D&D 5E No One Plays High Level?

[payn]

Again isn't not about just challenging the casters. Any DM can challenge a caster with one encounter. But you can't fairly do so while letting the noncasters shine with the officially given content.

Then you have go through all those slow caster turns.

Official fair high level 5e is a griiiiiiiiiiiiind.

Can easily get through multiple fights in high level 5E before a single mid level 4E encounter is over.

 

[bloodtide]

Again isn't not about just challenging the casters. Any DM can challenge a caster with one encounter. But you can't fairly do so while letting the noncasters shine with the officially given content.

This is not true.

Of course it does require:

*A change of Play style" simply doing anything different then the "way you always play".

*Targeting magic, the exact way mundane things are targeted.

And by targeting magic, I mean not doing the play style that most games absolutely insist on:

The DM making an encounter with flying foes. And the DM provided no mundane or magical way for the mundane characters to take any actions. And all the mundane characters with no ranged attacks can take no real actions in combat. So the players of the mundane characters just sit there and watch the players of the spellcasting characters play the game...often for an extended amount of time.

"Everyone" says the above is perfectly fine and normal and should happen often as "mundane characters just suck, oh well".

(never happens....) The DM makes an encounter with foes in an anti magic area. So the magic using characters will be unable to take any real actions. Exactly like the first example.

Of Course, "Everyone" would not only never do the second one, but not even consider it. As 'magic' is put on such a high pedestal that nothing can touch or effect it ever.

So see you can have the non casters shine....the EXACT same way the casters shine....you just have to be willing to do it.

Then you have go through all those slow caster turns.

What is this exactly?

In my house rules I only give players three seconds to take an action in combat. So what do all other games do that makes caster turns so slow?

 

[Micah Sweet]

They've never made a smooth transition from D&D to mass battles over the past half century. It's not for lack of trying, they've floated mass combat rules before. Mass combat just doesn't really fit what most people want out of D&D, if it did we'd have carried over rules from Chainmail.

PCs can still influence the outcomes, mass combat can be an interesting backdrop. But if I want a wargame with mass combats I'll play something else.

Mass combat requires thought and research to make logical, fun rules. It can't be just added on, and it can't be assumed it's just a backdrop to PC action. Doing so is why so many attempts have come out half-baked.

I would also say I'm not convinced of your continued argument that anything WotC 5e, or any 5e, doesn't have isn't valuable because you assume not enough people (what does that even mean?) want it. You cannot know that, so it just comes down to you not wanting those things. I don't see that as a sufficient reason to stall design.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Strongholds and Followers is strongly tied to diplomacy and the accompanying abstracted wargame battle system that does not really fit with D&D characters. It is its own thing which is very good for players and a DM running a game focused on kingdom politics and diplomacy and the domain management and of that type of play.
If your players are into traditional fantasy and threats that can be faced down by the traditional party with the appropriate MCGuffin then Strongholds and Followers will add little to the campaign. The proposed Bastion system would be a better fit.

But why should D&D be assumed as a special forces team with no interest in wider concerns?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

But why should D&D be assumed as a special forces team with no interest in wider concerns?

What has this to do with anything. It is just a mode of play that Stronghold and Followers does very little for. Other versions of stronghold rules may be better or suit more playstyles. I made no claims about what D&D should be. Just that the Strongholds and Followers books is best suited to those that want domain management in the context of kingdom level diplomacy and war.]
Just because I only mention one playstyle in a discussion about a supplement does not mean that I advocating that D&D should be only that thing or that I am not aware of other playstyles.
I find the implication that I have been advocating a singular play style both irritating and insulting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A couple of points, It is not all that crunchy. My two gripes with it are: if one is not using the mini wargame I see little point to it and it (like other third party efforts and somewhat in the Bastion System) it assumes that each player is interested in domain management. In my experience the party may be interested in the idea of a stronghold but for the party and they want it to provide research/magic items/healing or something like that.
That is why I liked the herb garden idea from the Bastion system. A stronghold that supplied the party with a reasonable number of potions per adventure with out a shopping episode is a good idea in my opinion.

I actually kinda hate the Bastion system. Too gamist for my sensibilities.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because it can't be a forethought. D&D is a game about individual characters doing things in the world, exploring, roleplaying, etc. A game designed to do that well can't also do mass combat well. To do mass combat well, you need to buy a game that is designed to do only mass combat.

I've had DMs tell us at the beginning of a campaign that if mass combat happens, we are going to switch to X or Y mass combat game to run them. That to me is the best way to run mass combats in D&D. You play D&D until a mass combat happens, and then you pull out Warhammer Fantasy Battle or something.

There is, but they are not a company that is willing or able to make a good mass combat game that is separate from D&D, so they keep failing.

I can accept the argument that WotC won't do it properly, but not that it can't be done or that the concept is a bad fit for D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not possible because there are not enough D&D players who are also miniatures war gamers to justify a separate D&D miniatures wargame. There isn't money enough in it for WotC or Hasbro. D&D players who want a good wargame to do mass battles have to go buy a different brand to use.

It's not worth the loss of revenue to eventually challenge GW in an industry that isn't going to make WotC enough money when they do take it over as they will still be splitting the industry with a lot of wargame makers.

How can you state theoretical popularity so objectively?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think you are overstating this. The mechanics of the game are public knowledge and are available in an open licence. There is nothing in the bastion system that a public designer could not have done independently.

This is mainly that they wanted an abstracted wargame. This seems to me, because that is the style of tier 2/tier 3 game that Matt Colville runs.
I suspect that the original concepts of this rose organically in a game being run by Matt and he later decided to polish it up and publish it.

I really do not see anything about the bastion system or any alternative stronghold system that requires design control of the base game.

You're assuming the bastion system is the right way to go when tackling this issue. There is no reason to assume that; it's just what WotC proposed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Problem is War gamers were always a niche hobby even back in the 70's. It's expensive now and was even more expensive back then. And WOTC didn't do it, TSR swiped chainmail rules and used them, and only a tiny, tiny part of thier base ever really used them.

Using a VTT for mass combat could potentially make it less expensive.