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="FrozenNorth" data-source="post: 8546231" data-attributes="member: 7020832">You’ve opened the floodgates, so this is on you! <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="😀" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" title="Grinning face    :grinning:" data-shortname=":grinning:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" />The more I think about it, the more I have come to the conclusion that the problem is looking at the games through the lens of RAW.  Looking at the game through the paradigm of “the game is what’s written in the books, no more no less” may have served a purpose in 3e or 3.5e, but no longer serves a useful purpose in 5e.  Instead, I think it was the designer’s hope (not intention), that the focus should be on a DM’s individual table.To illustrate what I mean, there are ways to reduce high-level martial caster disparity, such as:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">longer adventure days;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">more restrictive rest rules;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">use of more enemies that are magic resistent;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">custom monsters with a greater variety of immunities;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">environmental effects that interact with spellcasting rules (Such as environmental effects that favour melee over ranged, wild magic zones with more negative possible outcomes, etc);</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">anti-magic zones;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">enemies with counterspell and dispel magic;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">structuring encounters so that magic is less effective (waves of enemies, enemies that attack from multiple directions);</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">etc.</li> </ul>Instead of exploring those options, we get stuck debating whether in the Platonic ideal of a game, there exists a problem or not.The focus should be on:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">which solutions work for an individual table;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">if a solution doesn’t work for your table, can it be tweaked so that it does;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">understanding why certain solutions don’t work for certain tables and what alternatives exist (in my games, the party is often fighting fairly unsophisticated monsters, so monsters using dispels and counterspells are unlikely);</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">identifying potential problems ahead of time and communicating them to your players.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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