Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 7478025" data-attributes="member: 6802765">[MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]If you'd like to discuss the specific examples I provided to illustrate my underlying claim that effectiveness of low-level characters depends on playstyle, that's fine--my responses are below. But I'm also interested in whether you agree or disagree with my broader claim, and why.Of course your experience is that death by massive damage is "practically impossible"--if your experience were otherwise I suspect you'd have a larger problem with lower-level characters being unable to meaningfully contribute. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> But other people with other playstyles may have different experiences. [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION], in the post above, reports that enemies in their mid-high level campaigns can kill 1st level characters from massive damage with AoE abilities. I note that you included the qualifier "once the character has a couple levels" which means your experience may not actually differ from Oofta's. But that qualifier undermines your point by acknowledging the possibility that characters without more than a couple levels are at risk from dying by massive damage. Similarly, your qualifer that death from massive damage is rare "provided the player [of a character with more than a couple levels] employs a modicum of tactics" supports my claim. You're implying that at tables that use a playstyle where a "modicum of tactics" can't be assumed, death by massive damage could be a danger for lower-level characters. At such tables, lower-level characters might have a hard time meaningfully contributing (because they're dead).This makes no sense to me. If unplanned combats are diverse enough that the characters have a hard time routinely relying on the tactics you've suggested that prevent them from being targeted, what other actions do you expect them to take to avoid "undesirable outcomes"?I entirely agree. But I don't think your point is relevant. I'm not saying the player of the tribal champion is forced into suicidal behavior by the expectations of the table. I'm saying the player of the tribal champion wants to have their character engage in their typical fighting style even knowing OOC that such actions are likely to be suicidal, because that's part of their conception of what it means to roleplay. More broadly, if a player isn't going to use the OOC knowledge that they are lower-level and plan tactics for their character accordingly, the odds of the character dying (and thus being unable to meaningfully contribute) go up beyond what you've observed at your table.I think what it means to meaningfully contribute itself probably varies between playstyles. If you agree, I think that's strong support for my claim that the ability of lower-level characters to hit that (moving) threshold of effectiveness depends on playstyle. That being said, in my examples I was trying to stick to the definition that I believe you are using: the ability to make a combat easier for the team via one's actions.Yes, but I don't think it's particularly relevant to my point, and I don't think going into detail would provide useful support for my claim. I'm claiming that the ability of lower-level characters to meaningfully contribute likely depends on playstyle, and I don't have experience with a large-enough range of playstyles to have direct evidence for the claim. If you happen to have experience with such a large range and can assert that in all of them lower-level characters could still meaningfully contribute, that would be evidence weighing against my claim. But the experience you've described so far in this thread relates to a specific playstyle, which inherently can't support or undermine my claim about variation across playstyles.</blockquote>

Verification