D&D General Chris just said why I hate wizard/fighter dynamic

[Micah Sweet]

That's my point.

It doesn't matter why.

If you design a game anda 1/3 of it is not used, it's a major flaw.

It matters why if you want to fix the problem. Clearly WotC doesn't have a good answer for that one.

 

[Oofta]

That's my point.

It doesn't matter why.

If you design a game anda 1/3 of it is not used, it's a major flaw.

Not used by whom? For what reasons? According to the devs people don't play high levels largely because they want to move on to something else and wants a change of pace or the group breaks up. I think the lack of modules doesn't help, but it's also difficult to write them for high level.

Several people on this forum have said they have no problem with games up to 20.

 

[Maxperson]

Not used by whom? For what reasons? According to the devs people don't play high levels largely because they want to move on to something else and wants a change of pace or the group breaks up. I think the lack of modules doesn't help, but it's also difficult to write them for high level.

Right. That means that even if only 10%(or whatever) PCs get to high levels, you could still have 80% of groups getting there. It just might take them 10 tries as life intrudes to kick the other 9 down.

 

[Aldarc]

Several people on this forum have said they have no problem with games up to 20.

Well now I'm convinced.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's my point.

It doesn't matter why.

If you design a game anda 1/3 of it is not used, it's a major flaw.

In a level based tabletop game where the default is to start at level one, of course the higher levels see less play. More groups will play the first or fifth session of their campaign than their their 90th. This is not to say that higher levels couldn't or shouldn't be improved, but that they're played less is completely expected.

 

[Minigiant]

It matters why if you want to fix the problem. Clearly WotC doesn't have a good answer for that one.

Exactly.

I'm 100% sure WOTC knows high levels is a problem and wants to fix it.

They just don't know how without angering the fans again.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In the past, you have indicated that you use the “gritty rest” variant in your games i.e. a short rest is 8 hours and a long rest is 2 days of downtime.

If the game were tweaked so that all classes could contribute on an equal footing using the standard resting rules, would you complain?

Would you agree that posters here may have their own reasons not to implement the gritty rest variant that would mean that it is not a solution to the relative disparity between high level martial classes and high level caster classes?

I feel the standard rests are stupid and I think the game should be reworked to use something like the gritty as the default. Or at least present the different options equally in the PHB. All the biggest balance issues stem from the fact that the game is designed around insanely hectic adventuring days filled with tedious non-stop slaughter, and a lot of people simply don't play that way. And that basically everything is reset by a good night's sleep and the mechanics do not really recognise any longer term injury, ailment or resource depletion just creates a super weird and implausible narrative.

 

[Oofta]

I feel the standard rests are stupid and I think the game should be reworked to use something like the gritty as the default. Or at least present the different options equally in the PHB. All the biggest balance issues stem from the fact that the game is designed around insanely hectic adventuring days filled with tedious non-stop slaughter, and a lot of people simply don't play that way. And that basically everything is reset by a good night's sleep and the mechanics do not really recognise any longer term injury, ailment or resource depletion just creates a super weird and implausible narrative.

I agree. It seems like they leaned into old school dungeon crawls way too much.

 

[Remathilis]

I agree. It seems like they leaned into old school dungeon crawls way too much.

I still feel 99% of all decisions made about the creation of 5e can be summed up by asking "if you could make one last definitive edition of D&D that summarized everything that came before and do it before Hasbro pulled the plug on the game permanently, what would you want it to look like?"

 

[Jaeger]

People don't usually play high level to see the problem.

However of those who do, a large percentage complain about it.

Designing 20 levels of a game and having at least 25% of fans who run all those levels conservatively say 8 levels of it isn't good is nowhere close to "good enough to not attempt to fix".

High level play is kind of a chicken and the egg. Because there's no higher module support and minimal monster support unless you want fiends again, people don't play that level.

In my opinion, a lot of these issues go back to when designing 3e WotC made Hit Point progression go for all 20 levels. 1-2e only had HD go to level10 or so with maybe a +1 or 2 HP per level after that.

Much of the intention was that around levels 10 or so the PC's will move on to domain play. But Domain play was firmly dropped by the time 3e came out.

The continued HP progression has caused math scaling issues in the game that WotC has never fully been able to get a handle on. Combine that with high level magic that is virtually impossible to account for in module design, and you get the virtually total lack of support for high level play.

I feel that part of the solution would have been to go back to 1-2e style HP progression, as it would have flattened out a lot of the math of high level PC's and Monsters. But I really don't see WotC walking that back for a variety of reasons.