D&D (2024) DMG 5.5 - the return of bespoke magical items?

[Mistwell]

Did you ever talk to your DM about these concerns? It sounds like that might have helped.

Yes of course. He's a reasonable person. It's his fundamental view that his job is to challenge the players, wherever they are at. So odds are if I just stopped focusing on AC and focused on something else, he'd change his focus as well to meet that new specialty. It's too late for this campaign though to re-do my PC.

To address this on my side, as soon as we end this campaign (which is probably in about a month, after years in this same adventure) I plan to start a new PC that's more evenly spread across many different areas of the game and see how it goes. I won't be the guy tanking. And if we have no tank, let's see how the DM adapts to that.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And my DM, routinely, finds ways to make sure my PC is hit. All the friggen time. Pretty much every single battle, a lot. The list of inventive ways to damage Mistwell's PC is long and varied.

Which means every opportunity I get to increase my AC further, I take. And then I add self healing to the mix, to stay standing knowing I will be hit all the time anyway. In an endless cycle.

Sometimes, I am fine with it. My PC is still alive after all so it's working out OK. But sometimes it's really frustrating because I never get room to breath and actually do much besides stand there and take it like a boxer wearing out his opponent's fist with their face. Cast an interesting spell with role playing opportunities, or keep myself going? It's keep myself going because if I go down, it's likely everyone does.

Sometimes, it's OK to just let the PCs win. Not every battle has to feel like death is on the line. It's OK to let the thing the player chose to focus on be that powerful thing.

This is why I am ALWAYS upfront to my players...

Session 0 I tell them (some variant of) "Look, one of the ways you can focus play is what you are good at. So if one of you has a 24 AC, they are going to run into things that can hit 24s or damage without attack rolls... if you have a killer combo of spells that can eat through resistances and deal huge damage (or if you just hit for huge damage) you will run into creatures with more HP"

But I also make sure to stress "You set the tempo. If no one can disarm a trap, very few traps are showing up, if everyone is ranged combatants so will most enemies."

 

[Vaalingrade]

This is why I am ALWAYS upfront to my players...

Session 0 I tell them (some variant of) "Look, one of the ways you can focus play is what you are good at. So if one of you has a 24 AC, they are going to run into things that can hit 24s or damage without attack rolls... if you have a killer combo of spells that can eat through resistances and deal huge damage (or if you just hit for huge damage) you will run into creatures with more HP"

but they do sometimes get to be good at the thing they focused on, right? Their decisions aren't just instantly and constantly negated?

 

[Micah Sweet]

but they do sometimes get to be good at the thing they focused on, right? Their decisions aren't just instantly and constantly negated?

It's a delicate balance to be sure, and everyone will have more fun if it goes both ways occasionally.

 

[Mistwell]

This is why I am ALWAYS upfront to my players...

Session 0 I tell them (some variant of) "Look, one of the ways you can focus play is what you are good at. So if one of you has a 24 AC, they are going to run into things that can hit 24s or damage without attack rolls... if you have a killer combo of spells that can eat through resistances and deal huge damage (or if you just hit for huge damage) you will run into creatures with more HP"

But I also make sure to stress "You set the tempo. If no one can disarm a trap, very few traps are showing up, if everyone is ranged combatants so will most enemies."

Which breaks verisimilitude for me. I don't want 100% static worlds that don't adapt at all to the PCs, but I want them to make the PCs a lot less of the malleable focal point than that.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes of course. He's a reasonable person. It's his fundamental view that his job is to challenge the players, wherever they are at. So odds are if I just stopped focusing on AC and focused on something else, he'd change his focus as well to meet that new specialty. It's too late for this campaign though to re-do my PC.

To address this on my side, as soon as we end this campaign (which is probably in about a month, after years in this same adventure) I plan to start a new PC that's more evenly spread across many different areas of the game and see how it goes. I won't be the guy tanking. And if we have no tank, let's see how the DM adapts to that.

While it seems your DM is the type who would (try to) adapt, my take is and always has been that it's the party that should adapt while the DM neutrally presents whatever challenges were going to be presented anyway; and that the DM adapting to suit the party lessens the experience for all involved - as it appears you have already had happen.

No tank? Then you might get steamrolled until-unless you recruit an NPC to take that job on.

 

[Mistwell]

While it seems your DM is the type who would (try to) adapt, my take is and always has been that it's the party that should adapt while the DM neutrally presents whatever challenges were going to be presented anyway; and that the DM adapting to suit the party lessens the experience for all involved - as it appears you have already had happen.

No tank? Then you might get steamrolled until-unless you recruit an NPC to take that job on.

Right. I am willing to find out though. Maybe not. We're not a table afraid of PC death really (only when we've been playing for years in the same campaign do we not want to find out). If we start a new campaign and we all die because nobody takes a certain roll, we will have learned a valuable lesson and start anew with that in mind. If it works out, we will learn that too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

While it seems your DM is the type who would (try to) adapt, my take is and always has been that it's the party that should adapt while the DM neutrally presents whatever challenges were going to be presented anyway; and that the DM adapting to suit the party lessens the experience for all involved - as it appears you have already had happen.

No tank? Then you might get steamrolled until-unless you recruit an NPC to take that job on.

That would be my ideal also.

 

[Guest 7037866]

While it seems your DM is the type who would (try to) adapt, my take is and always has been that it's the party that should adapt while the DM neutrally presents whatever challenges were going to be presented anyway; and that the DM adapting to suit the party lessens the experience for all involved - as it appears you have already had happen.

No tank? Then you might get steamrolled until-unless you recruit an NPC to take that job on.

That would be my ideal also.

Ditto.

 

[Emerikol]

I think when designing adventures the DM should do a design that initially sets up the bad guys based on what they'd know about the world. Their experience of it. After the PCs engage though, I fully expect the bad guys, if intelligent, to change up their tactics. It's why my groups know that take rests often is a surefire way to enable the enemy. They rest when they have to and they never use expendable resources unless they have to and yes that means the casters often do not cast a spell. (or in this edition I suppose cast only cantrips).

I think my approach is realistic given the nature of intelligent creatures. So that high AC cleric likely is not expected day one but if the bad guys get time to recoup they may invent a strategy to try and work around that advantage.