D&D 5E Do you feel 5e pressures you to build strong over fun?

[Sunseeker]

That's addressed by Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws.

No, it really isn't.

If you need crunch to encourage you to play to your Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, you're missing the point of Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws.

If you read what I wrote, you'd know that isn't what I'm talking about, but it seems like you're stuck on something and I don't know what that is, but you're having a conversation about that and not what I was actually talking about.

Oh, I'm sure - for those who don't understand the concept of Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. People who understand it and buy into it are already doing all of that, exactly BTB RAW.

It ain't broke.

Riiiiight okay this is a soft "If you're not playing like I do you must not undrstand the game." argument so I'm done here. Go circle jerk with whatever you've got going on in your head because I sure as heck don't know what it is and I'm tired of hitting my head against the wall.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

No, it really isn't.


If you read what I wrote, you'd know that isn't what I'm talking about, but it seems like you're stuck on something and I don't know what that is, but you're having a conversation about that and not what I was actually talking about.

OK. To try to clarify, you're not talking about a backgrounds as defined in the PHB, but more the career (as opposed to class) of a character?
It doesn't matter what her PHB background (with all its associated Ideal, bonds, flaws etc.) was; this is about where she is going, not where she's been.

So a character who wanted to be a Pirate for example wouldn't need to have that background. During play they would advance in 'being a pirate' by taking ships, looting treasure, inspiring fear on the high seas etc. This wouldn't be rewarded by powerful class-like abilities, but more thematic benefits: interacting with other pirates and sailors, piloting and commanding a ship etc?

 

[Sunseeker]

OK. To try to clarify, you're not talking about a backgrounds as defined in the PHB, but more the career (as opposed to class) of a character?
It doesn't matter what her PHB background (with all its associated Ideal, bonds, flaws etc.) was; this is about where she is going, not where she's been.

So a character who wanted to be a Pirate for example wouldn't need to have that background. During play they would advance in 'being a pirate' by taking ships, looting treasure, inspiring fear on the high seas etc. This wouldn't be rewarded by powerful class-like abilities, but more thematic benefits: interacting with other pirates and sailors, piloting and commanding a ship etc?

Yes, something along those lines, just spelled out to a more class-like degree.

 

[FarBeyondC]

Let's see...

First, I get that there are plenty of perfectly legit playstyles out there.

Just as there's plenty of imperfectly legit, imperfectly illegit, and perfectly illegit playstyles.

I'm no OneTrueWay believer or BadWrongFun caller-outer.

Definitely an OnlyWay believer myself, said OnlyWay being "do what you like first, everything else second". Not so much a caller-outer, except when defending someone else.

This isn't about "I can't believe you guys play that way! How dumb!" or anything like that. If anything, it may be about expectations and preconceived notions of what 5e expect of its players.

That's good, as that kind of thing rarely goes well.

But it feels like there are people out there who believe they are required by 5e to build purely for maximum possible strength/power just to survive.

Those people are either silly, or playing under game assumptions that require them to build purely for maximum possible ability just to survive.

The example given in the other thread: If you were a fighter 4, and your wizard friend started encouraging your interest in magic, would you take a level of wizard before getting that "precious" extra attack from fighter 5? That's the key issue here. Do you feel like you *need* that extra attack before you would consider broadening your horizons resulting from story development?

While there's nowhere near enough information here to answer the first question with satisfactory depth, the answer to the second question is a resounding no, primarily because I don't particularly find extra attack all that important when it comes down to it. Granted, if I've only started getting interested in magic and encouraged to pursue magic at 4th level, it would likely be a few weeks (or even months) before that my character's pursuit would bear fruit- whether the fruit in question is a level or more of wizard (or some other spellcasting class), the magic initiate feat (if I'm only wanting to dabble), the ritual caster feat (if I only like that aspect of magic), asking the DM if I could retrain from whatever subclass I am now to Eldritch Knight (what I've most likely would have done if my interest in magic was started from 2nd level instead of 4th), or something else as appropriate based off what idea I like most at the time. Regardless of what level I've reached (if I advanced from 4th at all) by that point, the next level would reflect the character's decision- mechanical effectiveness and the expectations of others be damned.

To me, the obvious underlying impetus seems to be one of make it through each adventuring day. This is where I think I have a certain small degree of disconnect with some people. 5e seems generally pretty forgiving of the minor power level discrepancies between characters (and, yes, in the grand scheme of things I think power level discrepancies between PCs aren't all that extreme). It can handle a non-optimized PC just fine, IMX. A character that isn't optimization-focused still generally manages to get through the adventuring day to enjoy the next. Is that not true? And isn't that the point? To win the day? I just see non-optimized PCs manage it all the time.

In my opinion (for what little it's worth), it's entirely natural for people to want to minimize the likelihood of undesired outcomes as much as reasonable (granted, some go far beyond what's reasonable, but that's all I'll say about that). With the (by default) general lack of restrictions on accessing most things in 5e, some view the choosing of anything other than best (even if it is, strictly speaking, good enough for the given purpose) as a betrayal of the (understood) group effort to do their best to prevent these undesired outcomes from occuring.

That isn't to say weak characters are immune from death. But neither are solidly built ones. I'm saying 5e's assumed power levels of play has a margin of probability, of either kind of PC dying, smaller than some might think. At least that's my experience playing it so much these last few years.

And others, consciously or otherwise, have the view that not working to bring that probability of death as low as can be managed with the pool of resources available to you is intentionally hurting everyone.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Or a Rogue that ignores many key class features, but that was pretty unoptimized.

Yes. The issue was never so much that you couldn't build a seemingly incompetent or non-combatant character, as that doing so would require intentionally 'gimping' it with very bad choices, or flat-out ignoring abilities it got from class & level (also meaning there was always a temptation to break character), and radically under-contributing to the group.

In 5e you could still do those things and count on the DM to tailor challenges so your lack of contribution doesn't hold the party back, and even tailor specific challenges that only you can get the party through, thus giving you your share of spotlight time and maintaining 5e's style of balance. (Which is, let's face it, exactly what's happening via 'author force' in fictional examples.)

The DM also always has the option of dropping a potent magic item on an under-performing character to bring him up to snuff.

I think the only edition of DnD where you could get away with that would be 4e with a Warlord.

Nod. 4e was more into 'player entitlement,' so if you wanted to play a character that didn't /seem/ to do much, you had options to do so - and still contribute without seeming to as directly. It didn't even seem like it was a design intent, just something players figured out was possible with certain build choices.

I suppose I could argue that in both cases D&D wasn't doing much to enable the character concept, it had just provided tools that the DM or Player could use to do so, if they saw a way and made the effort.

But plenty of d20 games that were otherwise very much like DnD made it work. The D20 modern game had the cha, int, and wisdom based heroes. Star Wars d20and saga edition had the Noble. Conan d20 had a Noble

Yeah, I finally took a look at that one, it was interesting.

and a Temptress class. Fantasycraft has an Explorer, Sage, Keeper, and more. Some contribute more in a fight than others, but all do a good job of letting you play a character less focused on stabbing stuff in a fight.

My list of stuff I should check out some time is growing.

If you need crunch to encourage you to play to your Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, you're missing the point of Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws.

There /is/ such crunch: Inspiration. Play up what you wrote down in those spots on your character sheet, earn a treat.

(As you can probably guess, I'm not crazy about such mechanics, but it's definitely there, and is part of that sub-system, so could be said to be a point of it.)

Optimization is invariably focused solely on in-combat mechanics. As though a CHA-focused intrigue character can't possibly be of any use.

One of the most notorious 3e optimization exploits was the Diplomancer build, able to turn hostile or suspicious strangers into helpful new best friends with a single roll of the d20.

I had a table like that once. They gave one player endless grief because he wanted to play well-rounded characters, not just damage-dealing murderhobos. He was about to quit the game over it. That made me think about my approach as DM, as well as their behavior and focus. Turns out I was rewarding that by making the game an endless stream of wilderness and dungeon combat experiences. So I threw them into a major settlement where the excellent killers were certainly not optimized; in fact, they were virtually useless.

(Depending on the edition, that might not have been all their fault. It's not like 1e, for instance, let you decide to invest your fighter's skill ranks in non-combat skills.)

They burned that city down and went back into the wilderness.

Congrats for leaving them some 'player agency.' I've heard more than a few stories of Village of Hommlet going that way, the first time I ran it, it almost did, but for one player who kept pushing to go investigate the Moathouse (thanks John, you're a prince).

 

[Mercule]

To the original question: Not really. Definitely not when compared with 3E.

I will say that a lot of folks who played 3E seem to be carrying over that style and 5E works somewhat well with it. I also think you can play 5E in a perfectly beer-and-pretzels style where you don't need to spend more than 5 minutes tweaking the character, mechanically, to make it work just fine.

 

[Tony Vargas]

To the original question: Not really. Definitely not when compared with 3E.

I will say that a lot of folks who played 3E seem to be carrying over that style and 5E works somewhat well with it.

Especially contrasted with 3e, yes. It's really more a stylistic issue than anything. Yes, 3e offered many more player options, and yes, 5e combat guidelines are perhaps tuned 'easy' as well as 'fast.' But, mainly, it's the seismic shift of focus from player to DM, and while WotC promoted that throughout the development, launch and ongoing support of 5e, it was ultimately the community that went for it. Under the 3.x RAW zeitgeist, it was up to the players to optimize their characters for survival and, beyond that, dominance - they drove the game, the DM tried to put up sufficiently tough challenges ahead of them, while still working within the same rules. In 5e, the DM is back in the driver's seat, and tailoring challenges can go in either direction, and situations can be chosen to highlight each character. As a DM you could have done that in 3e (I'm sure many did), but would have had to take liberties with the system that might have been alarming to players in that era, so even if a DM did run 3e something like we can happily run 5e, now, he probably did so with the tacit consent of his players ('player restraint' I've called, in the past).

And, 5e does present optional rules that can give players more choices at chargen/level-up, and the DM could always choose to document his rulings and stick with them, hammering out a more player-empowering foundation as they go, and making the 3e-era style work. I think 5e could probably do with more such options, to continue to improve support for that style of play, too, even if I'm already not generally using feats or MCing when I DM, there are those who should be able to make excellent use of them.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Especially contrasted with 3e, yes. It's really more a stylistic issue than anything. Yes, 3e offered many more player options, and yes, 5e combat guidelines are perhaps tuned 'easy' as well as 'fast.' But, mainly, it's the seismic shift of focus from player to DM, and while WotC promoted that throughout the development, launch and ongoing support of 5e, it was ultimately the community that went for it. Under the 3.x RAW zeitgeist, it was up to the players to optimize their characters for survival and, beyond that, dominance - they drove the game, the DM tried to put up sufficiently tough challenges ahead of them, while still working within the same rules. In 5e, the DM is back in the driver's seat, and tailoring challenges can go in either direction, and situations can be chosen to highlight each character. As a DM you could have done that in 3e (I'm sure many did), but would have had to take liberties with the system that might have been alarming to players in that era, so even if a DM did run 3e something like we can happily run 5e, now, he probably did so with the tacit consent of his players ('player restraint' I've called, in the past).

And, 5e does present optional rules that can give players more choices at chargen/level-up, and the DM could always choose to document his rulings and stick with them, hammering out a more player-empowering foundation as they go, and making the 3e-era style work. I think 5e could probably do with more such options, to continue to improve support for that style of play, too, even if I'm already not generally using feats or MCing when I DM, there are those who should be able to make excellent use of them.

Yup, you just described our group at the end, in my group i dont ban race and class choices, i curate a massive homebrew collection so they can have the level of options to which theyve become accustomed to since 4e. Everyone gets a feat at first level, im designing a variant magic item system for the setting where most magic items are uncommon or essentially level gated artifacts distributed equally so that players can pick magic items pretty freely to suit their character.

In my game, wild sorcerers decide when to surge, druids can wear metal armor if they (as characters) damn well please, and i would never dream of power stripping a paladin without talking to the player about it and getting their buy in to the sub plot.

Sent from my SM-G930V using EN World mobile app

 

[djvehovec]

not even a little bit. that being said, i don't feel that any edition, or any TTRPG, pressures this. i don't approach the game from a perspective of building characters. instead, i am creating characters. as a GM (a position i fill about 99% of the time) our games and stories are created together around the table with just as much infusion from the players as the referee.

 

[Illithidbix]

No.
Unless you actively make your primary stat low, you're probably not going to run into trouble.

If anything 5E is a tad forgiving, which the Encounter Builder makes it feel wussy for anyone with optamising and tactical players. Esp. their use of the word "Deadly" to mean

A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.

Rather than "liekyl TPK", which some seem to assume it should.


I've tried it on total newbies and not had problems.

That being said, I have also noticed that the games that I've run and played have almost always had far fewer encounters between every rest than the "average adventuring day" that the DMG suggests, and this seems very common

Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day.
… In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests, about one-third and two-thirds of the way through the day.

I do however wonder if a level 1 party *could* reliably expect to go through six to eight medium/hard encounters with so few resources.