D&D 3E/3.5 Thoughts of a 3E/4E powergamer on starting to play 5E

[Tony Vargas]

When I speak of "sticking to the rules" that equally applies to "stick to the rulings". Every check is not even remotely so unique as to require a new and different ruling.

The basic resolution system has the DM deciding whether to call for a roll with every action. Every action may not be so unique, but the rules are open to the possibility of any action being that unique (if the DM so judges it).

DM Empowerment is as much a misnomer as the wording of Stealth in 5E. If you have to constantly make rules, you're not empowered you're burdened

The only difference in that distinction of one of attitude.

Empowerment is allowing a DM to go above and beyond what the rules allow or call for, in order to make the game better.

All RPGs do that. Indeed, no RPG can stop it.

How can you tell the difference? It's simple:
Can you play 5E, right out of the box, without making any rulings?
No. You cannot. (see: Stealth)
Therefore, 5E is not empowering. It is burdening. The rules aren't rules, they're guidelines, or suggestions. It's not empowering to be told as a DM, that you have to always be ready to make a ruling on anything in the game.

That same test can be applied to judge 5e DM-empowering. If the game is entirely playable 'by the book,' you don't strictly need a DM, you could, say, randomly generate some dungeon & monsters, and resolve everything in the open. Rather like the Castle Ravenloft boardgame. If the players don't 'need' the DM, they can challenge any ruling or deviation from the RAW. That's not hypothetical, either, that's the 3.x era.

I'd be curious to see where caster dominance starts, or what the sweet spot for me personally would be. I imagine it would be narrower than for most,

Caster dominance either starts at 1st level, or doesn't exist, it depends on how you look at it. ;P As you probably noticed, most potential PCs are casters or otherwise reference spells or use magic as part of their class abilities. Those few that don't do magic, do hit hard. In some folk's minds, hitting a little harder than the next guy means you're dominating - or dominating in combat at any rate. OTOH, if you're looking at having a lot more choices and those choices mattering a lot in play, as 'dominating' then casters are it.

In the old sense of the 'sweet spot,' though, yes, the sweet spot is definitively back. 1st level is kinda a nightmare, reminiscent of 1e, that way, but it goes quickly. So do the next couple of levels, collectively known as 'apprentice tier.' They go quickly in the sense that the exp to level is low relative to the exp received for an at-level encounter. You should be 2nd level on your 2nd 'day' of adventuring. After apprentice tier, advancement slows, then picks up again at higher level. It's easy to infer from that the levels with the slowest advancement constitute the intended 'sweet spot.' Advancement from level 4 to level 11 is over twice as slow, per level, than advancement from 1st to 3rd. Advancement from 3rd to 4th and from 11th through 20th is half again as fast per level as advancement from 4 to 11.

So the intended sweet spot is probably 4-10. That's where you spend 47% of your adventuring career (of roughly 33 'days,' BTW), vs 10% at 1-3rd, 28% at 'Paragon Tier' (11-16th), and 14% at 'Epic Tier' (17-20 - though, really, there's no telling how long you could adventure at 20th, exp no longer means anything). That hypothetical 'sweet spot,' BTW, is the last level of Apprentice Tier, plus the whole of Heroic Tier.

Topping out the sweet spot at 10th is consistent with the 3e design philosophy, which was reputedly based on survey data that indicated campaigns rarely went beyond 10th level. FWIW.

Theres things like reckless attack for Barbarian and darkness monk, but I find it hard to believe that it's that easy across the board.

If someone's willing to blow an action, it's trivial to get Advantage. Thing is, blowing an action isn't trivial for PCs...

Looking at 5E, with the exception of full casters it looks like at-will spam is more or less what you do.

Full casters constitute a majority of the available PC choices, so that's not as bad as it sounds. Half-casters at higher levels will also presumably have more options. Plus, combats are pretty short (not 3e rocket tag, but quick).

I'm playing a Paladin right now, and given the 6-8 encounter day I don't really see a future where my limited per day abilities allow me to not spam a basic attack most turns.

You're not counting a smite as spamming attacks, are you?

Aside from their annoying tendency to go pixel bitching,

The Death House kinda encouraged that, too - it may get better as you go further into CoS.

I'm pretty ok with this group. They are a fun and casual group, about half of whom I know from 4E Living Forgotten Realms games.

Is that half having any issues with making the 4e->5e transition?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Caster dominance either starts at 1st level, or doesn't exist, it depends on how you look at it. ;P As you probably noticed, most potential PCs are casters or otherwise reference spells or use magic as part of their class abilities. Those few that don't do magic, do hit hard. In some folk's minds, hitting a little harder than the next guy means you're dominating - or dominating in combat at any rate. OTOH, if you're looking at having a lot more choices and those choices mattering a lot in play, as 'dominating' then casters are it.

What I'm talking about specifically is full casters(Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard) starting to overshadow the other classes at higher levels. I have been told by a wide variety of people that this is a definite thing that happens in 5E, though not to the extent of AD&D or 3E, and it's not entirely clear what level the cutoff is.

In the old sense of the 'sweet spot,' though, yes, the sweet spot is definitively back. 1st level is kinda a nightmare, reminiscent of 1e, that way, but it goes quickly. So do the next couple of levels, collectively known as 'apprentice tier.' They go quickly in the sense that the exp to level is low relative to the exp received for an at-level encounter. You should be 2nd level on your 2nd 'day' of adventuring. After apprentice tier, advancement slows, then picks up again at higher level. It's easy to infer from that the levels with the slowest advancement constitute the intended 'sweet spot.' Advancement from level 4 to level 11 is over twice as slow, per level, than advancement from 1st to 3rd. Advancement from 3rd to 4th and from 11th through 20th is half again as fast per level as advancement from 4 to 11.

So the intended sweet spot is probably 4-10. That's where you spend 47% of your adventuring career (of roughly 33 'days,' BTW), vs 10% at 1-3rd, 28% at 'Paragon Tier' (11-16th), and 14% at 'Epic Tier' (17-20 - though, really, there's no telling how long you could adventure at 20th, exp no longer means anything). That hypothetical 'sweet spot,' BTW, is the last level of Apprentice Tier, plus the whole of Heroic Tier.

Topping out the sweet spot at 10th is consistent with the 3e design philosophy, which was reputedly based on survey data that indicated campaigns rarely went beyond 10th level. FWIW.

Sounds about right.

If someone's willing to blow an action, it's trivial to get Advantage. Thing is, blowing an action isn't trivial for PCs...

I would imagine a lot of the time daily resources aren't trivial either.

Full casters constitute a majority of the available PC choices, so that's not as bad as it sounds. Half-casters at higher levels will also presumably have more options. Plus, combats are pretty short (not 3e rocket tag, but quick).

5/11, with Warlock an asterisk. Combats being short is kind of a bug, not a feature.

You're not counting a smite as spamming attacks, are you?

I'm not, though it's a bit of a gray area since smite is something you tack onto hitting with a spammed attack. A single class Paladin isn't going to have that many smites.

The Death House kinda encouraged that, too - it may get better as you go further into CoS. Is that half having any issues with making the 4e->5e transition?

There are three people I've seen at LFR. One has been around for years and he isn't having issues. The other two started playing LFR after 5E's launch, so both systems are new to them.

 

[dave2008]

I thought those loopholes were closed? Or were similar ones re-opened by Essentials (issuing fewer updates turned out not to be the same thing as needing less errata).

Maybe, I can't be sure we played with all of the errata, and two of group where essentials characters (joined the group later) and two 4 where PHB1 characters.

What sort of encounters/day does your group tend towards? If you tend to be shy of the 6-8 recommended for 5e, for instance, casters will rarely have to fall back on at-wills (cantrips) even at modest levels - and, of course, the few non-casters don't have much of anything but 'at-wills.'

It really depends, but I still run it more like 4e so about 3-4 encounters per day. However, some of my encounters are "double" encounters (waves of attackers w/out short rests) and sometimes they PCs completely avoid the encounter. I have gotten up to 6 and maybe 8 encounters, but that is not typical.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm happy to accept that heroism requires departing from the cowardly/apathetic norm - and also that doing so when one is "mundane" may be particularly heroic.

But I don't have a clear sense of how this translates to any particular set of RPG mechanics.

Sam Gamgee might be heroic (personally I think there are big issues around the Sam Gamgee character), but there is nothing especially heroic about pretending to be Sam Gamgee, nor about writing a story (even a first-person one) about Sam Gamgee.

A player who runs the risk of losing a PC (to death, injury, demonic possession, whatever) in order to follow through some sort of in-character commitment/conviction shows a degree of sincerity and of real-world commitment/conviction in playing the game - but s/he is not a hero for doing so. (At least I'm not seeing it.)

Not for merely adventuring I agree. Heroism is something than can be aspired to within the game but it doesn't need to be a part of the game by default. Heroics don't need special mechanics to enable it.

And not what we were talking about. Why bring it up?

D&D isn't inspired by RL or comic-book takes on heroism, but by the broader fantasy genre - which includes plenty of action and heroism.

The fantasy genre also includes quite a bit that has nothing to do with heroism.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Heroics don't need special mechanics to enable it.

Posthumous heroics, don't. Repeated heroic do. Hit points (particularly in 4e & 5e) and saving throws (not so much in 3e-5e) are two examples of heroics-enabling mechanics in D&D.

The fantasy genre also includes quite a bit that has nothing to do with heroism.

Quite a bit of exposition, filler, secondary characters, and throwaway details, perhaps. But even studiedly-un-heroic-seeming fantasy protagonists like Rincewind are still heroic - and generally survive quite a lot of danger and accomplish quite a few improbable things.

What I'm talking about specifically is full casters(Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard) starting to overshadow the other classes at higher levels. I have been told by a wide variety of people that this is a definite thing that happens in 5E, though not to the extent of AD&D or 3E, and it's not entirely clear what level the cutoff is.

For reference, where would you place the cut-off in 3e? Did E6 take care of it, for instance (getting 4th level spells, like Polymorph, broke casters, say)?

Sounds about right.

So, if 4-10 (or Heroic level, 5-10) is the intended 'sweet spot,' and 5e has delivered on that intent, then, presumably, caster dominance doesn't kick in until 11th.

I would imagine a lot of the time daily resources aren't trivial either.

Depends on level and encounters/day. That's one line you might consider for your 'caster dominance' question.

5/11, with Warlock an asterisk. Combats being short is kind of a bug, not a feature.

Though that's only 5 classes, they do constitute over half the sub-class choices in the PH (21, IIRC, 24 if you throw in the Warlock, which I would, personally - vs 7 half-casters, 5 non-casters, and 4 not-technically-casting-spell-users).

 

[dave2008]

You have me a bit curious and confused with your description here of 4E. We played highly optimized PCs, by RAW, against monsters straight out of the MMs, generally stayed within the level+1 to level+4 range, and never encountered anything like abuse of the action economy or broken options/combinations/synergies. These were often PCs nearly straight out of the optimization guides. As a DM I had the highest level of system mastery at the table, and was also the most skilled tactical wargamer, which I imagine had an impact, but I never saw an issue keeping up with the players. It was rarely an issue when the situation was reversed and I was the player. Yeah, I tended to be the biggest contributor and sometimes I'd come up with something clever that trivialized an encounter, but was rarely a case of the DM struggling to keep up.

I am not a system mastery guy myself, so that may be an issue. But my experience was not alone. I had many a discussion about this issue on the WotC 4e forums. 4e could be very heavily group optimized if you had all the roles covered and 2 strikers. They could just smash through encounters.

I'm not sure where the issue in 5E is, though you don't sound like you're following the 6-8 encounter per day guidelines.

No, I run my game more like 4e with 3-4 encounters today with beefed up or "double" encounters without short rest. Sometomes 6-8, but not typical.

I'd be curious to see where caster dominance starts, or what the sweet spot for me personally would be. I imagine it would be narrower than for most,

Has not cropped up in our games yet. So it can be completely avoided, But I didn't have this problem on 1e or 4e either.

In my experience, optimized PCs would defeat a level appropriate encounter in 3-6 rounds. A level 11 non-essentials PC with a theme would have 5 encounter attack powers. Add in Daily powers, and past a certain point at-will use became rare. At level 3 you would have 3 encounter powers. At-Will spam in 4E in my experience was either a failure state(the encounter went too long because of bad luck, player mistakes, or bad DM design) or something you built your character specifically to do.

Which edition are you talking about?

Looking at 5E, with the exception of full casters it looks like at-will spam is more or less what you do. I'm playing a Paladin right now, and given the 6-8 encounter day I don't really see a future where my limited per day abilities allow me to not spam a basic attack most turns.

All most all of the classes are casters. The only spamming I am seeing is warlock and champion (though we don't have one of these at the moment).

 

[ExploderWizard]

Posthumous heroics, don't. Repeated heroic do. Hit points (particularly in 4e & 5e) and saving throws (not so much in 3e-5e) are two examples of heroics-enabling mechanics in D&D.

Those mechanics apply to anyone with an adventuring class. Not all adventurers are going to be heroes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Those mechanics apply to anyone with an adventuring class. Not all adventurers are going to be heroes.

But they all have some potential heroics enabled by those mechanics, even if they choose not to use them. Some.

Hps & saves also apply to monsters and other 'villains' - repeated villainy also being something it can be tricky to survive.

I am not a system mastery guy myself, so that may be an issue. But my experience was not alone. I had many a discussion about this issue on the WotC 4e forums. 4e could be very heavily group optimized if you had all the roles covered and 2 strikers. They could just smash through encounters.

That would have been a low level of optimization. Pretty nearly default, really. Not that optimization in 4e had anything like the megaton yields it does in 3.x/PF.

That said, I've run for some pretty aberrant 4e parties - 3 wizards and 3 rogues was an odd one, for instance; Monk, Ranger & Paladin; all-Martial; no Martial; on Divine; 4 leaders & a defender; etc - mostly they just happen at 'organized' play events, or because I'd end up with a large, less than dependable roster. As much as 4e made of roles, 'unoptimized' parties (in that sense) didn't do so badly as all that.

Has not cropped up in our games yet. So it can be completely avoided, But I didn't have this problem on 1e or 4e either.

It wouldn't have cropped up in 4e (the Sources were reasonably balanced, though not so neatly as the classes), and in 1e caster dominance kicked in later than 3e (probably a little later than 2e - casters faced a lot of challenges in early D&D).

All most all of the classes are casters. The only spamming I am seeing is warlock and champion (though we don't have one of these at the moment).

Yeah, even the fighter and rogue are casters (they each have 1 sub-class that casts spells). The Barbarian has a sub-class that uses rituals (so uses spells, but doesn't technically 'cast' spells), and the Monk's Ki is explicitly magical and two of the sub-classes use spells to model ki powers (arguably not technically 'casting' them). If you're not being too precise, 'all classes cast spells' wouldn't be out of line. If you are being too precise, 'all classes can use spells' is perfectly true.

In any case, the 'all caster party' neatly side-steps the problem of caster dominance. Worked for my old AD&D campaign from 1984-95.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I am not a system mastery guy myself, so that may be an issue. But my experience was not alone. I had many a discussion about this issue on the WotC 4e forums. 4e could be very heavily group optimized if you had all the roles covered and 2 strikers. They could just smash through encounters.

It could, but I never saw it impact play to the point where I'd call it a problem. The main problem I encountered in 4E was grind, where combat went on for too long in a boring manner. There were two basic choices, you could either make fun encounters that were fast or fun encounters that were challenging. It was very difficult to do both at the same time consistently. Most DMs picked one or the other. Some ran games with slow, challenging but less numerous combat(which avoided grind by making things interesting from the challenge). Some ran games with fast and fun combat that really wasn't that challenging.

No, I run my game more like 4e with 3-4 encounters today with beefed up or "double" encounters without short rest. Sometomes 6-8, but not typical.

I imagine that changes things a bit from the stereotypical 5E game played under the guidelines in the book.

Has not cropped up in our games yet. So it can be completely avoided, But I didn't have this problem on 1e or 4e either.

Ive heard it from enough different sources to believe it exists.

Which edition are you talking about?

I was talking about 4E.

All most all of the classes are casters. The only spamming I am seeing is warlock and champion (though we don't have one of these at the moment).

I was mostly talking about the casters with 9th level magic. I'm really curious how your game runs, because though I've mostly played at low levels, resources are scarce enough that basic attack use is a necessity. Unless something unforeseen drastically changes, I can't see how it'll be different as even with higher level resources we'll be falling back on spam given how the game has run so far.

 

[Sunseeker]

The basic resolution system has the DM deciding whether to call for a roll with every action. Every action may not be so unique, but the rules are open to the possibility of any action being that unique (if the DM so judges it). The only difference in that distinction of one of attitude. All RPGs do that. Indeed, no RPG can stop it.

If you like being told that you need to do extra work because your boss wants to "empower you" hey that's on you. Me, when someone gives me a book and tells me to do a job, I expect to be told how to do that job. I don't expect it to be laid upon me to make rulings on how the job should be performed each day and operate under the expectation that somehow, every day of the job is going to be so vastly different that I couldn't create a singlular ruling, put it in a book, and apply it evenly to the vast majority of situations. I dunno, that sounds an awful lot like the purpose of a *drumroll* rulebook.

An RPG can't stop it in the sense that they're never going to come to your house, beat you up, take your lunch money and burn your books. An RPG can, however advise against it. RPGs with stricter rule sets and more codified systems often DO. They do this by putting the power in the hands of the players to be justified when they say "Hey! That's not what the rules say!" whenever a DM attempts to deviate from them.

Bringing this discussion back around to my original point that I made early in this thread: It's not that 5E lacks the ability to powergame. What 5E lacks is reliability. It's unreliability is reinforced through their systems of "rulings not rules" by essentially saying that the "game" is whatever the DM happens to feel like it should be. There's no consistency. Every table has always been different, but the difference is different in 5E. Typically, people play the same system in different manners, through different campaigns, each one more befitting to someone's flavor of D&D than another. Now, however, what's different isn't just the types of games that exist, there are literally no expectations between tables. You can't even count on the rules to be the same.

That's NOT a good thing for a game.

That same test can be applied to judge 5e DM-empowering. If the game is entirely playable 'by the book,' you don't strictly need a DM, you could, say, randomly generate some dungeon & monsters, and resolve everything in the open. Rather like the Castle Ravenloft boardgame. If the players don't 'need' the DM, they can challenge any ruling or deviation from the RAW. That's not hypothetical, either, that's the 3.x era.

I'm not denying that and IMO, that's a good thing. Much like not needing the Holy Trinity in a party, you shouldn't expressly need a DM. You should be able to reasonably open the book and everyone mechanically plays the same game. That doesn't exist in 5E. A rule-set is not a story book. You're not supposed to picture the mechanical resolution of an action differently in the way that everyone can picture Aragorn or Gimli differently. You're not supposed to have different "interpretations" of how class abilities work, in the way you have different interpretations about how the One Ring affects Frodo's mind.

5E is a game that is trying to be a story.