D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[AnotherGuy]

Attrition is not all D&D knows. In fact it's pretty bad at attrition without doing so many fights they become meaningless.

The other option is to roll up abilities/class features into at-will feats and rather ignore the x/rest. Is that something more to what you'd think would work better?

 

[Vaalingrade]

The other option is to roll up abilities/class features into at-will feats and rather ignore the x/rest. Is that something more to what you'd think would work better?

At will and encounter recharge, yes.

As I point out a lot, this allows you to scale the encounter schedule infinitely without any weird fluxuations in how they work. Want a chill campaign with just a few fights as setpieces and plot points? It works. Want a large scale room to room battle session? It works. Want a gladiator tournament that all occurs in one day but has dozens of battles? It works.

 

[payn]

At will and encounter recharge, yes.

As I point out a lot, this allows you to scale the encounter schedule infinitely without any weird fluxuations in how they work. Want a chill campaign with just a few fights as setpieces and plot points? It works. Want a large scale room to room battle session? It works. Want a gladiator tournament that all occurs in one day but has dozens of battles? It works.

I do think the game works better as either adventure day attrition, or encounter based play. Though, 5E is sort fo a mix of the two. It wouldnt be as much of a problem if the modularity discussed was taken seriously. The difference in the two play models is not discussed so folks don't really know until they have experienced the game enough.

This isn't a D&D problem either, PF2 has a wonky in-between system too.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This isn't a D&D problem either, PF2 has a wonky in-between system too.

I've noticed in our game, PF has a lot of weird little timers that I would not be okay with if we weren't in Foundry, which tracks that for you.

 

[payn]

I've noticed in our game, PF has a lot of weird little timers that I would not be okay with if we weren't in Foundry, which tracks that for you.

I agree. Foundry actually makes playing PF2 pretty easy, in which I'm not sure i'd enjoy it without.

 

[Minigiant]

I kind of skipped over a couple of pages of the same old "fighters suck" but I did have one comment about gritty rest rules.

How static is your world if the PCs can take a rest for an entire week and nothing changes? I can't imagine how that would work.

Meanwhile if the group takes a rest for a week the bad guys call in reinforcements, add fortifications, pick up shop and leave, execute the king or otherwise do bad guy things. For that matter they'd likely hunt down the adventurers and attack while the lazy bums were trying to rest.

Most monsters don't have the resources to really effectively realistically do much in a week.

It's mostly just caster enemies that can do a drastic change in a couple days post level 5 or so. Via OP spells

Know what happens when the orc calls more orcs. Harder fights ie more Nova.

That's how 5MWD breeds. Punishing it encourages it

 

[Crimson Longinus]

At will and encounter recharge, yes.

As I point out a lot, this allows you to scale the encounter schedule infinitely without any weird fluxuations in how they work. Want a chill campaign with just a few fights as setpieces and plot points? It works. Want a large scale room to room battle session? It works. Want a gladiator tournament that all occurs in one day but has dozens of battles? It works.

And then only possible mechanical consequence for fight going badly is character death. And once you get (resource free) raise dead then that is gone too and only TPK is left.

 

[Vaalingrade]

And then only possible mechanical consequence for fight going badly is character death. And once you get (resource free) raise dead then that is gone too and only TPK is left.

Or you could not achieve your goals, be unable to fulfill secondary objectives, deal with story consequences, etc, etc.

Attrition was never a 'consequence' in the first place because the game was apparently always going to grind you down.

And if combat is a setpeice, you don't even have to pretend to care about 'consequences' of fights at all. It was just a fun thing you do.

 

[Oofta]

Most monsters don't have the resources to really effectively realistically do much in a week.

It's mostly just caster enemies that can do a drastic change in a couple days post level 5 or so. Via OP spells

Know what happens when the orc calls more orcs. Harder fighter ie more Nova.

That's how 5MWD breeds. Punishing it encourages it

Sometimes I just don't know what kind of game you play. The group is trying to stop an orcish horde, over a week they raze villages far and wide burning them to the ground. Perhaps a defensive point falls and they pour through the opening. The murderer continues their spree, slaughtering innocents before skipping town. The king is assassinated because you didn't stop the plot. The bandits take all their I'll gotten loot and leave. The goblins spend the week setting up traps, ambushes and counters. The enemy finds out where the PCs are hidden and ambush them before they fully recover, after they've summoned additional resources of course.

There are a thousand ways resting for a week is disastrous. Monsters are not stupid, static, unresponsive placeholders. They're almost always thinking creatures, frequently lead by someone with intelligence higher than most members of the party.

If a DM can't figure out how to make life difficult for the PCs the vast majority of times, that's a problem with the DM not the system.

 

[overgeeked]

Where did they came from when you sat on your arses for a week? Gee, I wonder! Seems like an attitude problem, not a game problem. In an adventuring game there usually is some sort of a situation/crisis/conundrum going on, that needs solving, and you just cant dillydally for weeks at any moment. I really don't understand what sort of static games people are running if this is not the case.

It doesn't need to be that many in one week, as there can be some uneventful days between them, just not a whole week of nothing. But ultimately a huge chunk of D&D's rules are about combat, so if people don't like playing in style where combats are at least somewhat frequent occurrence, they're playing the wrong game to begin with.

Players will always optimize the fun out of the game. Always. Nova and long rest is the optimal and least fun or interesting strategy. So of course it’s the number 1 strategy in 5E. Players aren’t trying to avoid fights, they’re trying to avoid resource drain. Because it’s optimal to do so.