Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 9141141" data-attributes="member: 1465">I can only explain my preference.Changing characters abilities during a long rest potentially (a) breaks suspension of disbelief, (b) devalues strategic character design, (c) dilutes diversity and (d) complicates DM's adventures design.(a) breaks suspension of disbeliefOne day Bob the Fighter is a master of swords and of two-weapon fighting style, but finds a cool magic axe in the evening so he sleeps over it, and next morning he's a master of axes and great weapon fighting. He also forgot how to be effective at swords and two-weapon fighting for today. Do not underestimate how breaking suspension of disbelief can totally ruin the fun of a lot of people.(b) devalues strategic character designWhy should I bother much about what choices do I make at level-up, if I can fix them on a long rest?(c) dilutes characters diversityJohn has taken care of carefully and beautifully design his Sorcerer character around the concept of moving stuff (telekinesis, teleportation, summoning). Mark didn't bother and just picked spells and random, but then sees John's character being admire by others, so he decides to swap known spells and become a copy-cat of John's sorcerer. The more abilities you are allowed to swap freely, the less character diversity.(d) complicates DM's adventures designThe DM knows that the party covers a number of roles and have a general set of skills and capabilities and lacks in others, and chooses to fill adventures with challenges that give plenty of spotlight to use those capabilities but occasionally also have them stumble upon something that they don't have easy way out, to see if the players find creative or more narrative solutions. But then, if the characters can just swap their capabilities and take on different roles on different days, there is less value in good adventure design.If you think all of these are FUN, that's ok, but you must understand that to a lot of people these make for a very 'gonzo' style of roleplaying that is NOT FUN on the long term. Gonzo-fun to a lot of people is good for a couple of evenings per year, but not for long-term campaigns. When long-rest-swapping becomes a common game mechanic, the whole edition can become non-suitable for many people campaigns. That's the problem I have had with 5e since Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. It is just NOT FUN for me beyond an occasional beer-and-pretzel evening, and the actual problem is that this is now becoming the default for everyone. If there was an optional rule in the DMG about making anything swappable on a long rest to create a more easy-going playstyle, it would be very different because it would not be imposed as a default.This is not a balancing problem or a matter of lack of options. If it was a problem of balance, there are other ways. Even if Sorcerers had ALL metamagic options as a boost, it would be better than long-rest swap at least with regards to issues (a) and (b).I know that D&D already had one big long-term-swap mechanic since its start, which is spells preparation. To be honest, I am not even a huge fan of that either (and certainly I NEVER liked that divine spellcasters traditionally have access to their whole class spells list), but at least it is clear that this was born as a mitigating mechanic rather than a benefit: they allowed spellcasters to have a growing range of magic capabilities, but to keep it from being too good they put a limit on how many spells they could choose on a given day. It was not motivated by letting players change their mind of what their character is every other day. And it has a somewhat reasonable in-game explanation that swapping weapon mastery or fighting style really doesn't.Fighting styles and metamagic would not really break the game if a character had all of them at once, since for example you can't stack them (well, most of them at least, some fighting styles could stack), so if someone really thought that Fighters and Sorcerers needed a boost, I'd rather just grant all of them all the time instead of this farce of sleeping over.</blockquote>

Verification