D&D 5E Why You May Be Playing D&D Wrong

[Zardnaar]

Are those spells really broken, on their own? 250HP cap? Sure, that hurts. But without insane additions you're getting...one? Maybe 2 castings at 15th level? I suppose your could made one BBEG's day really suck...but again this seems to be speaking to more to how broken the game could be.

In play 3.Whatever is a very solid game, even at high level, since breaking the game relies on two fundamental principles: Desire and Capability. I'm a Capability guy. But I'd rather enjoy where the game is going, breaking it isn't any more fun for me than it is for the DM. Some people have the Desire, but lack the Capability, they either read up and gain it, or they whine about how the DM isn't letting them do anything. They're usually swiftly cut from any game IME. People with both the Desire and Capability are what have given such a bad name to Powergamers.

But remember, you need both to break the game. Capability unused is meaningless.

Harm was uncpapped. A 1000 hp Dragon was left with 1d4 hp IIRC then you could quicken an inflict spell.
Haste was nasty by iself it combined with scrolls and wands of it (we had a wizard nicknamed Xerox- scribe scroll) and played a game in the epic levels with haste+ timestop combo= 17 spells a round. 3.0 haste+ something as basic as a wand of fireball was also annoying and that was one of the less broken things you could do.

They also changed the casting time of harm from 1 round to one standard action which combined with the removal of the 2E initiative system and how spells were interrupted. 1 round casting time really meant cast out of combat in AD&D.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What he DIDN'T say is that most human characters don't take feats. This would be false (if he had said it, which he didn't). Most humans are variant humans. Most players take variant human for the feat.

Unless I missed something with the update, he didn't actually say that most humans have feats. We don't have data on that. We don't actually know whether most humans are variant humans, or even whether most humans are played in games that allow feats.

It was misleading to suggest that most characters are humans without feats, but we don't know what the breakdown is on how many games allow feats. It would make sense to me that humans are more frequently chosen in games that allow feats, but we don't actually know that for certain. All we know is that humans are more popular than any of the other options, and most characters don't have any feats.

If the true reality is that only thirty percent of characters are human (with each other race showing less than that), and seventy percent of all games disallow feats outright (which seems right to me), then our data is still consistent with that. Or maybe sixty percent of all characters are human, and ninety percent of all games allow feats, but most human characters are standard rather than variants; our data is also consistent with that.

TL;DR - We don't have enough data to conclude whether most humans have feats. It certainly sounds like the feats option is wildly over-represented in these forums as compared to the real world, and most games just ignore that chapter entirely, but we don't have enough data to state that either.

 

[Sunseeker]

Harm was uncpapped. A 1000 hp Dragon was left with 1d4 hp IIRC then you could quicken an inflict spell.
Haste was nasty by iself it combined with scrolls and wands of it (we had a wizard nicknamed Xerox- scribe scroll) and played a game in the epic levels with haste+ timestop combo= 17 spells a round. 3.0 haste+ something as basic as a wand of fireball was also annoying and that was one of the less broken things you could do.

They also changed the casting time of harm from 1 round to one standard action which combined with the removal of the 2E initiative system and how spells were interrupted. 1 round casting time really meant cast out of combat in AD&D.

Well again, you'd have to build for that capacity, you'd also have to run an epic level game (which few people do) and you'd have to have the desire to do that.

So again my point is that your comment is largely theorycrafting, which if I understand your OP correctly (I don't think I do) you seem to be talking about that sort of thing as the "disconnect" between what happens in actual play and what people speculate could happen.

 

[Zardnaar]

Well again, you'd have to build for that capacity, you'd also have to run an epic level game (which few people do) and you'd have to have the desire to do that.

So again my point is that your comment is largely theorycrafting, which if I understand your OP correctly (I don't think I do) you seem to be talking about that sort of thing as the "disconnect" between what happens in actual play and what people speculate could happen.

I did actually play some level 21-30 games of 3E. It was not theory crafting, Dungeon had a couple of epic adventures.

 

[Sunseeker]

I did actually play some level 21-30 games of 3E. It was not theory crafting, Dungeon had a couple of epic adventures.

When I say "largely theorycrafting" it's pointing out that epic play is rare. Thus, even if it's what would happen in such a game, those games are so few that complaining about X or Y being a problem in those games is more complaining about a statistical anomaly than a common gaming experience.

 

[Shiroiken]

Something to consider whenever discussing the "meta" of D&D: we are bad examples of the average. The average player doesn't hold super strong opinions, especially on areas of minutia, nor do they post them on social media. They just play the damn game.

Same thing came up during the playtest. There were many things that people on the forums HATED that made it into 5E. The regular surveys showed that those things were highly approved of by the average playtester... which is far more representative of the average player than we are. Given the popularity of 5E, I think it's easy to say they made the right decision.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Something to consider whenever discussing the "meta" of D&D: we are bad examples of the average. The average player doesn't hold super strong opinions, especially on areas of minutia, nor do they post them on social media. They just play the damn game.

Same thing came up during the playtest. There were many things that people on the forums HATED that made it into 5E. The regular surveys showed that those things were highly approved of by the average playtester... which is far more representative of the average player than we are. Given the popularity of 5E, I think it's easy to say they made the right decision.

This I think, I am not sure if the op just wants to rant a little, relieve the pressure and the questions are rhetorical or some responses are merited. I am though, pretty sure that the people on these forums are not the average.

 

[Zardnaar]

This I think, I am not sure if the op just wants to rant a little, relieve the pressure and the questions are rhetorical or some responses are merited. I am though, pretty sure that the people on these forums are not the average.

Nope if I was a D&D designer I would mostly ignore the hivemind.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Nope if I was a D&D designer I would mostly ignore the hivemind.

I think they do (ignore the hivemind), I know I have not been on here much for the last couple of years but when was the last time a WoTC person posted here?

 

[Jester David]

It's a little like most hobbies really.
A lot of people really dig driving and watching NASCAR, but they don't build their own cars.
A lot of people like watching football with friends, but don't memorise player statistics.
A lot of people like watching television shows, but they don't read the production notes or scripting process.

Just like the above, a lot of people play D&D, but they don't build characters between games or worry about optimisation or plan their character ahead. There's a lot of casual D&D players, a lot of people thinking about the story first and character concept rather than build.

It's not that we're playing D&D wrong, it's that we are not the norm. We are not the baseline. We are the outliers and exceptions.