NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6879206" data-attributes="member: 996">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.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.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.If someone's willing to blow an action, it's trivial to get Advantage.  Thing is, blowing an action isn't trivial for PCs...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).You're not counting a smite as spamming attacks, are you?  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?</blockquote>

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