D&D 5E What is Over-Powered?

[Diamabel]

Characters are a big share of the game, and rules that help bring them to life are much more important than rules that only help reduce the challenge.

Players are a big share of the game, and rules help them to create the character they want to play, and it's up to the DM to present the level of challenge desired.

No character should start with any score higher than 7 with the rate of ability score increases in 5th Edition. It would stop the jealousy of other players who rolled well, and get everyone experience playing with low scores. I recommend it for everyone who plays 5th Edition.

Well, there is the artificial challenge boost you wanted, I guess. I know I would be thrilled to start with sub average scores in every single stat!
Just as magic items in 5th can break bounded accuracy, so too can universally subpar statistics. A large percentage of attacks are going to miss if everyone is rocking -2 penalties to attack instead of +2 or +3 from stats.

That's not terrible design. It's not even a punishment. It's just part of the game. Is it "punishment" when somebody in Monopoly rolls a 2 on their very first move and winds up behind everyone else? Nonsense. It's just part of the game. Your next character will be completely different.

As Hussar said earlier, this is a false analogy. It would be more like "Let's play monopoly! roll this dice. Oh! sorry, you didn't roll well.. you only get to start with only $500. Also, because you didn't meet our standards, you also cannot buy utilities or railroads" Better luck next time! - Except next time is potentially months of play down the road.

The bard seems the least well balanced class in 5th Edition PHB, being able to cast any wizard spell and also healing spells.

The bards power level is in line with the other classes in 5th edition. (finally)

It's how it's supposed to be.

To you. You mentioned earlier that "everything" feels overpowered.. this is not possible. Within context of the system, if "everything" is overpowered, NOTHING is.

You come from the oldschool systems where *Everything is Awful* (punishing mechanics, grossly imbalanced classes, forced drawbacks) 5th edition has really changed to *Everything is Awesome* (all classes are powerful and appealing, forgiving mechanics, drawbacks by choice).

 

[Diamabel]

The most conspicuous offenders in 5th edition

-Fighting Style: Archery: +2 bonus to hit is too much for bounded accuracy.
-Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter: Once +hit gets high enough, the drawback of these is negligible, and +10 is a huge damage boost only available to martial characters.
-Magic item +1 to +3 bonuses: Breaks bounded accuracy, especially when you can stack them (armor+shield, for example)
-Magic item- Belt of Giant Strength: especially the more powerful ones- same as above, breaks bounded accuracy.
-Druid Wildshape: Early levels it is out of line with the other classes, later it scales poorly, until you hit level 20 and it can be near invulnerability- needs a redesign, IMO.
-Action Surge: Huge nova damage, early enough in fighter progression that it's splashable for other classes. (Cast haste. Enter combat- Cast fireball, Use wand of fireball- hasted use object action, Action surge- use wand of fireball-- not a common scenario, but still possible to shoot 3 fireballs in 1 round)

-Dexterity: of all the games base stats, this one just does too much compared to the others: Common saving throw, Armor Class bonus, Initiative bonus, Hit and damage bonus for both finesse and ranged attacks, plus a good range of associated skills.

 

[abirdcall]

The most conspicuous offenders in 5th edition

-Fighting Style: Archery: +2 bonus to hit is too much for bounded accuracy.
-Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter: Once +hit gets high enough, the drawback of these is negligible, and +10 is a huge damage boost only available to martial characters.
-Magic item +1 to +3 bonuses: Breaks bounded accuracy, especially when you can stack them (armor+shield, for example)
-Magic item- Belt of Giant Strength: especially the more powerful ones- same as above, breaks bounded accuracy.
-Druid Wildshape: Early levels it is out of line with the other classes, later it scales poorly, until you hit level 20 and it can be near invulnerability- needs a redesign, IMO.
-Action Surge: Huge nova damage, early enough in fighter progression that it's splashable for other classes. (Cast haste. Enter combat- Cast fireball, Use wand of fireball- hasted use object action, Action surge- use wand of fireball-- not a common scenario, but still possible to shoot 3 fireballs in 1 round)

-Dexterity: of all the games base stats, this one just does too much compared to the others: Common saving throw, Armor Class bonus, Initiative bonus, Hit and damage bonus for both finesse and ranged attacks, plus a good range of associated skills.

I agree on the first two.

Archery style is out of place esp. with the other fighting styles.

Those feats are a problem.

Magic items, however, are supposed to break bounded accuracy. Job well done as far as I'm concerned. They are supposed to be rare and awesome. There are also plenty of magic weapons and armour that don't give flat bonuses if you prefer.

Same with the Belt of Giant Strength. The Deck of Many Things also completely breaks the game. No one seems to care that it exists though.

Druid Wildshape is a bit off. There are problems with the ranger's pet too.

Not sure about Action Surge. I think it's okay. Then again, I don't use multiclassing rules, maybe that is why?

Dexterity is a bit too good unfortunately. There was an attempt to balance it with heavy armour taking away dex bonuses/penalties for AC. All 6 stats having saves was also an attempt I'm sure. Didn't quite work out. I don't think it's a huge problem, but it is a bit unfortunate. My problem more lies in the 3 minor stats being too weak.

 

[Gecko85]

AD&D is fantastic. I have never stopped playing it since I started to thirty years ago. It's how it's supposed to be.

AD&D was fantastic...for its time. I started with the original blue box Basic Set, then moved on to AD&D which I played for many years (still have all my books, modules, Dragon magazines, Judges Guild supplements, etc.) Starting with 2e, I thought the game got more and more bogged down in min-maxing characters. There were improvements with each subsequent release, but all in all I thought the feel of the original game was lost along the way. 5e is the first edition that, to me (and my group) feels like AD&D but with better overall rules. No more THACO hit charts, magic users can wear armor (well, multiclassed demi-humans in AD&D could wear armor...), and the list goes on. I loved playing AD&D, but there's no denying its many flaws.

5e has its issues, too, but overall it's a very good release. D&D is fun again.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

AD&D is fantastic. I have never stopped playing it since I started to thirty years ago. It's how it's supposed to be.

I really don't understand why you're griping in the 5E thread then. I don't go off on rambling tangents in the Pathfinder section.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

False analogy. If you roll a two in monopoly, at worst it impacts only that game, which only lasts a few hours. (Just to be pedantic, rolling a two at the outset would not put you behind since you get another turn right away).

Poor game balance can mean you are spending several sessions playing a character you don't particularly like. We're talking dozens of play hours. That can truly suck.

I don't want to play a game I'm not enjoying. There's a reason that class restrictions were lifted.

Why would you spend dozens of play hours on a character you don't like? Remember, we're taking about old-school AD&D here. Even if he doesn't die in a disintegration trap, your DM will and should let you make another character after a session or so--same "few hours" investment as in Monopoly. You're not restricted to having only one character ever.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

They do get ritual casting.

Oh really? My mistake then. They still ate worse ritual casters than wizards though due to fewer spells known.

 

[Hussar]

Why would you spend dozens of play hours on a character you don't like? Remember, we're taking about old-school AD&D here. Even if he doesn't die in a disintegration trap, your DM will and should let you make another character after a session or so--same "few hours" investment as in Monopoly. You're not restricted to having only one character ever.

So, if I can simply swap out another character after the session, why wait? Why not let me play the character I want to play from the get go? What is the benefit here?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So, if I can simply swap out another character after the session, why wait? Why not let me play the character I want to play from the get go? What is the benefit here?

Some folks would call that cheesey. Other folks would be fine with letting you discard the one without even ever playing it and immediately generate another. It's a social contract which you'd have to negotiate with your group (in old-school terms, "with the DM"). If you're going where I think you're going with this, and you try to leverage that into "why can't I just skip over all 100 trillion rolls and pretend I rolled all 18s", I suspect your group is going to push back pretty hard, but if you just roll up a bunch of stats all under 10 I bet most AD&D groups would be pretty chill about letting you re-roll, if you wanted.

Still, even if you immediately kill/retire the guy right after creation, you'll still wind up with fighters being orders of magnitude more common than paladins due to the CH 17 stat requirement, even if you simply discard all 100 fighters without ever playing them. This is part of the value of stat requirements in the AD&D design: it emphasizes that the paladin is rare and special, not part of the baseline. It sets expectations for the game world that if you ever find a whole organization of paladins, you should be extremely weirded out. (It also gives implicit guidance on the right way to play a paladin: a leader like Sir Lancelot or Roland, not just some Lawful Stupid dude who knows how to cast some spells.)

 

[SirAntoine]

The bards power level is in line with the other classes in 5th edition. (finally)



To you. You mentioned earlier that "everything" feels overpowered.. this is not possible. Within context of the system, if "everything" is overpowered, NOTHING is.

You come from the oldschool systems where *Everything is Awful* (punishing mechanics, grossly imbalanced classes, forced drawbacks) 5th edition has really changed to *Everything is Awesome* (all classes are powerful and appealing, forgiving mechanics, drawbacks by choice).

The only thing you have shown is how subjective it all is. It isn't objective in the least.