D&D General ENWorld is better that the pundits…change my mind

[Zardnaar]

And yet, in 4e, the exact opposite was true. Ruthless personal optimization was significantly less efficient than teamwork and team optimization--to the point that there were several well-known team-synergy strategies, such as the Radiant Mafia.

If players aren't willing to do it, maybe one should consider that as evidence that it is not actually "absolutely stunning" in most cases.

Your statement about teamwork is incorrect.5.5 regards it a lot. Martials got buffed out the wahzoo. Youre outright wrong chief.

In 5.0 its offsetting the -5/+10 parts of 2 feats.

I posted about it but its how my players were killing high CR things in one round and abusing chromatic orb.

Paralyzed+action surge and a half decent magic weapon is lots and lots of damage. Kill a CR 19 critter almost solo levels of nasty.

Spell caster damage sucks generally. Control is great. Control wears off though so martials seal the deal. Death is still the best debuff.

Cleric+druids+ 3 strikers is probably the meta build party. Based on 5.5 encounter guidelines and being able to counter most things DM can throw at you.

Sorcerer and Bards are nuts as well. Throw in a good fighter or paladin or 3. Monk as well at higher level.

Game outright breaks at 13th level.

 

[Seramus]

If players aren't willing to do it, maybe one should consider that as evidence that it is not actually "absolutely stunning" in most cases.

W... what? No. That's like saying "if people aren't willing to exercise, maybe one should consider that as evidence that it is not healthy in most cases."

Party synergy is certainly hard to coordinate between players for a variety of reasons, especially in adventure league and pick up games with randos. But the rarity of the circumstances lining up should never be misconstrued with its effectiveness when achieved.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

W... what? No. That's like saying "if people aren't willing to exercise, maybe one should consider that as evidence that it is not healthy in most cases."

Party synergy is certainly hard to coordinate between players for a variety of reasons, especially in adventure league and pick up games with randos. But the rarity of the circumstances lining up should never be misconstrued with its effectiveness when achieved.

Er...no?

If something is objectively, unequivocally insanely good ("absolutely stunning"), such that you get lots of gameplay value out of it, players are GOING to do that thing. That's....literally the thing behind the well-known "players will optimize the fun out of your game" maxim. Because, unlike exercise, there isn't this huge investment of time and energy and fatigue and a long, long wind-up time before you start seeing results. You can usually start seeing results like...right away, in a game. Because that's how games work. They reward certain behaviors with more success and other behaviors with less success (or even punish some behaviors with extra failure).

Your comparison cannot apply because the two things actually do have different incentive structures.

5e simply--flatly--does not reward team synergy as much as 4e did. Period.

 

[Seramus]

If something is objectively, unequivocally insanely good ("absolutely stunning"), such that you get lots of gameplay value out of it, players are GOING to do that thing. That's....literally the thing behind the well-known "players will optimize the fun out of your game" maxim.

In a discussion about why more players are not team-oriented optimizers, I don't think lack of effectiveness is the real reason. I'm far more likely to believe it is because of shyness, doubt, fear of being thought of as an optimizer, etc.

When you get over the initial social hurdles, and 2+ team oriented players realize both are eager and willing to do some synergy, they often do so, generate their absolutely stunning results, and (seem to) have a great time.

I will admit, I've occasionally seen a DM react negatively to it, since the results can often be so good compared to what they are used to, making the DM question game balance (justifiably or not).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In a discussion about why more players are not team-oriented optimizers, I don't think lack of effectiveness is the real reason. I'm far more likely to believe it is because of shyness, doubt, fear of being thought of as an optimizer, etc.

When you get over the initial social hurdles, and 2+ team oriented players realize both are eager and willing to do some synergy, they often do so, generate their absolutely stunning results, and (seem to) have a great time.

I will admit, I've occasionally seen a DM react negatively to it, since the results can often be so good compared to what they are used to, making the DM question game balance (justifiably or not).

If we were about to hit 2016, I could absolutely buy this.

The system has been out for over a decade. 5.5e--so-called "D&D 5e (2024)"--isn't so different from 5.0, "D&D 5e (2014)", that we are talking about people being terribly unfamiliar with the system, unaware of what could possibly be achieved, terrifically shy, unwilling to consider the merits, unwilling to consult with friends, or--crucially for where I'm coming from--unwilling to advocate online that you should focus first and foremost on teamwork because it's really crazy good actually.

It's nearly 2026. Most people playing 5e have been playing it for a while now. This, according to your theory, should be absolutely shouted from the rooftops, something damn near everyone is doing, because all those initial hurdles should be well, well past by now.

That is not the case. I don't see it in the games I play, I don't see it in the advice and discussion online, I don't see it in the articles people write or the videos people record, etc., etc., etc. At absolute best, you see advocacy for the "God Wizard" archetype as Treantmonk puts it--the Wizard who COULD solve all the problems herself, but she ever-so-magnanimously elects to instead only 95% solve the problem, while graciously allowing the Big Stupid Fighter characters to complete the final step. (Obviously not all characters who do this are Wizards, but Wizard is the poster child, just as not all "BSF" characters are not Fighters, but the Fighter is their poster child.)

 

[Warpiglet-7]

One advantage that ENWorld has over YouTube is that, in my experience, you get fewer silly "hey, if you follow the language of this feat literally and combine it with this multiclassing option in a way your DM will definitely veto, then you can break the game!"

On YouTube, especially in short vertical videos (imported from Tiktok), that's a huge part of the conversation. On ENWorld, in contrast, everyone goes "yeah, but that's obviously not intended and your DM will say no," which really makes the silliest takes less rewarding to post, except as an obvious joke.

I realize I am stricter than average…I might handicap myself as player to an extent due to my anti cheese bias.

But some online advice is utterly silly. Someone tortures the English language to sort of justify some combo that would not work at a majority of tables.

Pet peeve of mine (but I am uptight about trying to play by intended rules…).

In some of those cases I guess at least they are clear in what the goal is.

 

[payn]

5e simply--flatly--does not reward team synergy as much as 4e did. Period.

There is the reward angle and then there is the expected to angle. Lot of folks bounced off 4E because the expectation was to group optimize, sort of like some folks are bouncing off PF2 for the same reason. 5E doesn't require it, but makes the game work better with it, becasue its aiming for a big tent in this department.

 

[FrogReaver]

In a discussion about why more players are not team-oriented optimizers, I don't think lack of effectiveness is the real reason. I'm far more likely to believe it is because of shyness, doubt, fear of being thought of as an optimizer, etc.

When you get over the initial social hurdles, and 2+ team oriented players realize both are eager and willing to do some synergy, they often do so, generate their absolutely stunning results, and (seem to) have a great time.

I will admit, I've occasionally seen a DM react negatively to it, since the results can often be so good compared to what they are used to, making the DM question game balance (justifiably or not).

And meanwhile most of us struggle not to have the martial players Leroy Jenkins and mess up the perfect fireball formation.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There is the reward angle and then there is the expected to angle. Lot of folks bounced off 4E because the expectation was to group optimize, sort of like some folks are bouncing off PF2 for the same reason. 5E doesn't require it, but makes the game work better with it, becasue its aiming for a big tent in this department.

Which I just...don't understand.

D&D is a team game. It has been since at least 2e, probably earlier. The rules are not designed for, as some on here term it, "character vs character" combat. The vast majority of groups do not particularly well-tolerate that particular kind of conflict. So...the game is about working together. Nearly all people who play it today are, specifically, looking to work together to achieve their overall ends.

Given that, why would it be bad to design the rules so that working together is distinctly rewarded, and being selfish and disconnected is ineffective?

Like what you're saying is that, even though most people who play it want to work together to achieve a common goal, they also want to somehow do that by...being lone wolves who are ruthlessly focused on being individually as unstoppable as they can possibly be with no consideration for how it meshes with their teammates.

That's fundamentally irrational. It's wanting a triangle, and then demanding that the triangle have the freedom to have four sides.

 

[Composer99]

I don't really read through 2014!5e or 2024!5e optimisation discussions, save on a very casual basis, so I can't really speak to the added value that collegial disagreement or adversarial discourse might provide there.

In discussions outside of char-op, I think it is valuable to have a diversity of views, although I agree with @overgeeked that a lot of conversations here end up as argumentative nerds trying to get in the last word against each other and allowing themselves to get bogged down in quagmires of what comes across as mutual attempts at fisking. Even when I'm broadly in agreement with one poster over another, it's tiring to read. (The thread about Mearls critiquing legendary resistance would be a good example, methinks.)