Stuff from the Mike Mearls Reddit AMA that's good news for AL - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Pauper Nov 11, 2014 11:02:33	Reading through the Mike Mearls Reddit AMA and spotted a few things that made me feel optimistic that the game is going to advance in ways that help Organized Play as well as the game as a whole. Specifically: For instance, one guidelines we're looking at is for DMs to restrict characters to one additional book beyond the PHB when making characters. That keeps things manageable while allowing each campaign to have a distinct flavor.
#2 Mascle Nov 11, 2014 13:32:19	Oh, good! I was wondering how they'd tackle the power creep aspects of additional splatbooks. I'm glad that they've also included something to deal with the problems that games (and MMOs especially) suffer from when they cater to optimizers over any/every other gaming style. Sounds like good news from the dev team, insofar as AL goes -- and that may be enough for it to carry over to home games, too.
#3 Kalani Nov 11, 2014 13:57:28	I have been using that particular method of controlling power-creep since the 3.5 days. PHB plus 1-2 other books of the players choice. When playing in a specific setting, I increased this to include the core book of the setting (eg. Dragonlance CS, Forgotten Realms players guide, Eberron CS etc), in addition to the PHB and 1-2 other books of the player's choice. I felt this was the most effective way of balancing campaign needs with player desires, as I did not outright ban any material, but simply limited the unforseen interactions when splatbooks interacted with each other. In the 4E era, I limited characters to one PHB (PH1, PH2, or PH3) and one additional book (which could include a second PH of the players choice). Essentials characters were limited to the HotFL and HotFK plus one other book of the players choice. This method works wonders IMO.
#4 IxidorRS Nov 11, 2014 15:00:47	I love this. My buddy who got tired of power creep in 4th loves this. I really hope this is exactly how it goes and that they don't back down from it.
#5 Coredump00 Nov 11, 2014 18:20:25	Should work, it basically how MTG works. Each 6 months or year there will be a new campaign, which will (may) have a campaign book with certain new races, classes, etc. that can be used in that setting/campaign. It will keep OP continually changing and new.
#6 Tyranthraxus Nov 11, 2014 18:28:16	You wont believe how much resistance they will get to the player base on this. Id put on your helmet now and buckle up.
#7 IxidorRS Nov 12, 2014 7:21:54	Tyranthraxus wrote:
(Reply to #6) Pauper	Tyranthraxus wrote:
#9 Mascle Nov 12, 2014 7:52:06	No, but that doesn't mean that the optimizer playstyle has to dominate organized gaming. They still have a venue for it, even at cons. Just not necessarily catered to in organized play with no restrictions whatsoever.
#10 Pauper Nov 12, 2014 8:08:33	It's not as though WotC hasn't tried catering to optimizers before -- the Lair Assault program in 4th Edition was specifically geared toward challenging players who enjoy min-maxing. Problem was, most D&D optimizers didn't seem to want to take on a challenge that was geared to handle them; they preferred preying on adventures built for less-optmized characters and proving their 'mettle' that way. Even LFR eventually tried tackling the issue with 'Glory Tier' modifications to existing modules, but since there wasn't any additional mechanical benefit for beating a mod on 'Glory Tier', most optimizers didn't bother accepting the challenge. And conventions are one of the easiest places to find people who haven't played D&D and are curious about it. Give them the experience that D&D is all about picking the best options for your character and slaughtering everything in the module, whether justified or not, and you give them the wrong impression of what D&D is about. Ideally, what you want is for new players to understand that, whatever the character choices they make, optimized or not, they're going to have fun pretending to be this other person. (That's why the mods have a 'weak' and 'very weak' adjustment setting, after all.) It seems weird to say you can likely grow the game by limiting participation, but it's a deliberate limiting, with a specific goal in mind. -- Pauper
#11 Sorxores Nov 13, 2014 6:12:23	Pauper wrote:
(Reply to #11) Pauper	Sorxores wrote:
#13 Jay_Ibero_911 Nov 15, 2014 8:44:14	Unless they add abilities dramatically out of line with what they've put out so far for 5e, I don't see how there could become such huge gaps between "average" and "fully optimized" characters, given the nature of this edition. Between the much more limited feat access, and bounded accuracy, the only main concerns will be if any "broken" magic items make it into the campaign, or if they publish any "broken" spells. All it takes is one bad spell to really wreck things in this edition since all casters are spontaneous. And groups of hardcore optimizers will work together to make sure they play all the mods they need to get the perfect items. That said, there will definitely be gaps between average and garbage characters, like those with a starting attack stat of less than 14. I suppose one could make a character who just uses the help action every turn and not be completely useless...but this edition is no different then those past in that every party member needs to contribute their share towards combat resolution one way or another.
#14 Pauper Nov 18, 2014 8:32:55	Agreed, Jay. Here's another example of how non-optimized characters can still be useful. There are a couple of players in our group who tend to be focused more on the RP aspect of the game than the combat aspect. It's not that they ignore combat or deliberately build sub-optimal characters -- the sorcerer has a good spellcasting stat, for instance -- but the choices they make are more aligned with the choices that make sense for their characters rather than those that are strictly optimal by game rules. Example: this past weekend during DDEX1-3, one character chose to take a bow-shot at an enemy threatening a helpless opponent in the hopes of distracting them, despite being threatened by a kobold that caused his shot to be made with disadvantage. The good news is that, because these players are so RP-focused, it's often easy to justify awarding them inspiration for their in-game choices, so situaions like this don't have to be strictly sub-optimal; the character can spend inspiration to negate the disadvantage of the attack. Inspiration works very well for these characters, while being largely irrelevant to the barbarian who uses Reckless Attack every round relying on the resistance to damage from her Rage to save her. -- Pauper
#15 Undrhil Nov 24, 2014 0:15:25	The issue with DMs optimizing combats for non-optimized parties in an AL setting is that some DMs (that I have played with, anyway) would rather increase the difficulty of the challenges, instead of decrease them. So much so that I have seen at least one DM who will run a character in order to bump the difficulty from Strong to Very Strong, or who will ignore the suggestions in the mod when determining party strength. Or who will look at total party level and ignore that there are only 4 PCs, trying to squeeze the group into Strong, when it should be Average. Or who will look at character levels and not guage that that level 3 Wizard isn't packing any level two attack spells, like Shatter, opting to go with utility spells first, attack spell second, and use that it's a level 3 Wizard who could have Shatter as an excuse to add two additional skeletons when the mod says to only increase it to five. Now, granted, if that level 3 Wizard does have Shatter, that's great! Let the Wizard shine! However, if that Wizard doesn't have Shatter (as in my case, where I took Continual Flame and Rope Trick) then it's a sucky move and can end in a party wipe. No one should have to build their character in the fear that the DM is going to use assumptions in building encounters.
#16 Noon Nov 26, 2014 16:03:13	Pauper wrote:
#17 Mommy_was_an_Orc Nov 30, 2014 8:57:49	Pauper wrote:
#18 Noon Nov 30, 2014 22:35:41	It's funny how the only name the non optimisers get is 'isn't an optimiser'. If they had a name, it'd be easier to say what they do warps the game for every person who is an optimiser. As said, it seems more like D&D 5e is somewhere on the spectrum of optimising/not optimising - it requires some amount of optimisation by a player just for them to remember what to roll and what to add.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

Pauper

Nov 11, 2014 11:02:33

Reading through the Mike Mearls Reddit AMA and spotted a few things that made me feel optimistic that the game is going to advance in ways that help Organized Play as well as the game as a whole. Specifically:

For instance, one guidelines we're looking at is for DMs to restrict characters to one additional book beyond the PHB when making characters. That keeps things manageable while allowing each campaign to have a distinct flavor.

Mascle

Nov 11, 2014 13:32:19

Oh, good! I was wondering how they'd tackle the power creep aspects of additional splatbooks.

I'm glad that they've also included something to deal with the problems that games (and MMOs especially) suffer from when they cater to optimizers over any/every other gaming style.

Sounds like good news from the dev team, insofar as AL goes -- and that may be enough for it to carry over to home games, too.

Kalani

Nov 11, 2014 13:57:28

I have been using that particular method of controlling power-creep since the 3.5 days. PHB plus 1-2 other books of the players choice. When playing in a specific setting, I increased this to include the core book of the setting (eg. Dragonlance CS, Forgotten Realms players guide, Eberron CS etc), in addition to the PHB and 1-2 other books of the player's choice.

I felt this was the most effective way of balancing campaign needs with player desires, as I did not outright ban any material, but simply limited the unforseen interactions when splatbooks interacted with each other.

In the 4E era, I limited characters to one PHB (PH1, PH2, or PH3) and one additional book (which could include a second PH of the players choice). Essentials characters were limited to the HotFL and HotFK plus one other book of the players choice.

This method works wonders IMO.

IxidorRS

Nov 11, 2014 15:00:47

I love this. My buddy who got tired of power creep in 4th loves this. I really hope this is exactly how it goes and that they don't back down from it.

Coredump00

Nov 11, 2014 18:20:25

Should work, it basically how MTG works. Each 6 months or year there will be a new campaign, which will (may) have a campaign book with certain new races, classes, etc. that can be used in *that* setting/campaign. It will keep OP continually changing and new.

Tyranthraxus

Nov 11, 2014 18:28:16

You wont believe how much resistance they will get to the player base on this. Id put on your helmet now and buckle up.

IxidorRS

Nov 12, 2014 7:21:54

Tyranthraxus wrote:

(Reply to #6)

Pauper

Tyranthraxus wrote:

Mascle

Nov 12, 2014 7:52:06

No, but that doesn't mean that the optimizer playstyle has to dominate organized gaming. They still have a venue for it, even at cons. Just not necessarily catered to in organized play with no restrictions whatsoever.

#10

Pauper

Nov 12, 2014 8:08:33

It's not as though WotC hasn't tried catering to optimizers before -- the Lair Assault program in 4th Edition was specifically geared toward challenging players who enjoy min-maxing. Problem was, most D&D optimizers didn't seem to want to take on a challenge that was geared to handle them; they preferred preying on adventures built for less-optmized characters and proving their 'mettle' that way. Even LFR eventually tried tackling the issue with 'Glory Tier' modifications to existing modules, but since there wasn't any additional mechanical benefit for beating a mod on 'Glory Tier', most optimizers didn't bother accepting the challenge.

And conventions are one of the easiest places to find people who haven't played D&D and are curious about it. Give them the experience that D&D is all about picking the best options for your character and slaughtering everything in the module, whether justified or not, and you give them the wrong impression of what D&D is about. Ideally, what you want is for new players to understand that, whatever the character choices they make, optimized or not, they're going to have fun pretending to be this other person. (That's why the mods have a 'weak' and 'very weak' adjustment setting, after all.)

It seems weird to say you can likely grow the game by limiting participation, but it's a deliberate limiting, with a specific goal in mind.

Pauper

#11

Sorxores

Nov 13, 2014 6:12:23

Pauper wrote:

(Reply to #11)

Pauper

Sorxores wrote:

#13

Jay_Ibero_911

Nov 15, 2014 8:44:14

Unless they add abilities dramatically out of line with what they've put out so far for 5e, I don't see how there could become such huge gaps between "average" and "fully optimized" characters, given the nature of this edition. Between the much more limited feat access, and bounded accuracy, the only main concerns will be if any "broken" magic items make it into the campaign, or if they publish any "broken" spells. All it takes is one bad spell to really wreck things in this edition since all casters are spontaneous. And groups of hardcore optimizers will work together to make sure they play all the mods they need to get the perfect items.

That said, there will definitely be gaps between average and garbage characters, like those with a starting attack stat of less than 14. I suppose one could make a character who just uses the help action every turn and not be completely useless...but this edition is no different then those past in that every party member needs to contribute their share towards combat resolution one way or another.

#14

Pauper

Nov 18, 2014 8:32:55

Agreed, Jay. Here's another example of how non-optimized characters can still be useful.

There are a couple of players in our group who tend to be focused more on the RP aspect of the game than the combat aspect. It's not that they ignore combat or deliberately build sub-optimal characters -- the sorcerer has a good spellcasting stat, for instance -- but the choices they make are more aligned with the choices that make sense for their characters rather than those that are strictly optimal by game rules. Example: this past weekend during DDEX1-3, one character chose to take a bow-shot at an enemy threatening a helpless opponent in the hopes of distracting them, despite being threatened by a kobold that caused his shot to be made with disadvantage.

The good news is that, because these players are so RP-focused, it's often easy to justify awarding them inspiration for their in-game choices, so situaions like this don't have to be strictly sub-optimal; the character can spend inspiration to negate the disadvantage of the attack. Inspiration works very well for these characters, while being largely irrelevant to the barbarian who uses Reckless Attack every round relying on the resistance to damage from her Rage to save her.

Pauper

#15

Undrhil

Nov 24, 2014 0:15:25

The issue with DMs optimizing combats for non-optimized parties in an AL setting is that some DMs (that I have played with, anyway) would rather increase the difficulty of the challenges, instead of decrease them. So much so that I have seen at least one DM who will run a character in order to bump the difficulty from Strong to Very Strong, or who will ignore the suggestions in the mod when determining party strength. Or who will look at total party level and ignore that there are only 4 PCs, trying to squeeze the group into Strong, when it should be Average. Or who will look at character levels and not guage that that level 3 Wizard isn't packing any level two attack spells, like Shatter, opting to go with utility spells first, attack spell second, and use that it's a level 3 Wizard who could have Shatter as an excuse to add two additional skeletons when the mod says to only increase it to five.

Now, granted, if that level 3 Wizard does have Shatter, that's great! Let the Wizard shine! However, if that Wizard doesn't have Shatter (as in my case, where I took Continual Flame and Rope Trick) then it's a sucky move and can end in a party wipe.

No one should have to build their character in the fear that the DM is going to use assumptions in building encounters.

#16

Noon

Nov 26, 2014 16:03:13

Pauper wrote:

#17

Mommy_was_an_Orc

Nov 30, 2014 8:57:49

Pauper wrote:

#18

Noon

Nov 30, 2014 22:35:41

It's funny how the only name the non optimisers get is 'isn't an optimiser'. If they had a name, it'd be easier to say what they do warps the game for every person who is an optimiser.

As said, it seems more like D&D 5e is somewhere on the spectrum of optimising/not optimising - it requires some amount of optimisation by a player just for them to remember what to roll and what to add.