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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8116999" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Yes.That's the problem I'm talking about.The game is billed as offering these things. And then it doesn't. That is bad. Either the game should live up to its billing, description, and design goals, or it should change the billing, description, and design goals so that they agree with the game offered.Sure. 5e didn't have the manpower to properly design those things once they had to finally buckle down and settle on a specific design, and they wasted a year or more faffing about before they did settle on a design to begin with. Much of this COULD have been implemented if 5e's designers had set the design goals and actually tested benchmarks early on, but they failed to do. Their reasons for those choices are the subject of a completely different thread, and thus I will leave that line of reasoning there.Completely disagree. It is entirely possible to optimize for skill checks or crowd control. Those things aren't as easily optimized as raw damage output/mitigation/avoidance, but they never have been in any edition of D&D. Pushing numbers up has always been primarily oriented toward dealing, mitigating, or avoiding damage, or improving your ability to do those things sooner, quicker, or more sustainably. Consider the very simple fact that every edition has had +N weapons and armor--aka, magical improvements to your combat abilities--but +N items that improve skills are nowhere near as universal (indeed, the two that were best for them were 3e and 4e, the editions people call out for being opposed to non-combat solutions to things!) As far as I'm aware, 5e includes very, very few items, if any, that provide +N bonuses to skill checks. (Note that I am excluding things which interact with the proficiency system, because attacks already factor that in as it is.)Honest question: How much power does crowd control have to have for you to accept it as sufficiently supported? Because, quite frankly, it sounds to me like you require crowd control and other effects that end fights on the regular. And that's a serious problem in a game where the very same person who ends fights with a single spell on the regular also ends investigations with a single spell on the regular and also ends exploration with a single spell on the regular and also ends perilous journeys and survival challenges with a single spell on the regular and...That, by the way, is what I meant by "bells and whistles." I didn't mean frilly do-nothing addenda, or "ribbons," or whatever. I meant that we have this class called "Wizard," which can memorize disguise self, web, fly, and greater invisibility all by level 7, and in so doing, frequently obviate at least one social, combat, travel, and stealth challenge each day. And that's only four of the (presumably) 8-11 spells they can prepare each day. They may easily know two other great combat spells and a useful social spell like tongues, or have access to repeatably-usable rituals like phantom steed, comprehend languages, Leomund's tiny hut, Tenser's floating disk, unseen servant, etc. And the only spell of 4th level I've mentioned here is greater invisibility; I could've instead gone with regular invisibility, and thus brought things down to only Wizard 5.A Fighter or Rogue must work, hard, to optimize for non-combat situations. A Wizard must merely pick up one utility spell every character level, and maybe invest some of their otherwise-not-very-useful gold pieces on ritual spells. Likewise, a Wizard need merely pick one damage-dealing or crowd-control spell per spell level to be completely competent at those things.Wait. So. I just want to be completely sure I understand what you mean when you say this. I had skipped over this line before, and that was an error on my part.Are you saying that it is a bad thing that 5e has made it so every class is treated as being able to pursue every niche if desired? I want to be absolutely certain this is actually what you are saying.</blockquote>

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