D&D 5E Changeling (from the UA article): crazy broken?

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't understand you at all... are you saying you only RP characters with no quirks, ones that always make the best choice out of game?

There is enough variety among so-called "optimal" characters that I don't feel the need to play a character who consciously makes poor decisions. I might choose a non-obvious combination of race and class, or use a non-optimal distribution of stats, but I want the character to be able to explain any decisions he or she makes in-game.

the short sword example was from a 2e game... and no one killed him. He fought with a shortsword (at first just a basic one) for 18 levels until he retired. He also never wore metal armor. He had a better then average dex (not saying much in 2e) but he whore studded leather fought with a shortsword and nothing in his off hand...
[...]
you don't have to fight with the best to win, sometimes even when you fight with lesser but more flavorful options you win...

You got phenomenally lucky. You could easily have died at any point, and the difference would have been that you chose to consciously make a weaker character. (Although the rules were different enough in 2E - speed factors, proficiencies, encumbrance, etc. - that some things which would have been obvious non-choices in a later edition, were real meaningful decisions under that ruleset.)

I never want it to be my fault that everyone died, because I chose to knowingly make a character who was stupid. I could choose to RP a fighter with a short sword, or a fighter with a rapier, and neither is necessarily worse from an RP standpoint, but one of them is worse from a likelihood-of-death-and-possible-TPK standpoint.

 

[iserith]

And it's great, when those situations happen. You can't try to manufacture those moments, though. Or you can, but it really misses the point.

I disagree. The kinds of decisions and the way a DM adjudicates very much affects whether or not the group achieves the goals of play. And if having a good time and creating an exciting, memorable story is the only "win condition" of this game, then it's something to actively work toward by considering whether your decisions and adjudications are sufficient to that task.

When you choose to have an intelligent character act stupidly in the name of drama, then you rob all meaning from any story you get out of it. You might try to look fondly back upon your cool encounter with the pirates, where you got to swing from the ropes and spout neat one-liners and everyone died in a dramatic fight against the ghost pirate captain, but the whole thing will be tainted by the sheer inauthenticity of it. You didn't have that rad encounter because the DM described the scenario and you described the actions you wanted to take; you had that rad encounter because you decided to subvert the story that should have unfolded, so you could fan-fic over it with bad characterization and dei ex machina.

I disagree. There is no contest in my view between an exciting, sub-optimal decision and a boring, optimal one. This doesn't mean there can't be boring, sub-optimal decisions or exciting, optimal ones, of course. What it does mean is that the exciting choice is the one that's going to lead to an exciting story. So if using the shortsword is more exciting, I'm tossing that rapier out the window. You may say that is stupid, but the one point of damage difference on average isn't the only deciding factor in what a player might do.

That's not to say you can't enjoy spontaneously breaking from established character (I believe the relevant trope is the "Idiot Ball"), or obvious plot devices in the name of pandering ("Fan Service"), but again that puts you significantly far outside the expectations of the game. The game expects that you follow 1-2-3 of How to Play, and that an exciting and memorable story will naturally come from that.

The game expects us to follow the 1-2-3 of How to Play - that is the basic conversation of the game. How fun and exciting that conversation turns out to be, however, is not a factor of following a process. It is a conscious decision by the players and DM to do fun things and make exciting decisions.

 

[Werebat]

Players that won't abuse it because they know doing so would cause them to fail to achieve the goals of play? Because if you got those, then concerns like this just go away.

I can see that this pat answer for every potential imbalance issue is going to get REALLY old, REALLY fast.

 

[iserith]

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]: I'm getting the impression that the objection behind your objection is really that what I'm talking about is drawing upon metagame concerns for the purposes of making decisions in the game. I have no problem with this whatsoever because I see the metagame as a useful tool that can be employed to help achieve the goals of play. You, I imagine (and correct me if I'm wrong), would see drawing upon the metagame in this fashion to be an anathema.

If that is indeed the case, then there is no chance we will agree and we can leave off on derailing this thread any further.

 

[iserith]

I can see that this pat answer for every potential imbalance issue is going to get REALLY old, REALLY fast.

Maybe game balance isn't all that important in this particular game, given the default goals of play. Maybe spotlight is really the only thing that matters and this is a largely a table management issue in D&D 5e.

You may not want to hear that, but it's worth considering and discussing with one's players in my opinion. I don't have an issue with even one of the rules in this game as a result because the players understand that just because a thing is rules-legal doesn't mean anyone has a license to abuse it and impact the fun or the creation of an exciting, memorable story. As a happy side effect, I don't have to make house rules or police the players. We can just play the game.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

There is enough variety among so-called "optimal" characters that I don't feel the need to play a character who consciously makes poor decisions. I might choose a non-obvious combination of race and class, or use a non-optimal distribution of stats, but I want the character to be able to explain any decisions he or she makes in-game.

I have never had a character, be he optimized or pathetic that could not tell you in game why he did something...

just like I can tell you out of game why I in real life am fat... I like food, and dislike working out.

the optimal choice would be to eat healthy and walk for 30-45mins aday... instead I eat pizza once a week and pasta of some kind atleast once more... and sit on my but playing and reading instead of working out.

You got phenomenally lucky. You could easily have died at any point, and the difference would have been that you chose to consciously make a weaker character.

I didn't get that lucky... I did slightly less damage and got hit slightly more then an optimized character, but I bearly remember any fights that went really bad.

(Although the rules were different enough in 2E - speed factors, proficiencies, encumbrance, etc. - that some things which would have been obvious non-choices in a later edition, were real meaningful decisions under that ruleset.)

ok, we didn't use speed factor, and I was specialized then later mastered shortswords.... I also had a hand cross bow as a back up ranged weapon that later got traded for a Might Composit SHort bow (it was also magic but I don't remember details) we found.

I never want it to be my fault that everyone died, because I chose to knowingly make a character who was stupid.

I don't understand what makes you think a point or two of damage will do this...

I could choose to RP a fighter with a short sword, or a fighter with a rapier, and neither is necessarily worse from an RP standpoint, but one of them is worse from a likelihood-of-death-and-possible-TPK standpoint.

every TPK I have ever seen would not have been less likely to happen with a pt or 2 of DPR...


in fact I can remember about a dozen tpks, the ones that stand out the most are the 2 that might as well be the same exact story, and the one with horrible luck...

1) 3.5// with a lot of 3rd party stuff- we ran into a group of mindflayers, and our biggest power gamer (who was like 8 classes of wizard that all gave stuff plus +1caster level) failed a charm/dominate/enthrall roll on a nat 1... then turned on the party and whipped us out.

2) 3.5 we ran into a succubus in the middle of a dungeon who charmed our rouge who backstabbed our cleric with a crit... fight went down hill from there.

3) 3.5 we drew up 3rd level characters (5 PCs, a warblade, a warlock, a duskblade, a Ninja, and a Favor soul) and first encounter with 3 orcs, and 2 goblins we TPKed... yes that was luck...all bad.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't understand what makes you think a point or two of damage will do this...

Off-hand, it would be the game I played in last week, when this happened. It was a close fight, and the fighter struck at the bear with a dagger, because his rapier was on the other side of camp and he didn't want to waste a turn going to retrieve it. He rolled maximum damage, the bear had 1hp left, and took him down. Had he dealt +1 damage, the bear would have died instead, and the fighter could have revived the other party members by using a medkit.

Whenever you choose to be weaker, you introduce some amount of probability that your choice will be the difference between life and death. The more you hinder yourself, the greater the probability that it will matter. Even when it's not as explicit as my above example, it still adds up over time. Maybe nobody dies immediately, but the enemy gets one more turn and hits someone for a little damage, so you decide to heal that person and you don't have the Cure spell you need later on. And if someone dies later on, then it's still your fault, because you chose the inferior weapon.

I'm playing this game for fun. I don't need to set myself up for that kind of guilt trip.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Off-hand, it would be the game I played in last week, when this happened. It was a close fight, and the fighter struck at the bear with a dagger, because his rapier was on the other side of camp and he didn't want to waste a turn going to retrieve it. He rolled maximum damage, the bear had 1hp left, and took him down. Had he dealt +1 damage, the bear would have died instead, and the fighter could have revived the other party members by using a medkit.

this makes no sense to me... leaving him with 1hp gives him 1 more round... not attacking and going for the rapier on the other hand gives him atleast 1 more round (if roll low on weapon damage may do less and give yet another round)

this does not appear to go for your argument...

I will make up an example that would though...

a fighter uses a +1 dagger of awesome heroics over the +2 Longsword... so the dagger does 1d4+strmod+1 vs the longsword 1d8+strmod+2... we will give the fighter a 17 str....

1d8+5vs1d4+4

you fight a dragon, and have been fighting this dragon for 7 rounds, when the breath weapon TPKs the party... the DM then tells the players he had 10hp left when he tpked... well over 7 rounds and 9 attacks, 6 of them hit, and one of the misses missed by 1... so using the longsword the fighter would have more then killed it (1pt min on its hit and atleast 1 more hit)

even in that case I wouldn't really blame the fighter. But I belive it would be the closest to what you claim.

Whenever you choose to be weaker, you introduce some amount of probability that your choice will be the difference between life and death.

yes, but at the same time you can make up for one short coming with another great attribute... my drunk paliden that was a coward who lost his faith...was also the Face of the party and the party detective...

The more you hinder yourself, the greater the probability that it will matter.

yes witch is why a long string of down grades is a problem... one or two not so much. You don't have to optimize everything, but you sure as heck can't suck at everything either... you have to have a balance.

Even when it's not as explicit as my above example, it still adds up over time. Maybe nobody dies immediately, but the enemy gets one more turn and hits someone for a little damage, so you decide to heal that person and you don't have the Cure spell you need later on. And if someone dies later on, then it's still your fault, because you chose the inferior weapon.

yes but there are WAY too many variabuls to say that any one choice cascades into the others...

I'm playing this game for fun. I don't need to set myself up for that kind of guilt trip.

I'm playing this game for fun I would never put that much pressure on it...

 

[LostSoul]

A story will definitely be produced as a result of play. Whether or not it's an exciting, memorable story is a factor of, in part, the kinds of decisions and adjudications that are made during play. Always doing "what my character would do" or invoking dice and mechanics for every action doesn't necessarily get you there. Those things must also be interesting, exciting, memorable, etc. to have a better shot at achieving the goals of play.

First of all, I wanted to say that I think your interpretation is valid. I read it a different way, but I don't think my way is right or yours is wrong. I'm more likely to believe that my interpretation is wrong because I haven't played nor read 5E closely.

However - and this is because I'm playing a game of my own design - I lean towards the idea that, if following the mechanics and procedures of play without any other considerations don't produce the kind of experience the game says it's going to deliver, the mechanics and procedures of play are flawed (or at least a bad fit if you want a different experience). If the game has a mechanic that, if you use it as written, does not result in (for example) an exciting story, I'd consider it flawed. If it requires the players or DM to determine when the mechanic should be invoked, then make that a part of the mechanic. (These tend to be metagame mechanics because you're dealing with metagame issues.) The same goes for "procedures for play": how often wandering monster checks should be made, when skill checks should be invoked, how the DM determines the initial reaction of NPCs, those sorts of things.

That said, I can see that "make sure everyone has a good time" and "try to take actions/adjudicate actions in a way that results in an exciting story" are procedures for play...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You, I imagine (and correct me if I'm wrong), would see drawing upon the metagame in this fashion to be an anathema.

If that is indeed the case, then there is no chance we will agree and we can leave off on derailing this thread any further.

Fair enough. I think the issue of meta-gaming is somewhat tangential to the point at hand, but if you don't mind meta-gaming as a justification for taking certain actions, then it's entirely possible that the relative power of any given race/class/spell is irrelevant. That is entirely off-topic, though. Whether or not something is balanced is, at best, orthogonal to how much anyone cares about balance.

Regardless of how you or I feel about balance, this race is clearly not balanced within the Exploration pillar if it can turn into any flying or swimming creature. (It may also be overpowered in the Interaction pillar, although that seems to be the intent of the race). If we're trying to balance across all pillars, then we should look at the Combat pillar, where it clearly has nothing special going for it; it has lower than average stats, with no +2 to anything, so that's something of a trade-off. If I had to evaluate it over-all, I would say that it's too weak if you can't turn into something that flies or swims, but too strong if you can.