course, experience. House rules are another kettle of worms entirely. If you want a good house rule, you do have to put some thought into its ramifications, the more complex the system (and 5e does not lack for complexity), the more voluminous/detailed/bloated the system (and 5e is comparatively austere compared to 2e-4e), and the more exacting your players (and 5e encourages them be accommodating), the harder that is. 5e doesn't, on balance, make it that hard.

3e is extremely hackable as is 4e, 5e on the other hand isn't that good for it, it is just too unreliable to know.

Theoretically, yes. In 4e, you could have slipped in almost anything as an exception under the 'exception based design' rubric. In 3e you have to contend with the Cult of RAW.

 

[Sunseeker]

You've clearly never been a consultant. Yeah, the book gives you some useful information, but it's up to you to decide what needs to be done and how to proceed to complete the job successfully.

I've been an independent contractor before. The fact that everyone wants their own special snowflake of a house doesn't mean that you build the house differently. You still have certain rules and regulations you must follow, so even if Bob wants their house to be two floors with green paint and a dozen octagonal windows, doesn't change anything about how you actually build the house. The same rules apply to putting the walls together. The same rules apply to laying the foundation. The same rules apply to putting the roof on. Just because two houses look different doesn't mean the ruleset by which you build a house changed.

You will get some feedback: players who are sleeping, playing on their mobile devices, foaming at the mouth, or calling in sick are subtle clues...

You'll always get feedback, positive and negative. Sometimes you'll get negative feedback when you're following the rules, and sometimes you'll get positive. Sometimes you'll get the same when you aren't. How people react to what you do really isn't something you can account for. Yes I have players that chafe under the fact that I tend to be a stickler for rules. They might enjoy a more free-form game. But I find some acceptable middle ground between what the rules say you can or cannot do, and what the table enjoys. It's not altering the underlying rule systems, that's installing a sliding door instead of a hinged one. It's still a door. It functions the same. It's just a matter of taste.

Videos of burning rulebooks and C&D orders aside, that's exactly right. You can always run a game how you want. If there are players interested in playing that way.

Well yes, and more often than not, players play together because there is a codified system of rules that illustrates a manner of play that they enjoy. There's a reason that Baseball players don't play Hockey.

A lot of players, though, are interested in playing a specific game - D&D - not in playing it a specific way. So a D&D that makes it painfully obvious that they can't play it without a DM issuing rulings is a D&D you can run with a great deal more ad hoc latitude than a D&D that gives the players clear, unequivocal rules and options - let alone one that has a rabid fan base that decries house rules or change of any other kind.

D&D has come a long way from being a "specific game". CoC is a specific game. You can really only do one thing with CoC: and that's play a game of CoC. That is simply not the case with D&D. Even if you use the same rule set, the extraneous fluff is not tied to the mathematics. That is to say: when you play CoC, you're playing a game dealing with elder horrors invading the "real world". When you play D&D, you might be playing that very same game, or you're playing an early-Renaissance themed werewolf vs. vampires game, or you're playing a classic Swords and Sorcerery, or you're playing a low-magic Conan/Savage Worlds game. The underlying rules all remain identical. The only thing that changed is the shape of the windows and the color of the paint.

Which sucks for the DM, unless the rules are really good, and really robust and really flexible... and really not what D&D rules have generally been like.

You can have your ideal RPG good, robust, or flexible, choose two.

There's as much consistency as the DM cares to impose, which may be quite a bit, or virtually none, sure. But that does suggest a very effective way to powergame: you just game the DM, not the system.

Gaming the DM has always been a way to "win" at D&D. 5E hasn't changed that.

Do I want to know what that means?

You should, yes, since it's relevant to at least 3, maybe 4 editions of D&D.

The Holy Trinity is a game concept that as the basis for a party you need a Tank, Healer and one or more DPS. So when people talk about how such-and-such game really makes it feel like you "need a healer" or "we would have gotten crushed if it wasn't for our defender" people are talking about how the game relies on the Holy Trinity. 3E was very big on the Holy Trinity, you needed a healer. 4E provided the most distinct roles based along the "expanded" trinity, typically Defender(Tank), Striker(DPS), Support(Healer/Buffer) and Leader(Buffer), but at the same time provided one of the easiest systems to avoid the trinity, by giving everyone a little support, defense and buffing abilities, along with healing surges.

5E is moderately reliant on the Trinity.

Seriously, though, isn't being Needed a reasonable prerequisite for being Empowered. You can't very well be both empowered and superfluous.

Sure you can. The fact that you're not needed is exactly why you are empowered. Women who can hire baby-sitters and nannys or have reliable family members are less likely to become stay-at-home parents. They are empowered because the group can assume enough of the burden to allow her to not be the sole caregiver. You are empowered through choice. When you lack choice, you are not empowered. When you gain choice, you become empowered.

To some degree, any two such visualizations are going to be different. But, inevitably, different people do have different interpretations, which is why you need the DM to have the final say.

When I hear things like this I think it's a miracle we've invented such things as democracy. Assuming the court of the Table isn't split (ie: an even number of players) it's as simple a matter as holding a vote. The winning side becomes the ruling.

Almost like a Storytelling Game? Could be.

There are rules to telling a story. There are rules to writing. There are rules to publishing. These rules don't change when you're writing an epic fantasy tale or a gritty detective noir. Again: sliding doors and green paint vs hinged doors and blue paint doesn't change the rules of construction.

 

[MoonSong]

In 3e you have to contend with the Cult of RAW.

Which kinda isn't a thing? I mean Raw is predictable, but is not the final authority. There is plenty of room for hacks on 3e, and raw makes them more predictable. Actually raw being predictable helps to get buy-in for certain changes. It is been ten years, things change.

 

[Sunseeker]

Which kinda isn't a thing? I mean Raw is predictable, but is not the final authority. There is plenty of room for hacks on 3e, and raw makes them more predictable. Actually raw being predictable helps to get buy-in for certain changes. It is been ten years, things change.

Not to mention, RAW in 3E is so absurdly vast that even if there was a cult around it (which I'd disagree with, since most 3E-ers I know love all of the extraneous junk they can bring in) it comprises such a vast litany of rules that you don't really need to make rulings. In 3E, there quite possibly IS a rule for everything.