D&D 5E How viable is 5E to play at high levels?

[Tony Vargas]

Do you think that the game is that inconsistent? I mean, some inconsistency is to be expected...maybe even preferred...but is the game as inconsistent as some are saying?

I don't think anyone has ever adequately expressed the degree of inconsistency/imbalnce/dissociation/whatever's-whinge-worthy D&D has been able to achieve.
;P

Seroiusly though, in a way, the plethora of faults we as a community find with this game speak mainly to how irrationally we love it. It's pretty much a co-dependent/dysfunctional relationship...
... OK, that wasn't serious, either.

What I'm try'n to say, er.. or, rather not say.. is... well...
Yes.
;(

And further, if it was more consistent...would people suddenly find it acceptable?

Heavens No! The point of complaining about D&D is to express proprietary notions, signal virtue, briefly feel smarter than the designers, not - not ever, under any circumstances - to get it to improve, because, then what would we complain about!?!
I mean, the internet is basically powered by nerd angst (well, and porn), and if we were to calm down for a few minutes, the whole thing would just crash, taking the global economy with it.

Sure, it has elements of each edition. But I think their approach to this edition has been pretty clearly skewed toward a less codified set of rules.

Would you agree with that?

No, in the sense that it not an extreme enough articulation of the idea. Yeah, 5e has elements, often bowdlerized & token, of every edition, but the point isn't to have them there so everyone's game will be immaculated with a little bit of something they hate so we'll all build up a tolerance and get along. Rather, it's just enough to latch onto, carve away the worst of the other stuff, and 'make the game your own.' It's the 'germ' I alluded to earlier.

There's no way to set that up with a codified, consistent, balanced, or even functional rule set - if you tried you'd just create yet another edition-camp like each prior edition has - so, yes the approach is, as you say 'less codified,' and since TSR editions tended to be less codified than the other two WotC editions, 5e evokes them more readily and with less-Herculean DMing effort.

If someone wants "rules not rulings" but still wants to play 5E, then I think it's their expectations that may be flawed.

I like to say that 'You know the RAW, there is no RAW,' or "An' ye be the DM, 'do what thou wilt' shall be the whole of the RAW" depending on whether I'm feel'n more Max or Al...
...but, yeah, same sentiment.


Sorry, I'm in a mood tonight.

 

[CapnZapp]

No one is "intolerant of balance." That's loaded phrasing betraying your bias, and not accurate at all. The people who left 4e didn't do so because it became more balanced. They left because the feel of the game shifted dramatically in ways they didn't enjoy playing, which most often than not had nothing to do with balance.

I am a champion of balance, yet Sacrosanct is entirely correct.

I left 4e DESPITE it being balance.

(I left 4e because combat became such a huge part of playing the game we felt there wasn't enough role-playing - story, decision-making, character interaction,... - left.

The fun in 4e combat was doing it optimally, but that did not leave enough time in a session to do these "rpg" things: we play out our combats slowly and meticulously.

Even if "4e is a boardgame" isn't generally true, it became true for us.

No amount of fun balanced combat could save the edition once we realized that.



Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Helldritch]

I am a champion of balance, yet Sacrosanct is entirely correct.

I left 4e DESPITE it being balance.

(I left 4e because combat became such a huge part of playing the game we felt there wasn't enough role-playing - story, decision-making, character interaction,... - left.

The fun in 4e combat was doing it optimally, but that did not leave enough time in a session to do these "rpg" things: we play out our combats slowly and meticulously.

Even if "4e is a boardgame" isn't generally true, it became true for us.

No amount of fun balanced combat could save the edition once we realized that.

Exactly the same thing here. Fluidity is what brought me to 5e.

 

[Eric V]

Combats could be very fun in 4e, but yeah, went too long, IMO.

I don't think greater mathematical balance = longer combats though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I am a champion of balance, yet Sacrosanct is entirely correct.

Sac made an absolute claim speaking for literally everyone, and then spoke for everyone who left 4e:

No one is "intolerant of balance." The people who left 4e didn't do so because it became more balanced. They left because the feel of the game shifted dramatically in ways they didn't enjoy playing

That kind of sweeping generalization can't help but be wrong.

When he restricted himself to making only claims about his own subjective experiences and motivation, of course, there's no means short of telepathy to contest them.

Same applies to your experience. I'm not about to tell you you didn't have it.

I left 4e because combat became such a huge part of playing the game we felt there wasn't enough role-playing - story, decision-making, character interaction,... - left.

I'm often accused of blaming the DM when I respond to a complaint about 5e with ways a DM could flex his empowerment to fix it, and I know others take it further. So, please, don't take this that way, but: is it such a difficult time-management challenge to have fewer combats per session to get in all the exploration & interaction scenes you want?

Even when I was running in a pre-encounters time slot, with players coming in late after work and a hard stop time, I'd simply run the occassional session with no combat at all.

And, really compared to what I suggest to 5e critics, that requires very little skill or effort.

Combats could be very fun in 4e, but yeah, went too long, IMO.

I don't think greater mathematical balance = longer combats though.

More involved 'set piece combats can be a lot of fun - they provide more potential for depth and repeated play. That's not just in games that are good at delivering them. The best, longest-running 3.x campaign I played in (it went the full run, from when only the 3.0 PH was available, until months after 4e has dropped, and even though it was grating against the usual high-level play issues at 13th, I was sad to see it end), tended towards larger, set-piece, tactical battles rather than quick bouts of rocket tag. The DM really lived up to the 'M' he was a long-time gamer, not just of D&D but wargaming, video, strategy, board, card, and he put tremendous effort into it. Our sessions back then ran 8hrs, and we'd get in as many as 3 combats. He was also a little avant-garde in that he had a 'get to the action' attitude, and we did less (or more abstract) dungeon-crawling and more interaction & combat as the campaign progressed.

OTOH, the same goes for short attrition-based combats, they can be fun in a different way, and can be run in systems that don't default to them by design. When I decided to convert an old-school module to Essentials for a convention, I hybridized skill challenges and mini-combats (by 4e standards, they were what was in the module: a giant snake here, a wandering troll there, a patrol of guards, a horde of killer frogs - converted to a standard if alone, a swarm for a horde, or minions otherwise).

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't think anyone has ever adequately expressed the degree of inconsistency/imbalnce/dissociation/whatever's-whinge-worthy D&D has been able to achieve.
;P

Seroiusly though, in a way, the plethora of faults we as a community find with this game speak mainly to how irrationally we love it. It's pretty much a co-dependent/dysfunctional relationship...
... OK, that wasn't serious, either.

What I'm try'n to say, er.. or, rather not say.. is... well...
Yes.
;(

I would disagree that it's that inconsistent. It's by no means free of inconsistency, but ultimately, I think that it's within manageable levels.

No, in the sense that it not an extreme enough articulation of the idea. Yeah, 5e has elements, often bowdlerized & token, of every edition, but the point isn't to have them there so everyone's game will be immaculated with a little bit of something they hate so we'll all build up a tolerance and get along. Rather, it's just enough to latch onto, carve away the worst of the other stuff, and 'make the game your own.' It's the 'germ' I alluded to earlier.

There's no way to set that up with a codified, consistent, balanced, or even functional rule set - if you tried you'd just create yet another edition-camp like each prior edition has - so, yes the approach is, as you say 'less codified,' and since TSR editions tended to be less codified than the other two WotC editions, 5e evokes them more readily and with less-Herculean DMing effort.

So....yes?

Combats could be very fun in 4e, but yeah, went too long, IMO.

I don't think greater mathematical balance = longer combats though.

I don't think that it must, but I think it seemed to do so in the edition with the greatest mathematical balance...so it seems like a potential pitfall with that approach. I would think it can be avoided somehow, though.

 

[CapnZapp]

Sac made an absolute claim speaking for litterally everyone, that kind of sweeping generalization can't help but be wrong.

Aww man, I don't get to be on Sacrosanct's side all that often, and here you go, ruining it...

[emoji6]



Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[happyhermit]

...
I don't think greater mathematical balance = longer combats though.

Longer combats (as it relates to # of rounds, # of dice rolls, etc. but not time spent making decisions, overhead, etc.) are easier to balance and make encounter guidelines more effective though, primarily because they reduce the weight of individual rolls and give things more of a chance to average out. More symmetrical systems are easier to balance too; A system with every class on AEDU is simply easier to balance than one where everyone has fundamentally different resource schedules. Systematically limiting the effectiveness of utility magic in combat (particularly non-standard uses of such) makes encounter building systems more reliable. Having hardcoded expectations for magic items and wealth by level makes encounter guidelines more accurate if followed.

So, if the primary goal is to have a balanced game with reliable encounter building guidelines, then it's much easier to do things like AEDU for all classes or even the original ideas of everything being at will with refresh that the designers abandoned because it "didn't feel like D&D to them". But it should be obvious that these things aren't without consequence, some of which are simply going to be a matter of preference such as classes being fundamentally similar, some are going to make the game less flexible, and some are going to be more generally considered a negative, "longer" combat.

I don't have any need for non-balance in a system (though admittedly it has rarely caused me any issues), but some of the things that are obvious to sacrifice for ease of balance like asymmetry are the reasons I go to play D&D to begin with vs. a whole host of other games that are more symmetrical. So, it isn't that I am against balance by any means I just don't want to sacrifice things in it's name and a game that fits my preferences is not going to be able to have a perfect encounter guideline system.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I would disagree that it's that inconsistent. It's by no means free of inconsistency, but ultimately, I think that it's within manageable levels.

I could run from a set of books that had been put through a shredder and find it manageable, so I can't disagree.

So....yes?

I didn't feel like saying yes (like I said, I was in a mood last night), so I went with "No, but by 'no' I mean, 'yes but moreso.'" Sorry about that.

I don't think that it must, but I think it seemed to do so in the edition with the greatest mathematical balance...so it seems like a potential pitfall with that approach. I would think it can be avoided somehow, though.

I don't think greater mathematical balance = longer combats though.

Imbalance is more likely to mean shorter combats than longer ones, rather than balance implying 'longer combat' - though I guess that's just a matter of what you consider the base-line. 3e is an example - a caster with optimized DCs on SoDs would turn the game into rocket tag, so might a sufficiently optimized charge build, if it could do enough damage to just drop something outright. Prettymuch any imbalance that gives a large enough offensive advantage to one side will shorten the combat, potentially drastically.
OTOH, an imbalance in the other direction, and unbreachable defense, for instance, could theoretically lead to a longer combat, but only if that side were 'balanced' (ha!) by having very weak offense, and if the DM punished them for it by forcing them to slowly paper-cut their foes to death in detail when there was no chance of said foes doing anything, instead of hand-waving the foregone conclusion.
Since D&D has often seemed to break in the direction of offense, and because the opposite might often get cut short and hand-waved as a boring foregone conclusion with no consequences, I think imbalanced combats would tend to be short.
Of course, that's not the same thing as 'imbalanced' (inconsistent difficulty encounter guidelines) those might also result in short combats if they tilt one way, it just won't be as obvious, when the DM creates the encounter, which way it's going to go.

So, yeah, a 'balanced' combat might be longer, because it's not shorter than intended, and because it might be interesting and/or in doubt longer, or at least have consequences (resource expenditure et al) to determine in playing it out to the end.

 

[MichaelSomething]

While I bet many of you are eager to go down this edition comparison road, may I detour?

Is there a market for material that makes higher levels more viable? Guidelines, tougher monsters, game balancing systems, whatever.
If there was, would it be big enough for EN5ider to go after?

After all, Morrus has access to fine minds that could offer solutions. If he started pumping out some articles about how to make high levels more viable, would it attract more customers who would part with currencies for such game aids?