D&D 5E Is 5E Special

[Parmandur]

If there is one, the parameters for the balance point are so loose, and forgiving, it largely doesn't matter.

Yes, they are loose and forgiving, that's the design. That's why it works.

 

[Willie the Duck]

what would you prefer?
{examples}
edit: this has come off more sarcastic then I meant... so let me ask you @payn directly. what is the analogy for someone that has had others report an issue but since that issue has not as of yet effected them personally they not only don't want it fixed for those people who have it but they claim that it is those peoples own falut?

How about none? No hyperbole, no analogies, and not making the rest of the thread (or at least those who don't agree with you) defend a position you have put forth and said is the experience you have in threads like these.

it doesn't work. these threads are full of people telling you with practical experance that it has broken down.

Spoiler: i fell like I am going crazy

I know people are going to claim "I didn't have that problem at my table so it doesn't exist" and it is going to make me feel like someone suing for ther pinto exploding being told "I have 3 owners here who's car DIDn't blow up so that disproves what we have evidence happened to you"

We get that you have experienced something like this on threads. The internet is full of toxicity and people are not always nice. Truth. But the people that said those things are not here, and the thread did not turn into this discussion until you placed it here. Now it is going to be another thread you will remember grievance, but not because anyone else reopened those wounds.

I apparently have had this account for 7 years, but I've only been seriously back into it for 8-9 months, and my entire experience with you is you saturating threads with self-declared victimhood and grievance (that I have no doubt was seeded by a real experience at onemore than one point), many times missing when you have proceeded to be rude, mean-spirited, or derisive to your fellow thread participants in your defense against the slings and arrows that happened in other, previous threads.

I like you, honestly. And even agree on many salient points, including about fighters (such as that at high levels they have nothing that solves problems the way that teleport or passwall or plane shift do). I disagree on others, but we had one disagreement on the question of 'yes, but do fighters at least do fightering better' and I threw in the towel. Just seeing you on fighters thread (and, yes, Oofta, wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to do this everywhere?) makes me throw up my hands and think "why bother, it is just going to be interpreted as continuation of the abuse and greeted with a spirited rejection of arguments other people in the past have apparently made." If I were only responsible for defending statements I myself made (plus, y'know, some more general politeness), I would be much more inclined to want to bother.

Personally I don't know what kind of super-secret spreadsheet the design team has. My very limited experience is that balance isn't great but it more or less works. One thing that 5e, IMO, has in common with older editions is that it is quite easy to fiddle with the numbers and do some "quick & dirty" tuning. I do it all the time both in AD&D and in 5e. In my experience, the only really balanced edition is 4e.

I'm sympathetic to the perspective that AD&D might have been, if not balanced, at least good at role-protection, and thus balanced in that no matter how good you were at being a magic user, you still needed the fighters. Of course if by AD&D you mean 1E, fighter-MU multiclass was very doable and was pretty similar to 5e's wizard with a 1-level cleric or artificer dip. So I don't know that I think 5e is wildly different from any of the non-4Es. But then again in the TSR era, there was probably much more variety in the way people played, so everyone's experience certainly will be different.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

citation needed... I see a bunch of people that avoid these arguments and a small number that say nobody cares (your side) and a small number that says it's a real problem that should be fixed (my side) and no way to know what % is what...

and even then, for this game, how many people have to be noticing a problem? is it 51% (the slight majority) or is 25% enough (1 in 4) what about 10%? 5%? what % of players must run into this before you think it is worth talking about with out things like "Sucks to be you"?

now the funny part is that some % of people on your side (the don't change it, it isn't broken) still use house rules or work arounds to stop the problem that they claim isn't a problem.

yup I do all that. I also take every chance here, on face book, on twitter (although rare I am on there), on tic tock on redit (on it more then twitter but still rarer then the others) and other message boards. I also have started to go back to Cons and LGS and as such talk there about it too.

then give me a better analogy... I will admit I went big to show how crazy the thought it "It didn't effect me so it doesn't need fixing"

If your wife is cheating on you, probably you should just get a different one... maybe this wife is not the right one for you. So instead of suffering and complaining, you should divorce and find your luck elsewhere...

my wife also sleeps with other men. But we have an open relationship. I know you would never want to have such a relationship, but we like it that way.

I think noone tells you that your problems with the system are invalid. Instead other people are telling you that your problems are yours, not univeral problems. So you are entitled to note them and ask them to be remedied, but you are not entitled to deny us the desire to have them not fixed, because for us they are features of the system, not a bug.

And just to counter the argument that I am just a fanboy... tgere are issues I want adressed. For me it is adventuring day pacing, which for me is the main balance concern.
But if it does not get fixed, I will keep my houserule that fixes it for me.
(and yes, some of you will call oberoni fallacy, not realizing that I never said there is no issue, because you can fix it... instead I said, there is an issue for me, but I am not whining about it too much, because it is easily fixed for me...)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The exact number/percentage that complain enough that sales go down instead of up. Thats up to WOTC to decide, not us.

t doesnt bother most folks, and that sucks for you.

so you don't have any numbers, it isn't up to us BUT you know it doesn't bother MOST folks cause you just know... and I can't forget telling someone trying to relate an issue it 'sucks to be them'

I'd say the best analogy is looking at it from a causal users perspective against an avid users perspective.

I would agree if it was me and the 2 players that played since 95 and that take apart and build house rules like crazy... we may notice things others miss, and we may have issues a 'causal user' doesn't.

but even before covid I have seen a shift. New players more likely to gravitate to warlock then fighter. new DMs asking for help with why it is that a caster can 1 shot some encounters, or with the right spell just make some encounter/hazzard not matter at all. Last time I saw people complaining was as 3.5 was winding down.

go on D&D tic tok and watch people talk about how in there 3rd or 4th session they are asking to swap fighter for another class that has 'cool buttons'

causal players are noticing.

I do wonder though... what number of people that seem to have a vested intrest in shutting down this conversation are causal compaired to avid users... I bet we have close enough to 0 that we can round to 0 causal players on enworld on any given day.

Out of the box, this works fine for most folks.

citation needed.

The exact number/percentage that complain enough that sales go down instead of up.

it works okay for YOU. You already admited you can't say 'most folk'

Your problem is never going to effect them.

so you don't think anyone sat down to there first game and noticed a power discrepancy between fighter and druid?

After 4E, WOTC stopped catering specifically to avid users.

that's funny in my thoughts they abandoned 4e to try to win back the avid fans that went to PF. The new players are complete wild cards what way they will fall.

You need to prove that this issue is a big issue.

no I don't need to prove it is a BIG issue, just that it is an issue, and no amount of gatekeeping or silencing or "We all know it's your fault" is going to stop me from showing it over and over and over again.

Internet sites and what your friend's say aside, the only numbers that matter on the ones that matter to WOTC.

and yet you claim to know what those are?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Nota bena, this is all very tongue in cheek, please read it as playful becauae that's how I mean it:

"How come my Pinto only starts if I fill it with gas?"

"My mouse doesn't move the cursor in Windows 95 if I don't plug it in."

"I haven't spoken to my wife in years, and then she left me for some reason. "

"When I throw Molitov cocktails at this space heater, it seems to catch fire."

and again "Since it didn't happen to ME it must be YOU doing it wrong..."
"After all if you never left your house you couldn't get in the accident"

 

[rooneg]

He goes into the math quite a bit, please go give it a listen. One can learn a lot about the logic of the game from that podcast, amd it gets very practical.

So, I'd love to give it a listen, but there's like 12 hours of The Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour in the Twitch archives, do you happen to know which one this comes up in?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

so you don't have any numbers, it isn't up to us BUT you know it doesn't bother MOST folks cause you just know... and I can't forget telling someone trying to relate an issue it 'sucks to be them'

I would agree if it was me and the 2 players that played since 95 and that take apart and build house rules like crazy... we may notice things others miss, and we may have issues a 'causal user' doesn't.

but even before covid I have seen a shift. New players more likely to gravitate to warlock then fighter. new DMs asking for help with why it is that a caster can 1 shot some encounters, or with the right spell just make some encounter/hazzard not matter at all. Last time I saw people complaining was as 3.5 was winding down.

go on D&D tic tok and watch people talk about how in there 3rd or 4th session they are asking to swap fighter for another class that has 'cool buttons'

causal players are noticing.

I do wonder though... what number of people that seem to have a vested intrest in shutting down this conversation are causal compaired to avid users... I bet we have close enough to 0 that we can round to 0 causal players on enworld on any given day.

citation needed.

it works okay for YOU. You already admited you can't say 'most folk'

so you don't think anyone sat down to there first game and noticed a power discrepancy between fighter and druid?

that's funny in my thoughts they abandoned 4e to try to win back the avid fans that went to PF. The new players are complete wild cards what way they will fall.

no I don't need to prove it is a BIG issue, just that it is an issue, and no amount of gatekeeping or silencing or "We all know it's your fault" is going to stop me from showing it over and over and over again.

and yet you claim to know what those are?

Do you know what selection bias is?

As a teacher I can tell you: you very rarely here it first hand, if you are doing a good job. But if there is a single problem for very few students, believe me, you here about it fast and loud.

So even if 95% of what you read are complains, you can be sure that this does not reflect the reality.

 

[Parmandur]

So, I'd love to give it a listen, but there's like 12 hours of The Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour in the Twitch archives, do you happen to know which one this comes up in?

Literally all of them, but the Slayer Gighter episodes I recall he went a bit into how the Brute Fighter from UA was absolutely mathematically balanced, but didn't "feel" right to UA players.

 

[Parmandur]

and again "Since it didn't happen to ME it must be YOU doing it wrong..."
"After all if you never left your house you couldn't get in the accident"

You are literally talking about using a product differently than intended, amd then being offended it doesn't work as advertised. Like, of course it doesn't. You can't run a Ford with chocolate syrup in the tank.

 

[Scribe]

Yes, they are loose and forgiving, that's the design. That's why it works.

Yeah, at which point I question the need for it, when tables have been provided in the DMG and Xanathars.

If that is the standard for which we define "balance" and "it works", then this spreadsheet is fairly meaningless I guess.