D&D (2024) Sharp shooter/Great Weapon Mastery

[Horwath]

That would be a LOT of tracking.

everyone tracks for themselves.

How many guidances did I recieve at 5th level?

1 out of 3? 2 out of 3? it's not that hard.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

All that work, for one cantrip?

I don't get people's obsession why this one cantrip out of a ton of them should be more powerful than a lot of levelled spells. While also stacking with everything. It is a cantrip.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I’m leaning toward “get rid of it.”

PB/day Cleric class feature? Fine.

1st level spell with 8 hour duration? Fine.

But not a cantrip.

 

[Chaosmancer]

My counter question: does that mechanic result in any interesting/difficult decision-making? I believe hard decisions are the essence of game design.

And, by the way, I feel the same way about the Help action.

I disagree, difficult decisions are not the essence of game design. If I sit down to play a game I should not have to make "difficult" decisions on whether or not my method of play is effective.

The thing is, Guidance is only useful for people who want to play a support character. I suppose the decision can be difficult if you mean you have two, equally valid choices between playing support or playing damage dealers, that is a difficult decision I can get behind. But once you choose to play support, it should not be another difficult decision on how to effectively achieve that. The support options should be clear, and they should work.


I dislike the change to the Help action, because it doesn't make sense. Two untrained people trying to break down a door is equally effective to one untrained person? Logically that doesn't work. I like it on a case-by-case basis. If you want to help someone figure out what this religious symbol means, you need to be trained, if you want to help keep an eye out for your target in a crowded street, you don't need to be trained.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If this happens, the party effectively has +12.5% chance of success on everything. So all challenges are less challenging; might as well just revise the DC table and remove the spell. Or, if the DM wants to keep the challenge as intended, they can bump all the DCs by 2; once again, might as well just remove the spell as it does nothing except create a lot of extra tabletop chatter and perhaps upset expectations.

So, if someone takes dueling fighting style do you increase all monster hit points by +6? If someone takes archery fighting style, do you increase all AC by +2? These are also passive benefits that make all fights less challenging. If the group equips shields, do you increase monster to hits by +2?

The thing it sounds like you are saying here is "It is bad if the party has a way to make it easier to succeed on skill checks." But... why is that the case? Why is support play bad? After all, by choosing to make a character who does support, I'm not choosing to do other things. Why is that cost not good enough, and I also have to be limited and unable to consistently provide support like I can consistently provide utility or consistently provide damage?

On the whole, choices are good in an RPG for they are what make the game a game and makes it interesting and memorable. When +2.5 all day, every day, on (nearly) everything is possible, it reduces both choices and the challenge (including the potentially interesting results of a failure). Putting limits on a cantrip may be somewhat counter to the idea of most other cantrips, so perhaps guidance needs to be folded into something more akin to a leveled spell like Bless for a more limited and choice-based thing. But keeping it as a cantrip as a straight bonus to skill rolls I say it needs limits to work best for the game and gameplay.

But there still are choices. Sure, "do I use this ability I chose to take" isn't a choice, but that doesn't mean that suddenly there are no choices anywhere else. Why don't those count? Why do we need to make it so, effectively, the Help action if you have proficiency is the ONLY way to offer skill support unless you are a Bard?

 

[tetrasodium]

I disagree, difficult decisions are not the essence of game design. If I sit down to play a game I should not have to make "difficult" decisions on whether or not my method of play is effective.

The thing is, Guidance is only useful for people who want to play a support character. I suppose the decision can be difficult if you mean you have two, equally valid choices between playing support or playing damage dealers, that is a difficult decision I can get behind. But once you choose to play support, it should not be another difficult decision on how to effectively achieve that. The support options should be clear, and they should work.


I dislike the change to the Help action, because it doesn't make sense. Two untrained people trying to break down a door is equally effective to one untrained person? Logically that doesn't work. I like it on a case-by-case basis. If you want to help someone figure out what this religious symbol means, you need to be trained, if you want to help keep an eye out for your target in a crowded street, you don't need to be trained.

One cantrip does not a "support" character make. Guidance is on the divine & primal lists. As a divination cantrip it is being available to:

• all rangers
• all bards
• one of the three Ardling options (Idyllic)
• anyone who takes the first level magic initiate feat for some other divine or primal cantrip
• Likely all clerics
• Likely all druids
• possibly paladins
• Possibly warrior archetypes that grant divine or primal cantrips

 

[Chaosmancer]

You can potentially turn a failure into success. You are free to pick any of a number of other cantrips that let you do that.

Minor Illusion, Mage Hand, Control Flames, Mending. Are those good enough? Each of them can turn a situation that would have been a failure into a success.

Now what?

Yes. Someone constantly shouting 'I cast Guidance' is a waste of gaming time, and nothing about spam-Guidance is interesting gameplay. It makes any session worse if it's used as it makes sense to use, which is all the time.

Congrats, it is a reaction and now they won't spam it and they won't waste game time. Instead they will just waste game time in the same way "I pick the lock!" is a waste of game time, by using their abilities to fulfill their role in the party.

I'm also curious how something like "I shoot an arrow" or "I swing my sword" is interesting gameplay, since they also are spammable, and really don't do anything interesting.

I would rather we give the players something meaningful to do, something that requires a human behind the wheel. That most RPGs encourage only the one expert in the party doing everything, is a design flaw, but this one cantrip only makes it worse. It is still only the one expert for that skill doing anything, only now, instead of this cantrip-owner maybe thinking of a way to contribute, he will only ever shout 'I cast Guidance' over and over, and we have reduced their potential contribution to anything a bot triggered by hearing 'roll' could do.

So, support play isn't meaningful. Helping your team mates succeed is a pointless endeavor?

Sure, if the player isn't doing anything ever accept shouting "I CAST GUIDANCE!!" then that is annoying. Again, it is a reaction now, that problem is solved. But it seems your true issue is that Guidance is an effective and consistently useful support action, and that's.... bad somehow?

Again, I look to the champion fighter and the "I attack" thing, and well, I don't like that, but people tell me all the time how that is important to their enjoyment, because they want a simple and effective strategy, not to have to spend twenty minutes devising elaborate plans.

 

[Chaosmancer]

All that work, for one cantrip?

I don't get people's obsession why this one cantrip out of a ton of them should be more powerful than a lot of levelled spells. While also stacking with everything. It is a cantrip.

Because there is no other support ability for skill rolls that can be used at-will, except for the Help action, unless you are a Bard. Which is also limited per day.

This was it. This was the entirety of skill support abilities. And it WASN'T more powerful than good leveled spells, because it was a +2.5 to a single roll for a single person. Bless is the same bonus (+1d4) to ALL saves and ALL attacks for THREE people. And attacks and saves are often life or death, while Guidance could be used for a number of things that were far less important.

It is vital to an entire playstyle, so of course we are discussing it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

One cantrip does not a "support" character make. Guidance is on the divine & primal lists. As a divination cantrip it is being available to:

• all rangers
• all bards
• one of the three Ardling options (Idyllic)
• anyone who takes the first level magic initiate feat for some other divine or primal cantrip
• Likely all clerics
• Likely all druids
• possibly paladins
• Possibly warrior archetypes that grant divine or primal cantrips

Uh huh.

So, what other skill support abilities are there? Would you like to make a big list of those?

Yeah, more than a few people have access to it. Like ALL bards and ALL rangers and ALL clerics and ALL druids. You know what else ALL those classes have access to? Healing spells. Because those classes have access to support abilities. Cause... they support other people. Sure, they may not be specialized in 100% support, but... they could be. They certainly have more support options than Barbarians or Fighters.

Oh, and some Ardlings have healing to. And if you take magic initiate you can get healing. And are you getting the point that what you really just did is mostly list everyone who may have access to playing a support style character? Sure ONE cantrip doesn't a support character make. Just like having access to firebolt doesn't make you a pyromancer, but if you want to play a pyromancer... you want firebolt as your go to, at-will, consistently useful tool. And that isn't a problem.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

for Heaven's sake are we still arguing about Guidance. If there is a problem complain in the survey. It is not worth arguing over. I don't care for it because we should not be tracking usage on a cantrip. Nor do I care if it can be spammed every round. Any game where someone's best option every round is to spam guidance has other problems besides guidance.