Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Should difficulty increase to match optimization
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8401693" data-attributes="member: 93670"><p>Short answer? Yes absolutely.. long answer? It depends because it's not that simple as just "optimization"...</p><p></p><p>Take the different roles within a party... tank, healer, damage, buff/debuff/control. There tends to be a good bit of overlap between some of those things, but optimizing for some of them doesn't change much.</p><p></p><p>Bob can be an amazing tank, but without the ability to create a sticky zone of control like the old AoOs allowed or mmo style taunts allow it doesn't make any real difference as soon as something targets any other party member. For the optimization of a tank 5e is lacking a pillar and it doesn't matter how many hp bob has or how high his ac is because yoyo wack a mole healing allows anything not subject to death by massive damage or execution of a downed player to basically be just as functional</p><p></p><p>Healer? An optimized healer certainly can heal better, but the key here is all of the extra stuff said healer & sometimes their alliescan do with the additional breathing room. Again though 5e is a three legged stool here because the most optimal healing is yoyo wack a mole and there really isn't a niche thst players can optimize for that allows some other method to compare so the most ultra optimized healer is not really any different from any healer shy of a "craptimized' one as someone described in the other thread.</p><p></p><p>Damage? Again things are screwed because:"fighter with gwm fighter with ss or warlock with agonizing blast & hex" is on one side with at will & nova>rest>repeat on the other. Nobody is really a glass cannon and its not really possible to optimize as one at the levels that make up most of the campaign before the system begins breaking down. Importantly there is a difference between hitting a lot of things for ok damage vrs hitting one thing with the blazing fury of a vengeful god & both of those create room for different types of adaptations of difficulty scaling</p><p></p><p>Buff/debuff/control. This is where the magic happens. Unlike the other optimization types this one doesn't need to do anything, it can be a wet tissue armed with all the fury of an overcooked wet noodle and have anti healing for the party because it makes everyone in the party amazing at what they do. It might not do that for everyone all the time & sometimes it might not be doing much of anything meaningful. All of this is why buff/debuff/control spells replicate across spell lists so often till they combine in a build like the 3.5 "god wizard"this makes it the easiest thing to scale for the gm because it can crank the multipliers up/down as needed while even a less optimized character with only one or two abilities in this vein is probably not the only one in the group with one or two & probably doesn't have the same ones. Overuse of concentration, generally lackluster buff/debuff/control spells with excessive saves and all of the already mentioned missing bits basically take this off the table as a relevant type of optimization to consider in 5e though.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="tetrasodium, post: 8401693, member: 93670"] Short answer? Yes absolutely.. long answer? It depends because it's not that simple as just "optimization"... Take the different roles within a party... tank, healer, damage, buff/debuff/control. There tends to be a good bit of overlap between some of those things, but optimizing for some of them doesn't change much. Bob can be an amazing tank, but without the ability to create a sticky zone of control like the old AoOs allowed or mmo style taunts allow it doesn't make any real difference as soon as something targets any other party member. For the optimization of a tank 5e is lacking a pillar and it doesn't matter how many hp bob has or how high his ac is because yoyo wack a mole healing allows anything not subject to death by massive damage or execution of a downed player to basically be just as functional Healer? An optimized healer certainly can heal better, but the key here is all of the extra stuff said healer & sometimes their alliescan do with the additional breathing room. Again though 5e is a three legged stool here because the most optimal healing is yoyo wack a mole and there really isn't a niche thst players can optimize for that allows some other method to compare so the most ultra optimized healer is not really any different from any healer shy of a "craptimized' one as someone described in the other thread. Damage? Again things are screwed because:"fighter with gwm fighter with ss or warlock with agonizing blast & hex" is on one side with at will & nova>rest>repeat on the other. Nobody is really a glass cannon and its not really possible to optimize as one at the levels that make up most of the campaign before the system begins breaking down. Importantly there is a difference between hitting a lot of things for ok damage vrs hitting one thing with the blazing fury of a vengeful god & both of those create room for different types of adaptations of difficulty scaling Buff/debuff/control. This is where the magic happens. Unlike the other optimization types this one doesn't need to do anything, it can be a wet tissue armed with all the fury of an overcooked wet noodle and have anti healing for the party because it makes everyone in the party amazing at what they do. It might not do that for everyone all the time & sometimes it might not be doing much of anything meaningful. All of this is why buff/debuff/control spells replicate across spell lists so often till they combine in a build like the 3.5 "god wizard"this makes it the easiest thing to scale for the gm because it can crank the multipliers up/down as needed while even a less optimized character with only one or two abilities in this vein is probably not the only one in the group with one or two & probably doesn't have the same ones. Overuse of concentration, generally lackluster buff/debuff/control spells with excessive saves and all of the already mentioned missing bits basically take this off the table as a relevant type of optimization to consider in 5e though. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Should difficulty increase to match optimization
Top