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What is the lowest damage Fireball could deal where you would still prep/use it?
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<blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8818664" data-attributes="member: 93670"><p>The LMOP n00b tpk opening encounter was referenced because it can so easily fall into the realm of a terribly designed <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RocksFallEveryoneDies" target="_blank">rocks fall</a> type encounter where the party doesn't stand a chance. Unfortunately the design of 2014 5e is one where the risk to players is none at all ->none at all ->c'mon GM I'm <em>trying</em> to get killed so I can play my new PC ->we got this healing word -> wow this is a long fight healing word ->the players never stood a chance <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/90494273737142733/" target="_blank">but the GM made them suffer through it till the last meeple died</a>. That & bounded accuracy combined with the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/ov8cqh/the_war_of_attrition_how_wotc_thought_wed_play_vs/" target="_blank">excessive 6-8 medium to hard combat encounter expectations</a> makes for a number of contributing factors that I already mentioned earlier</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The GM is pressured to throw in lots of monsters just to meet the budget because fewer stronger monsters are still not a threat but so totally overwhelmed by the action economy that they are incapable of doing anything at all given the poor abilities attached to those giant sacks of hp.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">With the removal of things like 5 foot step/shift or suffer AoOs there is no longer any <strong>mechanical</strong> reason for either the players or the gm to do anything but immediately close to the squishy MVP type targets. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">That's fine for players closing on the bbeg who now requires a gobton of useless zero threat mooks to hide behind in order to last more than a round or two without tarrasque type stats. It's fine though because the game is rigged more towards a setting on the dial where the players can win than some kind of dark souls style <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard" target="_blank">nintendohard</a> thing where the player with unlimited dragons gets to kill the PCs</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">For the GM controlled monsters though it's absolutely a reprehensible catch 22 situation forced onto the gm by the social contract. On the one side the GM needs to provide an interesting combat that seems fair with a possibility of failure/ On the other though there's no longer any reason preventing all of those monsters from just ignoring the crunchy melee types in order to immediatly <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootTheMageFirst" target="_blank">geek the mage</a> all the time every time other than a desire to avert the adversarial arms race that goes with "man bob's a killer gm" & "man bob's really got it out for alice & her cleric/wizard/etc".<br /> .<br /> In order to accomplish that the GM directs all of those useless minions to fan the crunchy types who face basically no risk right up until crossing the knife edge into a situation where they never had a chance. <strong>Doing that creates a situation where the monsters are almost guaranteed to cluster up</strong>.</li> </ul></li> </ul></li> </ul></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="tetrasodium, post: 8818664, member: 93670"] The LMOP n00b tpk opening encounter was referenced because it can so easily fall into the realm of a terribly designed [URL='https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RocksFallEveryoneDies']rocks fall[/URL] type encounter where the party doesn't stand a chance. Unfortunately the design of 2014 5e is one where the risk to players is none at all ->none at all ->c'mon GM I'm [I]trying[/I] to get killed so I can play my new PC ->we got this healing word -> wow this is a long fight healing word ->the players never stood a chance [URL='https://www.pinterest.com/pin/90494273737142733/']but the GM made them suffer through it till the last meeple died[/URL]. That & bounded accuracy combined with the [URL='https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/ov8cqh/the_war_of_attrition_how_wotc_thought_wed_play_vs/']excessive 6-8 medium to hard combat encounter expectations[/URL] makes for a number of contributing factors that I already mentioned earlier [LIST] [*]The GM is pressured to throw in lots of monsters just to meet the budget because fewer stronger monsters are still not a threat but so totally overwhelmed by the action economy that they are incapable of doing anything at all given the poor abilities attached to those giant sacks of hp. [LIST] [*]With the removal of things like 5 foot step/shift or suffer AoOs there is no longer any [B]mechanical[/B] reason for either the players or the gm to do anything but immediately close to the squishy MVP type targets. [LIST] [*]That's fine for players closing on the bbeg who now requires a gobton of useless zero threat mooks to hide behind in order to last more than a round or two without tarrasque type stats. It's fine though because the game is rigged more towards a setting on the dial where the players can win than some kind of dark souls style [URL='https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard']nintendohard[/URL] thing where the player with unlimited dragons gets to kill the PCs [*]For the GM controlled monsters though it's absolutely a reprehensible catch 22 situation forced onto the gm by the social contract. On the one side the GM needs to provide an interesting combat that seems fair with a possibility of failure/ On the other though there's no longer any reason preventing all of those monsters from just ignoring the crunchy melee types in order to immediatly [URL='https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootTheMageFirst']geek the mage[/URL] all the time every time other than a desire to avert the adversarial arms race that goes with "man bob's a killer gm" & "man bob's really got it out for alice & her cleric/wizard/etc". . In order to accomplish that the GM directs all of those useless minions to fan the crunchy types who face basically no risk right up until crossing the knife edge into a situation where they never had a chance. [B]Doing that creates a situation where the monsters are almost guaranteed to cluster up[/B]. [/LIST] [/LIST] [/LIST] [/QUOTE]
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What is the lowest damage Fireball could deal where you would still prep/use it?
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