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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 9027968" data-attributes="member: 6787650">A player who can take his 20th level character (loaded with magic items) into a game alongside a bunch of 8th level characters and not only be less effective than they are (e.g. wasting his 9th level spell slot on upcasting Fireball in the first encounter of the day) but also be arrogant and needlessly secretive (asking &quot;are you willing?&quot; repeatedly of the other players, refusing to explain why, before casting a Teleport spell to take everyone somewhere else) and needing DM intervention in the form of artificial monster stupidity to stay alive (he wandered off alone and got in a fight with a lich, one of the two BBEGs of the locale; used his 9th level slot that day on globe of invulnerability; instead of the lich casting Meteor Swarm or True Polymorph or merely waiting out the globe of invulnerability, the DM apparently took pity on him and had the lich engage him in melee combat, and they just hit each other until the BBEG lich died! Talk about anticlimax)--that's someone who is genuinely bad at playing D&amp;D.He also stole from NPCs and almost definitely cheated on stat rolls--too many 18s too many times.In some sense, it might be fair to define &quot;skilled play&quot; as &quot;not requiring special consideration from the DM.&quot; If A expects a 5E DM to stick to level-appropriate Medium or Hard encounters with short rests every two encounters, and B doesn't care about any of that and says, &quot;point me at a dungeon and I'll make my own short rests or die trying,&quot; B is asking the DM to demand more highly-skilled play. B will still have to adapt to the DM's style w/rt encounter starting distance and lethality, CAS vs. CAW, frequency of spellcasters, etc. but if B is comfortable adapting to whatever the GM's style is and still manages to usually survive, not only is that easier to GM but I am comfortable calling that &quot;skilled play.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 9027968, member: 6787650"] A player who can take his 20th level character (loaded with magic items) into a game alongside a bunch of 8th level characters and not only be less effective than they are (e.g. wasting his 9th level spell slot on upcasting Fireball in the first encounter of the day) but also be arrogant and needlessly secretive (asking "are you willing?" repeatedly of the other players, refusing to explain why, before casting a Teleport spell to take everyone somewhere else) and needing DM intervention in the form of artificial monster stupidity to stay alive (he wandered off alone and got in a fight with a lich, one of the two BBEGs of the locale; used his 9th level slot that day on globe of invulnerability; instead of the lich casting Meteor Swarm or True Polymorph or merely waiting out the globe of invulnerability, the DM apparently took pity on him and had the lich engage him in melee combat, and they just hit each other [I]until the BBEG lich died! Talk about anticlimax[/I])--that's someone who is genuinely bad at playing D&D. He also stole from NPCs and almost definitely cheated on stat rolls--too many 18s too many times. In some sense, it might be fair to define "skilled play" as "not requiring special consideration from the DM." If A expects a 5E DM to stick to level-appropriate Medium or Hard encounters with short rests every two encounters, and B doesn't care about any of that and says, "point me at a dungeon and I'll make my own short rests or die trying," B is asking the DM to demand more highly-skilled play. B will still have to adapt to the DM's style w/rt encounter starting distance and lethality, CAS vs. CAW, frequency of spellcasters, etc. but if B is comfortable adapting to whatever the GM's style is and still manages to usually survive, not only is that easier to GM but I am comfortable calling that "skilled play." [/QUOTE]

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