Quote from: Christopher Brady;963364Look, apples, oranges.  The Barbarian is not competing with the Fighter.  The Barbarian's abilities are built around two handed weaponry and raw survival (which frankly the Berserker tree sucks at, to be fair) or melee utility (The Totems are generally considered the best of the abilities), and the Paladin's utility is defined (oddly) by its ability to heal others, so it's also not competing with the Fighter either.

No, Barbarians and Fighters occupy the same niche: hit stuff, be hard to kill. They have different emphases within this role.

QuoteThe Wizard on the other hand fills the same niche as a Sorcerer and does it BETTER.  It has a wider array of choices when it comes to spells.  Which I might add, overlap.  In fact, with a cursory look through, the Wizard's list has the same spells as the Sorcerer and more.  If you want a true blaster, go Evocation Wizard.  Has all the Blasty you could want, but without the pesky lack of spell options.

Nope. The Sorcerer trades spell options for being able to hit harder, from farther away, more often, etc. Very similar in concept to Barbarian vs Fighter tradeoffs. In addition to hitting harder, Draconic Bloodline is also harder to kill. Wild Magic is just fun.

QuoteSingle target, yes.  But let's be fair, magic outstrips melee and always have, when it comes to combat utility.

Nah, not in 5e.

QuoteAlso, I said MOST Invocations are useless.  The best path so far seems to be Tome.  Also, a misconception. Eldritch Sight requires you to cast it each time

Yeah, you have to say "I am using Eldritch Sight" every 10 minutes. Doesn't consume a slot, just requires an Action = Warlocks walk around with it on pretty much all the time, revealing any and all arcane locks, glyphs of warding, etc. Broke Tomb of Horrors so hard I had to limit it by fiat.

QuoteMost of the other no level requirement Invocations often require a Long Rest to recover, AND take up one of the 2 (When you can choose them) spell slots you have.  But at least you get that slot back on a Short Rest.  Yay?

Here are the no-level Invocations that don't require a Long Rest to recover and don't require a spell slot:
Agonizing Blast, Armor of Shadows, Beast Speech, Beguiling Influence, Book of Ancient Secrets, Devil's Sight, Eldritch Sight, Eyes of the Rune Keeper, Fiendish Vigor, Gaze of Two Minds, Mask of Many Faces, Misty Visions, Repelling Blast, Voice of the Chain Master

Here are the no-level Invocations that require a spell slot and/or recharge on a long rest:
Three of Five Fates.

QuoteAnd then there's the poor Pact of The Blade.  The Warlocks best Stat should be Charisma, the second might be Con or Dex.  But for a Blade, unless you put your secondary stat in Dex and choose a Light weapon, any chose you make will require to depend on a tertiary stat.

Nope. Fortunately, with 5e's bounded accuracy, V-shaped classes are entirely viable. A bladelock should have his attack stat primary, and CHA either equal or secondary. Popular builds out there, use Google.

QuoteA great scout?  Really?  What, 'skills' don't work in your game or something?

Characters with darkvision roll Perception with disadvantage and have -5 on Passive Perception in the dark. The Caves of Chaos aren't lit.

Quote from: Headless;963295We had this discussion about the moon druid.  Has anyone ever played in a game completely dominated by the moon druid?  Or is it all theory crafting?

I certainly have--although admittedly only to 6th level or so...then I banned them. I've got a player playing the "other" druid type, still plenty awesome.

The issue is the *massive* amount of temporary hit points, the *fast* regaining of temporary hit points, and the ability to heal up those hit points.  Even if you actually manage to chew through all those hit points, one short rest later the druid is back completely, with no resources drained. I had over a dozen bullywugs pounding on that moon druid for 4 rounds while the rest of the party was on the wrong side of a cliff (it was in one of the Tiamat adventures)...just couldn't do enough damage.

Yes, the animal forms have crap armor class (so those hit points drain quickly, although monsters hit non-crap AC easy as well), the damage is on a par with the fighter for a little while...but then you throw in all the major utility that a mainline spellcaster has, on top of that. Triple the hp of the fighter, 85% of the damage of the fighter (low level, assuming a 2h fighter, and incomparable utility over the fighter.

Now, perhaps, at high levels, getting a 100 extra hit points between short rests isn't much (sure seems like it would be), but at the the low levels? Gee whiz, a typical encounter at level 3 isn't likely to do 100 points of damage to the whole party, and that's the issue: the moon druid is stupid-tough at the levels where the other players actually worry about taking a 20 point hit. At high levels, not so much at least in theory...but then you toss in all the other abilities and we're not exactly looking at a balanced class.

But, gee whiz, just toss the class and get back to playing the game.

I have a 13th level Moon Druid in my Sunday group. Powerful PC but she has not felt overpowered since 4th level. In terms of game impact currently she's probably third behind the Bladesinger Wizard-13 & (just) the Shadow Monk-13, just ahead of the Barbarian-12, and ahead of the new gunslinger Warlock-11.

I limit short rest benefits to 3/day though so max 8 wildshapes per day. I use 15 minute short rests in that game.

The main limiter is her wildshape forms have AC around 12-13 when her companions are mostly AC 22-23; the Bladesinger can get AC to 28 with Shield spells. Also no spellcasting. Compared to the wizard animating 10 tiny objects to smush legendary monsters to pulp, Moon Druid is well balanced.

Quote from: CRKrueger;9633555e's somewhat better, but it's still the wrong fix.  They now neutered the fuck out of the spellcasting abilities of casters, without instituting any of the sane restrictions from 1e and made them superheros with Pew-Pew cantrips to supplement damage output.  Instead of making all non-casters casters, they're moving casters towards non-casters.

I....don't see how they're neutered? We didn't get many Summoning spells in 5e (there's 2 I believe for summoning elementals) and it's probably because the designers know how much of a cluster fuck running loads of summons is on the length of combat, not to mention 1 guy spending minutes during his turn basically playing DM himself. They get stuff to do every round and spells that basically do interesting things as well as provide pretty awesome utility. They can reserve certain ones for Rituals and they even get spells like Wish. Sure they're not spell-batteries anymore pumping out 20 to 30 spells per day but I'm pretty sure that's a good thing if you're not into God-Wizards running around and pwning every encounter *shrugs*.

Quote from: Batman;963472I....don't see how they're neutered? We didn't get many Summoning spells in 5e (there's 2 I believe for summoning elementals) and it's probably because the designers know how much of a cluster fuck running loads of summons is on the length of combat, not to mention 1 guy spending minutes during his turn basically playing DM himself. They get stuff to do every round and spells that basically do interesting things as well as provide pretty awesome utility. They can reserve certain ones for Rituals and they even get spells like Wish. Sure they're not spell-batteries anymore pumping out 20 to 30 spells per day but I'm pretty sure that's a good thing if you're not into God-Wizards running around and pwning every encounter *shrugs*.

They're not neutered, it's the other way away around, they've been buffed back up to a higher point than 2e, but maybe not 3e, but then again Monte Cook really screwed the pooch there, with his love of D&D magic over everything else, and the way he built 3e to focus on that.

The only neutering they did in the spell list were mostly surrounding animal shape shifting/Polymorph spells, summoning magic and a couple of the Save or 'Die' effects.  But for the most part, spells are just as versatile or more so, with the ability to dump slots of higher lever to pump up the effect of certain spells, namely the healing and evocation/conjuration/blasty spells.

So to summarize the pernial "casters are too powerful" discussion: casters are probably too powerful, but at least they are clearly too powerful.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963364magic outstrips melee and always have, when it comes to combat utility.

Says the guy who never played anything before 2nd and hardly played that. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Batman;963472I....don't see how they're neutered? We didn't get many Summoning spells in 5e (there's 2 I believe for summoning elementals) and it's probably because the designers know how much of a cluster fuck running loads of summons is on the length of combat, not to mention 1 guy spending minutes during his turn basically playing DM himself. They get stuff to do every round and spells that basically do interesting things as well as provide pretty awesome utility. They can reserve certain ones for Rituals and they even get spells like Wish. Sure they're not spell-batteries anymore pumping out 20 to 30 spells per day but I'm pretty sure that's a good thing if you're not into God-Wizards running around and pwning every encounter *shrugs*.

Try thinking before 3rd, or even 2nd.  It helps.   Early Magic-Users had tremendous utility, with many restrictions that made them tacticians, and required careful planning.  What spells you had were less important than where and when you cast them, and how.

They basically lopped off the peaks and valleys of M-U effectiveness and made a caster that can do far less, but more often, sacrificing power that had to be measured, for neverending magic spam so that kids can feel like the Human Tor...err "magical".

Quote from: cranebump;963388Well, there's the "rough spot" that always gets me -- endless roundabouts dealing with the various classes and their widgets. (put another star next to the note, "Only run 5E with the BASIC packet...").:-)

Kinda sounds like people arguing construction of Magic Decks, don't it?

Quote from: CRKrueger;963585They basically lopped off the peaks and valleys of M-U effectiveness and made a caster that can do far less, but more often, sacrificing power that had to be measured, for neverending magic spam so that kids can feel like the Human Tor...err "magical".

5e casters actually have fewer spells per day than in the olden days, but they're more flexible with their slots. I think Concentration was more about having a meaningful limitation that was mechanically simple and less frustrating compared to tracking segments.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;9635925e casters actually have fewer spells per day than in the olden days, but they're more flexible with their slots. I think Concentration was more about having a meaningful limitation that was mechanically simple and less frustrating compared to tracking segments.

More flexible means less planning and tactics required.  Fewer spells per day means less power overall, especially if you have to cannibalize higher slots to get even close to the power that scaling spells got you before.  The answer is At-Will damage which gives the cheap facade of "more magic", but in reality makes you less of master of magic and more of a High-Fantasy "Blaster" Superhero.

Don't get me wrong, 5e works better than 4th or 3rd in this regard I think, but the problem is WotC doesn't understand that they are proceeding from false assumptions.  They need to go back to first principles.  But, the game is good enough to do well, and the whole hobby is feeling the effect, and, as Baulderstone stated, if everyone played 5e, the rest of the hobby would crater, so "Good Enough to stay #1, but Bad Enough to keep people making something different" is the perfect place to be.  

"Everyone's Second favorite version of D&D."
or
"The D&D no one hates."
seems to be working.

Quote from: CRKrueger;963586Kinda sounds like people arguing construction of Magic Decks, don't it?

Oh, man...yeah, it sorta does...

Quote from: fearsomepirate;9635925e casters actually have fewer spells per day than in the olden days, but they're more flexible with their slots. I think Concentration was more about having a meaningful limitation that was mechanically simple and less frustrating compared to tracking segments.

Sorry, but no.

An AD&D at 9th level Wizard could cast 4 first, 3 2nd, 3 3rd, 2 4th, and a single 5th level spell.

A 9th level 5e Wizard, in addition to infinite cantrips (many arguably as powerful as low level AD&D spells) and rituals can cast every bit as many spells as the AD&D wizard, plus an extra 4th level spell...and after a short rest, will get more spell levels back, AND has much greater utility and almost no way for spells to be interrupted.

There might be a level somewhere where, if you throw out cantrips and rituals and regaining spells, a 5e wizard has fewer spells, but I seriously doubt it--even at 5th level a 5e wizard can cast 2 fireballs a day (for more damage) without effort, compared to the one (at best) an AD&D wizard might cast.

Concentration isn't about segments, its about having too many buffs to track (because good spells that lasted a few rounds in earlier editions turned into awesome spells that lasted hours in later...).

Quote from: CRKrueger;963593More flexible means less planning and tactics required.  Fewer spells per day means less power overall, especially if you have to cannibalize higher slots to get even close to the power that scaling spells got you before.  The answer is At-Will damage which gives the cheap facade of "more magic", but in reality makes you less of master of magic and more of a High-Fantasy "Blaster" Superhero.

At-will damage was introduced in 3rd edition and was the answer to wizards spending most of their time at low levels being pajama-clad dead weight. The people who really wish the only thing they had in their arsenal was hurling pebbles with a useless THAC0 are, judging by the popularity of 5e, not that numerous. Same with flexible casting. There doesn't seem to be much clamor for the old way to come back. And FWIW, Concentration is practically identical to DCC 2011 beta. Was DCC first, or did they get it from somewhere else?

And actually, I was half-wrong about slots. Looked it up. Low-level casters have more slots in 5e than AD&D, but high-level casters have fewer. Interesting.

Quote"Everyone's Second favorite version of D&D."
or
"The D&D no one hates."
seems to be working.

See, I just don't think this is true. I think the number of people who think an earlier edition is absolutely the best is small, loud, and online.  The internet tends to create echo chambers that are in no way whatsoever representative of the average user.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;963606At-will damage was introduced in 3rd edition and was the answer to wizards spending most of their time at low levels being pajama-clad dead weight. The people who really wish the only thing they had in their arsenal was hurling pebbles with a useless THAC0 are, judging by the popularity of 5e, not that numerous. Same with flexible casting. There doesn't seem to be much clamor for the old way to come back. And FWIW, Concentration is practically identical to DCC 2011 beta. Was DCC first, or did they get it from somewhere else?

And actually, I was half-wrong about slots. Looked it up. Low-level casters have more slots in 5e than AD&D, but high-level casters have fewer. Interesting.

See, I just don't think this is true. I think the number of people who think an earlier edition is absolutely the best is small, loud, and online.  The internet tends to create echo chambers that are in no way whatsoever representative of the average user.

Paizo is running on 3.x, how small are they?  Granted people tend to not play too many RPGs from before they were born, unless someone shows them. Your bias is assuming incorrectly that "More people playing 5e" means "5e is everyone's preferred edition".  All it really has to mean is "5e is the currently supported edition" and "5e is the one game we can all agree on."  ie. "The D&D no one hates."  It puts butts in seats.  You show me a dedicated group of gamers who play at each other's homes, I'll bet the percentage of 5e goes WAY down compared to the semi-pickups you're going to see on Roll 20 or the FLGS.

The thing is, people who entered gaming with 3e, really have no idea how WotC's way of doing things isn't the only way.  I'll give you that thanks to MMO's and action cRPG's the big money's never going to be in returning to AD&D1.  I don't think they should. However, that doesn't mean that WotC couldn't or shouldn't look around at something besides their own products for answers to the recurring problems with their designs that keep kicking them in the ass edition after edition.