D&D 5E is a Fighter/cleric etc less powerful using a shield

[Istbor]

Sacrosanct and Istbor, you can keep talking all you like.

Will still not change the basic fact that it is possible to create a character with devastating offense and decent defense.

Not to mention the super-fundamental meta-fact that you can pick your offense, but not your defense. That is, you get to choose who you attack. You don't get to choose who attacks you.

Hence, doing a too-great job on defense will only mean the DM has the monsters attack someone else. (Had there been widespread aggro abilities, then it could have been a thing to make a career out of forcing monsters to attack the unhittable)

A party is never stronger than its weakest member, and there's no use being significantly stronger than the weakest link. Put your energy on offense instead, to end fights earlier.

If you are already decently strong on defense, and get to choose between getting even stronger on defense, and gaining offense, it stands to reason you should choose offense. Only when your defense is no longer sufficient does it pay to shore it up.

This is the minmaxers perspective, the only one to really matter. The perspective that realizes that the only behavior you need to optimize is your DM's.

I don't disagree. I think you can make characters however you want. Glass cannon, balanced, or defensive. I am only differing in how one judges 'powerful character'. I too will sometimes eschew defense and build solely to take down an enemy as quickly as I can. There is nothing wrong in that, and that character is powerful in that regard.

I can't give a definitive answer (opinion) if I do not know how they are hoping to measure power.

You are not correct by stating that only a minmaxer's perspective is the one that matters.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Sacrosanct and Istbor, you can keep talking all you like.

Please try to keep this dismissive attitude to yourself. Thanks.

Will still not change the basic fact that it is possible to create a character with devastating offense and decent defense.

Where did I even remotely make this argument? Arguing against a strawman doesn't make your position any more true.

Not to mention the super-fundamental meta-fact that you can pick your offense, but not your defense. That is, you get to choose who you attack. You don't get to choose who attacks you.

Hence, doing a too-great job on defense will only mean the DM has the monsters attack someone else. (Had there been widespread aggro abilities, then it could have been a thing to make a career out of forcing monsters to attack the unhittable)

A party is never stronger than its weakest member, and there's no use being significantly stronger than the weakest link. Put your energy on offense instead, to end fights earlier.

.

Sorry, but this is not true. It simply isn't. I've already given you examples that do come up in play and yet you still continue to argue against it? That makes no sense to me. Yeah, there are times when you don't get to choose who attacks you, but there are also lots of times where you do get to choose who attacks you. It's called battlefield positioning. In most battles, the monsters pretty much have to fight the front line guys because a) that's who is in front of them, b) they can't get around them, and/or c) if they do get around them, they open themselves up to a bunch of AoO, and d) there are plenty of spells/abilities that control the monsters (holds, prone, grapple, etc).

Your argument simply isn't always true, nor even mostly true. Please stop acting like your opinion and game style preference is universally true, especially in the face of direct contradictory evidence. I've already proven, with basic math, how always choosing offense is not the way to go, unless you know all those things in advance that players should never know, nor can reliably predict.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

No, that's not something you can estimate with a fair degree of certainty unless you as a player pre-read the adventure you're going on, and knows exactly when and how the DM will implement the encounters --OR-- the players dictate with 100% certainty when and where they take long rests, regardless of what's actually going on in the game world.

I wish people would stop using this argument. Seriously, who uses pre-written adventures?

If your DM is keeping to the encounter guidelines in the book, or if you have a means of identifying and avoiding things that are way stronger than you, it's difficult for a high-level character to die. It's just a matter of statistics and probabilities. The deck is overwhelmingly stacked in favor of the PCs. You don't need to play conservatively, the way other editions may have encouraged.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I wish people would stop using this argument. Seriously, who uses pre-written adventures?

Are you seriously asking this?

If your DM is keeping to the encounter guidelines in the book, or if you have a means of identifying and avoiding things that are way stronger than you, it's difficult for a high-level character to die. It's just a matter of statistics and probabilities. The deck is overwhelmingly stacked in favor of the PCs. You don't need to play conservatively, the way other editions may have encouraged.

The point is that unless you as a player know how many encounters, and what composition those encounters are, and when and where they occur, you cannot in fact predict with any certainty how much of your resources you'll have left before your next long rest. Those are dangerous assumptions that get PCs killed. Not to mention, to play with that style is nothing more than an exercise in math, and to me, would be incredibly boring if I could predict every encounter and every adventuring day with such certainty. Why bother having combat at all if you can predict all of that?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The point is that unless you as a player know how many encounters, and what composition those encounters are, and when and where they occur, you cannot in fact predict with any certainty how much of your resources you'll have left before your next long rest. Those are dangerous assumptions that get PCs killed.

I can predict with confidence that any reasonable combination of encounters amounting to 54000 adjusted experience or less worth of level 12 or lower creatures will not kill a group of four level 12 PCs.

 

[jgsugden]

How important is your offense? Your defense?

A barbarian probably is better with a huge weapon and less AC. A bit of extra damage goes a long way for them when they almost always have advantage on attacks and get bonus multipliers on crits. They also tend to have DR and HPs to spare.

A cleric can afford to give us a few points of damage per hit if it means less times that they need to make concentration checks for their spells, etc... They tend to have fewer HPs and do not have resistance as often as well.

Both approaches make sense, but you'll generally want to consider what makes the most sense for the character and their needs rather than ask which approach is better in an absolute sense.

 

[Leatherhead]

Clerics can cast spells with a shield in their hand.

Which makes shields totally worth it for spellcasting Clerics.

As for Fighters, they can also get shields and damaging Cantrips. As well as other ways to make them useful.

And I wish the Orcs would try to run out of melee combat, the OA's will only make them die faster.

 

[ccs]

I can predict with confidence that any reasonable combination of encounters amounting to 54000 adjusted experience or less worth of level 12 or lower creatures will not kill a group of four level 12 PCs.

I guess the real questions are: 1) What constitutes "any reasonable combination"? 2) Who decides that?

Or is that the dodge you'll trot out when the TPK occurs? "But that wasn't a reasonable combination!



As for who uses pre-written adventures? Apparently lot of people.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

I can predict with confidence that any reasonable combination of encounters amounting to 54000 adjusted experience or less worth of level 12 or lower creatures will not kill a group of four level 12 PCs.

A lot of an encounter also depends on how the DM is playing the enemies. If a DM wanted to, he could kill the party with virtually any enemy by relying on cheesy tactics.

In keeping with the theme of the thread, take for instance...24 Priests (54k Adjusted XP). Depending on the circumstances, that fight should be super easy (clustered enemies in an open room) for a 12th level PC's to obliterate. But change the setting to a crowded Cathedral with 1 Priest visible and 23 Priests disguised as commoners there for the ceremony, and the fight gets much harder...especially if each Priest uses Spirit Guardians and rushes the Party one by one.

In a recent game I could have killed 2 characters if I wanted to act cheesy. One PC was under the effects of Hold Person, but as the DM I chose for the Wights to ignore that character and fight other characters. Later, another character dropped and the bad guy (Necromancer) was surrounded by all 4 PC's, the 0 HP Sorcerer who had failed 2 Death Saves being directly in front. As the DM I *could* have killed her, but it would be kinda cheesy. The tension was already high, so no need to be cruel.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I guess the real questions are: 1) What constitutes "any reasonable combination"? 2) Who decides that?

For the purposes of this thread, it would have to be an encounter that would have been winnable if you had conserved all of your HP, because your shield protected you from damage in an earlier encounter. If you wouldn't have charged straight at 135 orcs while you were at full strength, then it's not fair to condemn the reckless party for not doing so while they were at half strength.

I maintain that there is a degree of threat where conservative play will allow you to survive, and reckless play is foolish; but, due to the encounter and daily experience budgets in 5E, you're hardly ever going to see that.