D&D 5E Non choices: must have and wants why someone that hates something must take it

[DEFCON 1]

So, if picking the options I want to pick means my character literally cannot function properly -as per the parameters of the game- that's not seen as a problem? I suppose I'm sorry for thinking that playing a rpg meant I could play the character I wanted to play and actually be able to play the game...?

No. Not in the slightest. Because the game is built such that to LITERALLY not function properly... you have to purposely take a whole bunch of BAD choices by design. You have to be a fighter who takes an 8 Strength, uses a weapon you are not proficient in, wears no armor, and spends all resources on things other than fighting. You do that... then yes, maybe then you "literally cannot function properly" as a fighter. But you CHOSE to do all those things (presumably for a character concept that was meant to be a person who thinks they are a warrior but really isn't.) The game allows you to do this, but you didn't just blunder into it. You did all of this on purpose.

However... if you are trying to equate not taking an attack cantrip as "literally cannot function properly"... then you probably need to learn what "literally" means. Because to say you are incapable of functioning as a wizard because you chose to not take an attack cantrip is complete and utter hogwash. Might you do a point of damage or so less because you were using a crossbow in place of an attack cantrip,? Maybe. (But based upon what other people are saying, that might not even be true.) But one or two points of damage less is not "incapable". Less "min-maxed" for combat? Sure. But you make up for it in other situations outside of combat with the other cantrip you took.

You are still a functional and completely capable wizard even without that attack cantrip. And to suggest otherwise is to use ridiculous hyperbole to try and make your point.

I see no reason why what you want cannot be properly balanced against the options that other people want.

edit: Alternatively, if I take the same point of view I'm being presented with here, then I feel that every option I want in the game should be exactly how I want it, and to hell with everyone else. Who cares if it's meant to be a game played as a group, right? When it comes to design choices and the player that WoTC needs to appease, I am the alpha and the omega; the beginning and the end. Really, they shouldn't even call it D&D; I demand the name be changed to "WoTC's RPG: The Specifically Designed For Johnny3D3D edition."

That's not my point at all. My point is that you... Johnny3D3D... want a specific ability (attack cantrips) removed from the game because as you said:

However, there are times when one choice is so obviously better than everything else that I feel as though I'd need brain damage to choose one of the other options.

Let us ignore for the moment whether or not attack cantrips are "obviously" better than every other cantrip. Because there are plenty of people who think that is hogwash.

Instead... the issue is that you don't like feeling stupid. And to take a cantrip that you think is demonstratively worse than another makes you feel stupid. As though you'd have to have "brain damage" to choose it. Your ego can't handle the idea that you are playing stupid. It's like you think you are letting the table down, and letting yourself down. Nevermind the fact that you're not actually playing stupid, you're rather just playing your character... you have built up this idea in your head that if there is a min-max choice available, then it doesn't matter what it is, that's the only option available to you. You will subsume your wants and desires for this character in order to "play correctly" (in your mind), because the D&D has been built this way, and you feel guilty or stupid otherwise.

And my point is this: Me... DEFCON 1... a person who will never be sitting at your table, nor probably ever play with you in any capacity... does not care if you don't like feeling stupid. That's not my problem. It is YOUR issue. You're the one who has this thing in your head that forces you to always choose the obvious good choice, rather than the character-centric one. But that's not my problem.

My problem is that because you have this thing in your head... your solution to get around it is to not just work on your own personal issue... but to ask that the entire rule be removed from the game so that you won't HAVE to work on this issue. You can just sidestep it completely. If the rule is gone, you no longer have to worry about it, and you're HAPPY!

But meanwhile... all the rest of us thousands of players have lost a really cool rule and game ability because YOU didn't want to work on your own issues. You wanted to just ignore them and hope that they went away. Well guess what? I have a problem with that. I'm not going to sit here and allow WotC to remove from the game something I happen to like (something that does not in fact "literally make you incapable of functioning properly" despite your claims)... so that you can feel better about yourself by avoiding your psychological issues.

If you can't handle not min-maxing, you learn to handle it. I'm not going to handle it for you.

 

[N'raac]

the problem is that in a game sitting out 33% of the time sucks... and in practice it isn't 1/3 each it is like 70% combat and 10% 20% the other two (swithing from campaign to campaign) in my experience...

Yeah, you get different percentages per pillar at different tables. Which is one of the major reasons that no class should suck horribly at any given pillar.

Ideally it should be up to the players which pillars their character is good or bad at, and it shouldn't be tied to grabbing a certain race or class. You should be able to build a Fighter that is good at socializing but bad at combat and a Rogue that is good at combat and bad at exploration.

Except right now, we can't.

So who should make the decision on how character resources are to be allocated? Should the game require that every character have some combat skills, some social skills and some exploration skills, and absolutely prohibit a character trading one below a certain level, or raising another beyond a certain level? Do players optimize for combat because combat makes up the vast majority of the game, or does combat make up the vast majority of the game because the players optimized for combat and other challenges bore and/or frustrate them, making the game less fun?

My take is that a default needs to be set. To me, because sitting out large chunks of the game sucks, the game should default to "every character has skills and abilities in all three pillars" and limit the tradeoffs. Maybe that means every class and race has an equal mix of combat, social and exploration abilities. These are core, and cannot be traded away. Subclasses/alternate features might modify them, but they will always exchange abilities under the same pillar - no "reduced social to enhance combat" choices. Then we have the customizable aspects of the characters (feats and skills, for example). here, it's Player Choice - if you take all combat, you will end up with about half your resources focused on combat, and a quarter on each of social and exploration. You'll be better at combat, but not overwhelming, and you'll be worse at exploration and social, but still able to contribute.

Any further tradeoff would be modularized, and would warn of the possible results. At GMforPowergamers' table, that might mean we don't use that module - sitting out big chunks of the game sucks, so we're just not going to allow the temptation in our game. At another table, maybe the players are free to build less balanced characters, with the understanding that no one will put up with them whining about how useless they are outside their area of expertise, and the game will not change focus to better highlight where they are (over)powerful. Maybe a third table decides "this will be a political intrigue campaign, so players are encouraged to focus up to 2/3 of their character resources on social challenges", while a fourth is "classic Hack & Slash, so you should trade off to about 75% combat, 25% exploration - social will only be the framing sequence for the dungeon crawls anyway, so don't waste resources on that".

 

[N'raac]

Let us ignore for the moment whether or not attack cantrips are "obviously" better than every other cantrip. Because there are plenty of people who think that is hogwash.

Let us assume for the moment that they are the clearly superior choice. OK.

Instead... the issue is that you don't like feeling stupid. And to take a cantrip that you think is demonstratively worse than another makes you feel stupid. As though you'd have to have "brain damage" to choose it. Your ego can't handle the idea that you are playing stupid. It's like you think you are letting the table down, and letting yourself down. Nevermind the fact that you're not actually playing stupid, you're rather just playing your character... you have built up this idea in your head that if there is a min-max choice available, then it doesn't matter what it is, that's the only option available to you. You will subsume your wants and desires for this character in order to "play correctly" (in your mind), because the D&D has been built this way, and you feel guilty or stupid otherwise.

So why SHOULD the attack cantrip be superior? The answer may not be to remove it from the game, but to modify it and/or other choices to make them comparable in effectiveness. You seem to suggest that it is, if not a good idea, at least a perfectly acceptable approach, that the player who wants to play a wizard who does not have an at will damage power should be sub-optimal. I disagree. I think that, if the attack cantrip is truly superior (which we are assuming for this discussion), then that is bad game design.

Would you support adding Wish to the cantrips? Wow - that's really cool - my wizard can ALTER REALITY right out of the gate. Of course, if your concept is not a wizard who can alter reality at a whim, as often as he pleases, you are certainly free to take that 1d8 damage cantrip, or a silent image, instead. But don't take away what I want to play just because of your personal preferences. You either take the Wish cantrip, or you choose the character-centric one.

Now, that's an extreme example, but if we accept that one choice is so clearly superior over the others that it can only be taken by sacrificing mechanical effectiveness for character concept, then my example is only a more extreme example of the same philosophy.

To me, the answer is that the choice of character concept should not determine whether or not the character is mechanically effective. Characters should be mechanically effective regardless of concept. There should be valid, interesting choices to drive a wide variety of character concepts. There should not be trap choices that make characters who sure sounded interesting in theory but are useless and therefore uninteresting, even frustrating, in actual play. Keep the choices but make them balance.

It will never be perfect - shifting the balance between combat and other pillars, between playstyles and between types of opponents will shift the balance. But keep the balance as much as can be done within those constraints. The more choices there are, the bigger the books get. The bigger the book, the more it will cost. I only want to pay for good content that will be a valid and viable choice for in-game use. I don't want a 20 page essay on the history of development of materials for d20's. And I don't want 20 pages of "sounds cool but useless in play" non-choices for character builds.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So who should make the decision on how character resources are to be allocated? Should the game require that every character have some combat skills, some social skills and some exploration skills, and absolutely prohibit a character trading one below a certain level, or raising another beyond a certain level? Do players optimize for combat because combat makes up the vast majority of the game, or does combat make up the vast majority of the game because the players optimized for combat and other challenges bore and/or frustrate them, making the game less fun?

I think this is the hardest part of designing an RPG...

My take is that a default needs to be set. To me, because sitting out large chunks of the game sucks, the game should default to "every character has skills and abilities in all three pillars" and limit the tradeoffs. Maybe that means every class and race has an equal mix of combat, social and exploration abilities. These are core, and cannot be traded away. Subclasses/alternate features might modify them, but they will always exchange abilities under the same pillar - no "reduced social to enhance combat" choices. Then we have the customizable aspects of the characters (feats and skills, for example). here, it's Player Choice - if you take all combat, you will end up with about half your resources focused on combat, and a quarter on each of social and exploration. You'll be better at combat, but not overwhelming, and you'll be worse at exploration and social, but still able to contribute.

Any further tradeoff would be modularized, and would warn of the possible results.

in my mind it should start as every class has 25% for combat 25% for social and 25% exploration with the final 25% being able to be put where you want...

I would then have big warnings that let you rearrainged the 75% set in default... you just need to know that it is your own fault if you mess up the game for you or others...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Would you support adding Wish to the cantrips? Wow - that's really cool - my wizard can ALTER REALITY right out of the gate.

I would support "REALLY, REALLY limited Wish lite" that was a mix of 3e and 4e prestidigitation...

 

[ExploderWizard]

Now as a team game, D&D has certain expectations. I would certainly point out that your character probably is not a good fit for this group as we expect to see combat at least 1/3 of the time. It doesn't really matter though because even if it was 1/10th of the time, that one time you hit combat means TPK because your character is ineffective.

Now wouldn't it be 100 times better if you could make your awesome swashbuckling character while not sacrificing your role in combat? I personally think it would.

I would rather success come from from what we, the players, decide to do and how we go about it than from whatever build options we choose. If the system doesn't support good play being the largest determining factor in success then it can shove off.

The problem is without a defined beginning and end you can't award xp properly. You also can't break things down into quests and measure how much money and treasure you've given out to keep it from being too much or too little.

Quests are simple. Did the quest get completed: yes/no? Treasure works great as a way to "keep score". If the players left an area and completed 2 out of 5 quests and got 40% of the treasure then XP is easy to calculate.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Would you support adding Wish to the cantrips? Wow - that's really cool - my wizard can ALTER REALITY right out of the gate. Of course, if your concept is not a wizard who can alter reality at a whim, as often as he pleases, you are certainly free to take that 1d8 damage cantrip, or a silent image, instead. But don't take away what I want to play just because of your personal preferences. You either take the Wish cantrip, or you choose the character-centric one.

Come back to me when you suggest a cantrip that WotC would actually put in the game. I will not debate ridiculous examples that would never happen.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Come back to me when you suggest a cantrip that WotC would actually put in the game. I will not debate ridiculous examples that would never happen.

what about my version?

I would support "REALLY, REALLY limited Wish lite" that was a mix of 3e and 4e prestidigitation...

 

[DEFCON 1]

what about my version?

I'll wait for you to actually write up this 3E/4E Prestidigation hybrid yourself and post it here, rather than spend my own time going to d20SRD.org and the DDI Compendium to try and figure out what this cobbled-together Frankenstein's Monster of a spell actually is, thanks.

 

[Lokiare]

First, most spells you want to cast in such situations, you don't have 10 minutes to cast them. If you need a diplomacy boost, the guard isn't going to wait ten minutes while you gargle some herbs and dance a little jig around a magic circle (or whatever the ritual looks like). If you need to arcane lock, the monsters might wait for you to do it, but likely they hear you chanting and come running well before the 10 minutes is up. There are a few spells that do better as rituals, like Identify (unless you need to know if a potion is poison RIGHT NOW), but most often those spells have plenty of utility as spells you prepare to actually cast.

Second, it would help if you actually read Comprehend Languages before assuming it overlaps with Read Magic. It specifically does not. When you say things like that which demonstrate you're not familiar with the rules, it makes me question everything else you say that is rules-specific.

Looks like they fixed Comprehend Languages then, thanks for pointing that out. I haven't read the entire packet and many of the spells are unchanged.

I could say that everytime you mention something from a specific edition, that I question everything you say about it because you were wrong in that one post a long time ago about a specific topic, but I won't because that's assuming you can't be right about anything else on the subject and is logically inconsistent.

I disagree with the rest. You almost always have 10 minutes to cast a ritual, especially if you aren't knee deep in some overpopulated monster lair (there are lots of adventures where you are not). If you are delving into a well populated monster lair, most of the time you won't have time to cast normal spells or they have the concentration mechanic meaning if combat starts you are in trouble anyway. So quick cast utility spells are not as useful as you make out.

No where does it say every one can hear you chanting or that you have to chant at the top of your lungs to perform a ritual. The main factor for rituals is time and ingredients, not noise.

So who should make the decision on how character resources are to be allocated? Should the game require that every character have some combat skills, some social skills and some exploration skills, and absolutely prohibit a character trading one below a certain level, or raising another beyond a certain level? Do players optimize for combat because combat makes up the vast majority of the game, or does combat make up the vast majority of the game because the players optimized for combat and other challenges bore and/or frustrate them, making the game less fun?

I thought I was pretty clear in the post you quoted, but in case I wasn't:

The player should be the one to make the decision on how to allocate character resources for each pillar at creation and level up. If the player wants to create a 'do nothing but combat' Fighter they should have the options to do so. If they want to create a 'good at combat, but swashbuckling charismatic sailor' they should be able to do that too, via choices at character creation and level up.

The default should be close to even in all three pillars, then players can choose to deviate from there. Templates could even be created that allow them to quickly pick a character type that adheres to one or two pillars and ignores the remaining pillars. However at all times it should be the players choice and not the games choice. You should never hear "Well, I want to play a Fighter so I guess I'm only good in combat and can't do anything in the social or exploration pillars." That should just not happen, instead we should hear: "Well, I want to play a Fighter so I guess I need to pick these options to be good at the <combat/social/exploration> pillar."

My take is that a default needs to be set. To me, because sitting out large chunks of the game sucks, the game should default to "every character has skills and abilities in all three pillars" and limit the tradeoffs. Maybe that means every class and race has an equal mix of combat, social and exploration abilities. These are core, and cannot be traded away. Subclasses/alternate features might modify them, but they will always exchange abilities under the same pillar - no "reduced social to enhance combat" choices. Then we have the customizable aspects of the characters (feats and skills, for example). here, it's Player Choice - if you take all combat, you will end up with about half your resources focused on combat, and a quarter on each of social and exploration. You'll be better at combat, but not overwhelming, and you'll be worse at exploration and social, but still able to contribute.

I think there should be defaults to and I also think the defaults shouldn't stray too far from the 33% in each pillar paradigm. Where I disagree is that players should be able to go 0% in one pillar in order to go 66% in another. It should be up to them.

Any further tradeoff would be modularized, and would warn of the possible results. At GMforPowergamers' table, that might mean we don't use that module - sitting out big chunks of the game sucks, so we're just not going to allow the temptation in our game. At another table, maybe the players are free to build less balanced characters, with the understanding that no one will put up with them whining about how useless they are outside their area of expertise, and the game will not change focus to better highlight where they are (over)powerful. Maybe a third table decides "this will be a political intrigue campaign, so players are encouraged to focus up to 2/3 of their character resources on social challenges", while a fourth is "classic Hack & Slash, so you should trade off to about 75% combat, 25% exploration - social will only be the framing sequence for the dungeon crawls anyway, so don't waste resources on that".

I'd rather it not be silo'd off into an optional module. I have a feeling those are going to not be very well tested or make very large changes to the game. It should be designed into the default game so that it can be fully tested before release.