D&D 5E 5th Edition has broken Bounded Accuracy

[Celtavian]

I play with a mix of real life friends and also separate roll20 guys. Opposite to you, I find it extremely unfair to expect the caster to have any buffing spells at all. The caster decides his spells, that's all there is to it. He might be able to give a melee guy a fly at the right time, but he might not. Melee guy should definintely not depend on it (dispel magic and breaking concentration come to mind for starters). The best solution is for the melee guy to have a bow etc - and use that. Yeah, against flying enemies, the melee guy is going to shine less.... which sounds about right to me.

How often do you meet flying guys anyway? At low to mid levels, not much. At high levels.... well who plays those levels, anyway? (and I guess at high levels, the caster has more slots, so more chance there will be a spare slot for fly... or a magic carpet or other fly item).

When you're fighting dragons in their lairs nearly every combat from about level 8 on, fly becomes an absolutely must.

Hasn't been nearly as bad this time around fighting humanoids and mostly ground-based attackers. I'm happy for it considering I'm the guy playing the melee martial this time (open-handed monk).

Which is another reason I cast fly. What happens when I want to play a melee martial like a barbarian or monk? If I've been telling my buddy to find his own way into battle, he's going to tell me the same thing. I play with the same group every campaign. I will feel the repercussions of doing that. If you're changing groups all the time, you may be ok doing that. If you don't, you don't want that precedent set.

Can you imagine that conversation? "Oh you played a barbarian this time, eh. Remember my greatsword fighter? Remember what you told me? Well, I don't have to tell you how this works then do I?"

 

[bgbarcus]

When that selfish paladin looks around the next party and realizes nobody wanted to play a wizard because they turn into servants, he'll just have to hire a henchman to be his personal buffer.

 

[Celtavian]

When that selfish paladin looks around the next party and realizes nobody wanted to play a wizard because they turn into servants, he'll just have to hire a henchman to be his personal buffer.

You consider the paladin player selfish because the game doesn't give him the ability to cast fly on himself? You think players should be forced to choose classes that don't require buffing from other players? Is that the new requirement with the concentration mechanic? Did no one mention how the concentration mechanic created this problem during the playtest? Did the game designers really not see this one coming?

Some of you seem to have this image of the player looking at my wizard saying, "You must cast fly on me or else?" The player did not do this. I knew what needed to be done and did it. As I said, we're friends. I don't need to be asked to cast a fly spell to get the player into battle. I did it without him having to say anything because the problem was self-evident.

 

[bgbarcus]

Some of you seem to have this image of the player looking at my wizard saying, "You must cast fly on me or else?"

That is exactly the way the discussion has sounded.

If the entire topic is your displeasure with how concentration works, that is a different discussion than what has been happening here.

For myself, I'm perfectly happy with how concentration works. That one simple rule prevents wizards from becoming the unstoppable god-like beings that showed up in earlier editions. If anything, the limits imposed by concentration should be seen as part of the challenge that makes the game fun. Stacking a bunch of buff spells on one character to turn them into a unstoppable force might be fun a couple of times but it gets really dull when that same tactic gets pulled out for every big monster. Making that more difficult is a good thing in my mind.

Sometimes the best answer is to tuck tail and run, hoping to survive long enough to return with a better plan. But if that plan relies solely on a concentration spell working I'll refer you back to early in the thread when Dispel Magic was mentioned.

 

[KarinsDad]

Outsiders, even lower CR outsiders rely on damage resistance to last. Lycanthropes are way too easy without damage resistance. Golems. As you stated a few undead like wights and banshees. If a player doesn't pick up silver weapons, they can be tough fights. Once the players bypass DR, they're not much different from everything else.

True. The question is, at what levels does the DM draw the line for "it's ok to have one magic weapon in the party", "it's ok to have the two magic weapons in the party". etc.?

 

[OB1]

Sounds like your player doesn't just want to be the GWF concept, but wants "GWF who can fly", and I'd tell that player that sorry, that concept doesn't really exist in the game unless he wants to multi-class to a caster and get that spell himself. I.e., building a character concept that is dependent on your other players doing exactly what you want is pretty poor form. And a bit selfish.
.

The concept does exist, it just takes a while to get there. It took me 13 levels and 5 months of playtime, but the first encounter I had where my Half Orc Eldrich Knight cast fly on himself and took off after a Red Dragon with his great sword is so far my favorite moment playing 5E.

Overall, though, I love that 5E is built so that players don't have to optimize themselves or their party to succeed. Yes, sub optimal will have a harder time and die more often and super optimal will roll many combats, but that's nothing that can't be fixed by a halfway decent DM tweaking encounters a bit.

 

[KarinsDad]

Invalid logic to you? I think if you're friends with someone, you will help them have fun in a game you're playing primarily for fun. I think if you do look across at your buddy and tell him you won't buff him with a fly spell when you know he can't get into battle any other way, you and he aren't very good friends.

I'll just halt this discussion right now. We're never, ever going to agree as to what a friend does for another friend. I consider it extremely important for a friend to play a group game in a manner that helps the overall party. If he is playing selfishly such as playing a healer that won't heal or the arcane caster that won't buff, that isn't enjoyable for most of the group. It creates a very bad precedent at the table in my experience. We all have different ideas of what constitutes friendship. I've always been of the mind that you help your buddies have fun or succeed, that includes games.

My friends play at my table.

Instead of being a dork and forcing it to be one concentration spell at a time like some game designer envisioned as "fun", I got rid of the concentration limit.

That's what friends do at my table. We do not force or expect other players to cast specific spells on us, and limit what other spells they can cast, and then write down on message boards that our idea of friendship is somehow morally superior to other people's idea of friendship. Instead, we get rid of the rules that minimize fun at our table.


Everyone has different ideas on what a given player should do at a given point in time in the game. The player of the healer might think than an offensive spell is more appropriate this round. The player of the wizard might think that a Web is better than helping the fighter to fly. But if your melee types are not taking any sort of ranged attacks though, there is no way I would expect any other player at my table to make up for that. It's an extremely selfish thing for the fighter player to expect.

Every fighter should be carrying a bow or have some other type of ranged attack. Not doing so is dumb. Yes, it's less damage. Tell that to the player of the second level wizard whose ranged attacks sucked too. Too darn bad. Suck it up. Use some of those precious Ability Score Improvements to bump your Dex up.

Every player should try to get his hands on some healing potions and not expect the healers to save their bacon all of the time either.

The concept that a given player must help out the team in a specific way and if he is not doing so, he's not really a friend is very bizarre.

 

[DaveDash]

Your group is very different from my group. I have one player that doesn't try to maximize his abilities. Every other player looks for every edge including maximizing buffs. I have been holding off on handing out magic items. A lot of creatures rely on damage resistance against non-magical weapons to provide a challenge. I feel if I hand out a magic weapon too early, I'll make a lot of fights trivial.

I thought the same thing until I got the DMG. Many high level monsters assume that 75% of the group will be able to bypass it's DR, and that's already factored into its CR.

In other words, the "defensive" CR of a creature isn't influenced much by DR once you get to CR10 and above.

There's a few flaws in the DMG/MM assumptions though, mostly when it comes to regen that can be bypassed by a damage type -ie, vampires. I've found its basically best to just assumes PCs WILL bypass this regen and I halve the effective HP it gives.

 

[Celtavian]

My friends play at my table.

Instead of being a dork and forcing it to be one concentration spell at a time like some game designer envisioned as "fun", I got rid of the concentration limit.

That's what friends do at my table. We do not force or expect other players to cast specific spells on us, and limit what other spells they can cast, and then write down on message boards that our idea of friendship is somehow morally superior to other people's idea of friendship. Instead, we get rid of the rules that minimize fun at our table.


Everyone has different ideas on what a given player should do at a given point in time in the game. The player of the healer might think than an offensive spell is more appropriate this round. The player of the wizard might think that a Web is better than helping the fighter to fly. But if your melee types are not taking any sort of ranged attacks though, there is no way I would expect any other player at my table to make up for that. It's an extremely selfish thing for the fighter player to expect.

Every fighter should be carrying a bow or have some other type of ranged attack. Not doing so is dumb. Yes, it's less damage. Tell that to the player of the second level wizard whose ranged attacks sucked too. Too darn bad. Suck it up. Use some of those precious Ability Score Improvements to bump your Dex up.

Every player should try to get his hands on some healing potions and not expect the healers to save their bacon all of the time either.

The concept that a given player must help out the team in a specific way and if he is not doing so, he's not really a friend is very bizarre.

This is an obvious miscommunication. That was not what I was saying. If you're a friend, you're going to cast the fly without them asking. If he's a friend, he's not going to demand it. If he's sitting there with his greatsword and lonely puppy eyes (just a joke), you want to give him a hand. My main point is I play at a table with my friends, thus I feel a natural inclination to assist them. Nothing is forced other than the parameters of the game system and our choice following them. My response was for those people telling me, "You don't have to do this" and other such excuses. Sure, I don't have to do it. I do it because they're my buddies and we're all trying to win. I'm sure you understand the natural inclination to assist your buddies when playing with a group of long time friends. I've known every guy at the table over twenty years. They do the same for me when they can without me asking.

I think I've come up a concentration rule that suits the group better. We're going to give all 9 level casters an ability called Extra Concentration at 5th level. This allows a caster to concentrate on a second spell that is half the level of the highest level spell you can cast. That should prevent the craziness of 3E, while opening up the game a little for casters to have some fun while still buffing the party.

 

[Celtavian]

I thought the same thing until I got the DMG. Many high level monsters assume that 75% of the group will be able to bypass it's DR, and that's already factored into its CR.

In other words, the "defensive" CR of a creature isn't influenced much by DR once you get to CR10 and above.

There's a few flaws in the DMG/MM assumptions though, mostly when it comes to regen that can be bypassed by a damage type -ie, vampires. I've found its basically best to just assumes PCs WILL bypass this regen and I halve the effective HP it gives.

Level 10 is about my demarcation point as well. Bypassing regeneration way too easy, just like 3E. A little disappointing.