[5E Optimization]Joining a 5E Starter Set game, cheese me up

[fectin]

Possibly because no-one who might have objected gave a shit about 4E anyway?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Possibly because no-one who might have objected gave a shit about 4E anyway?

5E D&D is specifically designed to cater to audiences who think that game balance ends at 'fighter good, cleric bad!', that rolling a '1' should always lead to something bad no matter what the context, that people who want non-MTP game options more complicated than 'I waste it with my crossbow' are goddamn munchkins, and that the DM Is Always Right And In Need Of A Blowjob.

You might have noticed that this also perfectly describes the zeitgeist of the 4Erries that stuck around after the sixth month mark. I'm sure you can connect the dots from here.

[Voss]

I think that in the long run, the sorcerer is going to become the best class short of 5E D&D deciding to make Pearls of Power really cheap and available or deciding to make the encounter design deliberately embrace the 5-minute workday. They're just structurally the best-built class. They have access to the highest numerical amount of spells and all that's needed to make metamagic the best class feature in the game are a couple of feats or new archetypes. Thus all they really need are a couple of expansion books to widen their utility.

For damage, yeah, I agree. But on the other hand, the weird and abusable stuff is forbidden to them with pretty extreme prejudice. From demiplanes, tiny huts, creation or much of anything at all to beat the game around the head outside of combat. Even the basic version of animate dead or any summoning type spells are off the list. Dominates are in, but that is about the limit of their interaction beyond 'do damage' and the occasional SoL.

I'll believe it when I see it. The 4Erry crowd clapped like trained, brain-damaged seals in clown suits every time new errata came out. Even when unpopular errata like the Magic Missile came out no one objected to 4E D&D's way of dealing with errata in the abstract.

The difference is the big portion of the 5e crowd is convinced that optimization doesn't (or shouldn't) happen, so taking out things that do things other than 'throw fire' (which of course they wouldn't abuse anyway) is taking away their toys with 'perfectly legitimate' reasons for existing in world. Which is something that the Real Roleplayers (or however they think of themselves) won't stand for.

The other side of the coin is I really don't see Mikey and company bothering to do the work the errata requires. I expect a more Games Workshop approach with long delayed and half-hearted errata that doesn't really do much beyond rewrite sentences so the 'obvious interpretation' is actually readable.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Yes, that's the current state of the sorcerer. However, as expansion material grows they're going to get leaked some of the options -- especially since they don't even have a bard or druid-like flavor cockblock. The plot-breaking spells will have to be line-item vetoed by the game designers and it only matters if a few of them leak through.

And this is of course discounting the existence of a magic item or feat or sorcerer archetype that's just straight-up 'plunder a spell from this list'. If they release something like an 'arcanist' option which lets them pluck spells from the wizard list then that's that. And since they already fucked that chicken with the bard, it's only a matter of time until the sorcerer gets it. Even 4E D&D couldn't resist the siren's call of cross-schtick pollution.

The difference is the big portion of the 5e crowd is convinced that optimization doesn't (or shouldn't) happen, so taking out things that do things other than 'throw fire' (which of course they wouldn't abuse anyway) is taking away their toys with 'perfectly legitimate' reasons for existing in world.

You way underestimate the capacity for doublethink of this crowd. The belief that optimization in 5E doesn't happen under a competent DM/rulesset and munchkins needing to be headed off at the pass with targeted nerfs is a cognitive dissonance that the 5mind and TTRPGers in general gleefully embrace. You can already see this happening on, say, the Giant in the Playground forums when discussions of polymorph and animate dead are brought up. The first line of defense are Oberoni and Stormwind fallacies and the second line is them shrieking like castrated goats for the developers to STOP THESE MUNCHKIN EXPLOITS OMG.