Out of couriosity: I have never played the game, so… is the game actually unplayable if you decide to be intolerant against one or more of these? (As in: Is the tolerance and representation part of the core mechanics or is this just meant as a statement?)

Even though I do not have a problem with treating the things mentioned with respect, something about this text irritates me, but I can’t put my finger on it. Which feels really weird because I don’t like the feeling of something being off even though I can’t spot anything that actually bothers me.

I can now confidently say that I am a Veteran because I have no idea how the players should’ve known to just start murdering people.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is salt in the wound?

Probably. But some things just don’t make sense no matter how hard you try.

I mean… Gnolls are evil. Basically all fiends are evil. Having evil races where killing them is almost always morally correct is not a problem in itself. The problem is making it so that some races are inherently evil without actually explaining why. All my examples have some kind of cosmic evil embedded in their nature. But that’s not gonna be the norm. If all your evil races and all your good races are so by nature without any way of changing that, it’s bad writing and bears the risk of implying that people are created either good or evil.

And as far as I can remember, that kind of explanation never existed for Orcs or Kobolds. They were evil by nature without explanation.

I think you overestimate how many people are gonna care about that kind of things when their lives are at stake. Rats are not that rare or unusual.

Sounds like the real problem was not your strategy but the fact that this weapon was very much not scaling with you powerlevel and really unbalanced.

I am somehow very happy that you actually mentioned that you’ve never played DnD. The honesty just feels very refreshing somehow.

While that is correct, it’s not like your allies are indestructible cover, so I’d say it’s fair. But I don’t really have to tell you I guess.

So when he realised that your last build would have been more balanced then the current one, he just decided to do what he could have done from the start by adding more enemies?

What template was he using before?

I meant consistently as in “has no chance of failure”. Wish is already powerful enough and is likely intended as the “brute force solution” anyway.

A fair method. I sometimes wish DnD was designed around it a bit more.

I know you did. Not saying you didn’t. I just wanted to mention it.

And generally I think you’re right.

I think the only capstones really worth it are from Cleric, Paladin and maybe Barbarian or Artificer. Fighter is cool, but also a bit lackluster.

This rule has been in the book ever since the PHB first released. If this was something you didn’t use, you either missed it or played a different edition.

I think people overestimate what hiding can do for you. Hiding does not immediately shield you from harm. You can’t hide if there’s nothing to hide behind. If an enemy walks around your cover, even the best stealth roll in the whole world won’t keep you hidden.

How did the DM react to your new strategy?

I actually don’t like the “magic exist so fuck simulatiounism” reasoning, since it implies that as soon as magic exists, any rational explanations are off the table. I generally prefer to establish what can and can’t be done, so we have as baseline for what’s possible. Otherwise you quickly loose consistency. Martials should be able to do more than regular people in our world, but there should be guidelines on what they can do.

Yes the game is not a simulation. But I prefer using examples aside from magic. Magic is not simplification for game purposes, magic is part of the setting. Things like HP, the turn order and armor class vs. saving throws generally work better as comparisons.

This as well. Because while a more diverse set of abilities would be cool, if you make it too diverse, everyone suddenly becomes a jack of all trades, master of many and that feels boring.

Very much this. It even feels very “rogueish” to employ that strategy and it’s far from broken, so I don’t see why you would ban it.