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

[Tony Vargas]

I agree that a DM who runs his game should be up front about the type of game he will run, but I don't agree that 5e D&D is a heavily combat focused game out of the box.

Most RPGs focus a fair proportion of their rules on combat. Outside of combat & magic, 5e can be summed up as "describe an action, the DM decides what happens and might have you roll." Combat has a formalized turn-based system that helps to engage everyone while other activities don't. That's not just 5e, that's all editions, and most other RPGs, for that matter.

The direction that 5e took, has D&D veering even more away from combat, so I do see how combat centric players (including casualoblivion, the op) have a valid gripe against it.

5e TotM 'fast' combat, by default, can be a little blah for those who want a more engaging tactical exercise. But, there are options that flesh it out as much as possible - the OP's DM uses a grid, for instance.

Comparing 4e players handbook with 5e will show how much less combat centric 5e is. In 4e, most of the powers (which take up a huge percentage of the book) are combat based.

4e compartmentalized combat and non-combat. In prior editions spells were both combat- and non-combat resources, and because non-combat spells tended to be less life-and-death and more situational, combat spells often crowded them out. 4e rituals made non-combat a separate resource (wealth based, so there was the treasure-hunting thing again), and Skill Challenges provided a structure to non-combat tasks that could engage more of the party, and group skill checks could also bring the whole party into a non-combat task. 5e, of course, compromised: Spells are back to covering both combat- and non-combat so you have to make tough decisions when prepping spells - but, 5e also has a ritual casting rule that makes slots more combat-focused (though not all non-combat-useful spells are rituals) - and while skill challenges are gone, group skill checks remain.

In a way, I am a little disappointed that 5e does not provide the option to become more like 4e. Moving forward, those who are in that camp will need to adapt or just play 4e.

Adapt could also mean adapting 5e to a broader range of playstyles, though. The DMG has some first steps in that direction. Some new classes and modules, and more structured support for resolving challenges in the other two pillars, could go a long way. Balance would remain an issue, though.

Sure, original D&D was born from tactical war gaming, but very quickly Gygax and Arneson started to veer away from that direction. The game became a roleplaying game

That was more an expansion than a veering away from. D&D also set out to be more of a treasure-hunting game than a combat game, but combat stubbornly stayed a big part of it, and the treasure-hunting-encouragement bits, like exp for gp recovered, slowly went away. In 5e, treasure hardly matters.
Monetary treasure, that is.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I only played the mobile Barbarian, so preferring it is just a theory. I just looked at the battlerager over 10 levels and it seemed boring compared to the other characters I built. As for the monk, I wonder if the mobility is overkill, and it does cost ki points. With a mobile Barbarian, I can do mobility as my primary strategy, and yet I'm still a Barbarian and I can front line if it becomes necessary. I also like the synergy between being mobile and Polearm Master reaction attacks, and between Polearm Master, Reckless attack, and Great Weapon Master I don't think I'll be lacking hitting power, while still being able to be a part time tank when the situation calls for it.

In my experience, if you focus on one single thing the DM can take it away from you, and it can get boring over a long term campaign. I like having options.

The monk gets unarmed movement at 2nd, which is +10 speed and requires no ki. Then they can use their ki to either dash or disengage as a bonus action rather than an action, which would cost 1 ki.

A monk won't ever match a polearm master barbarian for damage output, but they get lots of attacks, and if you've built around Dexterity, then their damage is solid.

Over time they add a variety of abilities such as knocking enemies prone or pushing them around or taking away their reactions with no chance to resist, which can be huge. They get a self heal and other defensive abilities later on, too.

 

[The_Furious_Puffin]

I agree that a DM who runs his game should be up front about the type of game he will run, but I don't agree that 5e D&D is a heavily combat focused game out of the box. Only 10 pages of the players handbook are about combat. Sure, many of the spells are about combat, but many others are utility and non-combat spells, which is the same for feats and classes/races in general. Much more of the book focuses on non-combat actions and the entire idea of playing the role of an imaginary character.

Yeah, I'm counting the spell description of 'fireball' as combat page count, most of the magic rules (that explain how blasts work), the feat 'crossbow expertise' or 'sentinel' most of the class description, most of the equipment section etc. For example, if we consult the 5E SRD document and look at the barbarian class description, which takes two and a half pages. Of that, three lines are related to non combat skills and abilities. If I whip out an apocalypse world character, about 1 page is the actual class mechanics and of that maybe half covers non combat rules (depends on the character to a yooge extent).

I honestly think it's weird when people say that 5E doesn't have a strong focus on combat. 5E has less combat focus than 4E (because it's stripped out spell selection from the Barbarian/Fighter axis), but that's still a lot of combat focus. Virtually no mechanics are devoted to non combat activities. Bottom line is I agree with Vargas about the 5E treatment of skills/non combat activities. Not that 4E or 3.5E have a better solution imho, this is a huge issue across the D&D brand, and is why I question anyone picking up D&D and saying let's have a non combat focused game.


Compare with GUMSHOE which spends absolutely ages on its out of combat mechanics (and has some questionable mechanics for combat, particularly if you try for cinematic combat). Similarly for Apocalypse world.

I've got the GUMSHOE SRD handy so let's compare the skills sections to each other. The GUMSHOE system is of comparable mechanical complexity to 5E (imho) and weights in at 65 pages. The 5E srd excluding monster descriptions comes in at 263(!) or over 4 times as much.

By my rough count, the gumshoe SRD spends almost 10 times the page count dewelling on how non combat skills work. Given the much lower page count, that shows the relative levels of focus and what I consider a non combat focused game.

Sure, original D&D was born from tactical war gaming, but very quickly Gygax and Arneson started to veer away from that direction. The game became a roleplaying game rather than a combat simulation, and that has crossed all editions. The direction that 5e took, has D&D veering even more away from combat, so I do see how combat centric players (including casualoblivion, the op) have a valid gripe against it.

In a way, I am a little disappointed that 5e does not provide the option to become more like 4e (although I don't necessarily want to play D&D that way).

The real focus of those first editions that has been moved away from IMHO are exploration and resource management. 5E has tried to renew focus on resource management, but it does it via the very long adventuring days that are heavily focused on combat. 6-8 encounters is a lot of combat (1,440 rounds over the life of a character by my estimate. I'm assuming roughly 25% of encounters will be non combat for those numbers, but that we skew towards the high side of encounters per day).

 

[Rhenny]

The real focus of those first editions that has been moved away from IMHO are exploration and resource management. 5E has tried to renew focus on resource management, but it does it via the very long adventuring days that are heavily focused on combat. 6-8 encounters is a lot of combat (1,440 rounds over the life of a character by my estimate. I'm assuming roughly 25% of encounters will be non combat for those numbers, but that we skew towards the high side of encounters per day).

Depends on the adventure/DM. Rather than go day by day, session by session may only see 1 or 2 combats, and sometimes people run entire sessions without any combat. Even though 6-8 encounters is a guideline, 5e is pretty flexible so that DMs can run games differently (the problem with too few combats per rest is that it may mess up the class balance, but so far, we haven't felt it).

In any event, I do see how those who want to focus on combat are not given as much granularity and choice when it comes to picking unique actions that are designed for their non-caster PCs. Personally, I enjoyed playing the battle master fighter, and just having some choices in my back pocket for when I needed them made a huge difference, but if I really were a tactical nut who loved to pull stunts and do different tricks every round, I might get bored if I didn't shift my focus more towards roleplaying or enjoying exploration and interaction.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Looks like I'm playing a Paladin, human Polearm Master.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Looks like I'm playing a Paladin, human Polearm Master.

Paladin definitely might be what you're looking for. When is your game? Let us know how it goes.

 

[Rhenny]

Looks like I'm playing a Paladin, human Polearm Master.

Cool. Bring down the holy halbard of righteousness! I hope you enjoy it.

 

[Ancalagon]

Btw, I like that "speed barbarian" idea, it looks like it could be a lot of fun.

It's far less realistic for somebody who doesn't excel at fighting monsters to survive a long term campaign, particularly if they continue to suck as they level up. This is a life threatening activity here.

There is much more to adventuring than actual combat.

I think part of it - and part of "what is powergaming?" in general really depends on what kind of combat the game has - combat as a sport, or combat as war?

Combat as a sport features set piece encounters in an arena-like setting, featuring lots of tactical options and exciting battles. Combat as a war is brutish and nasty. Many of the fights will be lethal if the party just blunders into them. It is up to the party to engineer events to turn the table on their foes. It's war. If the PCs do their job well, the actual combat segment will be easy because they will have put the foes in such a bad situation. Figuring out how to do this, on the fly, using your wits, guile and the environment... well that's far more satisfying than figuring out how to increase your AC or damage by 1-2....

A character that is supremely combat optimize will struggle in such a setting, because he doesn't have the breath to help assist in the "set up" part, the "pre battle". He may be the best fighter in the kingdom, but until the fight starts he's not much help!

So my "not the best" fighter... he has a shield and medium armor to protect him, and a bit of dex. His armor doesn't grant him disadvantage to stealth checks. He does have stealth as a skill from his background. He took alertness as a feat not to be surprised, and magic initiate for role-playing reason... but also because it's *useful*. Maybe he has a familiar to help him scout or distract enemies. Maybe he took expeditious retreat to move quickly around on the battlefield. Because he has a bit of dex, he can switch to a ranged weapon if the situation calls for a ranged attack by the party vs closing in melee.

This character is *an adventurer*.

 

[The_Furious_Puffin]

Depends on the adventure/DM. Rather than go day by day, session by session may only see 1 or 2 combats, and sometimes people run entire sessions without any combat. Even though 6-8 encounters is a guideline, 5e is pretty flexible so that DMs can run games differently (the problem with too few combats per rest is that it may mess up the class balance, but so far, we haven't felt it).

That's what my 4E game looks like 1-2 combats per session with RP occupying the balance of the session. It's about a 50/50 split in time elapsed. However, I go to adventuring day because some people play 4 hours, some people play 6 hours and that's not super relevant when talking about mechanics, unless the game has mechanics keyed to sessions.

I agree that very few people are actually going to RUN the proposed 6-8 encounters an adventuring day: the published adventures for the most part don't. Let's consult the mines of phandelver again to see an example of that. The result is the class balance thing is a yooge issue.

In any event, I do see how those who want to focus on combat are not given as much granularity and choice when it comes to picking unique actions that are designed for their non-caster PCs. Personally, I enjoyed playing the battle master fighter, and just having some choices in my back pocket for when I needed them made a huge difference, but if I really were a tactical nut who loved to pull stunts and do different tricks every round, I might get bored if I didn't shift my focus more towards roleplaying or enjoying exploration and interaction.

Observation: Roleplaying, exploration and interaction are not really mechanically supported by the 5E rules. If we want to play that, why don't we play Mouseguard?

 

[Ancalagon]

... maybe combat is the part that needs mechanics the most?