D&D 5E Effect Importance by Tier

[FrogReaver]

There are various categories of combat effects in D&D: healing, damage, defense, control, etc. I find different effects have more important roles in different tiers. I list the order I evaluate these things below.

Tier 1
Healing
Defense
Damage
Control
Status Effect Defense/Removal

Tier 2
Control
Damage
Status Effect Defense/Removal
Healing
Defense

Tier 3
Control
Status Effect Defense/Removal
Damage
Healing
Defense

**Stealth/Perception - Highly Dependent on campaign

Am I missing any broad categories? Would you value these categories differently?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Mobility? (distance, climbing, swimming, flight, teleportation, etc)

 

[TwoSix]

I think the categories make sense, mostly. I could quibble if healing is meaningful enough to not warrant being rolled into defense, unless defense means personal defense only like AC/resistances.

I might argue for mobility as a separate category. The gap in possible mobility increases quite a bit as you go to Tier 3, and that difference can lose fights. One enemy with high personal mobility, decent defense against ranged, and some zone-based attacks can wreck havoc on a party with low personal mobility.

I'd also argue that status defense is more important than control effects, particularly at high level, although this is strongly campaign dependent. Most enemies I've used have had much better status defense (high saves, legendary resistance) than personal defense, so dedicated offense became more valuable. This is also party size dependent; my Tier 3 game with 4 PCs is far more vulnerable to losing turns from status effects than my tier 3 party with 7 PCs. Concentrated offense is also far more valuable with 7 PCs, because any priority target is almost sure to die in 1 round if the party chooses to pursue it.

 

[MarkB]

What about beneficial status effects like invisibility? Some of them will fall into particular categories, others may straddle them (invisibillty, for instance, provides benefits to both attack and defense). Do they need their own category, i.e. Buffs?

 

[Ancalagon]

I think that you have to consider the massive effects that divination, stealth, etc can have on the combat before it even starts

For example, in a campaign we learned, via spying, that our rivals would stir up a nest of ghouls to harass the rail-line. We used a type of divination to find the nest quickly, went there, and destroyed the ghouls (... I hope, we are almost done with the fight, in theory...). With the use of spying, teleportation and divination, we pre-empted a move against our party and interests.

 

[Haldrik]

The opposite of stealth/invisibility is detection/sensing/finding.

 

[FrogReaver]

Mobility? (distance, climbing, swimming, flight, teleportation, etc)

To me, mobility is lumped in with the damage and defensive categories. That's it's only real effect on encounters as far as I can tell?

 

[FrogReaver]

I think the categories make sense, mostly. I could quibble if healing is meaningful enough to not warrant being rolled into defense, unless defense means personal defense only like AC/resistances.

I might argue for mobility as a separate category. The gap in possible mobility increases quite a bit as you go to Tier 3, and that difference can lose fights. One enemy with high personal mobility, decent defense against ranged, and some zone-based attacks can wreck havoc on a party with low personal mobility.

I'd also argue that status defense is more important than control effects, particularly at high level, although this is strongly campaign dependent. Most enemies I've used have had much better status defense (high saves, legendary resistance) than personal defense, so dedicated offense became more valuable. This is also party size dependent; my Tier 3 game with 4 PCs is far more vulnerable to losing turns from status effects than my tier 3 party with 7 PCs. Concentrated offense is also far more valuable with 7 PCs, because any priority target is almost sure to die in 1 round if the party chooses to pursue it.

I find healing to be important enough in it's own right to deserve it's own section.

I'd just lump mobility in with damage and defense. That's really the aspects it's primarily affecting.

Control effects can end/preempt the status effect threat for the whole party. Status effect defenses are usually your pc only I think?

 

[FrogReaver]

What about beneficial status effects like invisibility? Some of them will fall into particular categories, others may straddle them (invisibillty, for instance, provides benefits to both attack and defense). Do they need their own category, i.e. Buffs?

Since this is about combat, i think we can lump those into the damage/defense/etc categories. That really is what they are being used for in combat I think?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

To me, mobility is lumped in with the damage and defensive categories. That's it's only real effect on encounters as far as I can tell?

I see where you're coming from with that. Mobility determines whether a character can get close enough to make a meaningful contribution to the party's damage output while limiting damage taken.