D&D 5E "My X is underpowered compared to Y." So?

[steeldragons]

And this needs repeating, just for universal truth. Welcome back!

No, your disequilibrium is because missed 3.x/Pathfinder, that was the height of the player-empowerment, builds, RAW (Rules As Written) obsession and optimization.

Of course, you can optimize in any game, (people even did in 2e and earlier, just not so formally and with fewer tools, with 'gaming the DM' perhaps being the most critical form of powergaming), and people did bring that 3.x mentality forward into Pathfinder (which embraced it), 4e (in spite of it being fairly well-balanced), and 5e (in spite of it's more classic-D&D style).

Anyway, if you ignore the naysayers, you should find returning to D&D with 5e after last enjoying 2e an easy, comfortable, and rewarding transition. Welcome back, and enjoy your D&D.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Mean-spirited? Truly? I'm not sure what words or phrases (or what you are reading into them) suggest that to you. Let me rephrase and clarify: I'm coming from a situation of rejoining D&D (5e) from not having played since I was in my teens with 2nd Edition. I'm puzzled by the emphasis on damage output and the complaints about one class or another being underpowered in comparison to others. It's not the kind of thing I've heard before. So I tossed the question out there on a discussion board to try and gain understanding/context. And the ensuing conversation has been helpful, which I'm grateful for. It's opened my eyes to the fact that the game, and peoples' understanding of it, is generally different than the one I experienced back decades ago.

Tangent: there are several of us, including myself, in your exact same situation of having not played since AD&D 2nd edition. IMO 5E supports the AD&D style reasonably well (I do have to port a lot of monster data and setting materials, but it works well) and I hope you enjoy it. I share your reaction to the strangeness of Internet posters' attitude towards "balance" in class design and expectations for fair, "balanced" encounters--but what people say on the Internet doesn't matter at the game table. My players were raised on 3E but they've adjusted just fine to AD&D-style 5E wherein zero attention is given to balance, only to world design, and the players and their PCs make their own place in that world. I'm sure you know what I mean.

So anyway, the game doesn't have to be different than what you experienced back then, even if people who didn't skip 3E have different expectations for the game.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But you can't quantify that. You can't look at a character away from the table and know it's fun, or post it on a message board and have everyone acknowledge its funness.

Yeah, this. I get the feeling that DPR obsession is mostly a thing for Internet posters. At the table, it can be fun to be the guy who obtains vital information through spying, or who persuades a key NPC to become an ally, but none of those things can be talked about on the Internet easily because they're all context-dependent. If you talk about how you can get a Lore Bard with +16 to Charisma (Persuasion) and advantage on Charisma checks, you'll just get a big shrug because there is no generally-recognized framework for what +16 to Persuasion can accomplish, and unfortunately nobody wants to hear anecdotes about what your DM let you accomplish with Persuasion. But if you talk about how your assassin/paladin can smite Tiamat for 350 points of damage in the surprise round, it's superficially easy for them to translate that knowledge into their own context and be impressed by and/or want to adopt your tactics. (In reality such builds still have a lot of context to them, about how proactive Tiamat is about patrolling her lair/seeking out threats, whether the DM believes in "balanced encounters", and how the DM runs stealth and surprise; DPR-oriented posters generally ignore such context until someone points it out and it turns into a stupid Internet argument. But the context was there all along.)

In other words, DPR obsession is a hyperspecialization which is well-adapted for Internet communication and thrives there even moreso than at the table. That's how it looks to me anyway.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I share your reaction to the strangeness of Internet posters' attitude towards "balance" in class design and expectations for fair, "balanced" encounters--but what people say on the Internet doesn't matter at the game table.

Indeed, it doesn't matter.

But, I'm surprised you find the concept of class balance strange or new. Gygax went on about it in the 1e DMG, and both versions of AD&D had extensive, even baroque, mechanisms in an attempt to provide some balance among the classes (and races). In retrospect they didn't work very well, but they represented a great deal of thought and effort.

Even the idea of a balanced or 'fair' encounter shouldn't be entirely alien. Early modules were designed for tournaments, which were meant to be fair to the competitors on some level, I assume. Modules were also rated for the level of player they were designed for, which strongly implies that encounters in them were designed to be level-appropriate challenges. Random encounter tables weren't all be terrain, there was a set of them by level in the DMG, too, and the monsters that a Summoning spell could conjure up were also a de-facto yardstick of level-appropriateness. There was a rough correspondence between dungeon level and degree of danger/difficulty, as well. The mere lack of explicit encounter design guidelines doesn't mean no one ever tried to create balanced encounters, just that it wasn't easy to do so - more art than science.

 

[Bluenose]

One combat. I got lucky, got init, and rolled high on the HP affected. If the goblins were a.) Spread out or b.) I rolled poor, things would be very different.


Next fight, BTW, was against an ogre. Too many HP to sleep, so I went magic missile for 10 damage. The half orc barbarian then critted with his greatsword for nearly 30. He proceeded to do 7-17 per hit, I did 1-8 with Ray of frost. Yeah, he dominated that fight, so karma worked out.

So, even when you're not doing well you're routinely turning out half the barbarians output as a wizard and sometimes totally overshadowing him in an area that's supposed to be his strength. How often does he overshadow you by rolling high in areas where your wizard is supposed to be strong, and does he contribute about half of what you do then even when that's not the case?

From my own personal perspective I don't even worry about being in the spotlight. I don't like games that are designed for each and every person to shine like it's my queue in a play.

I am there to play my character and have him interact with the world around him, or her. I'm not worried about time distribution amongst the players.

I just play my character and have fun doing it. My character is not measured by how much damage he does or how useful he can be.

Then, you shouldn't care at all whether classes were balanced or not. You're there to play your character and interact with the world, and it shouldn't matter that the character is as useful as others. Whereas for a lot of people it does matter.

 

[Remathilis]

So, even when you're not doing well you're routinely turning out half the barbarians output as a wizard and sometimes totally overshadowing him in an area that's supposed to be his strength. How often does he overshadow you by rolling high in areas where your wizard is supposed to be strong, and does he contribute about half of what you do then even when that's not the case?

Your point is?

Guess what? the cleric turned out half the output as the barbarian in a melee attack, as well as heal and bless the group. The rogue was matching his non-crit damage each round with sneak attack (1d8+3+1d6 SA vs 2d6+5 raging greatsword). Guess they took the barbarian's thunder too, huh? Maybe all classes should only due 1d4 damage and have no attack magic above a 1d6, so the barbarian's feeling aren't hurt. Or maybe if you read how so many threads comment how GWM or SS outperform damage from magic, you'd notice melee is king and casters are really constrained. Seriously, go read the Bounded Accuracy thread.

You want Perfect Balance(TM), go play 4e.

 

[Greg Benage]

Even the idea of a balanced or 'fair' encounter shouldn't be entirely alien. Early modules were designed for tournaments, which were meant to be fair to the competitors on some level, I assume.

In the bull-riding sense of "fair," I guess. If you stay on longer than the other guy, you win.

Modules were also rated for the level of player they were designed for, which strongly implies that encounters in them were designed to be level-appropriate challenges.

Except even in an introductory module designed for beginning characters (and players!), you never knew when there might be a medusa disguised as a prisoner in a cell. Bam! Save or die!

Things have changed.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Except even in an introductory module designed for beginning characters (and players!), you never knew when there might be a medusa disguised as a prisoner in a cell. Bam! Save or die!

Things have changed.

Disguised? IIRC the medusa in question WAS a prisoner in the cell. Yes she was a chaotic monster, but only really dumb ones turn their best chance at being set free to stone.

 

[steeldragons]

Disguised? IIRC the medusa in question WAS a prisoner in the cell. Yes she was a chaotic monster, but only really dumb ones turn their best chance at being set free to stone.

Didn't she have a bag over her head? I think the descriptive text even calls for an automatic save roll by whoever pulls it off. iirc, which I may not be.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Didn't she have a bag over her head? I think the descriptive text even calls for an automatic save roll by whoever pulls it off. iirc, which I may not be.

Nope no bag over her head. She is chained to the wall but partly around a corner from the door of her cell. Her plan is to turn 1 or 2 of her would-be rescuers to stone then bargain for her freedom with an elixir of stone to flesh.

Of course being a chaotic monster she has no intention of honoring the agreement. The elixir IS real though and will return 6 characters back to flesh so the situation isn't as hopeless as some doomsayers would make it seem.