D&D (2024) Can A Spell Caster Out Damage a Martial Consistently?

I guess it depends on your interpretation of "doffing". I have the feeling it is more intended as "sheathing" or holstering your shield back onto its' pin. To carry it around on your person. What my player does is loosen the band and toss aside the 🛡 (that has its downsides), But seems more like what you would do instead of take your time to slide it back over that peg. Again though, not really RAW unless you really wanted to lawyer it up

tetrasodium said:

No I am reading it, we disagree on a fundamental issue though. If one were to present a curve showing average games they would find a large number of the ones you describe as fairly typical games well into the upper fraction of that curve's upper fraction. The fact that your group felt the need that limits rings to no more than three per PC when three rings on a single PC is already well beyond the norm shows the expected plotting on that curve

You seem to be taking the phrase as a slight, it's simply descriptive & many of us enjoy both mmos as well. I have never once seen or heard a player at a table I ran sat at or sat near try to buy dozens of healing potions. In MMOs however it's the norm to have players be expected to stock up on consumables like that unless the inventory system makes doing so unrealistic. The pace of those "only 3" games sounds a lot closer to what is often seen in MMO gameplay than d&d where it's not uncommon for me to play in a game that runs for several months to a year or so yet never comes close to level 20, the games I run are even further from that point and regularly run for a year or more of weekly sessions but only have players reaching low to mid teens before calling things on that campaign*

It wasn't that many hours ago that I admitted to running a lot of AL games in the past, those two (sometimes 3) time a week sessions running AL are run using the various hardcover adventures, I'm quite familiar with the speed of leveling with the experience gained in those adventures & watched multiple groups advance through them even though I feel that it was still too fast. If you are playing with a GM who chooses to ignore the experience progression in order to fast forward through levels (like those 3 games) it's still an unusually fast rate of advancement even when done under the umbrella of "we are using milestone leveling"

ALL of that is not making your case for those games being well representative of average play. What it does instead is demonstrate just how far those games are outside the fat middle end of the curve. You might play with some groups where the gameplay is closer to an average game, but we never hear about them and you regularly bring up how some extreme outlier game isn't that unusual in a very specific way if you look at x & y but ignore all of the other unusual elements that have their own x & y technicality.

*Yes those campaigns are a statistical outlier & I 100% know that my posting history will show multiple posts outright opening with that sort of admission when bringing up those games to make a point .

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His expectations are actually fairly close to the new DMG guidelines. Only thing his group differently to most was bulk buying the best equipment.

When I did my stress test I let PCs pick with veto power to stop something like ECOM3 group. I didn't know about vicious weapons then. You woukd have to use a flametongue instead.

You're looking at a very rare and two rare arms each by level 12ish. Picking what you like in whatever quantity you like has always been a problem eg 3E and 4E.

My group will likely have something similar to RAW suggestions but pro ably a legendary each.
A lot a limited though DM specials. Circlet of Radiant blasting once per dsy lvl 3 scorching ray that deals radiant damage.

There will be two vicious weapon not two each. Ones a staff the others a trident.

The legendaries will be a staff, spell caster booster, greatsword and a short sword. Mostly +3 with some spells attached.

tetrasodium said:

No I am reading it, we disagree on a fundamental issue though. If one were to present a curve showing average games they would find a large number of the ones you describe as fairly typical games well into the upper fraction of that curve's upper fraction. The fact that your group felt the need that limits rings to no more than three per PC when three rings on a single PC is already well beyond the norm shows the expected plotting on that curve

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Again please read what I posted.

THE RULES limited rings of resistance to three (thee attunements) in the 2014 rules.

In the 2024 rules the DM in one of the game houseruled 2 rings maximum because the rules changed.
This was at 20th level. According to the DMG a party should get about 100 magic items by 20th level, including 23 rare items, 19 very rare and 11 Legendary. We had more Rare items than this but less very rare and only 1 Legendary I think.

So I don't know if the amount of magic we had was typical for a 20th level party, it was a bit high in my experience, but it was below the guidelines in the DMG.

Regarding the bell curve, I agree those groups play very fast and that is not in the center of the curve.

I likewise would offer that very few people play to 20th level at all so the average level my PC is at is probably well off the center of the curve too. However I don't think my experiences at 20th level are outside the normal for other groups playing from level 1-20. I think I am right in the middle of people playing at high level..

Regarding how we play though, I don't know what you are graphing, but when you say things like I play games like they are one shots or that I play like they are MMOs you are flat wrong. I play fast and I play at high level and if you stick to that in your commentary about my play I would not have a problem.

So maybe that is not typical, but it is within the limits described by the DMG.

I do play in slower games as well. I use less examples from them becuase I have less examples. Those games move slower and do not cover as much ground and therefore provide less information to pull from. I can tell you what a Fey Wanderer Ranger plays like from level 1 to 20 because I have played several at all of those levels. I can tell you what I have seen in terms of the highest damage characters in 2024 because I have played multiple games from 1 to high level using the 2024 rules. The slower games I play offer insights, but over far fewer campaigns, far fewer levels and with less diversity in terms of character builds. I do consider these slower games, but there is less information there. The information that is there is not much different though.

Also, unless a group is playing fast they have no data at all to draw conclusions on 1-20 play using the 2024 rules. If your game is a game where it takes 3 years to do 20 levels then you are about level 4 right now in a 2024 campaign that started in September. In this respect I think my speed is not very abnormal for groups that have actually played 1-20 using 2024 rules, maybe a little fast but groups that are not playing close to that fast don't have any experience yet covering all levels in the new rules.

tetrasodium said:

You seem to be taking the phrase as a slight, it's simply descriptive & many of us enjoy both mmos as well.

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I don't. I have played Neverwinter with my son who does (or did) enjoy it and I didn't.

tetrasodium said:

I have never once seen or heard a player at a table I ran sat at or sat near try to buy dozens of healing potions.

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How many games have you played with the 2024 rules? It took a bit for use to figure it out and before that they were not nearly as powerful.

How does it go at your table when you buy potions of healing? At most tables I play on it is like: "You can get any adventuring gear at this store, you remove the gold and add the gear". The DM does not hound over you to see what you buy. Occasionally they role play it, that is uncommon though. If asked, commonly they also say "you can buy poitions of healing" or less commonly "you can't by potions of healing" when asked.

I can honestly say I have never heard a DM qualify it as "you can buy potions of healing, but only 5 of them for the party"

Have you ever had a DM say this in play?

I run it as just because in phb you can't buy it in unlimited quantities.

That's more common magic items and full plate. You can buy full players but not 10 suits of it.

Vendors restock about once a week depends though.

Even with my more limited numbers available my PCs aren't exactly struggling most of the time. 8 encounters might do it I'll find out next week. 2 low, high 4 medium ones.

Damage mitigation and initiative manipulation though is more relevant. New alert feat means a key PC can be put first in initiative. If the NPCs can't do anything first they get wrecked. +0 or +1 will saves not good on CR 5 and 8 opponents vs DC 16-18.

Zardnaar said:

His expectations are actually fairly close to the new DMG guidelines. Only thing his group differently to most was bulk buying the best equipment.

When I did my stress test I let PCs pick with veto power to stop something like ECOM3 group. I didn't know about vicious weapons then. You woukd have to use a flametongue instead.

You're looking at a very rare and two rare arms each by level 12ish. Picking what you like in whatever quantity you like has always been a problem eg 3E and 4E.

My group will likely have something similar to RAW suggestions but pro ably a legendary each.
A lot a limited though DM specials. Circlet of Radiant blasting once per dsy lvl 3 scorching ray that deals radiant damage.

There will be two vicious weapon not two each. Ones a staff the others a trident.

The legendaries will be a staff, spell caster booster, greatsword and a short sword. Mostly +3 with some spells attached.

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In the game I DM I just flat banned viscous weapons after witnessing what happened in my first 2024 campaign as a player. They still aren't banned in any of the games I am a player in though.

To be clear, it is very campaign dependant what we can buy in terms of magic items. In a majority of campaigns we can't buy anything other than normal potions of healing and low level spell scrolls. The campaign you are referring to it was pretty much anything up to Rare that we had money for, which is how we got to lots of rings and viscous weapons.

ECMO3 said:

In the game I DM I just flat banned viscous weapons after witnessing what happened in our first 2024 campaign.

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The issue wasn't they exist but you let the be bought in bulk on the best weapon types.

Vicious one handed weapons (not twf ones) or bows they're fine.

Vicious daggers probably fine as well maybe scimitar.

One PC had to sign a infernal pact for her staff.

Zardnaar said:

Damage mitigation and initiative manipulation though is more relevant. New alert feat means a key PC can be put first in initiative. If the NPCs can't do anything first they get wrecked. +0 or +1 will saves not good on CR 5 and 8 opponents vs DC 16-18.

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Initiative is much more important in 2024 than it was in 2014. It is enough that the standard 8 Dexterity heavy weapon build is not viable any more without you or multiple other people in the party having alert.

ECMO3 said:

Initiative is much more important in 2024 than it was in 2014. It is enough that the standard 8 Dexterity heavy weapon build is not viable any more without you or multiple other people in the party having alert.

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Wouldn't argue much vs that statement.

My players figured out heavy armor is bad long time ago. They generally have 14 dex medium armor especially clerics.

Espicially when they have to use a bow and you have 8 or 10 dex at best and throw weapons with disadvantage.

Zardnaar said:

Wouldn't argue much vs that statement.

My players figured out heavy armor is bad long time ago. They generally have 14 dex medium armor especially clerics.

Espicially when they have to use a bow and you have 8 or 10 dex at best and throw weapons with disadvantage.

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Yeah, I am still figuring out '24 a bit... but you'll get no argument out of me on the initiative topic or solidness of 'alert' background

I'm not sold that initiative matters more in 2024 than in 2014.

But the 2024 Alert feat is absolute gold on any kind of control focused caster.

Though high initiative is often a bit overrated in general for most PCs in most combats. As an example in a 1v1 encounter winning initiative is like getting a whole extra turn. in a 4v1 encounter it's most likely the enemy goes somewhere in the middle of team PC - that's on average much less than a full turn advantage on the enemy. And it's skewed even more away from a full turn advantage in a 4v4 encounter (where initiative is rolled separately for all combatants).