Question might seem a little odd, but I am throwing it out there due to the number of threads I read that want to change or adjust classes because class X does this thing better.
I am weary of reading threads like that, where Monks are classed as "broken" by some, because they need to use a resource for something another class gets for free. Or that a Fighter gets X attacks as they level, so a Rogue should get something to "balance" them. It seems people want to have an ability to play whatever class they choose, yet have the perks and benefits from OTHER classes, and claim their class (or the class they want to steal features from) is broken or underpowered. Where has this lack of understanding come from, where each class brings a couple features that are unique to that class and thus some features which are similar to another class have a cost (or don't, depending on your comparison) There's been a loss of party chemistry understanding and maybe it's tied to sooo many folks doing random sessions with strangers, that everyone feels the need to be everything, no matter the class they choose. I personally find it MUCH more interesting to stick to the class abilities and work WITH your party to try and ensure you cover as many bases as you can by choosing different race/class combinations. It's part of the strategy, adventure and fun (especially when you run into the case of nobody on the party is any good at THIS task we need to accomplish)
This carries over to the whole erasing racials, as the main result is to turn D&D into a video game type experience, where the race you choose is nothing more than a skin for your character. This constant demand that anyone can be anything is silly, really. Each class has it's perks and each race should also have something unique, otherwise we are again, simply putting on a skin. Why not just grant everyone a spell, say, "Eternal Illusion" where you can now wear whatever face you choose? That's exactly what these changes will be doing, is simply erasing anything different from all the races and making them nothing more than a plastic mask to wear.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Question might seem a little odd, but I am throwing it out there due to the number of threads I read that want to change or adjust classes because class X does this thing better.
Because when one thing is outright better than another in every possible way, its generally considered less fun to play the latter. Being overshadowed sucks.
....
The rest of the first post is pretty much flame bait. I'm out.
Question might seem a little odd, but I am throwing it out there due to the number of threads I read that want to change or adjust classes because class X does this thing better.
Because when one thing is outright better than another in every possible way, its generally considered less fun to play the latter. Being overshadowed sucks.
....
The rest of the first post is pretty much flame bait. I'm out.
You make a totally vague and unsupportable comment, then accuse others of taunting, then bail out......that seems reasonable.
I agree with the original poster. The whole point of the different classes and races is that each one has some advantage that others don't. would be a pretty damn boring world in D&D as well as in real life if everyone was capable of doing all the same things. I mean, I would get quickly tired of running a campaign if everyone was a half elf rogue cause everyone wanted to be equal. There would be no diversity to adventures and it wouldn't be long before the entire party was killed off because no one had powerful healing or attack spells. Or conversely, the party was way OP because they all had strong spells. If you don't feel the character you built has what you want, maybe you should have chosen more wisely. Or at least read the players handbook section on races and classes before choosing.
Not sure what's vague, but I am referring to the numerous threads claiming classes need to be "fixed" because class X does task O better than class Z. I am mentioning that while class X may be behind in task O, they can perform task J easily, where class Z can't. It's more asking why folks have a want or need for all the class groups to be equal in all areas, instead of recognizing strengths and weaknesses in each of the classes.
When one thing is outright better than another, it's fine, because the NEXT thing is worse than the other. Your statement ignores the premise of the question, which essentially is "Why do people want every class to excel at every thing. Why can we not accept that certain classes play certain roles and work within it? Why do folks need their doctor to also be able to repair the plumbing in their home? Has that straightened out the question at all?
There's no flame bait (well, unless comparing the shift to video-gamey mechanics is faming, but I'm not sure how that would be) I'm trying to point out that D&D shouldn't follow video game mentality and make all the races/classes simply different names with all equal abilities. The differences in the races and classes is what adds so much depth to the game. What is unsupportable, I can't say, as it is an overall statement. You would claim that it's not supportable to say a Monk and a Rogue are 2 very different classes with generally very different roles? Besides, on a whole, no class or race is "outright better than another in every possible way" so your own statement carries no weight there. Sure, situationally, each class likely shines bright and leaves all others in the gloom, but in the overall picture, each one brings something unique to the table.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Not sure what's vague, but I am referring to the numerous threads claiming classes need to be "fixed" because class X does task O better than class Z. I am mentioning that while class X may be behind in task O, they can perform task J easily, where class Z can't. It's more asking why folks have a want or need for all the class groups to be equal in all areas, instead of recognizing strengths and weaknesses in each of the classes.
When one thing is outright better than another, it's fine, because the NEXT thing is worse than the other. Your statement ignores the premise of the question, which essentially is "Why do people want every class to excel at every thing. Why can we not accept that certain classes play certain roles and work within it? Why do folks need their doctor to also be able to repair the plumbing in their home? Has that straightened out the question at all?
There's no flame bait (well, unless comparing the shift to video-gamey mechanics is faming, but I'm not sure how that would be) I'm trying to point out that D&D shouldn't follow video game mentality and make all the races/classes simply different names with all equal abilities. The differences in the races and classes is what adds so much depth to the game. What is unsupportable, I can't say, as it is an overall statement. You would claim that it's not supportable to say a Monk and a Rogue are 2 very different classes with generally very different roles? Besides, on a whole, no class or race is "outright better than another in every possible way" so your own statement carries no weight there. Sure, situationally, each class likely shines bright and leaves all others in the gloom, but in the overall picture, each one brings something unique to the table.
I agree, each class should have their own strengths and drawbacks. Otherwise there would be no point in considering what class you will pick.
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The Circle of Hedgehogs Druid Beholder/Animated Armor Level -20 Bardof the OIADSB Cult, here are our rules.Sig.Also a sauce council member, but it's been dead for a while.
Can someone link to something specific to discuss? I haven't seen what the OP is referring to.
As for classes, 5e tries to make a streamlined versatile rule set. Sure, the "Rogue" may end up with a dozen sub-classes that let it fill any role, but previous editions essentially did the same thing by releasing hundreds of new classes and prestige classes. Each one had a different name, but when boiled down, you basically just end up with the same core archetypes with a lot more confusion. (The alternative is to set an arbitrary limit to new content, as to minimize overlap. We could go back to when "Elf" and "Dwarf" were their own classes.)
Flexible optional rules don't mean reduced diversity, it just means less forced diversity. Each race option has unique non-attribute traits that are far more interesting than a +1/+2, and each table is perfectly capable of outlining a particular design for their world.
The goal of play is to have fun. Decide what that means by talking with the group, and choose which rules to use accordingly.
Question might seem a little odd, but I am throwing it out there due to the number of threads I read that want to change or adjust classes because class X does this thing better.
Because when one thing is outright better than another in every possible way, its generally considered less fun to play the latter. Being overshadowed sucks.
....
The rest of the first post is pretty much flame bait. I'm out.
You make a totally vague and unsupportable comment, then accuse others of taunting, then bail out......that seems reasonable.
Just scan the class forums to see where all the discussions are to compare, say Fighter to monk, or Ranger to Rogue, or Wizard to Sorcerer and such. It seemed to grow a lot when the talk of erasing racial perks started up. Optional has always been available to anyone who reads the core books, allowing players/DMs to customize things as they see fit, like the Half-Orc with a high Intelligence and lower Strength than most of his clan. The racial stuff, really, is much less impactful than the debates over tweaking a class to make it more in line with another class. Those are the discussions I refer to.
I think maintaining class gaps (even INCREASING them) would be best, for diversity and strategy. Setting things to have LESS overlap from one class to the next would be far more interesting, really, as it would force players to think more and come up with creative solutions to problems that, if a different class was present, would be pretty obvious. One prime example I saw recently was the Unarmed Fighting Style for Fighters. It pushes them towards the realm of Monks, for no real purpose. Why would a Fighter choose to forego weapons? I guess in some RP setting you build, it could make some kind of sense, but overall, if the classes do what they were intended to do, there shouldn't be such overlaps. The Fighters Guild didn't set out to make the best hand-to-hand combatants, they set out to make a durable, skilled soldier, trained in most weapons, to battle evil (or good, if you choose) Rogues weren't initially recruited as forest scouts and such, Rangers were usually hired on for those roles.
I have nothing against diversity, but I am against blending everything into one big bowl where there is very little difference between one thing and another, outside of the name you assign it.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Not sure what's vague, but I am referring to the numerous threads claiming classes need to be "fixed" because class X does task O better than class Z. I am mentioning that while class X may be behind in task O, they can perform task J easily, where class Z can't. It's more asking why folks have a want or need for all the class groups to be equal in all areas, instead of recognizing strengths and weaknesses in each of the classes.
When one thing is outright better than another, it's fine, because the NEXT thing is worse than the other. Your statement ignores the premise of the question, which essentially is "Why do people want every class to excel at every thing. Why can we not accept that certain classes play certain roles and work within it? Why do folks need their doctor to also be able to repair the plumbing in their home? Has that straightened out the question at all?
There's no flame bait (well, unless comparing the shift to video-gamey mechanics is faming, but I'm not sure how that would be) I'm trying to point out that D&D shouldn't follow video game mentality and make all the races/classes simply different names with all equal abilities. The differences in the races and classes is what adds so much depth to the game. What is unsupportable, I can't say, as it is an overall statement. You would claim that it's not supportable to say a Monk and a Rogue are 2 very different classes with generally very different roles? Besides, on a whole, no class or race is "outright better than another in every possible way" so your own statement carries no weight there. Sure, situationally, each class likely shines bright and leaves all others in the gloom, but in the overall picture, each one brings something unique to the table.
I agree, each class should have their own strengths and drawbacks. Otherwise there would be no point in considering what class you will pick.
Yep. People have been chasing "Balance" for as long as the game has existed and its never going to happen. Too many people think of D&D as always being an exercise in PvP when its not Wargaming. Sure it has its roots in that, and Chainmail was predicated on Man vs Man Combat where you could bring in a Wizard who got a Fireball....but that's not really the point. Solo play is possible, but its not preferable since you need a diverse group to achieve your ends better. Still not sure why the tried and true 9-man dungeon exploring team for old school tournament play was abandoned in favor of everything being geared to 4-5 players max. You were SUPPOSED to recruit NPCs back in the day (Men-at-Arms, etc) to fill out your ranks and you (as a DM) weren't supposed to hose your players every chance you got by tossing in dirtbag, "Rob 'em blind" NPCs everywhere. Because let's be honest, only a fool betrays fellow HEAVILY ARMED adventurers when they're the people that are gonna pull that ravening monster off you when it counts. There is a reason why the dirtbag betrayer often gets offed by the monster in horror films just when they run off by themselves after betraying the group.
...I have nothing against diversity, but I am against blending everything into one big bowl where there is very little difference between one thing and another, outside of the name you assign it.
It's funny. Your concern is that D&D will become too much like a video game, except that "blending everything into one big bowl" is actually much more like real life. The reason that it makes sense for Fighters to get Unarmed Fighting Styles is that there are fighters in the real world who do martial arts without all of the monastic baggage.
Some people play D&D like a board game. In this application, well defined roles and dynamics makes perfect sense. (Overcome obstacles together)
Others play it like a video game. For this, an emphasis is placed on fantasy fulfilment. (Everyone is a hero)
Many others play to tell a story with all of the nuance they'd find elsewhere. Here, the messiness is part of the appeal, "party synergy" isn't the point. (Live a book)
The D&D community is all sharing the same platforms, but it consists of several different sub-communities with different priorities. Values that are meaningless to one, may be a pillar of another.
...The D&D community is all sharing the same platforms, but it consists of several different sub-communities with different priorities. Values that are meaningless to one, may be a pillar of another.
While I agree that it's good that the game can be played in many different ways, I find that some of the communities are much more vocal than others and I therefore support wholeheartedly voices from less vocal communities. As long as some people are seeking balance, My feeling is that there should be balance in this as well. :p
No disagreement here. Both communities and individuals are disproportionately represented.
The problem seems to be that most people aren't aware of the divisions within the larger community and take those various voices as a threat to their own. Balance is needed where there is conflict, but not so much where the sub-communities can exist in parallel.
More options doesn't prevent anyone from playing the way they want to play. Restricting options restricts everyone.
(1) And this is where I don't agree. More options actually prevent even more casual people from playing.
(2) The main strength of 5e, what gave it the basis to become so successful (in particular through things like Critical Role) is its streamlining and simplicity, while still being rich enough that it can create incredible stories.
(3) It was an incredible design feat to create 5e, and it's already so open. Nothing prevents people from creating their own options if they want, and play the game with these.
(1) The answer to this is the "Adventurer's League" model, which is something like "Player's Handbook +1", right? In order to access all of those new options, people have to buy the books or invest time scouring the internet. Casual players often don't bother, and thus aren't bothered by all of the extra character creation options.
If new/casual players are handed a full suite of resources from day one, then I agree that it would be counterproductively overwhelming. This should be avoided.
(2) Perhaps so. Maybe the issue is less the breadth of technical options, but rather a lack of separation between them. For example, if there were stronger lines between "worlds", like Eberron and Faerun, then the default would be that players would choose from a restricted list of options designed for those settings. The other options would still exist, but it wouldn't be assumed that they would be valid options unless the DM explicitly OK'd them. (Resources like DNDBeyond might be at the center of this. Without it, people would be naturally limited, and would be forced to adopt new content at a much slower pace.)
This turns a content issue into an organizational one.
(3) I disagree here. While the option to homebrew content certainly exists, and there is a seemingly infinite amount of user created content online, I trust essentially none of it for being properly vetted. Also, as a new DM, I don't necessarily want to spend the time building new character content for my players on the spot. Having a large selection of "official" content makes it much easier to give players free reign without fretting about long term consequences. (Acknowledging that some of the official content comes with its own problems.)
Unrelated: It's interesting to step back and compare this conversation to political debates. The majority all essentially want the same thing, but approach it from opposite directions. Either approach might be the "right" one for their respective slice of the community, but neither is ideal for the group as a whole. Both depend on a limited system that is co-dependent with its mixed audience, and is stuck compromising, which leaves everyone just a little disappointed.
I agree, each class should have their own strengths and drawbacks.
Ding ding ding.
Someone said the million-dollar word: Drawbacks.
Most players seem not to want drawbacks for their characters. If this were Champions, they'd complain that Power Limitations are limiting their powers, and that Character Disadvantages are disadvantageous to their characters. If this were Savage Worlds, they'd be complaining that Hindrances actually Hinder their characters.
To see how allergic people are to drawbacks, consider that the old system of racial stat modifiers (not bonuses, modifiers) required that the total +/- sum to zero. This was because humans were +0 to all, and no other characters were supposed to have more total bonus than humans (nor less). So races had things like +2 to this, -1 to that and that... +2 -1 -1 = +0. One stat was your good one, two were a bit of a drawback. Or maybe +1, +1, -2. Same deal.
But players do not like drawbacks. So after a couple of editions D&D had to say OK, nobody gets any negatives, only positives. But then humans at +0 and everyone else getting a +something doesn't work, so humans had to get some + too... thus humans +1 to all, other races +2/+1, or humans + to one stat w/bonus feat.
And now players are saying if you get +2 and I get +0, I am 2 below you in this stat, so I'm actually at -2. In the past, +2 was a bonus, +0 was nothing, -2 was a penalty... and people didn't like penalties. But they got rid of penalties so now +2 is the bonus, and since +0 is less than +2, +0 is being described as a penalty. Now that is a drawback, and we can't have it. Drawbacks are not fun (so people think) so they must be purged.
There are many other things going on here in the current set of moves WOTC is making (and further demands of moves they haven't even proposed yet, by some of the player base) all centered around this perspective: characters should not have drawbacks.
Players, as a rule, want to be the heroes, not the supporting characters. While a significant part of that is up to the DM, the job of a game system is to make life easier for the DM, and it's easier to make sure everyone gets their fair share of the spotlight if there aren't significant power imbalances between the characters.
From a game design perspective, that doesn't mean every combination should be viable, but it does mean that every combination it's reasonably expected that people will play should be balanced. There is of course room for debate about what sort of expectation is reasonable (in Basic D&D, races were classes), but at the time you decide a certain combination should be supported, it should be made balanced.
I agree, each class should have their own strengths and drawbacks. Otherwise there would be no point in considering what class you will pick.
The problem is that the strengths and drawbacks don't add up evenly al the time. Classes that have strengths that are highly specialized are generally weaker than classes that are more generalized unless the campaign is set up for those specializations. Also, some classes have the same strength but at different power levels: wizards and scorcerers are the biggest example of this since both classes are built around casting spells, but wizards have both a larger number of spells that they know at a given level, they also have a much larger and more varied spell list. The things sorcerers get in return, like more cantrips and metamagic, were extremely limited, especially in the PHB. That's why sorcerers were given boosts in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
A major issue with "Drawbacks" is that a lot of people enjoy them for the respect that often comes with overcoming obstacles.
Some online games, like Diablo, have "Hardcore" leaderboards, so that people can get credit for playing with a disadvantage. In D&D, a lot of people are playing with strangers, or rarely have a game last for a full campaign. As a result, they never find the pleasure of a "redemption arc", develop meaningful connections with other players, and there is a decent chance that they might make a bad first/only impression in-game. Without continuity, it can be hard to separate a character's struggles from a player struggling to play a character.
The people who find a really solid group of people to play with, and those who are most vocal about being dissatisfied, probably have very little overlap.
The only problem I have with the game as far as equality goes is more about the inconsistencies within each class relative to their subclasses and to each other. There seems to be very little in the place of relative balance. As was mentioned earlier Sorcerers have been considered to be severely underpowered for a while. Metamagic gave them some life sure, but it was unable to compete with most other spell casting classes. The same can be said about ranger. It was by far in a way worst of the secondary casters.
That is not to say that those classes are bad, just the primary roles of those classes were done better by other classes as their secondary role. This is what I mean by relative balance. This will, of course very heavily between groups but when your healer is able to do as much control and damage as your primary DPS, that is an issue on a level beyond just player characters.
This also feeds into an imbalance in not only subclass diversity with a class but also subclass numbers between all classes. For example, Wizard has 13 subclasses while barbarians have 8. Clerics have 15 subclasses while Druids have 7 with one of those subclasses have subcategories within itself. There is also the repeating of ideas within the same classes put into multiple subclasses. At level 7, Oath of Redemption Paladin gets a genuinely better version of the same ability as the Oath of the Crown. For me, there is no reason to keep on increasing the number of subclasses for the classes that have almost double the amount of the other classes, especially when there is still so much ground to cover within the classes that haven't been explored yet. Especially if the subclasses that we are getting are either alternate versions of subclasses from other classes and especially if we keep getting subclasses that are exploring the same mechanics that other subclasses within the same class are.
This gets a little extra exaggerated when you take into account the new feats that give out class abilities. Now your DPS cleric can just get Metamagic. because of a feat, invalidating the sorcerer even further.
None of that is meant as an attack on people who enjoy the classes that I called out or want more subclasses for the classes that have more of them. It is just to make a point that the relative balance of the game is off when you compare what we have in front of us.
(3) I disagree here. While the option to homebrew content certainly exists, and there is a seemingly infinite amount of user created content online, I trust essentially none of it for being properly vetted. Also, as a new DM, I don't necessarily want to spend the time building new character content for my players on the spot. Having a large selection of "official" content makes it much easier to give players free reign without fretting about long term consequences. (Acknowledging that some of the official content comes with its own problems.)
(1a)And as far as I am concerned, the selection of options is already extremely large. We have been playing at least 2 or three campaigns simultaneously with my friends ever since 5e came out, with 2 sessions per week and we are far from having plumbed all the possibilities of the game in terms of characters.
(1b) And honestly, I played more than 2 decades with BECMI and AD&D where the options were even more limited and we had unbelievable fun. Stop listening to the people saying that there are limits inherent in the system today, the only limits are the one that you let the powergamers pull over your head for very bad reasons.
(2) I am not frustrated at all by the system itself, just by people listening to "guides" of people who have a very narrow range of criterions for judging what makes a good character. And who, therefore, want to transform the system into what it was not designed to be.
(1a) For people who are just playing a game for fun, that's entirely legitimate. There are more options than anyone is likely to ever explore. However, many people want to play their character, which means it's not about the number options, it's about having the right options. If the community were more comfortable reskinning a smaller set of existing content, then it would be a non-issue, but unfortunately, that isn't the case.
(1b & 2) This appears to be focusing on something beyond my post, so I don't have much to say in response. We seem to be being exposed to very different communities. The majority of my D&D experience has been spent on an unaffiliated PbP website that has a much stronger connection with creative writing, so the apparent volume of "vocal power gamers" present on DNDBeyond doesn't translate as being as significant to me as others seem to believe. That said, the DNDBeyond community is probably disproportionately influential.
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Question might seem a little odd, but I am throwing it out there due to the number of threads I read that want to change or adjust classes because class X does this thing better.
I am weary of reading threads like that, where Monks are classed as "broken" by some, because they need to use a resource for something another class gets for free. Or that a Fighter gets X attacks as they level, so a Rogue should get something to "balance" them. It seems people want to have an ability to play whatever class they choose, yet have the perks and benefits from OTHER classes, and claim their class (or the class they want to steal features from) is broken or underpowered. Where has this lack of understanding come from, where each class brings a couple features that are unique to that class and thus some features which are similar to another class have a cost (or don't, depending on your comparison) There's been a loss of party chemistry understanding and maybe it's tied to sooo many folks doing random sessions with strangers, that everyone feels the need to be everything, no matter the class they choose. I personally find it MUCH more interesting to stick to the class abilities and work WITH your party to try and ensure you cover as many bases as you can by choosing different race/class combinations. It's part of the strategy, adventure and fun (especially when you run into the case of nobody on the party is any good at THIS task we need to accomplish)
This carries over to the whole erasing racials, as the main result is to turn D&D into a video game type experience, where the race you choose is nothing more than a skin for your character. This constant demand that anyone can be anything is silly, really. Each class has it's perks and each race should also have something unique, otherwise we are again, simply putting on a skin. Why not just grant everyone a spell, say, "Eternal Illusion" where you can now wear whatever face you choose? That's exactly what these changes will be doing, is simply erasing anything different from all the races and making them nothing more than a plastic mask to wear.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Because when one thing is outright better than another in every possible way, its generally considered less fun to play the latter. Being overshadowed sucks.
....
The rest of the first post is pretty much flame bait. I'm out.
You make a totally vague and unsupportable comment, then accuse others of taunting, then bail out......that seems reasonable.
I agree with the original poster. The whole point of the different classes and races is that each one has some advantage that others don't. would be a pretty damn boring world in D&D as well as in real life if everyone was capable of doing all the same things. I mean, I would get quickly tired of running a campaign if everyone was a half elf rogue cause everyone wanted to be equal. There would be no diversity to adventures and it wouldn't be long before the entire party was killed off because no one had powerful healing or attack spells. Or conversely, the party was way OP because they all had strong spells. If you don't feel the character you built has what you want, maybe you should have chosen more wisely. Or at least read the players handbook section on races and classes before choosing.
Not sure what's vague, but I am referring to the numerous threads claiming classes need to be "fixed" because class X does task O better than class Z. I am mentioning that while class X may be behind in task O, they can perform task J easily, where class Z can't. It's more asking why folks have a want or need for all the class groups to be equal in all areas, instead of recognizing strengths and weaknesses in each of the classes.
When one thing is outright better than another, it's fine, because the NEXT thing is worse than the other. Your statement ignores the premise of the question, which essentially is "Why do people want every class to excel at every thing. Why can we not accept that certain classes play certain roles and work within it? Why do folks need their doctor to also be able to repair the plumbing in their home? Has that straightened out the question at all?
There's no flame bait (well, unless comparing the shift to video-gamey mechanics is faming, but I'm not sure how that would be) I'm trying to point out that D&D shouldn't follow video game mentality and make all the races/classes simply different names with all equal abilities. The differences in the races and classes is what adds so much depth to the game. What is unsupportable, I can't say, as it is an overall statement. You would claim that it's not supportable to say a Monk and a Rogue are 2 very different classes with generally very different roles? Besides, on a whole, no class or race is "outright better than another in every possible way" so your own statement carries no weight there. Sure, situationally, each class likely shines bright and leaves all others in the gloom, but in the overall picture, each one brings something unique to the table.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I agree, each class should have their own strengths and drawbacks. Otherwise there would be no point in considering what class you will pick.
The Circle of Hedgehogs Druid Beholder/Animated Armor Level -20 Bard of the OIADSB Cult, here are our rules. Sig. Also a sauce council member, but it's been dead for a while.
Can someone link to something specific to discuss? I haven't seen what the OP is referring to.
As for classes, 5e tries to make a streamlined versatile rule set. Sure, the "Rogue" may end up with a dozen sub-classes that let it fill any role, but previous editions essentially did the same thing by releasing hundreds of new classes and prestige classes. Each one had a different name, but when boiled down, you basically just end up with the same core archetypes with a lot more confusion. (The alternative is to set an arbitrary limit to new content, as to minimize overlap. We could go back to when "Elf" and "Dwarf" were their own classes.)
Flexible optional rules don't mean reduced diversity, it just means less forced diversity. Each race option has unique non-attribute traits that are far more interesting than a +1/+2, and each table is perfectly capable of outlining a particular design for their world.
The goal of play is to have fun. Decide what that means by talking with the group, and choose which rules to use accordingly.
Munchkins gonna Munchkin....
Just scan the class forums to see where all the discussions are to compare, say Fighter to monk, or Ranger to Rogue, or Wizard to Sorcerer and such. It seemed to grow a lot when the talk of erasing racial perks started up. Optional has always been available to anyone who reads the core books, allowing players/DMs to customize things as they see fit, like the Half-Orc with a high Intelligence and lower Strength than most of his clan. The racial stuff, really, is much less impactful than the debates over tweaking a class to make it more in line with another class. Those are the discussions I refer to.
I think maintaining class gaps (even INCREASING them) would be best, for diversity and strategy. Setting things to have LESS overlap from one class to the next would be far more interesting, really, as it would force players to think more and come up with creative solutions to problems that, if a different class was present, would be pretty obvious. One prime example I saw recently was the Unarmed Fighting Style for Fighters. It pushes them towards the realm of Monks, for no real purpose. Why would a Fighter choose to forego weapons? I guess in some RP setting you build, it could make some kind of sense, but overall, if the classes do what they were intended to do, there shouldn't be such overlaps. The Fighters Guild didn't set out to make the best hand-to-hand combatants, they set out to make a durable, skilled soldier, trained in most weapons, to battle evil (or good, if you choose) Rogues weren't initially recruited as forest scouts and such, Rangers were usually hired on for those roles.
I have nothing against diversity, but I am against blending everything into one big bowl where there is very little difference between one thing and another, outside of the name you assign it.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Yep. People have been chasing "Balance" for as long as the game has existed and its never going to happen. Too many people think of D&D as always being an exercise in PvP when its not Wargaming. Sure it has its roots in that, and Chainmail was predicated on Man vs Man Combat where you could bring in a Wizard who got a Fireball....but that's not really the point. Solo play is possible, but its not preferable since you need a diverse group to achieve your ends better. Still not sure why the tried and true 9-man dungeon exploring team for old school tournament play was abandoned in favor of everything being geared to 4-5 players max. You were SUPPOSED to recruit NPCs back in the day (Men-at-Arms, etc) to fill out your ranks and you (as a DM) weren't supposed to hose your players every chance you got by tossing in dirtbag, "Rob 'em blind" NPCs everywhere. Because let's be honest, only a fool betrays fellow HEAVILY ARMED adventurers when they're the people that are gonna pull that ravening monster off you when it counts. There is a reason why the dirtbag betrayer often gets offed by the monster in horror films just when they run off by themselves after betraying the group.
It's funny. Your concern is that D&D will become too much like a video game, except that "blending everything into one big bowl" is actually much more like real life. The reason that it makes sense for Fighters to get Unarmed Fighting Styles is that there are fighters in the real world who do martial arts without all of the monastic baggage.
The D&D community is all sharing the same platforms, but it consists of several different sub-communities with different priorities. Values that are meaningless to one, may be a pillar of another.
No disagreement here. Both communities and individuals are disproportionately represented.
The problem seems to be that most people aren't aware of the divisions within the larger community and take those various voices as a threat to their own. Balance is needed where there is conflict, but not so much where the sub-communities can exist in parallel.
More options doesn't prevent anyone from playing the way they want to play.
Restricting options restricts everyone.
(1) The answer to this is the "Adventurer's League" model, which is something like "Player's Handbook +1", right? In order to access all of those new options, people have to buy the books or invest time scouring the internet. Casual players often don't bother, and thus aren't bothered by all of the extra character creation options.
If new/casual players are handed a full suite of resources from day one, then I agree that it would be counterproductively overwhelming. This should be avoided.
(2) Perhaps so. Maybe the issue is less the breadth of technical options, but rather a lack of separation between them. For example, if there were stronger lines between "worlds", like Eberron and Faerun, then the default would be that players would choose from a restricted list of options designed for those settings. The other options would still exist, but it wouldn't be assumed that they would be valid options unless the DM explicitly OK'd them. (Resources like DNDBeyond might be at the center of this. Without it, people would be naturally limited, and would be forced to adopt new content at a much slower pace.)
This turns a content issue into an organizational one.
(3) I disagree here. While the option to homebrew content certainly exists, and there is a seemingly infinite amount of user created content online, I trust essentially none of it for being properly vetted. Also, as a new DM, I don't necessarily want to spend the time building new character content for my players on the spot. Having a large selection of "official" content makes it much easier to give players free reign without fretting about long term consequences. (Acknowledging that some of the official content comes with its own problems.)
Unrelated: It's interesting to step back and compare this conversation to political debates. The majority all essentially want the same thing, but approach it from opposite directions. Either approach might be the "right" one for their respective slice of the community, but neither is ideal for the group as a whole. Both depend on a limited system that is co-dependent with its mixed audience, and is stuck compromising, which leaves everyone just a little disappointed.
Ding ding ding.
Someone said the million-dollar word: Drawbacks.
Most players seem not to want drawbacks for their characters. If this were Champions, they'd complain that Power Limitations are limiting their powers, and that Character Disadvantages are disadvantageous to their characters. If this were Savage Worlds, they'd be complaining that Hindrances actually Hinder their characters.
To see how allergic people are to drawbacks, consider that the old system of racial stat modifiers (not bonuses, modifiers) required that the total +/- sum to zero. This was because humans were +0 to all, and no other characters were supposed to have more total bonus than humans (nor less). So races had things like +2 to this, -1 to that and that... +2 -1 -1 = +0. One stat was your good one, two were a bit of a drawback. Or maybe +1, +1, -2. Same deal.
But players do not like drawbacks. So after a couple of editions D&D had to say OK, nobody gets any negatives, only positives. But then humans at +0 and everyone else getting a +something doesn't work, so humans had to get some + too... thus humans +1 to all, other races +2/+1, or humans + to one stat w/bonus feat.
And now players are saying if you get +2 and I get +0, I am 2 below you in this stat, so I'm actually at -2. In the past, +2 was a bonus, +0 was nothing, -2 was a penalty... and people didn't like penalties. But they got rid of penalties so now +2 is the bonus, and since +0 is less than +2, +0 is being described as a penalty. Now that is a drawback, and we can't have it. Drawbacks are not fun (so people think) so they must be purged.
There are many other things going on here in the current set of moves WOTC is making (and further demands of moves they haven't even proposed yet, by some of the player base) all centered around this perspective: characters should not have drawbacks.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Players, as a rule, want to be the heroes, not the supporting characters. While a significant part of that is up to the DM, the job of a game system is to make life easier for the DM, and it's easier to make sure everyone gets their fair share of the spotlight if there aren't significant power imbalances between the characters.
From a game design perspective, that doesn't mean every combination should be viable, but it does mean that every combination it's reasonably expected that people will play should be balanced. There is of course room for debate about what sort of expectation is reasonable (in Basic D&D, races were classes), but at the time you decide a certain combination should be supported, it should be made balanced.
The problem is that the strengths and drawbacks don't add up evenly al the time. Classes that have strengths that are highly specialized are generally weaker than classes that are more generalized unless the campaign is set up for those specializations. Also, some classes have the same strength but at different power levels: wizards and scorcerers are the biggest example of this since both classes are built around casting spells, but wizards have both a larger number of spells that they know at a given level, they also have a much larger and more varied spell list. The things sorcerers get in return, like more cantrips and metamagic, were extremely limited, especially in the PHB. That's why sorcerers were given boosts in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
A major issue with "Drawbacks" is that a lot of people enjoy them for the respect that often comes with overcoming obstacles.
Some online games, like Diablo, have "Hardcore" leaderboards, so that people can get credit for playing with a disadvantage. In D&D, a lot of people are playing with strangers, or rarely have a game last for a full campaign. As a result, they never find the pleasure of a "redemption arc", develop meaningful connections with other players, and there is a decent chance that they might make a bad first/only impression in-game. Without continuity, it can be hard to separate a character's struggles from a player struggling to play a character.
The people who find a really solid group of people to play with, and those who are most vocal about being dissatisfied, probably have very little overlap.
Because life ain’t fair, so they want D&D to be. Of course, good luck getting everyone to agree.
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The only problem I have with the game as far as equality goes is more about the inconsistencies within each class relative to their subclasses and to each other. There seems to be very little in the place of relative balance. As was mentioned earlier Sorcerers have been considered to be severely underpowered for a while. Metamagic gave them some life sure, but it was unable to compete with most other spell casting classes. The same can be said about ranger. It was by far in a way worst of the secondary casters.
That is not to say that those classes are bad, just the primary roles of those classes were done better by other classes as their secondary role. This is what I mean by relative balance. This will, of course very heavily between groups but when your healer is able to do as much control and damage as your primary DPS, that is an issue on a level beyond just player characters.
This also feeds into an imbalance in not only subclass diversity with a class but also subclass numbers between all classes. For example, Wizard has 13 subclasses while barbarians have 8. Clerics have 15 subclasses while Druids have 7 with one of those subclasses have subcategories within itself. There is also the repeating of ideas within the same classes put into multiple subclasses. At level 7, Oath of Redemption Paladin gets a genuinely better version of the same ability as the Oath of the Crown. For me, there is no reason to keep on increasing the number of subclasses for the classes that have almost double the amount of the other classes, especially when there is still so much ground to cover within the classes that haven't been explored yet. Especially if the subclasses that we are getting are either alternate versions of subclasses from other classes and especially if we keep getting subclasses that are exploring the same mechanics that other subclasses within the same class are.
This gets a little extra exaggerated when you take into account the new feats that give out class abilities. Now your DPS cleric can just get Metamagic. because of a feat, invalidating the sorcerer even further.
None of that is meant as an attack on people who enjoy the classes that I called out or want more subclasses for the classes that have more of them. It is just to make a point that the relative balance of the game is off when you compare what we have in front of us.
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"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
(1a) For people who are just playing a game for fun, that's entirely legitimate. There are more options than anyone is likely to ever explore. However, many people want to play their character, which means it's not about the number options, it's about having the right options. If the community were more comfortable reskinning a smaller set of existing content, then it would be a non-issue, but unfortunately, that isn't the case.
(1b & 2) This appears to be focusing on something beyond my post, so I don't have much to say in response. We seem to be being exposed to very different communities. The majority of my D&D experience has been spent on an unaffiliated PbP website that has a much stronger connection with creative writing, so the apparent volume of "vocal power gamers" present on DNDBeyond doesn't translate as being as significant to me as others seem to believe. That said, the DNDBeyond community is probably disproportionately influential.