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

[Neonchameleon]

In my experience, if the wizard isn't outshining the paladin, the wizard player is not good at playing their class.

In mine it depends a lot what level you are playing at. The Paladin is top tier in tiers 1-3 and still good in tier 4 and the wizard is top tier in tiers 2-4 and still useful in tier 1. Before they get third level spells wizards are squishies who need protecting while not providing that much in combat, while paladins simply don't have high level magic ... but are one of the two best classes in the game at surviving incoming magic (second only to the L14+ monk) and have pretty significant burst damage.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

In mine it depends a lot what level you are playing at. The Paladin is top tier in tiers 1-3 and still good in tier 4 and the wizard is top tier in tiers 2-4 and still useful in tier 1. Before they get third level spells wizards are squishies who need protecting while not providing that much in combat, while paladins simply don't have high level magic ... but are one of the two best classes in the game at surviving incoming magic (second only to the L14+ monk) and have pretty significant burst damage.

Flagged for suggesting that the monk is not total trash tier...

That said, I agree.

 

[Maxperson]

I realize that in a legal sense there might be a meaningful difference between "aristocrat" compared to "noble" & some of the other "default backgrounds"* I noted during some periods of time & nation states but I don't think that level of hair splitting tends to apply to even the most tedious of tables.... At the end of chargen the problem remains the same throughout the campaign when one or more players at the table is given an unreasonable expectation down that road where the GM is continually forced to correct the resulting disruptions.

*Continuing tour word from 138.

I'm trying to understand where you are coming from with your responses to @FitzTheRuke. What I think he is saying is the following. I have a character concept and the background for my PC that he was a clam diver on the coast of Amn and his brother was killed in a sahuagin raid. That got him into adventuring to get revenge. He's going to be a paladin of vengeance. Going through the list of 2014 backgrounds(since I don't have a 2024 list) I don't see a single background that is close to Clam Diver, and I can guarantee you that you won't see it in 2024, either!

That means that I have to create my own background. So I make Clam Diver and assign +2 Con, +1 Dex, because swimming and clam diving would involve both heavily, but I think Con more. For the feature I double the length of time my PC can hold his breath and since that's very niche, add in that he gets advantage to his rolls to scrounge up food when near water features. Lastly I give him athletics(for the swimming) and Perception(hard to see and need to spot quickly underwater) as the background skills.

The above is something that any DM should just grant without any moaning or groaning. As he should grant any reasonable background made by a player. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of distinct backgrounds that should be available to players in character creation, but which the designers don't have the time to make and the book doesn't have space for. There should be no difference between official and home brew here other than official takes less effort.

That leads me to what I think @FitzTheRuke's point is. The world should be reacting to that background every bit as much as soldier or hermit. If it doesn't, that really is "A DM not worth their salt."

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm trying to understand where you are coming from with your responses to @FitzTheRuke. What I think he is saying is the following. I have a character concept and the background for my PC that he was a clam diver on the coast of Amn and his brother was killed in a sahuagin raid. That got him into adventuring to get revenge. He's going to be a paladin of vengeance. Going through the list of 2014 backgrounds(since I don't have a 2024 list) I don't see a single background that is close to Clam Diver, and I can guarantee you that you won't see it in 2024, either!

That means that I have to create my own background. So I make Clam Diver and assign +2 Con, +1 Dex, because swimming and clam diving would involve both heavily, but I think Con more. For the feature I double the length of time my PC can hold his breath and since that's very niche, add in that he gets advantage to his rolls to scrounge up food when near water features. Lastly I give him athletics(for the swimming) and Perception(hard to see and need to spot quickly underwater) as the background skills.

The above is something that any DM should just grant without any moaning or groaning. As he should grant any reasonable background made by a player. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of distinct backgrounds that should be available to players in character creation, but which the designers don't have the time to make and the book doesn't have space for. There should be no difference between official and home brew here other than official takes less effort.

That leads me to what I think @FitzTheRuke's point is. The world should be reacting to that background every bit as much as soldier or hermit. If it doesn't, that really is "A DM not worth their salt."

I mean, I think all that stuff TOO, but the only thing I was trying to talk about is that the 2024 example Backgrounds can be taken, but you can take a different Feat, or a different ASI, or a different set of skills, or change anything about it really.

I mean, I'd prefer it if the things you choose still seem to fit the name you choose (or in the very least, that you have a story-reason as to why YOUR version is vastly different) BUT you don't even need to do THAT. For example, the playtest "Acolyte" gives you:

Ability Scores: +2 Wisdom, +1 Intelligence
Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Religion
Tool Proficiency: Calligrapher’s Supplies
Language: Celestial
Feat: Magic Initiate (Divine)

But if you were making, say, a Duergar Acolyte Champion Fighter, you could conceivably make it:

Ability Scores: +2 Strength, +1 Wisdom
Skill Proficiencies: Perception, Stealth
Tool Proficiency: Mason's Tools
Language: Undercommon
Feat: Tough

I'm not sure why you'd pick "Acolyte" if you wanted to change it by THAT MUCH, but you COULD. If I were your DM, I'd hope that you'd come up with some Duergar Acolyte organization (I'd help you) to excuse all those choices.

Now, I mean this to be an extreme example. I'd rather you called the above choices a "Guard" or a "Pit Fighter" or something more appropriate to the choices, but if you wanted it to be Acolyte? It would still work by the rules. I think it's a feature, not a flaw, for the game to not enforce that sort of thing. Your DM can do it, if it needs doing.

Obviously, the simpler (and more appropriate) part of my discussion was the idea that, for example, some people are looking at the playtest "Acolyte" and complaining "What if I want +1 Charisma" instead, or an Acolyte that doesn't know Magic Initiate but is a Medic instead (much more reasonable than my extreme example). You can DO that.

The WORST arguement I've heard is "So all Farmers are Halflings now!" (Because the example Farmer background's language is Halfling). It's just an example! Pick goblin if you want it. Or whatever.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm trying to understand where you are coming from with your responses to @FitzTheRuke. What I think he is saying is the following. I have a character concept and the background for my PC that he was a clam diver on the coast of Amn and his brother was killed in a sahuagin raid. That got him into adventuring to get revenge. He's going to be a paladin of vengeance. Going through the list of 2014 backgrounds(since I don't have a 2024 list) I don't see a single background that is close to Clam Diver, and I can guarantee you that you won't see it in 2024, either!

That means that I have to create my own background. So I make Clam Diver and assign +2 Con, +1 Dex, because swimming and clam diving would involve both heavily, but I think Con more. For the feature I double the length of time my PC can hold his breath and since that's very niche, add in that he gets advantage to his rolls to scrounge up food when near water features. Lastly I give him athletics(for the swimming) and Perception(hard to see and need to spot quickly underwater) as the background skills.

The above is something that any DM should just grant without any moaning or groaning. As he should grant any reasonable background made by a player. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of distinct backgrounds that should be available to players in character creation, but which the designers don't have the time to make and the book doesn't have space for. There should be no difference between official and home brew here other than official takes less effort.

That leads me to what I think @FitzTheRuke's point is. The world should be reacting to that background every bit as much as soldier or hermit. If it doesn't, that really is "A DM not worth their salt."

Your clam diver is going to be an enormous disruption if the gm is running a datkuin game or any similar world on account of there not being water. Swap the sahuagin for "standard" lloth worshipping drow and the same holds true for an eberron game. A guild artisan with ties to a particular dragon marked house by extension is almost certainly going to be a mess in a fr game. I have no idea what setting the coast of amn is from, but assume it almost certainly carries some cultural baggage that might also be a problem in some settings or campaigns.

Beyond that though there is a huge difference between a clam diver and any background granting status. There might be parts of the world where clam diver is a great job, but it has never been a profession that seems like a noble or some other job with standing in society at large. A clam diver is not likely to be trying to pull rank or unreasonably claim a lot of retroactive world building to gain an advantage they have no business claiming. By choosing an example that seems to lack any significant standing in the world you pretty much went out of your way to ensure that the example is not a useful one for talking about the problem.

 

[Maxperson]

Your clam diver is going to be an enormous disruption if the gm is running a datkuin game or any similar world on account of there not being water. Swap the sahuagin for "standard" lloth worshipping drow and the same holds true for an eberron game. A guild artisan with ties to a particular dragon marked house by extension is almost certainly going to be a mess in a fr game. I have no idea what setting the coast of amn is from, but assume it almost certainly carries some cultural baggage that might also be a problem in some settings or campaigns.

Why on Earth would I pick Clam Diver if it's a desert world? I'd pick a Dune Sifter who combs sand dunes looking for immature sand worms who lost his brother to insert name of appropriate desert creature here and create something for that.

Your response doesn't seem like a reasonable argument to me. Players shouldn't be douches any more than DMs should and presuming the players are going to be disruptive is a non-starter for me. Those sorts of players are as rare as the bad DM that a lot of people here go on about and expect the game rules to stop somehow.

Beyond that though there is a huge difference between a clam diver and any background granting status. There might be parts of the world where clam diver is a great job, but it has never been a profession that seems like a noble or some other job with standing in society at large. A clam diver is not likely to be trying to pull rank or unreasonably claim a lot of retroactive world building to gain an advantage they have no business claiming. By choosing an example that seems to lack any significant standing in the world you pretty much went out of your way to ensure that the example is not a useful one for talking about the problem.

I don't see why high status matters, but I can easily envision a culture that places high value on the clam divers that keep the people alive. Even to the point that leaders are exclusively selected from the village/city clam divers.

 

[Maxperson]

Not richer in GP, higher in clout & soft power within society. Instead of wealth the backgrounds with standing set players up to expect that their PC deserves undue clout & access when they choose a background with standing in society like noble spy guild artisan & so on after seeing 20 pages of blurbs & artwork misleading expectations. It makes for the difference between "is it reasonable that my character might have met xxx" & "I approach xxx to discuss his ties working for my family/guild/etc so we can [plotstuff]". When it's just only one player among many who is mislead it's no big deal for a dm "worth their salt" but when it's multiple players it turns into a regular disruption with the players reinforcing each other's bad expectations caused by 20 pages of overly spotlighted optional things making it a bit more work to counter gracefully without repelling player investment in the world.

I feel like we've only exchanged a couple posts in a fairly brief time tonight & somehow the thread's pagecount has jumped by 3 pages since the start that I'm not really following though so I'm not sure if it's even relevant here anymore.

That expectation is valid. A noble or guild master SHOULD have significantly more cultural clout, which is why any such background requires approval by me AND successfully rolling a difficult number.

 

[Maxperson]

agree, putting smite on Bonus action was a hairbrain idea.
If the burst was the problem, then smite could just have been worded as usable once per round and every time you score a critical hit. because crits are rare and fun and you want to boost them as much as possible.

That's what I said when the UA came out. I will never play a 2024 paladin if that ends up being the published rule. I'll sit down at the table with the 2014 version fully expecting to be able to play it.

 

[tetrasodium]

Why on Earth would I pick Clam Diver if it's a desert world? I'd pick a Dune Sifter who combs sand dunes looking for immature sand worms who lost his brother to insert name of appropriate desert creature here and create something for that.

Your response doesn't seem like a reasonable argument to me. Players shouldn't be douches any more than DMs should and presuming the players are going to be disruptive is a non-starter for me. Those sorts of players are as rare as the bad DM that a lot of people here go on about and expect the game rules to stop somehow.

You'd be shocked I once had a player reach out asking me on like the day after Christmas /New Year's* questions about ravenloft like two years after a ravenloft game ended only to get upset with me when my answers about ravenloft were about ravenloft rather than some effort at collaborative world building for a game that COVID ended years prior. Plenty of players do that kinda thing and get prickly when the gm doesn't just "yes and" the world instead of other improv techniques like "no because"/"yes but" /etc no matter what the player is throwing out... for example, just tonight I had someone asking how a background with absolutely no clout soft power and standing in society relates to a problem caused when the core rules give players too high of an expectation of those things from a default background choice. .

I don't see why high status matters, but I can easily envision a culture that places high value on the clam divers that keep the people alive. Even to the point that leaders are exclusively selected from the village/city clam divers.

Because with status comes this...

That expectation is valid. A noble or guild master SHOULD have significantly more cultural clout, which is why any such background requires approval by me AND successfully rolling a difficult number.

Guild artisan is a background guild MASTER is not, kinda proving the problem there... Troubles form when a player with something like guild artisan declares themselves the guild master with years or decades of tenure or just starts acting like it . Throw in another player who acts like choosing "noble" justifies a background that looks like it was written for the favored scion of the god king of all lands and they reinforce each other's delusional backgrounds at the player level while acting on them at the PC level


* I forget which. Everyone was sleeping so I shrugged and kept answering ravenloft questions early in the morning while working through a pot of coffee.

 

[Maxperson]

Did YOU notice that it lasts 1 hour?

That's great if you know a fight is coming, but when 6-8 encounters are spread over 24 of those hours, there's a good chance you are wasting the slot by casting it in advance.