D&D 5E 5th Edition has broken Bounded Accuracy

[Celtavian]

Perhaps you should reconsider that. If permanently flying is too much, consider allowing the creation of potions (or other one-shot items) of flying.

We're working on house rules to get the game closer to what we want. We're thinking of allowing potion and scroll creation.

I'm allowing the wizard in my current campaign to build himself a nice magic item. I told him to think about designing something. I would work in how he goes about earning it. I like the organic feel of a mage building himself a magic item given their extensive study of magic. I figure the majority of magic items in the DMG were made at some point by some student of magic or a great smith working in conjunction with magic, so no reason a PC couldn't do the same. I don't want it near as easy as 3E where people were making magic items like they were some wealthy socialite requesting custom made clothes from Versace. I would like to incorporate some means of magic item creation.

 

[Greg Benage]

Why does there have to be one right answer? I like the concentration mechanics. A lot. Others don't. So house rule it. If you're stuck in organized play and don't have other options, play a character that doesn't rely on concentration spells.

On the subject of "melee characters" and flying creatures, it's my preference, but I cringe when I hear something like "melee character." I try to optimize my characters, but I try to optimize the cool stuff they can do in the campaign. That means I won't be the best at one thing, but I'll be able to contribute in a fun way in most or all of the situations that come up in play.

Even in 5e, where specialization is somewhat limited compared to other editions (or a certain amount of versatility is baked in), you can build a character who is so specialized he won't be fun for a certain kind of player in many situations. Likewise, you can create a character that really isn't good at anything. So don't create characters like that! And the DM should help you with it. It seems that most DMs are willing to help guide players away from the "not good at anything" mistakes; the DM should also point it out if there are likely to be lots of flying monsters.

"You seem really optimized for melee combat. That's cool, but give some thought to how you'd contribute to a fight against a harpy or a wyvern."

There seems to be an awful lot of solutions here.

 

[Celtavian]

A bow is perfectly fine. Not optimal - but so what? Yeah, super melee guy is less effective against fliers. That's balance. Melee guy can hardly depend on a fly anyway - the wizard might be out of slots, or concentration broken, or wizard is dead, or wizard player didnt turn up this session - etc, etc.

There's nothing selfish about the wizard wanting to choose his own spells. What is misguided "entitled" behaviour is the melee guy expecting the wizard to fly him everytime a flier appears. DnD isnt some MMO dungeon raid game with strictly allocated roles. Melee guy is great at melee. When a flier combat comes along, he might get a fly buff, but if not, his bow works well enough - let others shine for a bit, melee guy, sheesh.

Indeed what is selfish is melee guy wanting to shine brightest not only melee but also flier combats too.

Since that is not what is happening, not sure how to respond. I've explained myself in other posts. Suffice it to say, no one is acting entitled.

 

[Celtavian]

I agree with the gist of Celtavian's argument, even though we might quibble about the details.

The way I look at it is that a certain kind of fight that should be fun and memorable pushes the Party into a certain less fun path, due to the details of the mechanics. A Dragon Fight is a certain kind of fight that should be fun for all and the DM would hope would be memorable. But for a very common style of Party make up, there is an optimal tactical choice for defeating that dragon. Unfortunately that optimal tactical choice is ends up being dull. This puts both the players and the DM in a bind. How should the DM stat out the dragon? If he allows for non-optimal tactics, the party might choose optimal tactics and the fight is a boring stroll. If the players opt for non-boring tactics, they risk getting punished for refusing to play as optimizers.

This is not a genuinely new problem to D&D, but a reinvention of an old issue. Back in 1e/2e days, I called it the Boring Big Stick Fight. The basic problem is when you had the showdown with the Big Monster at the end of the adventure, the only PCs who could reliably damage the main foe were the one or two guys with the biggest plus weapons. Due the mechanics of 1e/2e DR, SR, saves, and resistances (which you might not know anything about because you have never fought this exact monster before) the other party members might literally do zero damage round after round after round. Therefore they were relegated to a support role of buffing, healing the big hitters, and sometime keeping mooks away. Now the first couple times we met this tactical situation, it was a somewhat interesting puzzle to solve. But the fourth time? Yawn.

It seems that 5e has created a new variant of this same problem, that a certain category of fights are dull because the optimal tactics are both boring and obvious once you have figured them out. Obviously there are ways to mitigate the issue, like drop Boots of Flying into the loot; but that is an implicit admission that Celtavian's point is correct.

The general idea of the concentration restriction seems like a great thing to me. But it may be too all or nothing and too inflexible for making the game be as fun as possible.

This is pretty accurate for dragon fights. Legendary resistance, concentration, dragon mobility, character durability, and the like combine to create this type of situation in dragon fights.

Now that I'm playing a different module with fewer dragons, not as many of these problems are cropping. Against large groups of small mobs, casters are shining the brightest with battlefield control with spells like flaming sphere and big AOE damage with fireball. We took on a large group of humanoids. The wizard made a 15,000 xp budget fight at level 7 possible. We had a hard fight, but we won. They had one mage to support them. 5E definitely brought back caster power. I'm so grateful. It feels like D&D again.

Though the wizard was banished. That swayed the fight in the enemies favor until we could take down the banisher.

 

[Celtavian]

Doesn't mean you're immune to the "Geek Social Fallacies," like doing things you don't want to do because a friend has made it your job to support their preferences.



I think the debate occurs because you call out the concentration mechanic as the problem rather than looking at the context that is making you feel like you have to use so many concentration spells. Concentration solves a LOT of problems for a LOT of tables. It limits buffs and debuffs, gives the caster something to pay attention to, gives the enemies something to target, balances casters relative to noncasters, and generally makes the game flow smoother for a lot of groups. When you say it's a problem, an eyebrow gets raised because a lot of folks find it the exact opposite - an awesome thing.

And then it turns out it's a problem for you because your buddy "made a character that needs to fly to get into combat," and it turns out that for a lot of people at a lot of tables, the very idea of a character that needs to fly to get into combat is itself a bizarre concept, and additionally the idea that the player of such a character would basically call dibs on one of your character's resources so that he doesn't have to be flexible seems like an over-reach. He's basically playing your character in part as well, dedicating more than one character's resources toward playing his character the way he wants to play it.

I'd shoot the melee members of the party into the sky if it was a better use of my 3rd-level spell slot than other stuff I could do (like, say, bring down the flyer with a Hypnotic Pattern!), and in certain circumstances it might be (like when fighting something with Legendary Resistance), but whatever my decision, it's not up to the melee members of my party to call dibs on my magic. That's one of the decision points you face when being a melee monster - did I remember to pack a net? Do I have something to do at range? It's my character, not theirs. They get to choose their strengths and weaknesses, and so do I.



The difference is that the player of the archer or the wounded character don't require that other characters serve their characters. Maybe the wounded character needs to bring some friggin' healing potions next time and not eat up all of the healer's spell slots and go on the defensive for a round or two. Maybe the archer needs to be okay with not being an archer for a few rounds. I'm not going to tell my friends that they have to play their characters in a way that lines up with what I want my character to do.

My groups have always played flexible characters, at least a little bit, who aren't reduced to incompetence by min/maxing to the nth degree and hitting an area they're min-ed in. They're able to do things that they aren't the best at for a few rounds if the combat goes that way, and it is actually part of the fun.

For instance, my gnome wild mage, his main contribution is action-denial shenanigans. But sometimes things are immune to that, and he does stuff he's not as good at, like damage. When he does that, other party members - like the high-damage ranger or dragon sorcerer - get to shine, because they are damage-focused. The party has two-and-a-half melee machines, but flying them isn't my job or the dragon sorcerer's job. Sometimes they'll just have to use javelins while we firebolt and polymorph.

At most of my tables, your melee machine would just sometimes not be that effective. That's a choice they make by being a melee machine. They should be fine with that compromise - sometimes, they will be crazy effective. You making a greatsword fighter isn't a requirement for me to be your chauffeur. Sometimes, you will suck. Sometimes, we all will suck. This is a game, suck is inevitable.

I don't know how to explain any better than I have. I know all the guys I game with for over twenty years, since we were in our teens. Maybe that is a rare circumstance hard for some to understand. It's as natural to help each other at this point even in a game as walking is. Maybe this is hard to understand for people that don't have the same situation. Telling me I should let him suffer the consequences of his character choice or other such things isn't going to change how any of us do things. I guess some just don't understand when a group has that type of long-term unspoken situation. I have to shrug at trying to further explain. It doesn't appear to be getting through to some.

 

[Celtavian]

Concentration is basically the greatest thing since sliced bread. So happy they introduced that mechanic.

I like the concentration mechanic and feel it is necessary. I think it is a bit too limited. I think I've found a rule that keeps concentration limited, but also allows a little more flexibility for casters to have some fun with other high level combat spells while buffing the party.

 

[Celtavian]

Why does there have to be one right answer? I like the concentration mechanics. A lot. Others don't. So house rule it. If you're stuck in organized play and don't have other options, play a character that doesn't rely on concentration spells.

On the subject of "melee characters" and flying creatures, it's my preference, but I cringe when I hear something like "melee character." I try to optimize my characters, but I try to optimize the cool stuff they can do in the campaign. That means I won't be the best at one thing, but I'll be able to contribute in a fun way in most or all of the situations that come up in play.

Even in 5e, where specialization is somewhat limited compared to other editions (or a certain amount of versatility is baked in), you can build a character who is so specialized he won't be fun for a certain kind of player in many situations. Likewise, you can create a character that really isn't good at anything. So don't create characters like that! And the DM should help you with it. It seems that most DMs are willing to help guide players away from the "not good at anything" mistakes; the DM should also point it out if there are likely to be lots of flying monsters.

"You seem really optimized for melee combat. That's cool, but give some thought to how you'd contribute to a fight against a harpy or a wyvern."

There seems to be an awful lot of solutions here.

The first major module WotC made was a module with a ton of dragon fights. Sort of forces you to analyze the mechanics in terms of dragon fights as that was what we did often. Nearly every other encounter was a major dragon fight. It required the same tactics. The melee, str-based martial's weaknesses stood out like a sore thumb in those fights. The casters could not stand up to even a couple of rounds of the dragon hammering on them. So you sort of wanted to get the melee martials into the fight if only to get the dragon attacking them.

We did learn that dex-based fighters are superior during that module. If we had ranged strikers in the Tyranny of Dragons module, the DM probably would have had to make encounters stronger. The ability of ranged fighters to move and attack from full cover is ridiculously powerful. It frees up casters to use concentration slots on more powerful spells that boost damage rather than eliminate weaknesses. I don't recommend str-based martials if you don't want to be a liability in many encounters.

 

[DaveDash]

I don't know how to explain any better than I have. I know all the guys I game with for over twenty years, since we were in our teens. Maybe that is a rare circumstance hard for some to understand. It's as natural to help each other at this point even in a game as walking is. Maybe this is hard to understand for people that don't have the same situation. Telling me I should let him suffer the consequences of his character choice or other such things isn't going to change how any of us do things. I guess some just don't understand when a group has that type of long-term unspoken situation. I have to shrug at trying to further explain. It doesn't appear to be getting through to some.

I've got to admit I find the whole "I'm not going to buff you because I want to play my character the way I want" attitude incredibly foreign and bizarre.

Maybe it's years of multiplayer / MMO RPG gaming has conditioned teamwork into me (and almost everyone else I know and game with), because if you didn't work as a team you will not last long at all in those sorts of environments.

Supports buff everyone, tanks keep agro, healers keep everyone alive, and everyone gets the juicy loot at the end of it.

Maybe too many DMs protect their group with plot armour, awarding lack of team work.

 

[sithramir]

Maybe people try to play a character who acts like a real person with their own goals. Buffing the melee every time seems like playing everquest.

Not saying a caster wouldn't or shouldn't but why can't that character want to use their ONLY concentration to try to live? To be honest the combat sounds too easy if casters are so safe they can give up any defense.

I think 5e has made single BBEG fights different from before. Much easier unless the CR is insane. So buffing the fighter because "its only one enemy" makes more sense I guess.

 

[DEFCON 1]

When it comes down to it, there's only two real issues that Celtavian has highlighted, neither of which are wrong for what was experienced... but also neither of which require something "to be done" on WotC's part.

A lot of dragon encounters made Celtavian feel the best course of action for their group was for him to use his one concentration spell to buff the fighter, and thus he was stuck not having the capability of using any other buffs. Okay. Sound reasoning, sound strategy for the situation they found themselves in. That really isn't debatable. Yeah, there were possibly other things that could have happened up until that point that might have mitigated the situation, but since the party just never found themselves that opportunity, it was what it was.

The second issue though is whether this makes the concentration mechanic a problem to the point where WotC needs to do something about it. That's where I think the real disagreements are coming from in the thread-- people seem to be reacting to Celtavian's problem as though he thinks that what occurred in his campaign is a real problem that has to be "fixed" by the designers, as opposed to just individual tables making their own house rules to lessen the issue if they feel like it's necessary (like KarinsDad has done). People are addressing his game as though to suggest that his was an outlier situation and thus can't be used as "proof" that the mechanic is bad, and that it doesn't warrant WotC producing errata to change the mechanic officially.

But here's the thing... I don't think Celtavian is commenting on all of this in an effort to actually get the rule changed officially in errata. I think he's just pointing out what happened in his game and how the concentration mechanic is not a foolproof rule and does have issues. Thus allowing everyone to just think about it and have to decide whether something might eventually be done in their own game. So there's no real point in anyone arguing with Celtavian about how what he did might have been "wrong" or "not necessary"... because 1) the game's already over so nothing can be changed... and 2) he's not using his experience as proof to call for official changes in the rules, so what does it matter if what happened to him won't happen to a lot of other tables?

Just take Celtavian's situation for what it is... a place where the concentration mechanic does potentially run up against a wall, and then keep your eyes open in your own game so that you don't suffer the same fate.