D&D 5E Can an elf rogue be a decent archer in (Basic) D&D 5th edition?

[Ruin Explorer]

I'll fourth here. (HA!) I even printed Page 42 out for my players and GAVE them a copy, and they still ended up "Encounter, Encounter, At-Will x infinity, OH $#!+ Daily!" nearly every combat. Additionally, Early Skill Challenges also meant "pick your highest skill and spam it until successful, if your highest skill isn't applicable, aid another".

Response from the group. "Don't do that! We need your +2 to hit from Lance of Faith! Now I just missed my Encounter power! You're the cleric, stay back and heal us so we don't die!"

So he got off (well, was thrown off; the dice weren't agreeing with anyone that game). But that moment sticks out in my mind as to how much a group of awesome players got mired up in the numbers/stacking/powers system.

Problem exists between table and chair, as it were! Not you, your players. If that wasn't enough to convince them, they really were the issue. Literally nothing you've said suggests that the rules were the problem, per se. Except Skill Challenges, I think we can all agree that they sucked hard until DMG2. So there's that!

By the way, did the group disenjoy the encounter you described, or just you? Or did no-one disenjoy it?

I have the same experience as Sadras here. The guidelines on page 42 could be summarized as "don't do this, it sucks", and there was a very strong implications that any free-form "stunt" you did could not approach an official power in strength. I once had a rogue player protest when a bard tried to do with Acrobatics something a lot less impressive than the rogue could do with an encounter power. Niche protection was strong, and enforced through powers.

So the 4E rules might not explicitly say stunts are restricted to obscurity, but this is still an emergent quality of the rules that both I and Sadras noted.

Wow. This is just so much silly business in such a small space. Page 42 absolutely cannot be reasonably or fairly summarized that way, there are no such implications whatsoever (seriously, quote them or cite them if you are going to insist on that), and that is not an "emergent quality" of 4E, and frankly, saying that it is as a fact, which you are, strikes me as edition-warring.

Niche protection was strong I agree - it's extremely strong in 5E, so I'm not exactly sure what your argument is there. I cannot, for example, in 5E, just decide to be an awesome healer, if I am the Fighter - or indeed if I am any non-caster (as of October). Why? Because that's a niche, which as been protected. By the rules. Using powers. Likewise, as a Fighter, I cannot decide to be an awesome stealth dude. Why? Because that niche has been protected. So I'm not sure you even know what you're arguing there.

Your example problem, too, shows bad player behaviour, not bad rules, so I'm not sure what you think that proves.

Lets just take 4e for example...and these are preferences for style of play which assist in play immersion
1. Our group prefers the ol' Vancian style of spell casting (house rule made)
Once you begin messing with rate of powers, it starts affecting balance, which is a critical component of 4e (more house rules)

2. Our group prefers the cleric as the actual healer (house rule made)
Now you start having problems with screaming people to a state of awake and healthy, other "healing" related powers need to be looked at. (more house rules)

3. Optimisation (of ability scores) is almost a necessary evil, it wasnt too our liking (house rule made)
Again you messing with a core element of the system - its affects monsters, DC checks....(more house rules)

the list goes on...

I agree that if you don't want to play 4E, you shouldn't play 4E, which is what you seem to be saying here. Yeah, if you hate all that, 4E is not for you. The thing is, if you dislike all that, right now, it looks like 5E is not for you, because right now, 5E is pretty hard to house-rule back into anything resembling 4E - you'd basically have to re-write the entire game from the ground up. Personally, I don't need that, but it's the same logic you're using - you want to completely change how the game plays - you need to basically re-write it, well, yes...

Further, Mistwell certainly shares my 3E experience, as did many others, so...

Thing is, making house rules for style of play preferrences in 4e wasnt as easy as it was in 3.x or as it is in 5e, because 4e was a tight working complete system, pull one cog out here and you affect a myriad of other components. That was our experience with it, its great that you didnt feel the need to make house rules, but for those that did because they didnt want to be forced into a magic-everything world, it was a pain.

Magic-everything world? What? 4E is the only D&D edition, ever, that doesn't have to feature a "magic-everything" world - where you could have a party consisting solely of non-magic users, and not be kind of screwed. You could have a Warlord, a Controller Ranger, a Fighter, a Rogue and you'd have all the roles covered (and covered well) without magic. That objection literally makes no sense to me.

I wasn't previously talking extensive, class-changing house rules, though, so you've changed the subject, to be clear.

I was talking at-the-table play, stunts, and so on. For me and many others, 4E brought that back. Not so for some others, and that's sad, but I don't believe it crushed them any more than 3E.

According to you, using page 42 - the wizard, rogue and leprechaun characters could do the same thing multiple times, but the Fighter, using the rules, could only use that power once in an encounter. Hell and then you tack on other "conditions" with those moves and combat goes wild. It certainly would have been more fun, I grant you that

??? I literally have no idea what you are on about, but I'm glad that it would have been more fun!

Anyway, I'm not going to argue this further, because it feels like some people want to have edition war and claim 4E was the devil or something, that bewitched their players into evil (or at least boredom!). The cold fact of it is, that no-one has cited anything which actually says that niche protection had to be enforced when doing Page 42 stuff (and frankly, it makes no sense for it to be), and indeed no-one has cited any actual, real, 4E rules as problematic, per se (except Skill Challenges, which weren't the topic of discussion, but yes, they sucked), rather than player reactions to their character sheets. Niche protection exists in every edition of D&D, and 4E enforced it differently to, but no more harshly than any other edition. I'm not negating anyone's experiences, note, I'm sure that all happened, but the reasons stated for some of them are seriously sketchy.

NB: One thing Mistwell mentioned was power cards - and this is interesting - I think much of the problem was the fact that people often had power cards and the like, and the physical nature of these made them think very much inside the box, like a wargame. I've seen the same thing as far back as 2E - when we had spell cards, the mages pretty much thought entirely of those spells, and often just shuffled through them looking for a solution to their problem - rather than thinking about their character as an actual character. So I've seen that - but that's not rules - that's presentation.

 

[Sadras]

Problem exists between table and chair, as it were! Not you, your players.

I dont believe @Remathilis (and his welcome to correct me if im wrong) was implying the blame was with him, his players or any furniture in the room. I think he was reflecting that 4e was not conducive for his group.

By the way funny post @Remathilis .

Wow. This is just so much silly business in such a small space. Page 42 absolutely cannot be reasonably or fairly summarized that way, there are no such implications whatsoever (seriously, quote them or cite them if you are going to insist on that), and that is not an "emergent quality" of 4E, and frankly, saying that it is as a fact, which you are, strikes me as edition-warring.

Stop blowing the edition warring trumpet for a second and just accept that there are quite a few groups who have found 4e not to their tastes - and if all these posters experienced similar things then you should at least consider that the rules as such were not presented clearly enough for what type of play you are describing. At least you should be open to consider it.

Your example problem, too, shows bad player behaviour, not bad rules, so I'm not sure what you think that proves.

Sure, I have bad players too. This is starting to be a trend in your debate.

I agree that if you don't want to play 4E, you shouldn't play 4E, which is what you seem to be saying here.

No it's not. I'm saying rule making on the fly for situations in 5e appears to me, to have less ramifications than in 4e.

The thing is, if you dislike all that, right now, it looks like 5E is not for you,

No, I love 5e. I LOVE IT.

because right now, 5E is pretty hard to house-rule back into anything resembling 4E

I never said I wanted to do that. I'm not sure why you said that.

Personally, I don't need that, but it's the same logic you're using - you want to completely change how the game plays - you need to basically re-write it, well, yes...

Well, that was my problem with it, it played essentially only one way unless you invested a lot of time to change it. A lot of time. It is a well crafted system, that is requires care when changing things to play a different way. 5e doesnt have that problem - because it was designed differently. It was designed with a basic core with optional modules. It indicates a flexible system - but might lose out on the balance in the long run.

Further, Mistwell certainly shares my 3E experience, as did many others, so...

Which is? That it was hard to do a trip, bull's rush, grapple manoeuvre? Really he said that?

Magic-everything world? What? 4E is the only D&D edition, ever, that doesn't have to feature a "magic-everything" world - where you could have a party consisting solely of non-magic users, and not be kind of screwed. You could have a Warlord, a Controller Ranger, a Fighter, a Rogue and you'd have all the roles covered (and covered well) without magic. That objection literally makes no sense to me.

I'd best not comment.

I wasn't previously talking extensive, class-changing house rules, though, so you've changed the subject, to be clear.

Fair enough.

I was talking at-the-table play, stunts, and so on. For me and many others, 4E brought that back. Not so for some others, and that's sad, but I don't believe it crushed them any more than 3E.

I still dont see why 3.x crushed them. From what I have seen on message boards about complaints of 3.x - performing stunts was not one of them. Honestly. That was not even in the top ten 3.x gripe list.

Anyway, I'm not going to argue this further, because it feels like some people want to have edition war and claim 4E was the devil or something, that bewitched their players into evil (or at least boredom!).

Nope. Personally I view 4e as a natural evolution of D&D. There was some good and some bad (for me). I have stolen the good for 5e. I love ritual magic, second wind, surges (as will power, we use it differently)...etc You are completely misrepresenting everything with your statement like bad media.

The cold fact of it is, that no-one has cited anything which actually says that niche protection had to be enforced when doing Page 42 stuff (and frankly, it makes no sense for it to be), and indeed no-one has cited any actual, real, 4E rules as problematic, per se (except Skill Challenges, which weren't the topic of discussion, but yes, they sucked), rather than player reactions to their character sheets. Niche protection exists in every edition of D&D, and 4E enforced it differently to, but no more harshly than any other edition. I'm not negating anyone's experiences, note, I'm sure that all happened, but the reasons stated for some of them are seriously sketchy.

4e DMG Page 42 "A few combat situations come up rarely enough that the rules for them intentionally aren't covered in the Players Handbook - in particular, mounted combat and combat underwater."

From your series of posts, it sounds like your players' stunts were

• not few;
• not rarely enough;
• not mounted combat; and
• not combat underwater.

It appears the creators of the game were proposing you use the listed powers at least 90+% of the time (depending on your definition of few and rarely enough). According to you your playgroup did not, I put it to you sir that you did not play 4e, but your own hybrid, while the rest of the posters you disparaged did. It really doesnt matter what you played as long as you and your group had fun (most important), but given your groups playstyle you definitely are not the Authoritaaaa on what is and what isn't 4e.

NB: One thing Mistwell mentioned was power cards - and this is interesting - I think much of the problem was the fact that people often had power cards and the like, and the physical nature of these made them think very much inside the box, like a wargame. I've seen the same thing as far back as 2E - when we had spell cards, the mages pretty much thought entirely of those spells, and often just shuffled through them looking for a solution to their problem - rather than thinking about their character as an actual character. So I've seen that - but that's not rules - that's presentation.

Yeah that too was a problem - but our two groups did not use power cards and suffered from the same thing. It was more than just presentation. It was a systemic issue.

 

[Remathilis]

Problem exists between table and chair, as it were! Not you, your players. If that wasn't enough to convince them, they really were the issue. Literally nothing you've said suggests that the rules were the problem, per se. Except Skill Challenges, I think we can all agree that they sucked hard until DMG2. So there's that!

By the way, did the group disenjoy the encounter you described, or just you? Or did no-one disenjoy it?

Having played with most of those guys in 2e, 3.5, and Pathfinder (along with some other games, like Saga) I can say it was the first time I saw something like that. I was used to them asking to do interesting maneuvers (not always, but sometimes) but I never saw them get upset that someone was going "off script". I think it was do to a lot of problems that 4e had in 2008 (wonky math, solo's having too much hp, impossible to hit ACs without near constant buffing, etc). Still, even some fairly good roleplayers got sucked into the math/powers/cards system, so much so that when one tried to do something else, he got chastised for it, was telling.

And they started out enjoying the fight. About 9 rounds in, they didn't so much. Then the dragon took nearly 60 points of "divine damage" to end the fight quicker and it got good again. Still, the whole event left a sour taste that began to spell the end of our 4dventure...

 

[Sadras]

Wow. This is just so much silly business in such a small space. Page 42 absolutely cannot be reasonably or fairly summarized that way, there are no such implications whatsoever (seriously, quote them or cite them if you are going to insist on that), and that is not an "emergent quality" of 4E, and frankly, saying that it is as a fact, which you are, strikes me as edition-warring.

4e DMG "You can safely use the high value, though - 2d8+5 fire damage. If Shiera had used a 7th-level encounter power and Sneak Attack, she might have dealt 4d6 (plus her Dexterity modifier), so you're not giving away too much with this damage."


You bolded the below section of @Starfox 's comment

and there was a very strong implications that any free-form "stunt" you did could not approach an official power in strength.​

based on the quote from page 42, it appears @Starfox was 100% right. You might want to edit that part of your post.

 

[Remathilis]

I dont believe @Remathilis (and his welcome to correct me if im wrong) was implying the blame was with him, his players or any furniture in the room. I think he was reflecting that 4e was not conducive for his group.

By the way funny post @Remathilis .

The blame (if there was some) fell in how those early 2008 fights went. Lots of them were sloggy, grindy messes due to lots of reasons (No one in the group had a 20 prime stat, lack of expertise-style feats, solo defenses and hp being too high, etc). The problem is you only have one chance to make a first impression, and 2008 D&D was a terrible first impression for 4e. The simple fact that it required us to "relearn" how to play D&D after nearly 15 years was enough to damn it, no matter how good it got later (I still maintain that if Essentials had been released in 2008, we'd be playing 4e today. Alas).

We played it for nearly a year. We gave up some time after PHB2 came out. It began to get better, but by then Pathfinder was out and we saw no need to play something that felt half-baked, unplaytested, and incomplete. It did mature into a good system, but by then the damage was done for a LOT of players.

And the chairs weren't that comfortable either. ;-)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Stop blowing the edition warring trumpet for a second and just accept that there are quite a few groups who have found 4e not to their tastes - and if all these posters experienced similar things then you should at least consider that the rules as such were not presented clearly enough for what type of play you are describing. At least you should be open to consider it.

I'm not the one claiming things about a game that are demonstrably untrue, and that you refuse to cite or source in any way. So...

I never said I wanted to do that. I'm not sure why you said that.

If you re-read my post, carefully, you will see. You appear to have speed-read it the way you speed-read Dausuul's calculations earlier.

Well, that was my problem with it, it played essentially only one way unless you invested a lot of time to change it. A lot of time. It is a well crafted system, that is requires care when changing things to play a different way. 5e doesnt have that problem - because it was designed differently. It was designed with a basic core with optional modules. It indicates a flexible system - but might lose out on the balance in the long run.

Agreed.

IWhich is? That it was hard to do a trip, bull's rush, grapple manoeuvre? Really he said that?

Did I? If so, quote please.

II still dont see why 3.x crushed them. From what I have seen on message boards about complaints of 3.x - performing stunts was not one of them. Honestly. That was not even in the top ten 3.x gripe list.

I've explained this. If you don't get it, I can't help you further. If you try and do something clever in 3.XE, and you don't have the precise combination of skills and Feats, then unless your DM ignores the rules, overrides the rules, you will likely end up making multiple d20 rolls to achieve the stunt. Every time you roll the dice, the chance of failure becomes significantly higher (it's like Disadvantage, to use a 5E analogy). Seriously if you don't see that, that's it. Feats compounded the issue by literally making it "not allowed" to do certain things unless you had the Feat, or applying -4 or 8 penalties to fairly basic stuff.

As for "it's not even in the 3E gripe list", well, dude, "Page 42 sux" isn't even in the "4E gripe list" - indeed several of your complaints aren't. Does that mean that your complaints are invalid?

I4e DMG Page 42 "A few combat situations come up rarely enough that the rules for them intentionally aren't covered in the Players Handbook - in particular, mounted combat and combat underwater."

From your series of posts, it sounds like your players' stunts were

• not few;
• not rarely enough;
• not mounted combat; and
• not combat underwater.

This is possibly the funniest thing I've read on ENWorld. You seem to think that the chapter description for an entire Additional Rules sub-chapter (which starts on page 42) is the page 42 rules.

Nothing on Page 42 has anything to do with Aquatic or Mounted Combat - that's on Page 45 and 46. You really need to read this stuff before attempting to argue based on it - again you haven't bothered.]

The actual text you are looking for is two lines down, under the heading "Actions The Rules Don't Cover"

"Your presence as the Dungeon Master is what makes D&D such a great game. You can make it possible for players to try anything that they can imagine. That means that it's your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them".

Seriously, Sadras, what I am learning here is that you aren't bothering to read stuff - you didn't read Dausuul's stuff, you didn't read my stuff, and you didn't read Page 42. If I see anything else from you which shows you didn't read it, I'm just going to go with ignore, frankly.

 

[DDNFan]

4e DMG "You can safely use the high value, though - 2d8+5 fire damage. If Shiera had used a 7th-level encounter power and Sneak Attack, she might have dealt 4d6 (plus her Dexterity modifier), so you're not giving away too much with this damage."


You bolded the below section of Starfox 's comment


based on the quote from page 42, it appears Starfox was 100% right. You might want to edit that part of your post.

Let's not let facts intrude on the "it's the players' fault for playing the game by the rules and realizing their own powers are always strictly better than the max benefit of improvisation" -argument.

It was absolutely a systemic rules problem. Improvising should have a chance of killing an enemy outright, otherwise your normal abilities will probably kill the monster anyway within a round or two. As a guy who loves D&D improv and stunts, it was mathematically undeniably inferior to not use your own powers, which were often augmented by feats, class features, magic items, and synergy with class features, feats, and magic items owned by other members of your party.

If the enemy had received cold vuln last round, are we expected that anyone in their right mind wouldn't take advantage of that? Part of being a team player is working with the team. Bypassing the normal rules for powers often just means you are throwing away 100% of the synergy you could have had.

This is bad game design, IMO. The problem was an overly complex inter-locking set of benefits that build upon one another, like when you do a basic attack you gain this benefit with this weapon after you took this feat and class feature, so that the warlord grants you a basic attack it will trigger all those things. If the warlord doesn't do that, he's throwing all that possible optimisation away. The quote from the 4 DMG doesn't even come close to realizing all the lost synergy. It was poorly thought out. Players aren't stupid, they were playing the game well, from not only a meta-game optimisation standpoint, but also an in-game party synergy "team player" standpoint, by not using P42.

Picking an inferior mechanical choice repeatedly (even ever) doesn't make you a better roleplayer, it just means the system is badly designed, objectively speaking.

The whole point of improvising as a PC (unless you need to, say, you don't have your weapon or are in an anti magic zone), is to get a leg up on the enemies over and beyond what you can do with your normal attack routine. If that means bypassing the fight entirely, that's great. But if it means throwing a rock on the switch and the Rancor dies instantly, because you noticed that it was standing under it, then that's something that should have instant auto-kill written all over it. Nowhere on page 42 does it mention that type of creativity being rewarded, all in the name of "balance". The occasional brilliant idea that kills all the enemies in the next room should work, without the DMG telling the DM to worry about oh this was supposed to be a balanced encounter, not a walk in the park because one player came up with a killer idea and executed it properly.

Monte Cook wrote an article on this exact topic recently. ("When boring is good")

"Balanced encounter" design prevents smart play overcoming unbalanced odds, which are far more exciting and heroic to overcome. (Never tell me the odds). There is no such thing as a million to one scenario in a 4th edition combat or adventure, because the system not only doesn't encourage it, it actively prevents it. It was designed that way on purpose. Balanced encounter design breaks several core assumptions of D&D through the ages, such as that there are unwinnable-by-straight-combat scenarios presented to players in standard modules. If you set up a combat, players are told that they stand a good chance of winning it, by the rules. This means they do not need to even try to improvise, further reducing their incentive to even bother.

Ever hear of "necessity is the mother of invention?" Well, if the players don't need to ever improvise in order to win all these "balanced" encounters, then they don't need to invent, thus they won't. This is just common sense, man. Don't waste the entire group's time trying to improve outcomes that are strictly (as per the DMG, p42) worse mechanically than your AEDU. It's hogging the spotlight to achieve an inferior result, which is not only poor teamwork, but annoying as hell.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

4e DMG "You can safely use the high value, though - 2d8+5 fire damage. If Shiera had used a 7th-level encounter power and Sneak Attack, she might have dealt 4d6 (plus her Dexterity modifier), so you're not giving away too much with this damage."

You bolded the below section of @Starfox 's comment

based on the quote from page 42, it appears @Starfox was 100% right. You might want to edit that part of your post.

You've misread it, again - there's nothing about niche protection or "not approaching an official power" there - that's something you're adding - it's just noting that, even though it's more powerful than an At-Will, it's not ludicrously powerful - this isn't some sort of limiter, but rather they are allaying fears that Page 42 might be too powerful.

Again, point me to where it says you CAN'T or SHOULDN'T exceed other role's powers or the like?

 

[Sadras]

This is possibly the funniest thing I've read on ENWorld. You seem to think that the chapter description for an entire Additional Rules sub-chapter (which starts on page 42) is the page 42 rules.

Nothing on Page 42 has anything to do with Aquatic or Mounted Combat - that's on Page 45 and 46. You really need to read this stuff before attempting to argue based on it - again you haven't bothered.]

The actual text you are looking for is two lines down, under the heading "Actions The Rules Don't Cover"

"Your presence as the Dungeon Master is what makes D&D such a great game. You can make it possible for players to try anything that they can imagine. That means that it's your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them".

Seriously, Sadras, what I am learning here is that you aren't bothering to read stuff - you didn't read Dausuul's stuff, you didn't read my stuff, and you didn't read Page 42. If I see anything else from you which shows you didn't read it, I'm just going to go with ignore, frankly.

Excellent. You do realise that ADDITIONAL RULES is the lead header for everything else that follows in the rest of the chapter so it applies to everyting even your "stunts". Do yourself a favour and look at the index.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Excellent. You do realise that ADDITIONAL RULES is the lead header for everything else that follows in the rest of the chapter so it applies to everyting even your "stunts". Do yourself a favour and look at the index.

Ok, I am putting you on Ignore now, Sadras, so bye, you had some good points about other stuff, but when you're seriously asserting that I wasn't playing by the rules because I didn't use the Page 42 rules for Underwater and Mounted Combat, which you did, then I can't help you.