Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
5th Edition: How to Make My DM Cry
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 6344996" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>Magic items in general do look like the big area for making DMs cry. That and rolled stats, because everything people have said here about over-optimized PCs causing a problem is also true of PCs who happen to have stats entirely out-of-whack with the rest of the group. If 4/5 players have barely a 15 among them, and one PC doesn't have a stat below 14, bounded accuracy is going to ensure Captain Goodrolls will be pretty unbalanced.</p><p></p><p>With magic items, I suspect we'll just go back the "Lol ur a bad DM 4 giving them that..."-type advice of the 2E era, which is pretty unhelpful, but there you go. Plenty of ways to "break" 2E with innocuous-seeming magic items.</p><p></p><p>Gauntlets of Ogre Power don't break the game, but they do mean a PC with zero investment in STR suddenly becomes +1 less good at STR stuff than the guy with 20 STR. Not game-breaking, but definitely an issue.</p><p></p><p> [MENTION=607]Klaus[/MENTION] - Optimization has never meant that outside of rants (like the one Shawn Merwin was backpedalling on recently), so it's not much of a reversion. Normal optimization and min-maxing always have and always will be synonymous. Breaking the game is breaking the game, not optimization.</p><p></p><p>Also, note that a lot of stuff people call "broken" does not, in any way, actually break the game. PF has an amazing example of this where there's a book of supposedly impossibly overpowered feats. Only here's the thing - the vast majority of the ones for non-casters are absolutely not overpowered. They absolutely do not "break the game". They merely mean that non-casters can do somewhat better damage, and certainly more damage than expected.</p><p></p><p>So, let's keep "break the game" stuff to <em>actual</em> "game-breaking", with examples of how it happened, for real, in a real game, rather than broad assertions and high-handed claims. Most "game-breaking" charop doesn't happen in reality, it happens on forums, because DMs go "Haha no" to it (Organised Play stuff I dunno about - maybe it flies there). Normal optimization, however, does happen at actual tables, and doesn't break the game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 6344996, member: 18"] Magic items in general do look like the big area for making DMs cry. That and rolled stats, because everything people have said here about over-optimized PCs causing a problem is also true of PCs who happen to have stats entirely out-of-whack with the rest of the group. If 4/5 players have barely a 15 among them, and one PC doesn't have a stat below 14, bounded accuracy is going to ensure Captain Goodrolls will be pretty unbalanced. With magic items, I suspect we'll just go back the "Lol ur a bad DM 4 giving them that..."-type advice of the 2E era, which is pretty unhelpful, but there you go. Plenty of ways to "break" 2E with innocuous-seeming magic items. Gauntlets of Ogre Power don't break the game, but they do mean a PC with zero investment in STR suddenly becomes +1 less good at STR stuff than the guy with 20 STR. Not game-breaking, but definitely an issue. [MENTION=607]Klaus[/MENTION] - Optimization has never meant that outside of rants (like the one Shawn Merwin was backpedalling on recently), so it's not much of a reversion. Normal optimization and min-maxing always have and always will be synonymous. Breaking the game is breaking the game, not optimization. Also, note that a lot of stuff people call "broken" does not, in any way, actually break the game. PF has an amazing example of this where there's a book of supposedly impossibly overpowered feats. Only here's the thing - the vast majority of the ones for non-casters are absolutely not overpowered. They absolutely do not "break the game". They merely mean that non-casters can do somewhat better damage, and certainly more damage than expected. So, let's keep "break the game" stuff to [I]actual[/I] "game-breaking", with examples of how it happened, for real, in a real game, rather than broad assertions and high-handed claims. Most "game-breaking" charop doesn't happen in reality, it happens on forums, because DMs go "Haha no" to it (Organised Play stuff I dunno about - maybe it flies there). Normal optimization, however, does happen at actual tables, and doesn't break the game. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
5th Edition: How to Make My DM Cry
Top