D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Oofta]

Tell that to wizard fans.

If they can get the same reward for taking the lowest risk option, why would they do anything else? The 5MWD has always been an issue if the DM caters to it.

In my campaigns? No risk = no reward.

 

[Mort]

All of those 100% ineffective against Leomund’s Invincible Hut.

The Hut doesn't protect horses, other pack animals etc.

The Hut is active for a very specific time then drops - more intelligent predators could easily figure that out and time a very effective surprise attack.

But more importantly - if the DM wants to mess with the characters when they are unprepared, they'll mess with the characters - Hut or no.

 

[nevin]

Fair. My number one spell to ban.

why? any spell that ties the party to a known area for while resting is gold for DM. The only DM's I ever see complain about this are the ones that think it's bad DM'ing for baddies to react and plan and those that want low magic, and D&D is a naughty word system for low magic.

 

[Oofta]

The Hut doesn't protect horses, other pack animals etc.

The Hut is active for a very specific time then drops - more intelligent predators could easily figure that out and time a very effective surprise attack.

But more importantly - if the DM wants to mess with the characters when they are unprepared, they'll mess with the characters - Hut or no.

The only modification I've made is that the PCs can't attack anything outside of the tiny hut. Other than that? Want to hide in plain sight for 8 hours so the enemy can get ready to attack when it expires? Go ahead, it gives the enemy time to prep.

 

[Vaalingrade]

why? any spell that ties the party to a known area for while resting is gold for DM. The only DM's I ever see complain about this are the ones that think it's bad DM'ing for baddies to react and plan and those that want low magic, and D&D is a naughty word system for low magic.

Because it takes away the ability to harass the characters and deny them the rests they depend on to actually play their concepts. It is a mote of player agency in the eye of their infinite dragons of unfairness and cannot stand.

 

[Mort]

The only modification I've made is that the PCs can't attack anything outside of the tiny hut. Other than that? Want to hide in plain sight for 8 hours so the enemy can get ready to attack when it expires? Go ahead, it gives the enemy time to prep.

Yeah, the hut is more plot device than powerful spell.

Except when combined with Chronurgy shenanigans (Arcane Abeyance - which allows you to store the spell and then cast it later as an action), that needs to be banned quickly. Thankfully, I've never had that come up in my game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is both true and untrue. Yes, an adventure that tied itself into knots trying to be realistic wouldn’t be fun, but D&D is a game, and the players need to be able to make decisions based on the information they have, without decisions being undercut.

That doesn't require realism or even verisimilitude, tho, just a reasonable degree of consistency, (and balance) from the rules, and (communication) from the GM.

Even if escaping from an army of orcs may make for s fun adventure, being captured by an army that appears out of nowhere and leaves no sign of its passage undercuts the decision to have a character scout.

(Capture scenarios are another gaping hole in D&D modeling of genre, tbh, tho I know that wasn't the point.) The realism/whatever objections to Ooftah's 1000 punitive orcs, above, for instance, wasn't that they appeared out of nowhere or all had Pass w/o Trace, but that there was no established economic & logistical underpinnings for their existence. Which isn't something the characters need be imagined as noticing....

 

[Mort]

Because it takes away the ability to harass the characters and deny them the rests they depend on to actually play their concepts. It is a mote of player agency in the eye of their infinite dragons of unfairness and cannot stand.

I find the game works best when the DM and players are on the same page as to what they want out of the game.

If the players are going for heroic action and the DM is going for survival horror - neither is going to have a good time with such an ill fit.

Same goes for concepts. The player's concept needs to be something the DM is willing to work with. If the concept is - I want to dominate play with my nova tactics and then insist the rest of the table (and the DM) go along with me and turtle up until I can do it again (rinse, repeat) - that might rub some tables the wrong way.

 

[Oofta]

That doesn't require realism or even verisimilitude, tho, just a reasonable degree of consistency, (and balance) from the rules, and (communication) from the GM.

(Capture scenarios are another gaping hole in D&D modeling of genre, tbh, tho I know that wasn't the point.) The realism/whatever objections to Ooftah's 1000 punitive orcs, above, for instance, wasn't that they appeared out of nowhere or all had Pass w/o Trace, but that there was no established economic & logistical underpinnings for their existence. Which isn't something the characters need be imagined as noticing....

First, I never said a thousand orcs, I said a hundred. Second I don't do things to be punitive, but PC actions or inactions have logical consequences. If I set up a budget for an adventuring "day" using the guidelines from the DMG (adjusted for the group, of course) and the group stops after they've taken out monsters that account for 10% of that budget there's a good chance the bulk of the 90% that's left will coordinate defenses. Depending on the scenario they may be able to summon reinforcements.

Monsters aren't stupid, D&D doesn't have to be run like a video game where enemies are static until triggered by starting a scene.

On the other hand a scenario where a hundred or a thousand enemies could be summoned has happened in my campaign. It was a scenario where the PCs were an elite strike team that needed to go behind enemy lines. Small group going in where a larger group would bring too much attention is an old trope.

 

[Tony Vargas]

First, I never said a thousand orcs, I said a hundred.

Then I don't even get the logistical objections. That's like, the population of a village or something, not a horde.
(admittedly, 'realistically' medieval populations and fighting forces could seem really small, both by the standards of today, and by those of contemporaries exaggerating accounts of battles....)

Second I don't do things to be punitive, but PC actions or inactions have logical consequences. If I set up a budget for an adventuring "day" using the guidelines from the DMG (adjusted for the group, of course) and the group stops after they've taken out monsters that account for 10% of that budget there's a good chance the bulk of the 90% that's left will coordinate defenses. Depending on the scenario they may be able to summon reinforcements.

So, you're saying the mini orc horde was part of the day's encounters? You weren't punishing them for stopping early, you were just preventing them from doing so, by bringing the remains of the day to them when they tried?

Monsters aren't stupid, D&D doesn't have to be run like a video game where enemies are static until triggered by starting a scene.

A lot of them literally are. Monstering can be a pretty stupid career choice, really.

On the other hand a scenario where a hundred or a thousand enemies could be summoned has happened in my campaign. It was a scenario where the PCs were an elite strike team that needed to go behind enemy lines. Small group going in where a larger group would bring too much attention is an old trope.

Classic.

So I'm just supposed to shut up if I disagree that fighters drool and wizards rule? Never state that things work for me and try to get to the root cause of why?

You could present something besides anecdotes. Like, I've never noticed you go into why everything D&D always works perfectly for you. It seems like you just present your experience as a counterexample that disproves all complaints, whether actually about specific experiences, or broader analysis or evaluation of the system.

While I agree on some level we are back to verisimilitude.
You can't go completely unrealistic.

Bottom line, magic is completely unrealistic, which kills it for D&D (and Star Wars is science-fantasy and not much better), and calling it verisimilitude doesn't really change that. The whole deal is based on an indefensible double standard.
Consistency, I think, is about the most you can hope for, but that's entirely internal to the genre/setting/story.

For a lot of people it matters where the ships come from, because it helps understand the conflict and the stakes.

Of course you don't need to explain war logistics or even have them when the war is only a backdrop of the game/novel/movie for some personal stories.
But if it is a war story, even a fantastical one, stuff like that matters.
And in Star Wars you can conjure starships out of thin air. They need to be build. That needs man/robot power.

Star Wars rarely goes into logistics or construction or anything.
OT1H, it really doesn't seem consistent that, in the original movies, the Empire, ruling the Galaxy, and seemingly unlimited resources, while the Rebellion struggled with old-looking gear, yes, in the Disney movies, the New Republic, ruling the Galaxy is still making do with old battered ships, and the First Order has seemingly unlimited resources.
OTOH, it is entirely consistent with the framing of relatively few heroes struggling against villains with seemingly unlimited resources.

Even though Star Wars 1 to 3 were bad in other regards, there was never a question of where the Ships and Soldiers came from.

There was never an answer, either, FWIW. We don't know from watching 'episodes IV-VI' that the Empire levies crushing taxes and conscripts millions of it's citizens to build a cyclopean war machine, or that the Rebellion scavenges some ships from past conflicts or builds others by hand in secret.
Those seem like reasonable assumptions, but the real reason is theme, and the 'realistic' explanation doesn't matter. Later, books, and, amusingly, the d6 Star Wars RPG filled in all sorts of stuff, some more reasonable than others, of course.

One thing I've always noticed about the crossover between fandom and TTRPGs is that it's really into subverting genre in general, and specific tropes of a property. Like, the D&Ders playing through LotR dropping the ring in the Volcano session 1 is funny for a reason.