D&D 5E (2014) Game design allow sub optimal class build. Confirmed by M Mearls

[Dausuul]

Yep. Suboptimal worked great in 3e.

Sure, but you have to know how to optimize in order to reliably build sub-optimal PCs.

Otherwise you're apt to get the guy who decides, "Well, I don't want to make my wizard too powerful. So I'll avoid taking any damage-dealing spells, and just use stuff like slow and glitterdust." And then the wizard dominates all the encounters, because those spells are crazybroken in 3E.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Here is my expectation of a player.

You have two players. One is a newbie and one is power gamer. The power gamer builds a great weapon master barbarian the newb takes a champion fighter and no feats and buffs strength or dexterity. One is better than the other and that's fine the newb can still do his thing.

Then you get a pumpkin who want to play we had 2 or 3 of them. They take a cleric who refuse to heal, a strength based PC with 12 strength or some other moronic concept.

I think my space for "permissible character concepts" is much more broad than yours. This may be due to very different play goals. Clerics who refuse to heal and great-weapon melee fighters with a 12 Strength can still contribute meaningfully to party success in my games.

Or we need a healer so the plan is to take a thief with the healer feat but then they take a arcane trickster take a non human and at level 4 buff intelligence and charisma. And then the party gets takedown.

Again, my games are not so fragile that the lack of a dedicated healer will lead to a TPK. Potions of Healing are usually enough.

D&D is a team based game. If the party needs a healer the last PC rolled up should be a healer or whatever the party needs. When I play I normally take the last role that needs filled.

In addition to being stupid these players were getting other pc's killed. After I booted them they more or less got kicked/tanked two other groups as well.

In a similar vein, my games are not so fragile that they have rigidly defined "roles." There are multiple ways to overcome my challenges.

An 8 intelligence wizard may not be ideal but with clever spell selection and play you could still be very useful. Casting mage armor on a rogue or monk haste on a tank instead of fireball.

If you can make it work go for it. If you are a pumpkin I will have a quiet word with the player about it. If you are new other experienced players can help.

I wonder if the sensitivity to un-optimized PC's is related to the particular demands that you put on your game and your group. It sounds like perhaps the challenges your group faces are significantly harsher than the challenges the game expects for most groups. I suppose that means you're all quite good at D&D, but for me, character diversity is a big gain that the expected challenges enable.

So when 5e allows for viable "pumpkins" as a default, that's awesome news for me. If someone wants to build an optimized character, that's great, but having diminishing returns for that optimization emphasizes that the game has a broad range of balance, and does not require you to fill roles, force people to play healers, or even guide people by the nose through what is a reasonable Strength for a two-handing front-line warrior.

 

[Zardnaar]

You can use published adventures and still put in your campaign anything you want you know it's not like a WoTC task force is gonna come kick you door down and take it away if you do! Shifting the blame on the adventure is futile you're the DM in charge of your campaign afterall so it's up to you to make it work!

If I am running an adventure I more or less expect it to function as written with minimal work required. Adventures that need the DM to fix them are often bad adventures as written. I do not hod my PCs hand as the risk of death should be real especially if they do stupid crap like trying to jump pools of acid with 10 strength. Playing OSR games again for 3 years after 3E and 4E deprogrammed my brain in that regard.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think my space for "permissible character concepts" is much more broad than yours. This may be due to very different play goals. Clerics who refuse to heal and great-weapon melee fighters with a 12 Strength can still contribute meaningfully to party success in my games.


Again, my games are not so fragile that the lack of a dedicated healer will lead to a TPK. Potions of Healing are usually enough.


In a similar vein, my games are not so fragile that they have rigidly defined "roles." There are multiple ways to overcome my challenges.



I wonder if the sensitivity to un-optimized PC's is related to the particular demands that you put on your game and your group. It sounds like perhaps the challenges your group faces are significantly harsher than the challenges the game expects for most groups. I suppose that means you're all quite good at D&D, but for me, character diversity is a big gain that the expected challenges enable.

So when 5e allows for viable "pumpkins" as a default, that's awesome news for me. If someone wants to build an optimized character, that's great, but having diminishing returns for that optimization emphasizes that the game has a broad range of balance, and does not require you to fill roles, force people to play healers, or even guide people by the nose through what is a reasonable Strength for a two-handing front-line warrior.

As I siad most of the time I am using published adventures and I let the dice fall where they may. Generally I assume a 16 in your primary stat and yes I know there are spell caster builds which can be played with very low stats but that requires a certain degree of system mastery to make work.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't have a problem with un-optimized PCs, per se. I do have a problem when there's a big gap between PCs in the same party. Fights that are fun and challenging for the optimized PC tend to leave the un-optimized PC struggling to stay relevant or even conscious.

Fortunately, because 5E has no explicit wealth-by-level guidelines, a DM who notices this issue can address it with a few carefully planted magic items to bring the un-optimized PCs closer to par. (It is, however, wise to pull the players of the optimized PCs aside and explain what you're doing and why.)

This I put in a flaming shortsword for a valor bard to use.

Problem is this can also backfire. I had a player give all of her magic items to her partner or friend so some of the times I intended for her to have all ended up on 1 PC so we had several PCs with 17/18 AC and one with 21-23 AC. Same group of players ended up with a PC dealing the same amount of damage as the rest of the party put together mostly because the DM gave the best PCs the best equipment while the weaker damage dealing PCs had to make do with +1 weapons.

AC 22-23 or so works alright in AD&D (-2/-3) as the better armour is a major class feature. Doesn't work so well in 5E.

 

[I'm A Banana]

As I siad most of the time I am using published adventures and I let the dice fall where they may. Generally I assume a 16 in your primary stat and yes I know there are spell caster builds which can be played with very low stats but that requires a certain degree of system mastery to make work.

I am using published adventures, too. LMoP, HotDQ, and CoS. I don't think any of those are fragile enough to break if someone decides to be a STR 12 great-weapon-wielding front-liner or decides not to play a healer (in fact, my CoS game has no dedicated healer at the moment, and hasn't for a while - they make do with paladin and ranger healing, by and large).

 

[Zardnaar]

I am using published adventures, too. LMoP, HotDQ, and CoS. I don't think any of those are fragile enough to break if someone decides to be a STR 12 great-weapon-wielding front-liner or decides not to play a healer (in fact, my CoS game has no dedicated healer at the moment, and hasn't for a while - they make do with paladin and ranger healing, by and large).

If you all have players on the same page sure, when we had it as I said we had 2-3 pumpkins in the party who were either actively or passively undermining the party.

Even with some of the powergamer PCs we had a TPK in HotDQ. If you build the party right its not to bad but it dpends on how many encounters the DM chose to throw at the party but we had a TPK in the gatehouse IIRC which was the 1st encounter.

Even if you get past act 1 HotDQ is still a bad/boring rail roaded ham fisted poorly laid out mess. When your players are used to Pathfinder APs, the OSR adventures and some of the better 5E Quests of Doom/EN5ider and DMguild adventures a stinker like HotDQ stands out. Note I think PotA and OotA are a lot better or even RoT (have not read CoS or Thunder King).

 

[Corwin]

If you all have players on the same page sure, when we had it as I said we had 2-3 pumpkins in the party who were either actively or passively undermining the party.

This is a dysfunctional table issue. Not a system issue.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Played today with 8 bottles of a wine/cider mix.

There's your problem right there. You need to up that to around 30 bottles, 5 for each player and the DM.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In other news, Mike Mearls also confirmed that the PHB consists of paper and ink.