D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Tiers of Play

[Thyrwyn]

And Tiers are only redundant in the best case. In the worst case they make advancement even more rough by introducing huge changes at Tier borders but having minimal changes within.

From the perspective of giving advice and for the purpose of general discussion, the concept of tiers already exists. We (the gaming community) talk about low level (characters, campaigns, adventures, ...) and high level (characters, campaigns, adventures, ...). Now, what each of those vague labels means may vary slightly from person to person, but the labels exist and are used. (Characters, campaigns, adventures, ...) which fall within those labels present their own challenges and capabilities.

Acknowledging general tiers facilitates conversation. They are defined by the general capabilities and challenges of the (characters, campaigns, adventures, ...) which they encompass. An 8th level (character, campaign, adventure, ...) has different capabilities and presents different challenges than a 12th level one, though most would consider both of those to be "mid-level". Without tiers, conversation either to has to default to discussing the attributes of each (character, campaign, adventure, ...) in terms of its specific level, or in terms of vague and potentially misleading generalizations.

And I am sure that Marketing would much rather be able to sell advice for each of 20 levels, than limit it to 4 tiers . . . .

Your mileage may vary.

 

[Prickly]

Actually in South Africa we use toMAHto, we definitely do not use poTAHto though.

Yay another South African.

The British and Australian's I've met also say toMAHto and PoTAYto

 

[pemerton]

Hopefully it was only a convenient framing reference, but I really disliked the way the article talked almost exclusively about tiers of play being tied to spellcasting abilities. I know it was very much thus pre-4e, but I'd really like to see decent game-mechanical support for every class having an enhanced ability to shape their world at higher levels.

I'd like to challenge the framework of how tiers are divided. Since this is a Wandering Monster article, why not look at the monsters as a tier defining feature?

Spell access is certainly a useful feature, but I wouldn't say it is what defines a tier.

I agree with both of these. I think of tiers in terms of stakes, not spells. And if only spellcasters get abilities that step up to reflect stepped-up stakes, that's a problem for me.

 

[Minigiant]

Monsters seem like a better metric for tier. There's orcs and goblins for the apprentice tier. Then you hit iconic 4 vs 1 fights like minotaurs, liches, vampires, and such for expert. Then paragon has dragons and giants. And epic is archfiends, elder dragons, and other superfreaks.

 

[pemerton]

Just out of curiousity: has anyone ever heard the word pronounced poTAHto except in the context of that expression? Is there any regional accent anywhere that has that as a feature?

Same thing for toMAHto.

As per some posters upthread, toMAHto is standard pronunciation in Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the British Isles and I would think Asia also. I would expect Carribean English to also say toMAHto, but that's a bit of a guess. I'm not sure about South American English.

I'm pretty sure Irving Berlin invented poTAHto because he need a rhyme.