D&D 5E I'm *GASP* Actually Going to Be Playing 5e in a Few Weeks -- What are the Character Creation Pitfalls to Avoid?

[Imaro]

3e & 4e, certainly. The 'player empowering' editions. Especially if the DM was taken in by the 3.x RAW zeitgeist.

How'd I know that would be the answer .

I don't see 5e's class abilities as any more vague or ill defined than 4e's or 3e's... I know what action surge allows my character to do, I know what stunning fist does, I kow what Wildshape does and so on... so could you give some examples of what exactly you are talking about here?

Player picks a class, feats, weapons, spells, makes/buys/ items, etc, and what they do, how they stack up, and how crazy-broken they all turn out to be are all a function of 'RAW.' The DM can 'house rule' (shame! horror!) or pull out the banhammer, but the player had a lot of control over what his character was & could do - and not entirely 'within reason.'

3.5 was the height of the phenomenon (4e balance muted the effects), but it was even true further back, though to an increasingly lesser extent. 2e 'Player Option' supplements opened up some stuff along those lines. Before that, there was always spell choice, spells being a fairly push-button way of evoking specific results for the player.

Again... not seeing a difference between this and 5e... some concrete examples would help.

Of course, the DM could always respond by ratcheting up the challenges faced, even if he wasn't willing to challenge the RAW, thus pushing relative effectiveness back down.

So in effect, right here, you are saying the players of any edition don't really have the power to dictate their own effectiveness to the DM, right?

5e is, if anything, less that way, even than later 2e. Players have choices but, what those choices translate to the PC actually being able to do is very much a matter of DM rulings. Some choices, like spells and class features, are more clearly defined than others, like ability & skill checks, but they're all mere rules subject to the DM rulings.

Ah, ok so we aren't speaking to class features... and we aren't speaking to spells... so we're talking about 5e skills (even though you continuously present this idea of vagueness and uncertainty around capabilities as if it encompasses the entirety of the game... don't you think that's a little disingenuous of you?). So I'll ask again because in all honesty I'm not seeing how other edition skills were all that different, can you give a concrete example or two (outside of stealth which was left purposefully vague in 5e) of this difference of skills in the various editions?

It's funny, because it's like "nothing has changed, but everything has," just on a matter of clarity, emphasis, and attitude. In reality, a 2e DM could have run strictly 'by the book' or a 3e/4e DM could have over-ridden the rules constantly. Nothing could have stopped them in either case. But they'd've been bucking the trend and common wisdom of the day. By the same token, a 5e DM could empower the heck out of his players with clear house-rules/rulings all clearly spelled out, even irrevocably documented ahead of time, and stick to them no matter what combos they came up with.

Yeah see you did it again... implied that 5e doesn't really have any rules (without house-rulings) when in fact it does... Outside that you seem to now be shifting your argument ever so slightly towarss community as opposed to the actual systems... so which one is it because I don't really care about the community so much as the actual rules around a particular edition.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

How'd I know that would be the answer .

Cuz I nailed it?...

 

[Tony Vargas]

How'd I know that would be the answer.

Why'd you ask?

I don't see 5e's class abilities as any more vague or ill defined than 4e's or 3e's...... not seeing a difference between this and 5e...

So, when you asked:

I'm confused by this... what edition of D&D allows a player to "dictate" to the DM how effective their character is going to be through mechanical choices you make at chargen & level up?

Your point was not that no edition did that, but that all did?

So in effect, right here, you are saying the players of any edition don't really have the power to dictate their own effectiveness to the DM, right?

Nope. Note the word 'relative.'

Outside that you seem to now be shifting your argument ever so slightly towarss community as opposed to the actual systems... so which one is it because I don't really care about the community so much as the actual rules around a particular edition.

It's really /mostly/ about the zietgiest surrounding each edition. 3.5 had the RAW obsession & 4e clarity/balance, the pendulum has swung the other way in 5e. In each case, the games have characteristics that support or provoked those attitudes, in the case of 5e, they were intentional from the start (Mr. Mearls came right out and said what he was aiming for during the playtest), in the case of 3.x, they came out later (Cook, in passing, in Ivory Tower Game Design).

But, ultimately, the DM always had the final say, they were just more inclined to use it back in the day, and, now, again under 5e, than in the 3e/4e era. That may be summing up 30+ years of D&D history a little glibly, and I don't know how much that history you personally were paying attention for (or why you'd want to argue about it), but that's about the size of it.

 

[happyhermit]

3e & 4e, certainly. The 'player empowering' editions. Especially if the DM was taken in by the 3.x RAW zeitgeist.

Player picks a class, feats, weapons, spells, makes/buys/ items, etc, and what they do, how they stack up, and how crazy-broken they all turn out to be are all a function of 'RAW.' The DM can 'house rule' (shame! horror!) or pull out the banhammer, but the player had a lot of control over what his character was & could do - and not entirely 'within reason.'

3.5 was the height of the phenomenon (4e balance muted the effects), but it was even true further back, though to an increasingly lesser extent. 2e 'Player Option' supplements opened up some stuff along those lines. Before that, there was always spell choice, spells being a fairly push-button way of evoking specific results for the player.

Of course, the DM could always respond by ratcheting up the challenges faced, even if he wasn't willing to challenge the RAW, thus pushing relative effectiveness back down.

Even without "ratcheting up difficulty" or going against RAW, this;

get to use mechanical choices you make at chargen & level up to dictate to the DM how effective your character is going to be. ...

Never was possible in any edition. Even the most strict adherence to the rules did not prevent a DM from making all those feats, weapons, spells, items, etc. more or less effective. I am sure we can all think up endless examples; Cool build for killing undead-no undead, resistance to fire-no fire, awesome diplomacy skills-now you're in a dungeon with a gelatinous cube. 3e or 4e did not let you dictate the effectiveness of your character to the DM.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Even the most strict adherence to the rules did not prevent a DM from making all those feats, weapons, spells, items, etc. more or less effective.

You mean situationally? Sure, you take a character that's designed to be effective at combat, some 20-level tweaked build with all the right feats in the right order and just the right items budgeted to wealth-by-level to complement them &c - and put him in a non-combat situation where he needs to, say, solve a riddle using Knowledge skills, he's not effective at it, because the player chose to dump INT and not take any Knowledge skills. He's still effective at combat, though, just not using it at that moment. The player's decisions determined the effectiveness of his character. Put the same character in an edition that didn't have skills, or where using any skill required a DM ruling, and the player isn't dictating his effectiveness, not even, as in this case, dictating that his PC will suck at the task.

 

[Imaro]

Why'd you ask?

Because hope springs eternal...

So, when you asked:

Your point was not that no edition did that, but that all did?

No my point was exactly what I said... "I don't see 5e's class abilities as any more vague or ill defined than 4e's or 3e's...... not seeing a difference between this and 5e..."

You're the one making the sweeping generalizations about editions, I never actually said I agreed with any of them.

Nope. Note the word 'relative.'

Relative to what? You're claiming the DM can ratchet up challenges and I think it's self evident he can ratchet them down so what exactly is the determination of your effectiveness "relative" to?

It's really /mostly/ about the zietgiest surrounding each edition. 3.5 had the RAW obsession & 4e clarity/balance, the pendulum has swung the other way in 5e. In each case, the games have characteristics that support or provoked those attitudes, in the case of 5e, they were intentional from the start (Mr. Mearls came right out and said what he was aiming for during the playtest), in the case of 3.x, they came out later (Cook, in passing, in Ivory Tower Game Design).

But, ultimately, the DM always had the final say, they were just more inclined to use it back in the day, and, now, again under 5e, than in the 3e/4e era. That may be summing up 30+ years of D&D history a little glibly, and I don't know how much that history you personally were paying attention for (or why you'd want to argue about it), but that's about the size of it.

So we aren't really even talking about systems here (even though like I said you seem to infer that 5e's rules are nearly non-existent whenever you talk about the edition). You also admit that ultimately in any edition the DM always has final say... Yeah not much to argue about now that you've clarified and backtracked the original statements to the point that it almost seems like you're saying something entirely different from the original post.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Relative to what? You're claiming the DM can ratchet up challenges and I think it's self evident he can ratchet them down so what exactly is the determination of your effectiveness "relative" to?

Relative to the mechanical effectiveness of the build in question, obviously.

So we aren't really even talking about systems here.

They're related, of course. 3.5 intentionally rewarded system mastery, for instance, making it more 'player empowering.' That's a system thing. It also had 'Rule 0,' but that got largely overwhelmed by the RAW-obsession encouraged by all those system-mastery-rewards. 5e has a system, so you can exert system mastery, but how well that works for you is going to be very DM dependent. Consider diplomacy, for instance. In 3e, Diplomacy had this table of static DCs, you could optimize your 'diplomancer' to consistently hit DCs that'd turn hostile NPCs friendly. You can't do that in 5e, because you have no such DC to aim at. One 14 CHA, untrained character might find that lots of NPCs, even potential enemies warm up to him, and other 18 CHA character with Expertise in some interaction skills might find a lot of hostility out there. All depends on the DM - whether he narrates success/failures, or calls for rolls and at what DC.

 

[Imaro]

Relative to the mechanical effectiveness of the build in question, obviously.

... Ok, this still doesn't change the point I made but thanks for explaining what you meant.

They're related, of course. 3.5 intentionally rewarded system mastery, for instance, making it more 'player empowering.' That's a system thing. It also had 'Rule 0,' but that got largely overwhelmed by the RAW-obsession encouraged by all those system-mastery-rewards. 5e has a system, so you can exert system mastery, but how well that works for you is going to be very DM dependent. Consider diplomacy, for instance. In 3e, Diplomacy had this table of static DCs, you could optimize your 'diplomancer' to consistently hit DCs that'd turn hostile NPCs friendly. You can't do that in 5e, because you have no such DC to aim at. One 14 CHA, untrained character might find that lots of NPCs, even potential enemies warm up to him, and other 18 CHA character with Expertise in some interaction skills might find a lot of hostility out there. All depends on the DM - whether he narrates success/failures, or calls for rolls and at what DC.

There are rules in the DMG for persuading an NPC in the DMG and the DC's are static and depend on the NPC's attitude toward you... can you break the game like you could in 3.5... no because NPC's with certain attitudes towards you are only willing to go so far as listed on the DC table... so you'e not going to talk a king into giving you his kingdom by rolling high enough... but you very much have the ability to optimize in this area without any more reliance on DM fiat than in 3e and probably less than in 4e. This is why I tend to question the basis of your sweeping generalizations about 5e...

 

[Tony Vargas]

There are rules in the DMG for persuading an NPC in the DMG

There are a lot of rules & modules in the DMG that the DM can use as guidelines or not. The static DCs that the 3.5 diplomancer build was based on were in the PH, under Diplomacy - heck they're in the SRD. That may seem like a subtle difference (or not), but it's just another example of how DM-Empowering 5e has been. Does the DM like that AD&D-referent 'reaction adjustment' style of check? He can use it, or something like it. Does he just want to narrate the NPCs reactions without reference to any check at all? He can do that, instead. It's not even a house rule, just the basic way resolution works in 5e.

There's a certain elegance to it, even.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

I can't recall ever seeing a TTRPG rule system* that gave the players all the power. Or allowed them to unilaterally dictate the effectiveness of their choices.




(Caveat: I'm of course speaking only of those designed to be ran by a "boss-role", i.e., DM, GM, Storyteller, what-have-you.)