D&D (2024) Wow, 5.5e characters are STRONG!

[James Gasik]

That's really a DM created issue, though. It works if the DM sits there and lets it work.

Certainly this is true, but there's no reason that this has to always be considered an issue.

Not every situation is one where you can't take your time to do these things. The way I look at 5MWD is that if you don't want it in the game, you should make that a session 0 discussion.

Making sure that there are always complications to prevent it stretches believability, I mean, in the real world, operations aren't always decided on in minutes or hours. Or take a heist movie- the thieves will always encounter complications in the execution, sure, but they are usually able to make detailed plans in advance through gathering information, social engineering, and whatnot.

Sometimes 5MWD just makes sense and would be the wise course of action. When I learned how to play D&D, I was often told that if you're going to do something especially dangerous, like take on a dragon, you plan ahead, try to get some information by consulting sages or using divinations, prep the right spells and gather necessary potions of fire resistance and whatnot.

However, over the years, I've found that most players are too impatient to do that sort of thing, even when they really should, preferring to just steam on ahead, even if it makes things far too dangerous for them, lol.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You know, I asked my DM about that when he kept shooting arrows at us. "Hey, did my Fireballs burn up their bows or arrows by chance?"

"Yeah, no."

Ah well.

Ok. I guess that was asking a bit too much. .
Maybe on a roll of 1 on a saving throw.

That was the rule in 3e. (I don't emember if it carried over to 3.5).

On a roll of 1 on a saving throw, your Items had to save too.

Edit: if you make them drop their items first, with a command spell. Then it should work however as they are not attended anymore.

 

[James Gasik]

Ok. I guess that was asking a bit too much. .
Maybe on a roll of 1 on a saving throw.

That was the rule in 3e. (I don't emember if it carried over to 3.5).

On a roll of 1 on a saving throw, your Items had to save too.

Edit: if you make them drop their items first, with a command spell. Then it should work however as they are not attended anymore.

I do remember losing my spellbook to a fireball in AD&D once. Bad luck on the item saving throw!

 

[James Gasik]

I kind of miss item saving throws. They didn't always make sense, but it was nice to be able to have a metric for when a potion bottle would break in combat. I've dropped glass bottles and usually watch them bounce off the ground as often as they crack or break, but every potion I've ever owned seemed to be made from glass one micron thick!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Guarantee you if I replaced that Paladin with another Wizard the party would be improved. Guarantee you.

I can't agree. The wizard isn't a perfect class - and in particular there are two things they can't do; take a hit and heal their allies. Two things the paladin is very very good at (with a lot of healing utility rankings depending on whether the cleric is allowed to poach Aura of Vitality thanks to Tasha's). And fundamentally with the exception of a couple of tricks for the illusionist and the necromancer's small army that's an invitation for AoE spells all wizards fundamentally do the same things.

This means that for taking on a range of situations the wizard may be the strongest solo class - but a party of four wizards is weaker and less versatile, especially at low levels, than a party consisting of a wizard, a cleric, a druid, and either a bard or a warlock depending on short rests in the campaign. And the Paladin can hang with the druid or cleric pretty well, having better saves and a significantly higher baseline DPR.

In addition to this the paladin's skill floor is only slightly higher than the barbarian's; a paladin who pretends they have no spells and instead just dumps all their spell slots into Smites is going to be overall pretty effective.