As for your skill challenge, the highest modifier anyone can hope to have for such an ability check, sans magical enhancement, is +13.
I assume you mean at level 10. which is a bit of a problem because levels go up to 20. Also, you're conflating 'magical enhancement' with 'resource expenditure', which isn't the same thing. There are expendable resources that are not magic (such as bardic inspiration) and magical options that are not expendable (guidance, items that grant static benefits of some sort).
As for your skill challenge, the highest modifier anyone can hope to have for such an ability check, sans magical enhancement, is +13.
I assume you mean at level 10. which is a bit of a problem because levels go up to 20. Also, you're conflating 'magical enhancement' with 'resource expenditure', which isn't the same thing. There are expendable resources that are not magic (such as bardic inspiration) and magical options that are not expendable (guidance, items that grant static benefits of some sort).
You know darn well what I meant, which means you're being a pedant for the sake of pedantry. That's not cool, Pantagruel. (Yes, the rhyme was intentional.)
Having +13 at 10th-level requires proficiency, expertise, and a 20 in the ability score. That's a heavy investment for only having 2-4 feats. And if they're running skill challenges the way 4E intended, then the same test can't be rolled twice. Which means tests without any significant bonus. We've seen them slowly reintroduced to 5e via Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Strixhaven, where a 1-2 level spell slot is worth advantage and a 3+ level spell slot is an automatic success. But that's still resource expenditure.
I wouldn't have done ten, but from where I'm sitting, with the information I have available, it looks fine. I don't think one case with specialized characters breaks the game. Those characters are functioning as intended. If my assumptions are wrong, then I'd need more data to figure out the failure points.
You know darn well what I meant, which means you're being a pedant for the sake of pedantry. That's not cool, Pantagruel. (Yes, the rhyme was intentional.)
I was being a pedant because you were starting with stupid assumptions. Your assumptions should be:
Games can, in fact, reach level 20.
High level characters will in fact have magic items.
A genuine challenge will require expenditure of resources.
By level 20, under current mechanics, that's likely to need DCs well in excess of 30.
And if they're running skill challenges the way 4E intended, then the same test can't be rolled twice.
That's not actually 4e skill challenges worked -- if you were playing by the book (which rules got changed several times because they never totally liked them) ancillary skills usually you could roll once and subsequent attempts were significantly higher DC, core skills could be rolled multiple times before seeing the DC increase.
So I really sat down, opened the document and re-read through the spell changes. I had been thinking a lot about Cleric spell load outs for my character and revising his playstyle now that I was the sole Cleric in the group.
Half-agree on aid. Aid should have 1 minute casting time and retain the increase to max HP, it was bad that it could be used as a multi-target pickup from 0hp at such a low level, but having the increase to max HP made it unique compared to all the other temphp stuff. However, it should remain unique it that aspect and just give it to more classes rather than have more spells do something similar.
Disagree about Guidance and Resistance in OneD&D, they are far too powerful now and make Bardic Inspiration (the key stone feature of an entire class) and Bless (a 1st level spell) largely redundant. They are CANTRIPS they shouldn't be better than an already great 1st level spell. TBH I really wish they were both just removed from the game, they both feel super meta-gamey to me and lead to the player with them interrupting stuff that another player is doing which I find pretty rude and irritating at the table and constant requests to retcon stuff which breaks the flow of the game.
i.e. I find it incredibly annoying when the player with Guidance is constantly retconning that "actually they are over by player Y and cast Guidance on them" when I as player Y for a check, then if I ask a different player for a check suddenly the Guidance-having player interrupts to say they run over to that other character so they can use Guidance on them. Like... just let other players do stuff! It's not the end of the world to fail one skill check.
Now in OneD&D it's going to be the Guidance-having player constantly interrupting with "Did they fail? I can add guidance if they failed." Which again becomes super metagamey with things like searching for clues or looking for traps.
e.g. Mr.Rogue looks for traps and rolls a 15, I tell them they don't see any traps. Cleric suddenly pipes up with "did they fail the check? if so I can add Guidance". If I say 'Yes they failed' then I've told the players there is a trap, so even if adding guidance doesn't turn it into a success they still know there is a trap. If I say 'No' then now they know for certain that there isn't a trap, whereas before they were uncertain. It means it's impossible for me to really surprise them now, which is sad.
The purpose of Banishment is to Banish a Extra-Planar entity back to its home plane and lock it away. The changes do not support that use case. I think having the ‘Save per turn’ is fine for creatures banished away from their home plane, but not for extra-planar creatures that are not meant to be in this one. So if the Creature Type is of the ones that would get Banished to their home plane after a minute, they make no saves to escape.
The problem there is you are assuming all creatures of a specific creature type originate from another plane of existence. Yet I've played in many HB setting that didn't have other planes of existence, and ones where many creatures of particular types weren't native to other planes of existence. One D&D Banishment makes sense to me, sure you can banish the creature back to its home plane, but it can choose to fight to stay from whence you banished it (You could potentially reduce the number of saves to say 3 like Contagion, or 2 like Flesh to Stone - though those are both significantly higher level). If the creature couldn't fight to return then why have the spell require concentration at all? Just make it instantaneous like Plane Shift but it only applies to creatures native to another plane.
OneD&D Banishment is an interesting take b/c it now depends on the lore and backstory of the situation. If the party encounters an extra-planar creature that has been trapped on the material plane by an evil wizard then that creature should choose to fail its saves vs Banishment and happily return home. Lots of extra-planar creature lore-wise really don't want to be on the material plane - even stuff like Beholders - really should choose to fail against Banishment.
I'd be OK with a 1 minute casting time on Aid. I also think that popping up multiple people from 0 with a single spell is also such an edge case scenario in 5e that it ultimately does not matter. I mean, mass healing word is a bonus action 3rd level spell.
Guidance, you actually make a great point about it's 'on Fail' trigger. on a Search or Study action, how do you know it Failed vs there being nothing to find? I think the On fail trigger was related to the older wording where if a player used guidance to move a failure to a success, they couldn't benefit from it again until a long rest was completed (or something like that). So you could just move it to a reaction speed based on whenever an ally within 10ft makes an ability check. The natural pause while the dice is rolled is generally enough time for the Cleric to mutter a prayer for success in the background, think of it like someone seeing a risky action and making the sign of the cross. The actual trigger matters to me far less than the reaction speed.
Banishment, I was taking the cue from the text of the spell "If the Spell lasts on the target for 1 minute and the target is an Aberration, a Celestial, an Elemental, a Fey, or a Fiend, the target doesn’t return. It is instead transported to a random location on a plane associated with its Creature Type." You are correct that it assumes that creatures of those types are not native to the current plane. My comment was more along the lines of, if they would be shunted off this plane at the end of the minute, they shouldn't get to make saves to break out back into this plane. If you're going to have them make saves each turn, then IF they would be shunted off after a minute, they are rolling to stay in the demiplane and not be shunted back home. And if they are native to the plane, they are rolling to end the spell. Then at the 1 minute mark, the spell ends and they end up back where they were when the spell was cast. Sort of an inverse of the original spells timing? One way or another I think I'm suggesting the spell work one way for non-native planar creatures and in a more aggressive capacity for those that are of a different plane.
Having +13 at 10th-level requires proficiency, expertise, and a 20 in the ability score.
Rogues, Bards, Artificers all get expertise on multiple skills / tools as part of their class by level 10, Rangers have 1 expertise, and there are half a dozen subclasses that give expertise or other flat bonuses to one or two skill checks. Every party I've ever played with has someone who can cast Guidance, most of them have a Bard to give BI, and someone who can cast Enhance ability. Most have maxed out their primary ability score by level 10 and proficiency/expertise is skills that use it, and it's not uncommon to do so by taking Skill Expert for Expertise as well. There are myriad class abilities that also give Adv on a skill check.
+13+1d4+Adv or +9+1d4+1d8+Adv makes it nearly guaranteed to make a DC 23.
Having +13 at 10th-level requires proficiency, expertise, and a 20 in the ability score.
Rogues, Bards, Artificers all get expertise on multiple skills / tools as part of their class by level 10, Rangers have 1 expertise, and there are half a dozen subclasses that give expertise or other flat bonuses to one or two skill checks. Every party I've ever played with has someone who can cast Guidance, most of them have a Bard to give BI, and someone who can cast Enhance ability. Most have maxed out their primary ability score by level 10 and proficiency/expertise is skills that use it, and it's not uncommon to do so by taking Skill Expert for Expertise as well. There are myriad class abilities that also give Adv on a skill check.
+13+1d4+Adv or +9+1d4+1d8+Adv makes it nearly guaranteed to make a DC 23.
And those classes are meant to be able to easily handle those high DC's when it comes to the things they have expertise in. Rogues are meant to be able to reliably handle skill checks if their bonus is high enough due to the existence of reliable talent. Lore Bards can add their own bardic inspiration at 14th level, though before then (and other bards) would only be rolling with expertise unless they are using something like glibness on charisma rolls. Artificers have Flash of Genius. I feel like it is very much intended for those classes to be able to handle anything that they have expertise in very easily.
You know darn well what I meant, which means you're being a pedant for the sake of pedantry. That's not cool, Pantagruel. (Yes, the rhyme was intentional.)
I was being a pedant because you were starting with stupid assumptions. Your assumptions should be:
Games can, in fact, reach level 20.
High level characters will in fact have magic items.
A genuine challenge will require expenditure of resources.
By level 20, under current mechanics, that's likely to need DCs well in excess of 30.
And if they're running skill challenges the way 4E intended, then the same test can't be rolled twice.
That's not actually 4e skill challenges worked -- if you were playing by the book (which rules got changed several times because they never totally liked them) ancillary skills usually you could roll once and subsequent attempts were significantly higher DC, core skills could be rolled multiple times before seeing the DC increase.
We weren't talking about a 20th-level game. We were talking about a 10th-level game. But, sure, I'll bite.
The best a PC without Expertise or anything to boost the result of their roll can do is a +11 modifier. That would mean a 19 or 20 to succeed, and a 20 is an automatic success anyway. So we're talking a 10% chance before any other additives. Not everyone is going to have Expertise, magic items, spells or other features to boost their possible result. So, let's look at a "standard" party: cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard. The cleric might have enhance ability prepared and guidance at the ready. The fighter might not have any magic, but depending on their statistics they might be able to brute force or finesse something. The rogue is the only one with reliable Expertise, and with Reliable Talent they have a decent floor. And the wizard might have enough of the right spells prepared to just magic up some solutions.
I don't think a DC of 30 is unreasonably low. I know people can game the system for much higher numbers, but why? If you gate DCs that high, you're telling players that only certain characters can do this. That's bad design. In a balanced game, and let's pretend we actually care about that, there should be a point where returns diminish.
I don't think a DC of 30 is unreasonably low. I know people can game the system for much higher numbers, but why? If you gate DCs that high, you're telling players that only certain characters can do this. That's bad design. In a balanced game, and let's pretend we actually care about that, there should be a point where returns diminish.
It is not bad design, its design that is open for a range of more players. A DC cap does what you are suggesting and saying its only for certain players. You optimize too much you wont have fun here and can't be challenged. Open DCs leaves it up to the DM to craft the challenges for his table. Lets them face challenges that only the players can pull off, while still allowing lower DCs for players who are not optimizers.
I don't think a DC of 30 is unreasonably low. I know people can game the system for much higher numbers, but why? If you gate DCs that high, you're telling players that only certain characters can do this. That's bad design. In a balanced game, and let's pretend we actually care about that, there should be a point where returns diminish.
It is not bad design, its design that is open for a range of more players. A DC cap does what you are suggesting and saying its only for certain players. You optimize too much you wont have fun here and can't be challenged. Open DCs leaves it up to the DM to craft the challenges for his table. Lets them face challenges that only the players can pull off, while still allowing lower DCs for players who are not optimizers.
I see that, and it's dumb. Find me an NPC that can hit a DC 30.
Actually, scratch that. Every challenge the players face is either the result of the environment or the workings of an NPC. If you want verisimilitude, they built the world we play in and must be able to interact with it. A cap make logical sense.
Optimization can, indeed be taken too far. It doesn't matter how high your damage numbers are. It matters if you get the kill. You can, indeed, waste that effort by having excess. The same reasoning can apply to ability checks and saving throws.
Some people are still upset about the automatic success and failure rules. They like being immune to the abilities of certain creatures, and they're wrong for liking that. Once you remove the danger risk, you remove the drama. If it's just the math you care about, there are plenty of other pure numbers games. We're here for TTRPGs. We're here for D&D.
Roleplaying, not rollplaying. There. Somebody had to say it.
I don't think a DC of 30 is unreasonably low. I know people can game the system for much higher numbers, but why? If you gate DCs that high, you're telling players that only certain characters can do this. That's bad design. In a balanced game, and let's pretend we actually care about that, there should be a point where returns diminish.
It is not bad design, its design that is open for a range of more players. A DC cap does what you are suggesting and saying its only for certain players. You optimize too much you wont have fun here and can't be challenged. Open DCs leaves it up to the DM to craft the challenges for his table. Lets them face challenges that only the players can pull off, while still allowing lower DCs for players who are not optimizers.
I see that, and it's dumb. Find me an NPC that can hit a DC 30.
Actually, scratch that. Every challenge the players face is either the result of the environment or the workings of an NPC. If you want verisimilitude, they built the world we play in and must be able to interact with it. A cap make logical sense.
Optimization can, indeed be taken too far. It doesn't matter how high your damage numbers are. It matters if you get the kill. You can, indeed, waste that effort by having excess. The same reasoning can apply to ability checks and saving throws.
Some people are still upset about the automatic success and failure rules. They like being immune to the abilities of certain creatures, and they're wrong for liking that. Once you remove the danger risk, you remove the drama. If it's just the math you care about, there are plenty of other pure numbers games. We're here for TTRPGs. We're here for D&D.
Roleplaying, not rollplaying. There. Somebody had to say it.
I am glad they removed the automatic success and failure rules in One D&D. It has been missing from the play test rules for the past 2 play tests and I hope it stays that way.
5% is by no means an insignificant chance and is absurd that no matter what, you have a 5% chance of failure. The drama was never removed in 5E where there are no automatic and failure rules for Ability Checks and Saving Throws, when you can make builds where you can succeed at certain rolls on a nat 1. People can't get all of their rolls high enough to a point where you can succeed at everything, they always have certain rolls that they can fail at, especially at the higher levels where many of these builds reside.
For the people who enjoy the builds where they achieve a high enough bonus that they can succeed on a nat 1, there is a huge amount of satisfaction for doing so. It takes significant mechanical investment for the character to do so. That investment should not be ignored because they rolled a nat 1.
People can enjoy D&D for its mechanics, it is perfectly valid way of playing. People can also equally enjoy optimization and roleplaying, they are nor mutually exclusive. The only way optimization can be taken too far is breaks the game and currently, there isn't a way to take optimization that far. What you are exhibiting right now is the Stormwind Fallacy; there is no need to say, "Roleplaying not rollplaying," because, once again, it is a completely valid style of play to focus on mechanics and optimization, many people enjoy that style and they should not be deriding for enjoying it.
I don't think a DC of 30 is unreasonably low. I know people can game the system for much higher numbers, but why? If you gate DCs that high, you're telling players that only certain characters can do this. That's bad design. In a balanced game, and let's pretend we actually care about that, there should be a point where returns diminish.
It is not bad design, its design that is open for a range of more players. A DC cap does what you are suggesting and saying its only for certain players. You optimize too much you wont have fun here and can't be challenged. Open DCs leaves it up to the DM to craft the challenges for his table. Lets them face challenges that only the players can pull off, while still allowing lower DCs for players who are not optimizers.
I see that, and it's dumb. Find me an NPC that can hit a DC 30.
Actually, scratch that. Every challenge the players face is either the result of the environment or the workings of an NPC. If you want verisimilitude, they built the world we play in and must be able to interact with it. A cap make logical sense.
Optimization can, indeed be taken too far. It doesn't matter how high your damage numbers are. It matters if you get the kill. You can, indeed, waste that effort by having excess. The same reasoning can apply to ability checks and saving throws.
Some people are still upset about the automatic success and failure rules. They like being immune to the abilities of certain creatures, and they're wrong for liking that. Once you remove the danger risk, you remove the drama. If it's just the math you care about, there are plenty of other pure numbers games. We're here for TTRPGs. We're here for D&D.
Roleplaying, not rollplaying. There. Somebody had to say it.
When you learn how not to be insulting in every discussion come back to me. Until then have a nice day being wrong.
The only way optimization can be taken too far is breaks the game and currently, there isn't a way to take optimization that far.
I strongly disagree with this statement. There are many optimization builds that make it mandatory for DMs to HB monsters and/or go many fold beyond what is indicated in RAW encounter building rules (and described in the published adventures) to offer even a moderate sense of danger to the party, which thus means they have broken the RAW game. It is in fact incredibly easy to break the game b/c of the design around bounded accuracy and the complete failure of the mechanics to actually enforce that bounded accuracy, and the massive powercreep in more recent published content.
Since the #1 rule of the game is "the rules are just suggestions" sure you can keep playing the game even with these builds with a DM that is happy to HB enemies, worlds, and/or adjust encounters for you. But, there is also a lot of different ways to build a character that makes it unfun for your DM or your fellow players to play with you, which is the fundamental way to break the game. Now of course this highly depends on your DM & fellow players since everyone has different things that they consider "fun" or not, but it is extremely easy to do - e.g. many people consider the Kender race "broken" because their lore & mechanics encourage them to steal from the party and many people think having a member of the party stealing from them is antithetical to "fun".
Re: Autofail/Success I'm glad that has been removed for ability check b/c I don't like ability checks being restricted to fail/success outcomes. (see gripes about Guidance..). But the many ways to get 0 chance of failure really make the game boring - players getting locked down by an enemy effect that they have 0 chance to escape from sucks, rolling a dice when even a nat 1 passes is a complete waste of everyone's time. If the designers decide a particular mechanic is bad so they add in lots of ways to ignore it or circumvent it (e.g. losing concentration from taking damage) then they should instead just remove that mechanic from the game.
I see that, and it's dumb. Find me an NPC that can hit a DC 30.
Every ancient dragon and most adult dragons can hit it with perception; greatwyrms have a passive of more than 30. On attack rolls, pretty much everything CR 15+ can do so.
Most NPCs don't have skills, but that's just because D&D is really really lazy with NPC writeups.
The only way optimization can be taken too far is breaks the game and currently, there isn't a way to take optimization that far.
I strongly disagree with this statement. There are many optimization builds that make it mandatory for DMs to HB monsters and/or go many fold beyond what is indicated in RAW encounter building rules (and described in the published adventures) to offer even a moderate sense of danger to the party, which thus means they have broken the RAW game. It is in fact incredibly easy to break the game b/c of the design around bounded accuracy and the complete failure of the mechanics to actually enforce that bounded accuracy, and the massive powercreep in more recent published content.
Re: Autofail/Success I'm glad that has been removed for ability check b/c I don't like ability checks being restricted to fail/success outcomes. (see gripes about Guidance..). But the many ways to get 0 chance of failure really make the game boring - players getting locked down by an enemy effect that they have 0 chance to escape from sucks, rolling a dice when even a nat 1 passes is a complete waste of everyone's time. If the designers decide a particular mechanic is bad so they add in lots of ways to ignore it or circumvent it (e.g. losing concentration from taking damage) then they should instead just remove that mechanic from the game.
If by RAW encounter building rules, you mean the CR system, the issue is more with the CR system because even without optimization, it's still broken, especially at higher levels. The power ceiling of 5E hasn't changed too much over the years. It increased a bit, but honestly not that much. What really changed was the ceiling for some particular classes like Warlock or Ranger with the new subclasses.
Also, I would argue that even in the situation you are describing, that it has not broken the game because encounters can and should be modified. A group of experienced players are going to have a much easier time in a hardcover as written than a group of new players. Even without optimization, tactics alone can make the game much easier, doesn't mean the game is broken.
Also, I have not seen the many ways of boosting a roll high enough to succeed on a nat 1 make the game boring in anyway. Rather, I've seen the opposite, where people find satisfaction and enjoyment in being able to do so. Plus, there can always be a higher DC. Take the example for concentration, even if you have say a +20, if you get hit by something that does more than 43 damage, such as a disintegrate or a Meteor Swarm, you have a chance of failing.
Furthermore, it is only a waste of time if you actually roll; most of the time, you would just check the DC and if it is equal to or less than your con save + 1, you just say that it doesn't do enough damage to break your concentration; if you need to use a feature like Flash of Genius to make such a case happen, you would just declare that you are using said feature and that it makes it so that the damage isn't enough to have a chance of breaking your concentration. No real time waste there. Rules wise, the roll still happened, but physically, you just declare the result.
I see that, and it's dumb. Find me an NPC that can hit a DC 30.
Every ancient dragon and most adult dragons can hit it with perception; greatwyrms have a passive of more than 30. On attack rolls, pretty much everything CR 15+ can do so.
Most NPCs don't have skills, but that's just because D&D is really really lazy with NPC writeups.
Technically, I think they do, it is just that if they don't have proficiency in it, it isn't listed in their stat block. Or do you mean that they generally don't have skill proficiencies, then yeah you're probably right.
I see that, and it's dumb. Find me an NPC that can hit a DC 30.
Every ancient dragon and most adult dragons can hit it with perception; greatwyrms have a passive of more than 30. On attack rolls, pretty much everything CR 15+ can do so.
Most NPCs don't have skills, but that's just because D&D is really really lazy with NPC writeups.
When you stop there and ignore the rest of my post, that's a great way to tell me you aren't serious.
I would argue that even in the situation you are describing, that it has not broken the game because encounters can and should be modified.
The point of pre-written adventures is that newbie (or time-starved) DMs can run them as-is out of the book without having to spend tons of time rebalancing them. Thus characters that trivialize those encounters are RAW broken. See I think you have defined "broken" in such a way that it is impossible for any character to be "broken" by your definition - even a HB race that gets a baseline 25 AC, with a legendary weapon that deal 50 damage on a hit at level 1 can be played if the DM HBs the monsters & the world to fit it, but at that point it's not RAW D&D anymore so is kind of irrelevant to the discussion of whether it is possible to break D&D RAW.
RAW D&D can very easily be broken by optimization, such that a character or party of characters just steamroll the vast majority of monsters that are RAW supposed to be a challenge to them. Sure there's always exceptions but "the exceptions prove the rule." If you have made a level 6 character that can easily one-v-one win against 50% of published CR 6 monsters, that character is broken by RAW standards. CR is overall not broken (again see "the exceptions prove the rule") if you play a party of characters eschewing optional rules (including feats & multiclassing) and magic items, the community claims CR is broken because they do not adhere to the assumptions that CR was designed around.
Take the example for concentration, even if you have say a +20, if you get hit by something that does more than 43 damage, such as a disintegrate or a Meteor Swarm, you have a chance of failing.
Thanks' that's super helpful to know that I should be using level 9 spells against my level 4 party cause that means the game isn't "broken"....
PS I submit as further evidence that the game is broken: I dropped a level 9 Flame Strike spell on a party of 6 level 5 characters at the start of a combat the other day and they were fine...
I'm not going to say the game can't be broken through optimization but you are describing more of a player problem than a optimization problem. Experienced players should not take advantage of a new DMs skill levels to make it less fun for them to run the game, if you are the only optimizer in the group, tone down your optimization so you don't damage the fun of the other players. Optimization isn't ruining the game, the inability to read the room is. The game should be designed to allow the DM to provide a fun challenge to the players no matter what their optimization levels, not to stomp out benefits of optimization.
I would argue that even in the situation you are describing, that it has not broken the game because encounters can and should be modified.
The point of pre-written adventures is that newbie (or time-starved) DMs can run them as-is out of the book without having to spend tons of time rebalancing them. Thus characters that trivialize those encounters are RAW broken. See I think you have defined "broken" in such a way that it is impossible for any character to be "broken" by your definition - even a HB race that gets a baseline 25 AC, with a legendary weapon that deal 50 damage on a hit at level 1 can be played if the DM HBs the monsters & the world to fit it, but at that point it's not RAW D&D anymore so is kind of irrelevant to the discussion of whether it is possible to break D&D RAW.
RAW D&D can very easily be broken by optimization, such that a character or party of characters just steamroll the vast majority of monsters that are RAW supposed to be a challenge to them. Sure there's always exceptions but "the exceptions prove the rule." If you have made a level 6 character that can easily one-v-one win against 50% of published CR 6 monsters, that character is broken by RAW standards. CR is overall not broken (again see "the exceptions prove the rule") if you play a party of characters eschewing optional rules (including feats & multiclassing) and magic items, the community claims CR is broken because they do not adhere to the assumptions that CR was designed around.
Then by your definitions, having a larger party is RAW broken. Also, there are instances where even hardcovers do not properly make encounters. Descent into Avernus has an ecnounter where the party can get hit by a Fire Ball at 2nd level. A fire ball can instantly kill some 2nd level characters rather easily. Stormking's Thunder has cases where characters can receive random magic items and depending on what they get, that can completely invalidate any sort of CR calculation the book has done in advance as CR does not take into account magic items. You really can't say that optimization breaks RAW DnD when the measure you are using is inherently broken to begin with.
Also, a race that gets baseline 25AC or a magic item at level 1 that does 50 dmg on hit would be considered broken by my definition, of which you are clearly misunderstanding. What I look at is the power level of the player characters and how they fall inline with each other. And optimization does not push the ceiling that much higher. There are cases like martials when unoptimized not doing amazing, hence why in other threads I pushed for martial buffs, especially with the power feats being nerfed (that power has to be redistributed elsewhere).
CR is very much broken. It uses assumptions that not even the hardcovers use as CR is calculated without magic items, but hardcovers always have magic items. CR itself just falls apart at higher tiers as well, even without magic items.
Take the example for concentration, even if you have say a +20, if you get hit by something that does more than 43 damage, such as a disintegrate or a Meteor Swarm, you have a chance of failing.
Thanks' that's super helpful to know that I should be using level 9 spells against my level 4 party cause that means the game isn't "broken"....
PS I submit as further evidence that the game is broken: I dropped a level 9 Flame Strike spell on a party of 6 level 5 characters at the start of a combat the other day and they were fine...
First off, Disintegration is a 6th level spell; it just has high single target damage though it is all or nothing. Second, you aren't going to get +20 Con Save until late T3 at the latest and not without magic items and/or one time buffs like Bardic Inspiration. Even a paladin with 20 Charisma at T4 isn't going to have a +20 in Charisma saves, the highest they will have without additional support is a +16. So if your players are at the point where they are reaching +20 saves, they are likely in T4 and also have access to things on par with 9th level spells. No where did I say you had to use a 9th level spell on a 4th level party.
Also, Flame Strike does slightly low damage for a spell of its level (it's a 5th level spell that does equal damage to a 3rd level fire ball), It's main advantage is its flexible range. At 5th level, so base, Flame Strike does 8d6 damage and it gains 1d6 for each spell level above 5th, so at 9th level it deals 12d6 damage or an average of 42 damage. If they save, that is 21 damage, and if they have ways to gain resistance, to one or both of the damage types that comprises the spell, then that is reduced even further. That is very low for a 9th level spell when you consider how Meteor Swarm does a total of 40d6 damage, average 140 or 70 on save. You take more damage saving against a meteor Swarm than failing to a 9th level Firestorm. Lower level spells do not necessary scale well when you upcast them. Even an 9th level Fire ball or Lightning Bolt (14d6) does not compare well to a meteor swarm. Spell generally do not scale up well when you upcast them, which is proper because it makes the spells you gain at higher levels more worthwhile; Meteor Swarm should be done more damage than an upcasted Flame Strike or Fire Ball, and in does by a long shot in both cases.
The issue here was not the players, but how poorly Flame Strike scales up. A 5th level party should be able to handle a 9th level Flame Strike when you consider it is only 12d6 damage. They aren't going to come out of it unscathed, but they should definitely be fine if they saved against it, have resistance, and/or low rolls happened.
If you hit them with a meteor swarm, they'd probably be dead even if they did save.
I see that, and it's dumb. Find me an NPC that can hit a DC 30.
Every ancient dragon and most adult dragons can hit it with perception; greatwyrms have a passive of more than 30. On attack rolls, pretty much everything CR 15+ can do so.
Most NPCs don't have skills, but that's just because D&D is really really lazy with NPC writeups.
When you stop there and ignore the rest of my post, that's a great way to tell me you aren't serious.
I'm not going to say the game can't be broken through optimization but you are describing more of a player problem than a optimization problem. Experienced players should not take advantage of a new DMs skill levels to make it less fun for them to run the game, if you are the only optimizer in the group, tone down your optimization so you don't damage the fun of the other players. Optimization isn't ruining the game, the inability to read the room is. The game should be designed to allow the DM to provide a fun challenge to the players no matter what their optimization levels, not to stomp out benefits of optimization.
Honestly, at times, it doesn't even require optimization to steam roll through some encounters if the DM is inexperienced. I once trivialized a difficult encounter by just thinking a bit outside of the box. A bunch of ogres and goblins were in a cave and the encounter was designed to be deadly for our level, 2nd at the time. I trivialized it by just taking a bunch of wood (DM described there being a number of crudely made wooden structures built by the goblins), lighting it on fire and letting smoke fill the cave as the group waited outside for the goblins and ogre to either suffocate or burn themselves trying to escape the cave. Granted in this situation, the DM loved the creativity, so maybe not the best example.
I honestly find using tactics and strategy trivializes encounters far more than optimization. And that is definitely a difference of skill between newer players and inexperienced players. So I very much do agree that it is more of a player thing.
The reason CR is broken is because it makes assumptions about PC abilities that aren't actually true. The general scaling of CR is pretty simple: monster hit points and damage are roughly proportional to (CR+1), at least in the CR 1-20 range. This would work if PC hit points and damage also had similar scaling, but they really don't, and spellcaster scaling is generally a worse offender here than martial character scaling, though martial character scaling is often pretty seriously off as well.
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I assume you mean at level 10. which is a bit of a problem because levels go up to 20. Also, you're conflating 'magical enhancement' with 'resource expenditure', which isn't the same thing. There are expendable resources that are not magic (such as bardic inspiration) and magical options that are not expendable (guidance, items that grant static benefits of some sort).
You know darn well what I meant, which means you're being a pedant for the sake of pedantry. That's not cool, Pantagruel. (Yes, the rhyme was intentional.)
Having +13 at 10th-level requires proficiency, expertise, and a 20 in the ability score. That's a heavy investment for only having 2-4 feats. And if they're running skill challenges the way 4E intended, then the same test can't be rolled twice. Which means tests without any significant bonus. We've seen them slowly reintroduced to 5e via Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Strixhaven, where a 1-2 level spell slot is worth advantage and a 3+ level spell slot is an automatic success. But that's still resource expenditure.
I wouldn't have done ten, but from where I'm sitting, with the information I have available, it looks fine. I don't think one case with specialized characters breaks the game. Those characters are functioning as intended. If my assumptions are wrong, then I'd need more data to figure out the failure points.
I was being a pedant because you were starting with stupid assumptions. Your assumptions should be:
By level 20, under current mechanics, that's likely to need DCs well in excess of 30.
That's not actually 4e skill challenges worked -- if you were playing by the book (which rules got changed several times because they never totally liked them) ancillary skills usually you could roll once and subsequent attempts were significantly higher DC, core skills could be rolled multiple times before seeing the DC increase.
I'd be OK with a 1 minute casting time on Aid. I also think that popping up multiple people from 0 with a single spell is also such an edge case scenario in 5e that it ultimately does not matter. I mean, mass healing word is a bonus action 3rd level spell.
Guidance, you actually make a great point about it's 'on Fail' trigger. on a Search or Study action, how do you know it Failed vs there being nothing to find? I think the On fail trigger was related to the older wording where if a player used guidance to move a failure to a success, they couldn't benefit from it again until a long rest was completed (or something like that). So you could just move it to a reaction speed based on whenever an ally within 10ft makes an ability check. The natural pause while the dice is rolled is generally enough time for the Cleric to mutter a prayer for success in the background, think of it like someone seeing a risky action and making the sign of the cross. The actual trigger matters to me far less than the reaction speed.
Banishment, I was taking the cue from the text of the spell "If the Spell lasts on the target for 1 minute and the target is an Aberration, a Celestial, an Elemental, a Fey, or a Fiend, the target doesn’t return. It is instead transported to a random location on a plane associated with its Creature Type." You are correct that it assumes that creatures of those types are not native to the current plane. My comment was more along the lines of, if they would be shunted off this plane at the end of the minute, they shouldn't get to make saves to break out back into this plane. If you're going to have them make saves each turn, then IF they would be shunted off after a minute, they are rolling to stay in the demiplane and not be shunted back home. And if they are native to the plane, they are rolling to end the spell. Then at the 1 minute mark, the spell ends and they end up back where they were when the spell was cast. Sort of an inverse of the original spells timing? One way or another I think I'm suggesting the spell work one way for non-native planar creatures and in a more aggressive capacity for those that are of a different plane.
Rogues, Bards, Artificers all get expertise on multiple skills / tools as part of their class by level 10, Rangers have 1 expertise, and there are half a dozen subclasses that give expertise or other flat bonuses to one or two skill checks. Every party I've ever played with has someone who can cast Guidance, most of them have a Bard to give BI, and someone who can cast Enhance ability. Most have maxed out their primary ability score by level 10 and proficiency/expertise is skills that use it, and it's not uncommon to do so by taking Skill Expert for Expertise as well. There are myriad class abilities that also give Adv on a skill check.
+13+1d4+Adv or +9+1d4+1d8+Adv makes it nearly guaranteed to make a DC 23.
And those classes are meant to be able to easily handle those high DC's when it comes to the things they have expertise in. Rogues are meant to be able to reliably handle skill checks if their bonus is high enough due to the existence of reliable talent. Lore Bards can add their own bardic inspiration at 14th level, though before then (and other bards) would only be rolling with expertise unless they are using something like glibness on charisma rolls. Artificers have Flash of Genius. I feel like it is very much intended for those classes to be able to handle anything that they have expertise in very easily.
We weren't talking about a 20th-level game. We were talking about a 10th-level game. But, sure, I'll bite.
The best a PC without Expertise or anything to boost the result of their roll can do is a +11 modifier. That would mean a 19 or 20 to succeed, and a 20 is an automatic success anyway. So we're talking a 10% chance before any other additives. Not everyone is going to have Expertise, magic items, spells or other features to boost their possible result. So, let's look at a "standard" party: cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard. The cleric might have enhance ability prepared and guidance at the ready. The fighter might not have any magic, but depending on their statistics they might be able to brute force or finesse something. The rogue is the only one with reliable Expertise, and with Reliable Talent they have a decent floor. And the wizard might have enough of the right spells prepared to just magic up some solutions.
I don't think a DC of 30 is unreasonably low. I know people can game the system for much higher numbers, but why? If you gate DCs that high, you're telling players that only certain characters can do this. That's bad design. In a balanced game, and let's pretend we actually care about that, there should be a point where returns diminish.
20 isn't automatic success. You cannot crit on an ability check.
DMing:
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Playing:
None sadly.
Optimization Guides:
Literally Too Angry to Die - A Guide to Optimizing a Barbarian
It is not bad design, its design that is open for a range of more players. A DC cap does what you are suggesting and saying its only for certain players. You optimize too much you wont have fun here and can't be challenged. Open DCs leaves it up to the DM to craft the challenges for his table. Lets them face challenges that only the players can pull off, while still allowing lower DCs for players who are not optimizers.
I see that, and it's dumb. Find me an NPC that can hit a DC 30.
Actually, scratch that. Every challenge the players face is either the result of the environment or the workings of an NPC. If you want verisimilitude, they built the world we play in and must be able to interact with it. A cap make logical sense.
Optimization can, indeed be taken too far. It doesn't matter how high your damage numbers are. It matters if you get the kill. You can, indeed, waste that effort by having excess. The same reasoning can apply to ability checks and saving throws.
Some people are still upset about the automatic success and failure rules. They like being immune to the abilities of certain creatures, and they're wrong for liking that. Once you remove the danger risk, you remove the drama. If it's just the math you care about, there are plenty of other pure numbers games. We're here for TTRPGs. We're here for D&D.
Roleplaying, not rollplaying. There. Somebody had to say it.
I am glad they removed the automatic success and failure rules in One D&D. It has been missing from the play test rules for the past 2 play tests and I hope it stays that way.
5% is by no means an insignificant chance and is absurd that no matter what, you have a 5% chance of failure. The drama was never removed in 5E where there are no automatic and failure rules for Ability Checks and Saving Throws, when you can make builds where you can succeed at certain rolls on a nat 1. People can't get all of their rolls high enough to a point where you can succeed at everything, they always have certain rolls that they can fail at, especially at the higher levels where many of these builds reside.
For the people who enjoy the builds where they achieve a high enough bonus that they can succeed on a nat 1, there is a huge amount of satisfaction for doing so. It takes significant mechanical investment for the character to do so. That investment should not be ignored because they rolled a nat 1.
People can enjoy D&D for its mechanics, it is perfectly valid way of playing. People can also equally enjoy optimization and roleplaying, they are nor mutually exclusive. The only way optimization can be taken too far is breaks the game and currently, there isn't a way to take optimization that far. What you are exhibiting right now is the Stormwind Fallacy; there is no need to say, "Roleplaying not rollplaying," because, once again, it is a completely valid style of play to focus on mechanics and optimization, many people enjoy that style and they should not be deriding for enjoying it.
When you learn how not to be insulting in every discussion come back to me. Until then have a nice day being wrong.
I strongly disagree with this statement. There are many optimization builds that make it mandatory for DMs to HB monsters and/or go many fold beyond what is indicated in RAW encounter building rules (and described in the published adventures) to offer even a moderate sense of danger to the party, which thus means they have broken the RAW game. It is in fact incredibly easy to break the game b/c of the design around bounded accuracy and the complete failure of the mechanics to actually enforce that bounded accuracy, and the massive powercreep in more recent published content.
Since the #1 rule of the game is "the rules are just suggestions" sure you can keep playing the game even with these builds with a DM that is happy to HB enemies, worlds, and/or adjust encounters for you. But, there is also a lot of different ways to build a character that makes it unfun for your DM or your fellow players to play with you, which is the fundamental way to break the game. Now of course this highly depends on your DM & fellow players since everyone has different things that they consider "fun" or not, but it is extremely easy to do - e.g. many people consider the Kender race "broken" because their lore & mechanics encourage them to steal from the party and many people think having a member of the party stealing from them is antithetical to "fun".
Re: Autofail/Success I'm glad that has been removed for ability check b/c I don't like ability checks being restricted to fail/success outcomes. (see gripes about Guidance..). But the many ways to get 0 chance of failure really make the game boring - players getting locked down by an enemy effect that they have 0 chance to escape from sucks, rolling a dice when even a nat 1 passes is a complete waste of everyone's time. If the designers decide a particular mechanic is bad so they add in lots of ways to ignore it or circumvent it (e.g. losing concentration from taking damage) then they should instead just remove that mechanic from the game.
Every ancient dragon and most adult dragons can hit it with perception; greatwyrms have a passive of more than 30. On attack rolls, pretty much everything CR 15+ can do so.
Most NPCs don't have skills, but that's just because D&D is really really lazy with NPC writeups.
If by RAW encounter building rules, you mean the CR system, the issue is more with the CR system because even without optimization, it's still broken, especially at higher levels. The power ceiling of 5E hasn't changed too much over the years. It increased a bit, but honestly not that much. What really changed was the ceiling for some particular classes like Warlock or Ranger with the new subclasses.
Also, I would argue that even in the situation you are describing, that it has not broken the game because encounters can and should be modified. A group of experienced players are going to have a much easier time in a hardcover as written than a group of new players. Even without optimization, tactics alone can make the game much easier, doesn't mean the game is broken.
Also, I have not seen the many ways of boosting a roll high enough to succeed on a nat 1 make the game boring in anyway. Rather, I've seen the opposite, where people find satisfaction and enjoyment in being able to do so. Plus, there can always be a higher DC. Take the example for concentration, even if you have say a +20, if you get hit by something that does more than 43 damage, such as a disintegrate or a Meteor Swarm, you have a chance of failing.
Furthermore, it is only a waste of time if you actually roll; most of the time, you would just check the DC and if it is equal to or less than your con save + 1, you just say that it doesn't do enough damage to break your concentration; if you need to use a feature like Flash of Genius to make such a case happen, you would just declare that you are using said feature and that it makes it so that the damage isn't enough to have a chance of breaking your concentration. No real time waste there. Rules wise, the roll still happened, but physically, you just declare the result.
Technically, I think they do, it is just that if they don't have proficiency in it, it isn't listed in their stat block. Or do you mean that they generally don't have skill proficiencies, then yeah you're probably right.
When you stop there and ignore the rest of my post, that's a great way to tell me you aren't serious.
The point of pre-written adventures is that newbie (or time-starved) DMs can run them as-is out of the book without having to spend tons of time rebalancing them. Thus characters that trivialize those encounters are RAW broken. See I think you have defined "broken" in such a way that it is impossible for any character to be "broken" by your definition - even a HB race that gets a baseline 25 AC, with a legendary weapon that deal 50 damage on a hit at level 1 can be played if the DM HBs the monsters & the world to fit it, but at that point it's not RAW D&D anymore so is kind of irrelevant to the discussion of whether it is possible to break D&D RAW.
RAW D&D can very easily be broken by optimization, such that a character or party of characters just steamroll the vast majority of monsters that are RAW supposed to be a challenge to them. Sure there's always exceptions but "the exceptions prove the rule." If you have made a level 6 character that can easily one-v-one win against 50% of published CR 6 monsters, that character is broken by RAW standards. CR is overall not broken (again see "the exceptions prove the rule") if you play a party of characters eschewing optional rules (including feats & multiclassing) and magic items, the community claims CR is broken because they do not adhere to the assumptions that CR was designed around.
Thanks' that's super helpful to know that I should be using level 9 spells against my level 4 party cause that means the game isn't "broken"....
PS I submit as further evidence that the game is broken: I dropped a level 9 Flame Strike spell on a party of 6 level 5 characters at the start of a combat the other day and they were fine...
I'm not going to say the game can't be broken through optimization but you are describing more of a player problem than a optimization problem. Experienced players should not take advantage of a new DMs skill levels to make it less fun for them to run the game, if you are the only optimizer in the group, tone down your optimization so you don't damage the fun of the other players. Optimization isn't ruining the game, the inability to read the room is. The game should be designed to allow the DM to provide a fun challenge to the players no matter what their optimization levels, not to stomp out benefits of optimization.
Then by your definitions, having a larger party is RAW broken. Also, there are instances where even hardcovers do not properly make encounters. Descent into Avernus has an ecnounter where the party can get hit by a Fire Ball at 2nd level. A fire ball can instantly kill some 2nd level characters rather easily. Stormking's Thunder has cases where characters can receive random magic items and depending on what they get, that can completely invalidate any sort of CR calculation the book has done in advance as CR does not take into account magic items. You really can't say that optimization breaks RAW DnD when the measure you are using is inherently broken to begin with.
Also, a race that gets baseline 25AC or a magic item at level 1 that does 50 dmg on hit would be considered broken by my definition, of which you are clearly misunderstanding. What I look at is the power level of the player characters and how they fall inline with each other. And optimization does not push the ceiling that much higher. There are cases like martials when unoptimized not doing amazing, hence why in other threads I pushed for martial buffs, especially with the power feats being nerfed (that power has to be redistributed elsewhere).
CR is very much broken. It uses assumptions that not even the hardcovers use as CR is calculated without magic items, but hardcovers always have magic items. CR itself just falls apart at higher tiers as well, even without magic items.
First off, Disintegration is a 6th level spell; it just has high single target damage though it is all or nothing. Second, you aren't going to get +20 Con Save until late T3 at the latest and not without magic items and/or one time buffs like Bardic Inspiration. Even a paladin with 20 Charisma at T4 isn't going to have a +20 in Charisma saves, the highest they will have without additional support is a +16. So if your players are at the point where they are reaching +20 saves, they are likely in T4 and also have access to things on par with 9th level spells. No where did I say you had to use a 9th level spell on a 4th level party.
Also, Flame Strike does slightly low damage for a spell of its level (it's a 5th level spell that does equal damage to a 3rd level fire ball), It's main advantage is its flexible range. At 5th level, so base, Flame Strike does 8d6 damage and it gains 1d6 for each spell level above 5th, so at 9th level it deals 12d6 damage or an average of 42 damage. If they save, that is 21 damage, and if they have ways to gain resistance, to one or both of the damage types that comprises the spell, then that is reduced even further. That is very low for a 9th level spell when you consider how Meteor Swarm does a total of 40d6 damage, average 140 or 70 on save. You take more damage saving against a meteor Swarm than failing to a 9th level Firestorm. Lower level spells do not necessary scale well when you upcast them. Even an 9th level Fire ball or Lightning Bolt (14d6) does not compare well to a meteor swarm. Spell generally do not scale up well when you upcast them, which is proper because it makes the spells you gain at higher levels more worthwhile; Meteor Swarm should be done more damage than an upcasted Flame Strike or Fire Ball, and in does by a long shot in both cases.
The issue here was not the players, but how poorly Flame Strike scales up. A 5th level party should be able to handle a 9th level Flame Strike when you consider it is only 12d6 damage. They aren't going to come out of it unscathed, but they should definitely be fine if they saved against it, have resistance, and/or low rolls happened.
If you hit them with a meteor swarm, they'd probably be dead even if they did save.
Pretty sure everyone here is serious.
Honestly, at times, it doesn't even require optimization to steam roll through some encounters if the DM is inexperienced. I once trivialized a difficult encounter by just thinking a bit outside of the box. A bunch of ogres and goblins were in a cave and the encounter was designed to be deadly for our level, 2nd at the time. I trivialized it by just taking a bunch of wood (DM described there being a number of crudely made wooden structures built by the goblins), lighting it on fire and letting smoke fill the cave as the group waited outside for the goblins and ogre to either suffocate or burn themselves trying to escape the cave. Granted in this situation, the DM loved the creativity, so maybe not the best example.
I honestly find using tactics and strategy trivializes encounters far more than optimization. And that is definitely a difference of skill between newer players and inexperienced players. So I very much do agree that it is more of a player thing.
The reason CR is broken is because it makes assumptions about PC abilities that aren't actually true. The general scaling of CR is pretty simple: monster hit points and damage are roughly proportional to (CR+1), at least in the CR 1-20 range. This would work if PC hit points and damage also had similar scaling, but they really don't, and spellcaster scaling is generally a worse offender here than martial character scaling, though martial character scaling is often pretty seriously off as well.