D&D 5E PC Exceptionalism

[Jefe Bergenstein]

No, you really don't.

Not unless you have such a burning inferiority complex that you can't imagine an amazing story with anyone else at the table having a character more powerful than yours. And that's just sad.

If we can have one edition of the non-casters overshadowing the casters, I'd accept this response. As it stands, it's just an excuse for more lame LFQW.

Also, it's pretty easy to design YOUR character to be weak if you want to fill the bottom of the bell curve. The players of monks, rangers, and other d-tier classes just have to accept mediocrity.

 

[overgeeked]

That only works in the comics because of the narrative framing. To us externally, its cool to see these individual fights. But in a dnd game....what's to stop Supes from beating Mongul and then super speeding over to the Joker, slapping him a few times and auto winning while Bats takes a coffee break?

So the DM could conjure up some narrative that "the joker is doing XYZ at the same time and must be engaged right at the same time as Mongul or terrible ABC will happen". And so yes you get the fight you described.....and once in a while that can be a lot of fun. Now do it again, and the next fight, and the next fight, and the next..... because as soon as you take your foot off that narrative gas.....Superman will just win all the fights, and the Bats player will realize that he simply is not needed.

That is the DM problem with power imbalance....they have to narratively force balance through encounter design, but they never get to stop, they have to keep framing things a certain way to keep the players happy, and that is exhausting for a DM to maintain all the time, and not very fun.

Right. Now go back and look at my earliest post on this tangent...

It does suck. But that’s the fault of the DM. If they’re letting that imbalance happen in the first place, bad form. If they’re not addressing it, bad form. If they’re not presenting threats that give everyone spotlight time, bad form.

It’s on the DM for letting it happen in the first place. The rest of my responses on this were about how to handle the imbalance.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

You can easily tell stories with power imbalances, you just need to focus on something other than the power imbalance to keep everyone engaged and meaningful to the story. If the only thing that matters to your stories is how hard someone can hit, then no one but Supes and Wonder Woman matter. But that’s incredibly bad storytelling.

Yeah... all the fighter really has going for it is how hard he can hit. And then the casters get to repick their superpowers on a daily basis and rewrite the world through player fiat. We need martial narrative powers.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

And it isn't just combat. A Bard with expertise in persuasion and deception and a handful of charm-assist spells can run rings around the Samurai at court. There isn't really a contest, unless it is a sub-plot specifically crafted for the Samurai and related to their family, background, former teacher, whatever.

Those hand-crafted subplots grow stale.

Non-casters need to just get narrative control powers. "I open the secret door that isn't on the DM's map and call my allies I retroactively decided I recruited. My d6+2 grunts roll for initiative." Basically give them a daily limited wish type effect at level 9+ with more as they level up.

 

[Coroc]

At a certain point, the PCs are more exceptional than most people in the world. It could be argued that at level 1, or 3, or 5. At some point they become better than most in the most places. By 5th level there is few in a town that can challenge them, by 10th it may be a city. The pyramid gets small at the top.

Comparing to real world, I was in the Army and have training in things like shooting and such. Do I consider myself more exceptional than other people I meet. Maybe in certain skills, but they guy that grew up on the street and learned to pick pockets and open locks is better than me at that, or the guy with a black belt that trained since early age is certainly better than at that. As you gain levels, you gain other powers that narrows the competition.

Even from a purely rules- mechanical point talready the level 1 character is far more than your average level 0 Commoner. He got skills from his class that a commoner simply does not.

But your post with your own RL mentioned something very important applying to both RL and in-game.

You can be so and so good, but there is always some one who is better than you on a given skill.
RL: You learned to shoot well at the army but there is this you tube guy hitting the bulls eye at 600 ft with a pistol.
In game: You are a level 20 wizard and can do awesome displays of magic but here is Elminster . Nah only meant as a semi joke, it is ok that there is Elminster that makes the world more believable and quasi realistic.

 

[jgsugden]

Consider the humble monk. Here's a class that puts in time, discipline, and strenuous martial training to earn his fantasy super power. Ki and stunning strike and elemental disciplines set him apart from common folk, and make him something extraordinary within the fiction of the game world. When the product of your life’s worth of kung-fu montages looks like a cantrip though, it’s awfully easy to get discouraged. In my experience, it takes a group effort to make the world feel as magical as it does in your head.

So here's my question to the board. In a world filled with exceptional people -- where you're mostly interacting with other powerful beings -- what can a GM or other players do to help one another remember that their characters actually are special? How do you maintain that basic power fantasy when it seems the whole world is already in your league?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

Make them special?

In my setting, the original Goddess of Death was killed by an upstart Goddess, the Raven Queen, and the power of the original Goddess was spread amongst humanoids, mostly human. The 'God Touched' are the ones that can advance at a rapid rate using the character leveling rules, that get Death Saves, etc... Other creatures do not. A human that spent their entire life studying magic may attain 5th level of mastery (3rd level spells) towards the end of that life. A dwarf or elf might that is really devoted might make it to 7th or even 9th. A God touched may reach 17th in 2 years. All PCs, of course, are God Touched. Most people do not understand what God Touched are - they're just seen as exceptional beings - but I explain it to players to help them set the expectation that they will not see a lot of humanoids of high power levels, and when they do it is something special. With bounded accuracy limiting keeping lower level threats more relevant, it works quite well.

 

[Stalker0]

PC are Exceptional due to having pc classes.You are not jasper the cultist. You are Jasper a Monk.

I'm actually very curious how many people this in their world.

For example, you got to a local temple. Is it a 5th level "cleric" capable of laying down some 3rd level clerical might, or a 5th level "priest", with maybe the religion skill of a 5th level cleric but with much weaker spellcasting.

How many people utilize weaker "classes" as compared to weaker "levels" with their npcs?

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah... all the fighter really has going for it is how hard he can hit. And then the casters get to repick their superpowers on a daily basis and rewrite the world through player fiat. We need martial narrative powers.

That’s the kind of failure of imagination I was talking about. If the best you can do is “well, the fighter can’t teleport, so they suck” then you’re never going to see anything else. If the only thing that matters is pure white-room theorycrafting damage then certain classes, feats, and builds will always just win. That completely misses the entire point of the game. Exploring a fun fantasy world with your friends and telling cool stories. Don’t treat D&D like a video game and it won’t play like a video game.

By the way, you can pick up those narrative powers you’re talking about by roleplaying and exploring the game world.

Sure the wizard can cast wild spells, but anyone not a wizard is likely going to be afraid of them. Do whatever they can to get the wizard to go the hell away as quickly as possible. The fighter is going to be more approachable to average people. Guards and soldiers will talk to them and open up more. You can describe your moves and attacks in interesting ways. Interact with the environment. You can use things like cinematic advantage instead if boring flanking. The casters run out if spells, the martial classes don’t run out if muscle.

But sure, if “that’s why we invented the five-minute work day” and “it’s just exploration and RP, they don’t matter. Only combat and damage matters” are your responses, then I don’t know what to tell you. You’re probably playing the wrong game with the wrong people.

 

[ph0rk]

Don’t treat D&D like a video game and it won’t play like a video game.

The thing this, these ideas permeate.

I was playing in a new campaign not too long ago and was getting all shoulder-dusty with a captain of the guard while playing a fighter. I didn't particularly expect a successful intimidate, but leap before looking and all that.

The player of the party bard was irritated I was muscling in on their turf - fighters aren't supposed to talk to NPCs!

Now, of course someone could say "find better tables" but the game is social and most of us are embedded in networks that go back years or decades, so that isn't realistic. But the ideas are out there and shape both how people play the game and how they react to people that play it differently. Further, those ideas are shored up by potentially marked differences in numbers-on-the-page.

I suspect there was at most a 1-2 point difference in potential checks, but it wasn't about the numbers anymore, it was about a character not being in "their lane".

 

[TheSword]

The thing this, these ideas permeate.

I was playing in a new campaign not too long ago and was getting all shoulder-dusty with a captain of the guard while playing a fighter. I didn't particularly expect a successful intimidate, but leap before looking and all that.

The player of the party bard was irritated I was muscling in on their turf - fighters aren't supposed to talk to NPCs!

Now, of course someone could say "find better tables" but the game is social and most of us are embedded in networks that go back years or decades, so that isn't realistic. But the ideas are out there and shape both how people play the game and how they react to people that play it differently. Further, those ideas are shored up by potentially marked differences in numbers-on-the-page.

I suspect there was at most a 1-2 point difference in potential checks, but it wasn't about the numbers anymore, it was about a character not being in "their lane".

I think in these circumstances the group charisma checks are a good call. Instead of it being all or nothing with the bard, everyone present makes a roll and if half succeed everyone succeeds.