D&D General The Beautiful Mess of 5e

[FrogReaver]

It's a really good point and in a lot of ways was right in front of us the whole time. Focus fire is better than spreading out damage in the short run, and combats tend to be all in the short run.

IMO. Focus fire is great, but you are generally much better off ensuring your team isn't being focus fired and oftentimes that means not being able to focus fire the enemy as effectively (or if they are then ensure it's an exceptionally defensive character that it's being done to). Any character death is a setback/loss in my book.

A few ways to accomplish this.

• Spreading party members out and relying on move distances and OA's to incentivize enemies to attack different PC's.
• Control spells/effects
• Being able to really buff defense/mobility so that if you are swarmed it benefits the party.
• Kiting lower range/speed enemies with movespeed and range. If they cannot consistently get to you to attack they cannot focus fire you.

A common tactical idea would be to spread your melee out and have your ranged characters focus fire. This helps spread the damage from enemies around while still downing important targets quickly from ranged focus fire.

AOE damage can generally be compared to single target by adding at least half the damage per additional target. That's the floor, but it can also approach double for each. I think the I think 70% damage for additional target is very reasonable to compare against. This is due to the math on how many enemy rounds it will reduce as compared to single target damage. When viewed in these terms it shows AOE damage is still really strong compared to single target, provided the number of targets is high.

For example, a level 3 fireball hitting 4 targets is going to do the equivalent of about ~ 21+15+15+15 = 66 single target damage. For most levels that's impressive damage for a single round, but not end the encounter levels of damage, which is what people seem to expect from fireball, leading to the feeling that it's not strong.

 

[overgeeked]

Focusing fire isn’t a new concept. It’s made explicit in the 4E Player’s Strategy Guide. And has been common practice at tables with people who play boardgames, wargames, and video games since the beginning. It’s more surprising to me that this is somehow new to people as it’s been a thing since I started playing.

 

[Hussar]

Focusing fire isn’t a new concept. It’s made explicit in the 4E Player’s Strategy Guide. And has been common practice at tables with people who play boardgames, wargames, and video games since the beginning. It’s more surprising to me that this is somehow new to people as it’s been a thing since I started playing.

That's pretty true. About the only way you make non-focused fire (unfocused fire?) work is if you add in some sort of death spiral where targets are disadvantaged for not being at full HP. Since D&D doesn't do that, there's no point in damaging two targets to half rather than straight up killing one.

 

[Zardnaar]

Focusing fire isn’t a new concept. It’s made explicit in the 4E Player’s Strategy Guide. And has been common practice at tables with people who play boardgames, wargames, and video games since the beginning. It’s more surprising to me that this is somehow new to people as it’s been a thing since I started playing.

Its the best universal tactic in all D&Ds.

 

[Scribe]

But you don't base the game mechanics around the one power gamer. Most people are not min-maxers, just like most video game players are not speed runners. You base it around the fun a group of people have. You base it around the feeling of being fair and levelled. Not the lone guy at the game store that wants to only play a character that will always do max damage. (PS - A few monsters with resistance to their gimmick instantly equalizes things for some encounters. The others, let them do their thing.)

This is the issue with D&D, and likely any game that strives to be the 'kleenex' of RPGs.

There is no possible way to 'balance' the game around

1. True Casuals.
2. Total RPG Theatre Kids who dont care at all about being effective.
3. Min-Max, Multiclass Dipping, Rules Lawyer Power Gamers.

Now, those may not all be at the same table, but if the game allows for all 3 to exist, and more besides, no way can it possibly be 'balanced' for all 3.

Instead, it all falls on the DM to balance the table, and encounters, but then Wizards doesnt even give you the rules for monster creation...oops.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

5d6 at 5th level.

I think 5d6 at level 5 would be too low.

3d6 in effect is the 5E fireball. Maybe 4d6 conversing isn't exact.

I really don't understand what youbare saying.

A great 5E fireball would need to inflict 16 d6 damage. To match a weak 2E one it would need to deal 10d6 base. And top out around 20-30d6 damage.

The problem is that Player HP and Monster HP are not really comparable.
If monsters use the 16d6 fireball against players, it becomes a mess.

A good 5E fireball probably needs free upcasting/ 2d6 per level upcast.

2d6 per upcast would be ok.

Instant damage x2 over sustained damage maybe X3.

x3 would be too much.

We had this conversation a few days ago irrc.

Probably. I still don't totally agree with you. I feel free to disagree.

Mearls has spotted the same problem.

I will listen to the podcast.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Yeah. It’s wild. I know they play the games they’re designing, but it almost seems like they’re in their own bubble with no contact from the wider community at all. One optimizer or power gamer on the design team could have pointed all this out. Same with the boss monster math / resting nova thread. Or even listening to the power gamers and optimizers during the playtest would have caught so many of these things.

They released the Twilight Cleric well into 5e tells me all I need to know about their design process...

 

[Hussar]

It's funny. I had a twilight cleric in my campaign. Now, the campaign only went to 8th level, so, maybe the problems occur later, but, I never saw the issue. Sure, tons of healing. Who cares? It's not like that was a big deal anyway. I had zero problems with the Twilight cleric. Now, the artificer/abjurer who broke the game with a ridiculous AC was a far larger issue AFAIC. Or the Order of Scribes wizard who lied to me about how his spells worked and allowed him to cast every spell as force damage was a much larger issue.

I've never understood why Twilight Clerics get so much bad press. There are so many other ways to break the game and make it very unfun. Giving more HP to the party? Fantastic, I can pile on bigger baddies and not have to worry about it. Great!

 

[AnotherGuy]

But you don't base the game mechanics around the one power gamer. Most people are not min-maxers, just like most video game players are not speed runners. You base it around the fun a group of people have. You base it around the feeling of being fair and levelled. Not the lone guy at the game store that wants to only play a character that will always do max damage. (PS - A few monsters with resistance to their gimmick instantly equalizes things for some encounters. The others, let them do their thing.)

You don't need a power gamer to understand the issue with rests. They don't even follow their advice of 6-8 encounters in the APs.

Your whole shtick with 5e is playing with Bounded Accuracy and then you release a class that makes +x weapons and armour with no guidance.
And anyone can tell the Twilight Cleric is an issue straight out the gate.

Thankfully there are a lot of great fixes now for the game.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

They released the Twilight Cleric well into 5e tells me all I need to know about their design process...

...
One messy subclass... Years ago. If that is all you have, the system' design is not that bad.