D&D 5E 5th Edition: How to Make My DM Cry

NewJeffCT · Jul 27, 2014

Shiroiken said:
Curse my lack of knowledge about popular culture!

never saw the show before this episode, but loved it. Chevy Chase plays a mean & crotchety old guy who interrupts a nerdy guy's D&D game, pushing his way into the game and nearly ruining it for everybody. After he has seemingly won the game (ruined it for everybody else, meaning), Chase uses the line, "I won at Dungeons & Dragons - and it was advanced!!"

Eirikrautha · Jul 27, 2014

NewJeffCT said:
In looking back at 1e and 2e days - and I've been playing since the late 70s - the phrase "the DM figures out how to roll it" was often accompanied by a lot of back & forth between the players and the DM, and discussions about similar incidents in adventures or campaigns past that may be a precedent for the current situation. While it may be nice to imagine the DM as the judge and the players as lawyers, but it was more often arguing and insulting. Then, if you played in another gaming group, that group could handle the same situation completely differently, and when you went off to college, it could be played still a third way, and a fourth or fifth...

With feats and things like grappling, tripping, disarming, jumping, standing up, etc rules added into the game in 3E, it was an attempt to give everybody the same framework under which to play. That way, you didn't have six different rules for grappling across six different groups - you had one "official" rule for grappling in an attempt to give consistency. Unfortunately, beyond the core rules, it also made the game just way too complex with all the buffing and debuffing and what stacks and what does not.

I never felt the need to build a certain type of character in 3E, and most of the gamers I gamed with tended to do things for role playing reasons (i.e., nobody dipped into three or four extra classes just to get one ability in each...) Not sure why you felt you needed to start from level 1 building your PC a certain way unless you were trying to optimize - any PC could grapple, trip, jump, etc. just like in previous editions. Only, now you had an official rule that applied.

Please re-read what I said... "rules and feats" caused the problem. Having a rule for grappling is no big deal (that's all we were doing by discussing it with the DM). But having feats for it now means that there is a wide divide between those with the feats and those without. Which means you now have to consider how you build the encounters against the players. Do I assume the party won't take those feats, in which case a player with them can roflstomp most encounters? Do I build my encounters so that someone with the feat will be challenged (relegating those without the feats unable to ever grapple effectively)? Either way, someone is going to get hosed. The creation of rules with mechanical advantages associated with them inevitably leads to fewer real choices, despite the availability of most this there are rules for...

NewJeffCT · Jul 27, 2014

Eirikrautha said:
Please re-read what I said... "rules and feats" caused the problem. Having a rule for grappling is no big deal (that's all we were doing by discussing it with the DM). But having feats for it now means that there is a wide divide between those with the feats and those without. Which means you now have to consider how you build the encounters against the players. Do I assume the party won't take those feats, in which case a player with them can roflstomp most encounters? Do I build my encounters so that someone with the feat will be challenged (relegating those without the feats unable to ever grapple effectively)? Either way, someone is going to get hosed. The creation of rules with mechanical advantages associated with them inevitably leads to fewer real choices, despite the availability of most this there are rules for...

I didn't realize feats were optional in 3E? I figured everybody took them when they were available. And, what's to stop a DM from creating bad guys who use the same feats?

and, if you're a DM whose every encounter can get stopped by one solitary grappler, you needed to re-design your encounters. The grappler never faced ranged foes? Or, how about size Huge or bigger foes? How about oozes? How about a foe with poison claws and/or bite? Not one rogue who attempted melee was doused in oil of slipperiness? Or, a foe that can teleport at will, or turn to gaseous form? Would this super grappler be wiling to grapple a vampire and get his or her levels drained? Or, a mummy and get infected with mummy rot? How about an incorporeal foe? A wizard using the Blur spell? Heck, how about some archers from across a river of lava? or, from an elevated position?

It's been five years since my 3.5E campaign ended, but those were just off the top of my head. (I remember the oil specifically, because I had an encounter stopped by a summoned lion pouncing on a mage and everybody on here was stunned that the evil mage didn't have oil of slipperiness on himself beforehand, as it gives you an auto +20 to escape artist checks...)

Mistwell · Jul 27, 2014

Shiroiken said:
Curse my lack of knowledge about popular culture!

Totally worth watching. Here is the intro:

[video=youtube_share;P_WWEF06ZUw]http://youtu.be/P_WWEF06ZUw[/video]

Ari Kanen · Jul 28, 2014

I've been playing PF the past few years, after a year or so of 4e, and I can say that I'm happy with the direction I've seen so far from 5e in terms of optimization options.

One interesting thing I noticed, especially in PF, is that PC optimization is really just an arms race against their other players. The DM can alway throw bigger bads at the party. But if the gulf in power between PCs gets to big, and the DM still wants to challenge the party as a whole with combat, then players that aren't as invested in system mastery, or want to pursue a particular vision for their character instead of the most mechanically superior options for their class, just end up being over shadowed during combat.

Some GMs are probably okay with this, or have to alter or create encounters that challenge players at an individual level. I found myself feeling like a board game designer, and that's not really what I wanted out of my TTRPGs, so I stopped playing Pathfinder.

Of course I could have worked even harder as a GM and taken those optimizers aside and try to talk them down a notch, but what I found is that the system itself encouraged optimization, starting with the point buy system. And besides, that optimizer is a long time friend, and he grew up on 3.5 so, I wasn't going to tell him that I thought he was doing it wrong. He was doing what he thought the system encouraged and there's no right or wrong about it. I realized I was fighting an uphill battle with a system that didn't encourage the type of game I wanted to GM.

We started playing 5e though, and I think he's having fun. In PF he's contribution to role playing social encounters was pretty limited and uninspiring, but last session he was super entertaining and really in character, using his background, flaws and traits. It was a surprising turn, and the other players and I even spoke about it afterwards. The system really does encourage roleplaying in a style that I remember from older editions before the rules sort of took front and center. Though without a doubt when I was 13, I'm pretty sure we didn't really understand the rules for 1e and 2e, and we were most certainly "doing it wrong" but we had fun, and I don't remember a single stat/option build, but I do remember a lot of stories. That's what I'm excited about doing again with DnD.

NewJeffCT · Jul 28, 2014

Ari Kanen said:
I've been playing PF the past few years, after a year or so of 4e, and I can say that I'm happy with the direction I've seen so far from 5e in terms of optimization options.

One interesting thing I noticed, especially in PF, is that PC optimization is really just an arms race against their other players. The DM can alway throw bigger bads at the party. But if the gulf in power between PCs gets to big, and the DM still wants to challenge the party as a whole with combat, then players that aren't as invested in system mastery, or want to pursue a particular vision for their character instead of the most mechanically superior options for their class, just end up being over shadowed during combat.

Some GMs are probably okay with this, or have to alter or create encounters that challenge players at an individual level. I found myself feeling like a board game designer, and that's not really what I wanted out of my TTRPGs, so I stopped playing Pathfinder.

Of course I could have worked even harder as a GM and taken those optimizers aside and try to talk them down a notch, but what I found is that the system itself encouraged optimization, starting with the point buy system. And besides, that optimizer is a long time friend, and he grew up on 3.5 so, I wasn't going to tell him that I thought he was doing it wrong. He was doing what he thought the system encouraged and there's no right or wrong about it. I realized I was fighting an uphill battle with a system that didn't encourage the type of game I wanted to GM.

We started playing 5e though, and I think he's having fun. In PF he's contribution to role playing social encounters was pretty limited and uninspiring, but last session he was super entertaining and really in character, using his background, flaws and traits. It was a surprising turn, and the other players and I even spoke about it afterwards. The system really does encourage roleplaying in a style that I remember from older editions before the rules sort of took front and center. Though without a doubt when I was 13, I'm pretty sure we didn't really understand the rules for 1e and 2e, and we were most certainly "doing it wrong" but we had fun, and I don't remember a single stat/option build, but I do remember a lot of stories. That's what I'm excited about doing again with DnD.

good story about 5E - XP awarded.

I found it really took a huge amount of work for me as a 3.5E DM several years back to keep my large group challenged & involved at the table when some players were semi optimized, and others just took what spells/feats they thought were cool as they leveled up (i.e., less optimized.) For the campaign climax, I actually created two huge blocks of minions (not 4e minions - just a bunch of low level fighters) that the party cleric and sorcerer (not as optimized as the party psion) could blast away at for the first few rounds of the combat. I even had my Warhammer movement trays on the table so the players would have the effect of 25 soldiers charging towards them, en masse - and, then turn 24 of the 25 soldiers to charred cinders or acid melted slag heaps. Funny thing is - they literally torched 49 out of 50 of them in the first round - one soldier was at the corner of both areas of effect and was miraculously saved, being just outside of both. (Then, I rolled a 20 for his morale check, so he thought he was invincible/blessed by his god, and charged the sorcerer, and of course, was immediately cut down...)

But, I literally had to plan things out for certain PCs in each combat. (it was a big group of 8 PCs, plus a few NPCs that tagged along)

gyor · Jul 28, 2014

Klaus said:
I suspect that 5e will revert from "optimization" being "creating game-breaking character" to its earlier meaning of min/maxing: "minimizing your weakness while maximinizing your strength".

For instance: now that all ability scores can double as saving throws, is it best to have three 18s and three 8s, or to have all 14s? Is it best to place your top scores in the abilities you have saving throw proficiency (thus maximizing those defenses), or to use those to shore up the saves you're not proficient in?

In this case, a mountain dwarf wizard is a prime example of min/maxing: you sacrifice some arcane power in exchange for a very good AC. A wood elf cleric criminal is another example: you get a Wisdom bonus and a good ranged weapon (plus a bonus to a saving throw you're not proficient in), and if you sacrifice some AC by wearing light armor, you can be a decent (and self-healing) scout.

Actually a Dex based Criminal Trickery Cleric is a cool example and flavorful, except that you can grant advantage to dex (stealth) skill checks to others, but not your self.

Still a Wood Elf that deals poison damage with his short swords and longbow, can use channel divinty to turn invisible or make spell casting dupilcates of yourself, is a very roguish flavoured Cleric, with its domain spells providing a taste of Arcane Trickster.

Ruin Explorer · Jul 28, 2014

ExploderWizard said:
According to some panicked ranting I have seen online, simply get gauntlets of ogre power. That should do the trick.

Magic items in general do look like the big area for making DMs cry. That and rolled stats, because everything people have said here about over-optimized PCs causing a problem is also true of PCs who happen to have stats entirely out-of-whack with the rest of the group. If 4/5 players have barely a 15 among them, and one PC doesn't have a stat below 14, bounded accuracy is going to ensure Captain Goodrolls will be pretty unbalanced.

With magic items, I suspect we'll just go back the "Lol ur a bad DM 4 giving them that..."-type advice of the 2E era, which is pretty unhelpful, but there you go. Plenty of ways to "break" 2E with innocuous-seeming magic items.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power don't break the game, but they do mean a PC with zero investment in STR suddenly becomes +1 less good at STR stuff than the guy with 20 STR. Not game-breaking, but definitely an issue.

[MENTION=607]Klaus[/MENTION] - Optimization has never meant that outside of rants (like the one Shawn Merwin was backpedalling on recently), so it's not much of a reversion. Normal optimization and min-maxing always have and always will be synonymous. Breaking the game is breaking the game, not optimization.

Also, note that a lot of stuff people call "broken" does not, in any way, actually break the game. PF has an amazing example of this where there's a book of supposedly impossibly overpowered feats. Only here's the thing - the vast majority of the ones for non-casters are absolutely not overpowered. They absolutely do not "break the game". They merely mean that non-casters can do somewhat better damage, and certainly more damage than expected.

So, let's keep "break the game" stuff to actual "game-breaking", with examples of how it happened, for real, in a real game, rather than broad assertions and high-handed claims. Most "game-breaking" charop doesn't happen in reality, it happens on forums, because DMs go "Haha no" to it (Organised Play stuff I dunno about - maybe it flies there). Normal optimization, however, does happen at actual tables, and doesn't break the game.

Phaezen · Jul 28, 2014

Ruin Explorer said:
Magic items in general do look like the big area for making DMs cry. That and rolled stats, because everything people have said here about over-optimized PCs causing a problem is also true of PCs who happen to have stats entirely out-of-whack with the rest of the group. If 4/5 players have barely a 15 among them, and one PC doesn't have a stat below 14, bounded accuracy is going to ensure Captain Goodrolls will be pretty unbalanced.

With magic items, I suspect we'll just go back the "Lol ur a bad DM 4 giving them that..."-type advice of the 2E era, which is pretty unhelpful, but there you go. Plenty of ways to "break" 2E with innocuous-seeming magic items.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power don't break the game, but they do mean a PC with zero investment in STR suddenly becomes +1 less good at STR stuff than the guy with 20 STR. Not game-breaking, but definitely an issue.

Something like gauntlets of Ogre Power will most likely require one of your 3 attunement slots. The other 2 will likely be armour and weapon. While this does leave you almost as strong as the fighter who has put everything into his STR stat to get it to 20 he has an open attunement slot for something else.

Ruin Explorer · Jul 28, 2014

Phaezen said:
Something like gauntlets of Ogre Power will most likely require one of your 3 attunement slots. The other 2 will likely be armour and weapon. While this does leave you almost as strong as the fighter who has put everything into his STR stat to get it to 20 he has an open attunement slot for something else.

Indeed, and it'll be very interesting to see how this plays out, because it'll depend very much on what items exist and which require attunement. You remind us of another problem for Fighters, of course - they're going to need to use 2/3 attunement slots on weapon/armour just to do their job - which will give people who don't need to do that much more flexibility.

As the DMG is still a way from being published, I suspect this is all still in flux.