D&D 5E (2014) Not Much Ado About Bless

[JiffyPopTart]

Doesn't seem as powerful as an always-on aura of +5 to all saves, but I rarely hear people complaining about that aspect of the paladin.

It strikes me as pretty much bardic inspiration dice that you get more of but that don't get more powerful as you level up.

 

[James Gasik]

Mostly because you have to stay reeeeeeeeallly close to your Paladin to get the bonus. Like, "you're going to get hit by an AoE" close.

Plus, I don't think most people would seriously say saving throw bonuses are broken, since by default, there's probably 4 saving throws each character is bad at by design, and at higher levels, monsters exist that have save DC's so high a natural 20 might not save you.

 

[tetrasodium]

Here's a simple one, based on a point I made in another thread. Why don't more people complain about Bless?

You really should, when you consider it can affect the three heaviest hitters in a party and can last a whole combat. The effect it has on bounded accuracy is absurd once you get to the point a Cleric can consider using it in every combat.

Reasons people might not complain:

Clerics aren't casting Bless (that's my Healing Word spell slot!).
There's too much other stuff going on to really notice Bless.
It requires concentration (either as a reason not to cast, or it can fall off if the Cleric is hit).
It's hard to notice it's effect in small sample sizes (was that fight easier because of Bless? How much easier?

Bless is only an issue because of the low AC's imposed by bounded accuracy. Complaining about bless or nerfing bless doesn't fix the original problem

 

[DND_Reborn]

Doesn't seem as powerful as an always-on aura of +5 to all saves, but I rarely hear people complaining about that aspect of the paladin.

Maybe you've seen it (CHA 20 Paladin...), but I never have. The highest I've seen in actual play was CHA 16 for +3.

And yes, it was powerful, and frankly lowering it wouldn't bother me a bit.

Otherwise, @James Gasik makes excellent points about it.

 

[James Gasik]

Bless is only an issue because of the low AC's imposed by bounded accuracy. Complaining about bless or nerfing bless doesn't fix the original problem

So basically, large bonuses to hit don't matter because you don't need them? Assuming I'm understanding your point correctly.

 

[tetrasodium]

So basically, large bonuses to hit don't matter because you don't need them? Assuming I'm understanding your point correctly.

Yes and no. Those bonuses draw attention to a larger & more limiting problem that causes problems with buffs & magic items. Bless is a good buff that should be the kind of heavy reciprocity present in more buff/debuff/control abilities where the caster us using a spell slot & maybe concentration (or whatever) to make other party members be awesome. If anything the low ACs imposed by BA actually devalues great buffs like bless into things that aren't really cared for

Spoiler: reciprocity in ttrpgs

 

[FrogReaver]

I guess I'm a much bigger believer in empirical evidence over straight up theory. And, since any theory crafting won't actually apply to anyone's table, I find that it's generally simply a way to try to win arguments - my theory crafting is better than his theory crafting, so, I'm right. Problem is, again, there are so many variables that it just doesn't work.

Like you say, it's a question of how often does that event arise? So, how do we determine that? Well, tracking it would seem to be a pretty good start. And tracking it over a fairly lengthy period of time as well, so round off the rougher edges and spikes caused by luck.

Surely you don't believe a single play test of a single encounter/adventuring day is evidence of anything? As you said, there are so many variables. There's also so much randomness involved. So let's assume we play test this encounter/adventuring day a sufficient number of times such that reasonable conclusions can be drawn (maybe that's 100 times?, probably not less due to the complexity and randomness involved in the problem). But anyways, we've ran through enough playtests to really draw conclusions. The problem is those conclusions aren't predictive in any way except in relation to the specific characters/encounters and the tactics used in them. So the most we have learned is how a single encounter or single set of enocunters plays out for a particular party following particular tactics on each side. Change the scenario, the PC's, the tactics, etc and you have to playtest that scenario another 100 times before you can draw conclusions.

I'm all for actual empirical data, but a single playtest or 3 isn't that. Even tracking 'total damage' over time at best describes how things have went in a specific campaign with specific PC's using specific tactics against specific encounters with particular die rolls, but how things went isn't actually all that predictive for how things will go. We can eliminate the randomness of the dice by tracking long enough. So there's that at least. However, things like differences in enemy numbers, formation, actions, AC, resistances, etc all make a huge difference in terms of 'total damage' (which as previously mentioned isn't a great metric to begin with), but i'll reference it as it's one you seem particularly fond of. Bottom line is that gathering data from a single campaign at best decriptively tells us how that campaign went and not predictively how that campaign, let alone another campaign will typically go.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes, it's a strong feature and at 6th level becomes REALLY strong; as anyone under the bond can take the damage anyone else under the bond would have taken (as a reaction, but still).

I see all the complaints about twilight cleric but peace cleric has it beat!

But you know what, it's a very "active" set of abilities. For a party to take full advantage of the peace domain abilities they have to be working together REALLY well. Any set of abilities that encourages better party cohesion are a win in IMO. So yes, they are powerful, but if someone wanted a peace cleric, I'd encourage it rather than nerf it.

Peace is very good, but i'd say twilight outdoes it by a bit in most circumstances.

300ft darkvision for you and most if not all the party is very strong, especially if you have any character with decent range. (Advantage on attacks against most enemies further than 60ft from you in the dark).

The channel divinity makes the party virtually unkillable (maybe a little over selling) unless the enemies simply try to focus fire 1 character down at the expense of all others - which isn't my typical experience with D&D encounters.

 

[Hussar]

@frog Reaver - I'd say that tracking information like this will tell you rather a lot about that specific group. Tracking across various campaigns will tell you even more about that specific group. See, to me, I don't care about any else's group. I've seen far too many "Oh this is broken" or "5e is D&D on easy mode" type arguments to think that what happens at someone else's table even remotely resembles what happens at mine.

Theorycrafting assumes too much. Sure, it's a great start to give you a direction for what you need to look at, but, by and large, I find theorycrafting very pointless. It simply will not predict what happens.

But, I totally agree that a single encounter or even a single day will tell you anything useful. I did say that you should track about 20 rounds of combat. More if you like. I find 20 to be decent enough that it shows general trends. But, absolutely it's only showing general trends for that specific group.

But, trends for a specific group is far, far more useful to that group than theorycrafting which tries to make general statements based on nothing more than hypotheticals. I mean, heck, you talk about 300 foot darkvision being an issue.

Why? IME, it's almost impossible for encounters at that range. There's never sight lines out that far, for one. For another, I almost never see any combat starting at that kind of range unless maybe the PC's were deliberately hunting something. I can't imagine that actually having any impact at my table. It just wouldn't. But, OTOH, at other tables, maybe it would.

Again, that's why I'm such a big proponent of empirical evidence over theory.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah but then I'm calling people out, which isn't really what I want to do. I abhor drama, I just want to talk about the game in a constructive way.

You'd hate my household, then. Both my 25 year old daughter and 8 year old son go in for overly dramatic actions and statements. The other day in the car my son dropped a piece of paper he was holding and couldn't get it because were were moving and announced that it was the worst day of his life.