D&D 5E Is 5E Special

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, they did put extensive playtesting into it.

And then they did a largely (maybe even entirely, I forget) unplayested last-minute massive change to it, going from 3-4 encounters/day as the norm to 6-8 - this was discussed at length in another thread. Certainly the 6-8 encounters thing is part of the problem. I remember in the playtest people whined a lot about casters having less slots than they did in 3E/PF1, but the reality was, they probably needed to cut casters down even further, slot-wise, especially at higher levels.

I think part of the problem was that the playtest focused tightly on pretty low levels, and higher-level playtesting seemed to be largely limited to the "invitees", many of whom were ultra-grogs or wannabe ultra-grogs, and thus never going to be opposed to LFQW.

Running out of spell slots is not a thing that happens post 7, usually post 5 lmfao.

I was going to say 5 but that seemed sassy because I have run out of slots at 5. It's just really rare. I've never even seen a caster run out of slots above level 7 in 5E (or 3E, but in 3E you did have a crazy number more slots).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What were mundane abilities that could keep up woth 9th level spells?

I'm sure I don't know. It's not my job to figure out what those should be. It's the job of the people asking us to pay $50 a book (or is it $60 now?) for their rules, while telling us that Champion and Banneret are supposed to be equal to Paladins and Wizards and Bards.

I've dealt with the skill issue by changing my philosophy of skill checks. If something is painfully obvious that you will succeed, no DC on it. If something should be so hard a novice can't do it, the DC is over 20.

Ability (skill) checks are the most uninteresting thing in D&D.

Mostly because of how people refuse to let them do anything interesting (likely because many put too much emphasis on using spells to do interesting things). Though the excessively high DCs and abandoning the concept of Skill Challenges are also major contributors.

I don't think 4e did it all that well. There were abilities that crossed the line for many people.

Whereas I found 4e delightful in this regard. The Fighter is emphatically not magical; no Fighter power can do anything actually supernatural. The closest things were absolutely people hunting for something to get offended by; Come And Get It is incredibly tame (as in... it's literally an assault on someone's pride, and missing the attack roll literally means your insults failed to land. There nothing remotely supernatural about it, people were just desperate for anything they could find to validate their false claim that 4e had turned Fighters into Wizards.)

The specifics on Spell design are in the DMG.

Spell casters have the same number of Skills, but nobody can have all of the Skills. Different party members get their moment to shine based on their Skill choices. Whi h, yes, is DM dependent, but that's the nature of D&D.

Uh...no, they don't. Bards get extra skills (and can get even more extra skills.) Clerics have several ways to get extra skills. Warlocks too. Wizards and Druids IIRC are the only full casters which don't have baked-in extra skill sources (will have to check some of the more recent subclasses), and Druid gets Wild Shape which already gives enormous skill-obviating powers.

The numbers are in the Dungeon Masters Guide. My personal experience and the published math suggest that you are overvaluing these magic effects as elements of game balance.

Howso? Where is the flaw in my logic? The effect of hold person is to paralyze an enemy. Within two or three levels of getting hold person, most characters are getting their first cantrip damage boost or Extra Attack, so characters are typically doing at least 12 damage per round with basic attacks (accounting for misses and crits, at the typical 60% hit rate) WITHOUT advantage. Add in the damage the monster cannot deal because it is paralyzed for at least the one round (if the spell lands at all, which it usually will), and I cannot see how anyone could rate hold person as only 3d10 equivalent (that is, ~16.5 damage), the equivalent of a moderately high-damage Fighter's average damage (again, counting hit rate and crits) for a single round of attacks.

If you factor in that melee attacks will have advantage against the target, then a single decent-damage (1d8+3) melee character can deal 19 points of damage across two attacks, again accounting for hit rate (boosted by advantage to 84%) and crit rate (9.75%, which I subtracted from the hit rate to ensure no double-counting.) Meaning having literally just one character with Extra Attack 1 (so a Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, Monk, dual-wielding Rogue, certain types of Bard or Warlock, possibly some others I've missed) you can outstrip the alleged damage equivalent of hold person. Hell, that's literally the same as claiming that hold person is equivalent to a CANTRIP at level 11 (when fire bolt becomes 3d10.) I think that pretty clearly demonstrates the faults in this claim.

I will, of course, look up the claimed equivalency numbers later today to get a better understanding of exactly what the designers claimed. But unless you're actually willing to engage with my argument, as opposed to just saying essentially "you're wrong," I don't think there's much more to be said on this front.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

And then they did a largely (maybe even entirely, I forget) unplayested last-minute massive change to it, going from 3-4 encounters/day as the norm to 6-8 - this was discussed at length in another thread. Certainly the 6-8 encounters thing is part of the problem. I remember in the playtest people whined a lot about casters having less slots than they did in 3E/PF1, but the reality was, they probably needed to cut casters down even further, slot-wise, especially at higher levels.

I think part of the problem was that the playtest focused tightly on pretty low levels, and higher-level playtesting seemed to be largely limited to the "invitees", many of whom were ultra-grogs or wannabe ultra-grogs, and thus never going to be opposed to LFQW.

I was going to say 5 but that seemed sassy because I have run out of slots at 5. It's just really rare. I've never even seen a caster run out of slots above level 7 in 5E (or 3E, but in 3E you did have a crazy number more slots).

This interesting. We usually want to start something different by level 10 and don’t play much past it.

I suppose one possibility is maybe some of the problems people are reporting in this thread would be more evident later on.

Is that where the dissatisfied folks are losing enthusiasm?

 

[Umbran]

... absolutely pathetic and sad argumentation. It's barely even grade-school level. You should not be pleased with yourself for that post. It's "local politician" level, style and type of arguing (which yes, to be clear, is below that of children).

... so patently naive...

Mod Note:
It is time to ask yourself what positive outcome you wanted to come from this mode of discussion, and whether there was a snowball's chance in heck of this style of engagement yielding that positive outcome.

If you didn't actually want a positive outcome, it is time for you to leave the thread now.

 

[Parmandur]

I actually have a house rule that if you are trained you auto succussed at all skill checks of 12 or less... so a 1st level wizard trained in athletics with a 11str will ALWAYS make a minimum DC of 12 with no roll

The DMG says not to call for Skill checks when success is either highly likely or impossible, yup.

 

[Nightfly]

It's a shame this thread has gotten so chippy. There have been some really good points and counter-points in here.

Hugs to everyone, even those who don't agree with me.

 

[Parmandur]

You've failed to answer my point about skills. I thus have to consider that you're admitting that I'm right. Fighters have much worse skill options and far fewer opportunities to shine than Full Caster party members, even just looking at skills.

The details on Spell design in the DMG do not support your argument, therefore we dismiss your claims entirely.

I mean, I answered by explaining how the narrative balance of Skills works, and yes, the DMG does explain the HP numerical value of Spells.

Where in the PHB or the DMG does it actually suggest you can "Just Say No" to someone rolling if they don't have Proficiency in the skill?

I'm not saying it doesn't, to be clear, I'd just like to have it to hand for future discussions.

Also can you think of any modules where this is invoked - i.e. where they have a skill DC to do/know something, and say non-proficient characters cannot attempt it?

The DMG sys not to call foe a roll that is too likely to succeed or too hard. Now, this is a bit of an RAI based on the published Adventures, but your second question illuminates this: literally everyone Adventure since 2014 gares Skill checks by being Proficient or not. Not proficient in Acrobatics? You can try Skill challeng X in this module. it's all over the place.

The trouble with this argument is that it's so patently naive that it makes it seem like you've never played D&D, and because we know that's false, the whole thing rings false.

Above about level 7, it's incredibly rare for the adventuring day to end without the Wizard (or Cleric, or Druid) having quite a few spell slots left, and as levels increase, that gets more extreme. So pretending Wizards above that level often "run out of spell slots" is just shenanigans of a very silly and ineffectual kind. Make better arguments.

Running out of spell slots is not a thing that happens post 7, usually post 5 lmfao.

Spellcasters after a challenging day should be rung out of spell slots. If theybare not, sure, it won't be balanced, because they don't feel the burn.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Above about level 7, it's incredibly rare for the adventuring day to end without the Wizard (or Cleric, or Druid) having quite a few spell slots left, and as levels increase, that gets more extreme. So pretending Wizards above that level often "run out of spell slots" is just shenanigans of a very silly and ineffectual kind. Make better arguments.

I have seen ever so often (but not super often) see a full caster almost out of spells... but not once over level 9.

I will say at level 1-3 I have VERY little experience play/running but I almost always start at 3rd... and at levels 3 and 4 I already see alot of caster end days with a few slots left, and still be the most influence

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I'm sure I don't know. It's not my job to figure out what those should be. It's the job of the people asking us to pay $50 a book (or is it $60 now?) for their rules, while telling us that Champion and Banneret are supposed to be equal to Paladins and Wizards and Bards.


Mostly because of how people refuse to let them do anything interesting (likely because many put too much emphasis on using spells to do interesting things). Though the excessively high DCs and abandoning the concept of Skill Challenges are also major contributors.


Whereas I found 4e delightful in this regard. The Fighter is emphatically not magical; no Fighter power can do anything actually supernatural. The closest things were absolutely people hunting for something to get offended by; Come And Get It is incredibly tame (as in... it's literally an assault on someone's pride, and missing the attack roll literally means your insults failed to land. There nothing remotely supernatural about it, people were just desperate for anything they could find to validate their false claim that 4e had turned Fighters into Wizards.)

Uh...no, they don't. Bards get extra skills (and can get even more extra skills.) Clerics have several ways to get extra skills. Warlocks too. Wizards and Druids IIRC are the only full casters which don't have baked-in extra skill sources (will have to check some of the more recent subclasses), and Druid gets Wild Shape which already gives enormous skill-obviating powers.


Howso? Where is the flaw in my logic? The effect of hold person is to paralyze an enemy. Within two or three levels of getting hold person, most characters are getting their first cantrip damage boost or Extra Attack, so characters are typically doing at least 12 damage per round with basic attacks (accounting for misses and crits, at the typical 60% hit rate) WITHOUT advantage. Add in the damage the monster cannot deal because it is paralyzed for at least the one round (if the spell lands at all, which it usually will), and I cannot see how anyone could rate hold person as only 3d10 equivalent (that is, ~16.5 damage), the equivalent of a moderately high-damage Fighter's average damage (again, counting hit rate and crits) for a single round of attacks.

If you factor in that melee attacks will have advantage against the target, then a single decent-damage (1d8+3) melee character can deal 19 points of damage across two attacks, again accounting for hit rate (boosted by advantage to 84%) and crit rate (9.75%, which I subtracted from the hit rate to ensure no double-counting.) Meaning having literally just one character with Extra Attack 1 (so a Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, Monk, dual-wielding Rogue, certain types of Bard or Warlock, possibly some others I've missed) you can outstrip the alleged damage equivalent of hold person. Hell, that's literally the same as claiming that hold person is equivalent to a CANTRIP at level 11 (when fire bolt becomes 3d10.) I think that pretty clearly demonstrates the faults in this claim.

I will, of course, look up the claimed equivalency numbers later today to get a better understanding of exactly what the designers claimed. But unless you're actually willing to engage with my argument, as opposed to just saying essentially "you're wrong," I don't think there's much more to be said on this front.

I'm sure I don't know. It's not my job to figure out what those should be. It's the job of the people asking us to pay $50 a book (or is it $60 now?) for their rules, while telling us that Champion and Banneret are supposed to be equal to Paladins and Wizards and Bards.


Mostly because of how people refuse to let them do anything interesting (likely because many put too much emphasis on using spells to do interesting things). Though the excessively high DCs and abandoning the concept of Skill Challenges are also major contributors.


Whereas I found 4e delightful in this regard. The Fighter is emphatically not magical; no Fighter power can do anything actually supernatural. The closest things were absolutely people hunting for something to get offended by; Come And Get It is incredibly tame (as in... it's literally an assault on someone's pride, and missing the attack roll literally means your insults failed to land. There nothing remotely supernatural about it, people were just desperate for anything they could find to validate their false claim that 4e had turned Fighters into Wizards.)

Yes, some people were way overexaggerating and making false claim.
But there were others who gave it a try and genuinely felt that those powers rubbed them the wrong way.

Making such blanket statements about people who say something you disagree with is disingenious.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Spellcasters after a challenging day should be rung out of spell slots. If theybare not, sure, it won't be balanced, because they don't feel the burn.

so when the 7th level caster has only used 5 spell slot ( 1 skipping an encounter, 1 1shotting a solo, and 3 in combats) and the dungeon is done... how do YOU force someone to use more slots/