D&D 5E (2014) A New Culture?

[cmad1977]

BUT THE DPR MAN! It's the only metric to determine the effectiveness of a character!


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[Warpiglet]

I think that's part of your issue. You're looking at it as though the game is on the DM's part where he's trying to set up the very closest, most razor-thin chance of being the truest challenge-- without actually killing the players.

Wherein the truth I suspect is more along the line that the DM is going to throw challenges out there of all stripes... many of which could conceivably kill the players if they weren't careful or really efficient with their tactics... and it comes down to the players trying to MINIMIZE as many of the factors that could cause their death as possible.

Optimizing your PC is one of those ways to do it. If you can get your PC as optimized as possible, that's one less thing you have to worry about while running these encounters trying to win. At that point, the things you are concerned of are the tactics and group actions and strategy (all of which will kill you too if you aren't on your game.)

And you are right... this is not something 99% of the D&D gaming populace probably worries about or every really considers to be an issue. But so what? If it's a potential issue for them... then it's something they need to concern themselves with and work really hard to ameliorate. No different than the World of Warcraft Mythic raider that has to make multiple dungeon runs to gear up, learn stats, and practice. That's the game they are choosing to play because it interests them... and its not anything the rest of us will really understand. But that's okay.

Yes. Well the issue I presented was one of questioning my observation. It seemed unusual and the posts have clarified this in the discussion.

Your last point gives me shivers though: "no different" than an MMO. Best wishes to the participants of the MMO online or on paper. Thankful I do not have to participate in either one but wish sincerely the participants, including some of my closest friends and family have a good time with it!

Maybe that is the reason for a different emphasis?

Agreed it is OK as well, but do not agree it MUST be the default assumption.

 

[Krachek]

Those things I take that you'd call "sub-optimal" choices? They're the optimal choices for the characters I'm making. Each & every one is carefully considered and chosen. I'm optimizing just as much as you are. We're just optimizing for different things.

I meant that those who put more emphasis on roleplay usually dont take time to argue on this forum.
Do we have seen a thread debating which on Linguist or Actor is the best feat?

 

[Ancalagon]

Most people who do sub-optimal choice to fit their role play dont take time to post on this forum.

I made a forest gnome ranger that was dex-melee focused with a shield and short sword so....

 

[Tony Vargas]

I meant that those who put more emphasis on roleplay usually dont take time to argue on this forum.
Do we have seen a thread debating which on Linguist or Actor is the best feat?

Yeah, that's, that's the social/interaction pillar. All three pillars are still roleplay.

Otherwise, yeah, you don't see a lot of that - for whatever reasons.

I mostly played 1e AD&D. Skipped 2e entirely. Dabbled with 3e and skipped 3.5. Two sessions of 4e...

We took characters with suboptimal stats at times.

Well, sure, we rolled stats back then. But, if you got to arrange them, you could put them in the most 'optimal' order you could come up with, and it would certainly have been a very good idea to do so...

For example, I had a wood elf thief with an 18 (sans exceptional!) Str.

IIRC, wood elves got a +1 STR back in the day, so that would hardly be odd or sub-optimal...

We did take odd combinations including dwarven thieves.

Not odd at all, a little odd not to /also/ be a fighter, but they were U in Thief (like several races), so single class non-human thieves got the superior racial perks at low level, and didn't suffer from split exp or level limits at high level - an 'optimal' choice, except, of course, for being a Theif, but it was the best of a few bad choices (considering higher levels, that is).

I did have a Half Orc Cleric, single classed.

My condolences.

I knew few people that got much beyond name level and even if they did, they got a whopping 3 hit points a level if they were fighters!

Human wizards were another story.

Indeed. I was always struck, when running a one-off game at a convention back in the day. How low-level games would attract many elves and half-elves and the like, and the odd human fighter or Paladin or the like, and very few human magic-users. But, offer to run a high-level game, and wow, a lot of high-level magic-users.

So I hear you, but I still do not see total optimization as required at most tables or in most published works. If death awaits it is usually by overkill.

And back in the day, I took a half-orc fighter with the belief that 10th or 12th (whatever the single class cap was in UA of that edition) was OK. Really high levels as you may know were a total grind, hard to earn and not seen by all people.

Yep, once they started raising the level caps non/demi-humans became increasingly attractive. I never cared for those changes, as a DM, for that very reason.

I mostly played 1e AD&D. Skipped 2e entirely. Dabbled with 3e and skipped 3.5. Two sessions of 4e...

OK, so the culture you're noticing is 'new to you,' but to the community it really peaked in 3.5/PF. You still see it in 5e, but it is on it's way out, not an up-and-coming 'new' thing.

 

[Warpiglet]

OK, so the culture you notices is 'new to you,' but to the community it really peaked in 3.5/PF. You still see it in 5e, but it is on it's way out, not an up-and-coming 'new' thing.

I think this explains it.

 

[Warpiglet]

I meant that those who put more emphasis on roleplay usually dont take time to argue on this forum.
Do we have seen a thread debating which on Linguist or Actor is the best feat?

that would be fun to witness

 

[MechaPilot]

that would be fun to witness

While there was no separate thread about comparing those two feats, I do believe the merits of each has been discussed in a thread about the value of feats.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Let's see the last, 3 or 4 character's I made with point buy had 14s in Str, Dex, Con, and Wis, 12-14 Int, and 8-14 Cha. Not a single score over 14. and only the 1 score of 8. They used longswords and longbows in combat because those are my favorite. I suppose that would all be "sub-optimal" to a lot of people, but they were super fun.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Be thankful D&D's not an E-Sport yet....