D&D 5E Is Tasha's Broken?

[Maxperson]

the funny part is he only started playing in 4e, but he is listneing to online advice from 20+ years ago. He thinks if a PC isn't at deaths door every game it is too easy...

I've been to his door. That guy is never home! Work, work, work. That's all he does.

 

[Maxperson]

An all Fighter or all cleric party is in the designed parameters of the game.

A cleric having spotlight in 8 encounters is not.

He doesn't have the spotlight, though. Literally everyone is being given the same bonus, so no one is in the spotlight. His ability is a very big boon, and one that requires changes to encounter design to compensate for, but it doesn't put the spotlight on him.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't feel the Twilight Cleric is "broken". Game breaking is usually when one character takes up too much of the spotlight, like dealing the most damage or making other characters feel irrelevant.

The Twilight Cleric is strong, but in the right way- they make their allies stronger, as opposed to, say, a 3.5 Clericzilla, using Divinely Persisted buffs to make themselves more powerful in melee combat than the Fighter or Barbarian, while still able to cast magical spells if they choose.

If enemies focus fire, a lot of those temporary hit points being handed out to other party members don't matter as much either. Again, not discounting the fact that a Twilight Cleric makes encounters much easier, but at the end of the day, it's basically just preventing damage.

It's not making fights quicker or letting a Rogue routinely one-shot your major enemies.

I'm going to disagree - it's not that the Twilight Cleric is broken so much as it is both powerful and really annoying. First 5e combat is already too slow. It would be less annoying if it let those one-shots happen and thus shortened those combats. Second continually renewing THP just feels like swimming against the tide - it's a particularly annoying effect for me as a DM. Thirdly it almost forces me to play the NPCs well, which gives me a lot less control over pacing and world building. Anything but a near-full focus fire effect feels almost painful as the DM. This isn't to say that my monsters don't focus fire, but how seriously they take it depends a lot on who they are and their general tactics; special forces will isolate and destroy, wolves herd and pick on the isolated, guard go almost man to man with the enemies and expect to win. But with everyone getting regenerating hit points all except one of those approaches feels just plain bad.

It's not the power (Peace may be more powerful). It's how irritating it feels.

 

[Dausuul]

A wizard not being able to prep/cast spells of any level worth mentioning for a YEAR isn't "difficult" it's absurd. Unless the player was warned of the limitation going in and chose anyway, but doesn't sound like that's what happened here.

And I'm sorry, if he's actually been told you guys are hating it and thinks you guys are just being crybabies? That's not a new DM problem, that's a jerk DM problem (reinforced by the shortsword breaking. How often do weapons break in standard D&D? This is just the DM being mean!).

Frankly, I can't believe you guys haven't walked. Are there friend group issues, I mean near a year!

Yeah. I'd just quit the game. Actually, no, I'd coordinate with the other players and all of us quit the game together, making it very clear why we were doing it.

It might or might not be a sufficient wake-up call to get the guy to change his DMing approach; but either way I'd be out of that game and my life would be improved thereby.