Some stuff I would do to fix 5e

[Dr.Samurai]

This absolutely killed me lol

Word. Melee brawlers for life.

I recently made the very painful decision to reduce my barb/rogue's str by 2 so I could pick up resilient: wis. Also gonna pick up a Stone of Good Luck as soon as I possibly can. As much as I want to brawl, failing every wisdom save and getting locked for turns at a time sucks really bad. Can't brawl if I'm literally shaking in fear. I hate this game.

I don't often make optimization decisions like this - sacrificing something I want to be really good at in order to shore up a hole. Usually, I'll just play my one trick pony and RP the downside. But there's no way to roleplay falling for every charm and fear effect. It's just an embarrassing level of incompetence for a what should be a seasoned warrior.

Dude... truer words have never been spoken. I'm playing a rune knight and grabbed Mobile and Charger, just to see what it would be like if I could dash around and still get a nice beefy power attack. Which is to say that I'm not trying to eke out maximum output in all my build choices. I still wind up grabbing Resilient Wisdom because this is exactly right. This game abuses martials so badly.

I think I am actually with you on this one, most optimization makes some assumptions of what the rest of the party is doing. And presence is undervalued, presense as how much you can deny going at the party by being an active target.

It really makes a big difference, and informs how the DM acts with his monsters.

TM I think brought up most of this with the gunk awhile back, dealing damage but that is all your doing.

If I have the right of it, there was a disagreement on the Gunk on his discord, and someone mentioned that TTB thought he was "only" mid-optimization, and so he threw out a video of the Gunk as a cautionary tale in taking any old optimization advice lol. My point is different to the point he was making I think. I feel like I'm sort of undervaluing big damage, but I think it's important to support the party with a bit more than that.

I am more thinking the values are a bit screwy with melee vs ranged, safety should have more of a cost to it or melee should have gains for the greater risk.

Completely agree. It's way too easy to be a ranged character in this game and have as much or greater impact than a frontliner, but from the safety of a coward's perch the backline.

Yes it does. Says so in the SA compendium.

Ah yes, Schrodinger's Authority. We don't know if Sage Advice is an authority or not an authority until we understand if it agrees with us or not. Until then, it is simultaneously a valid and invalid source to call upon.

[Witty Username]

Ah yes, Schrodinger's Authority. We don't know if Sage Advice is an authority or not an authority until we understand if it agrees with us or not. Until then, it is simultaneously a valid and invalid source to call upon.

I didn't want this to overtake the conversation, but I would rather try to put this to bed.

IMO, life cleric plus ranger is a fair combination even if goodberry doesn't mix with it, you still have other healing options (healing word, cure wounds, healing spirit). And it gives ranger a bunch of stuff to do that is both helpful and works with them being at range.

As for it working, my dividing line (and I don't expect anyone else to think this way) is if an effect only exists in the context of a spell, its a spell effect.
Fireball, is a spell, the fire it leaves afterward is not. So far so good.
Conjure spells bring a creature to the field, wolves aren't spells.

Now the tricky parts,
Aura of Vitality, is a spell, the aura it generates isn't something that is the result of a spell that could exist outside its context, and so it is the effect of the spell including its healing
Summons spells, the creature they create and is knock on effects like attacks are the spell, because unlike conjure spells they don't involve a creature that exists outside the spell effect in any way.

So to goodberry, its a spell, that creates goodberries. What are goodberries, the effect of the goodberry spell. They aren't something like healing potions that have a possible origin outside the effect, or a conequene like fireball setting a wooden rampart ablaze that could arise from other effects. They are the spell.

If say you could get goodberries as an uncommon magic item, I would see it differently but as they are, they are a spell that heals. To say otherwise would amount to saying fireball doesn't deal fire damage, it creates fire and the damage is a consequence of that.

If none of this makes sense, don't worry about it, just do what makes sense.

[Theodoxus]

Not to conflate the this thread with the Rulings discussion on the Counterspell thread, but Sage Advice really is just Rulings by a recognized DM and has as much authority as one cares to give it.

I mean, if one of the Matt's (Mercer or Coville) posted a ruling about something, I'm sure some would take it as from on high and others would poopoo it into the ground. SA is no different.

I find discussions from devs regarding Rules as They had Intended more interesting, since then we see the thinking behind the rules - and can make better informed decisions on how they should interact when things aren't clear cut.

[Skrum]

Not to conflate the this thread with the Rulings discussion on the Counterspell thread, but Sage Advice really is just Rulings by a recognized DM and has as much authority as one cares to give it.

I mean, if one of the Matt's (Mercer or Coville) posted a ruling about something, I'm sure some would take it as from on high and others would poopoo it into the ground. SA is no different.

I find discussions from devs regarding Rules as They had Intended more interesting, since then we see the thinking behind the rules - and can make better informed decisions on how they should interact when things aren't clear cut.

I agree with this - make of other people's ideas and ruling what you want, but ultimately the DM at the table is going to need to make a decision (even if that decision is just to copy someone else's decision).

I personally don't put a ton of stock into Sage Advice or Jeremy Crawford's rulings just cause I feel like time and again he's shown a...weird lack of knowledge about the game he helped make? At the very least he's thinking in terms that don't match the kind of games I play in.

[Dalinar]

I personally don't put a ton of stock into Sage Advice or Jeremy Crawford's rulings just cause I feel like time and again he's shown a...weird lack of knowledge about the game he helped make? At the very least he's thinking in terms that don't match the kind of games I play in.

This is probably a result of having had to see and playtest a ton of internal ideas that never saw the light of day. I've seen developers of other games run into this situation in interviews, where they have to take a moment to separate the stuff they tried from the stuff that players will see, to the point of mixing up names and the like.

I think those documents are useful because they clarify developer intent, and so when there are questions about whether something is or isn't RAW they are useful for that. However, DMs having to rule on situations not predicted by the rules is kind of an expectation in this medium. In actual play, developer intent doesn't matter as much as what will be fun for the table (short and long term).

[Psyren]

This is probably a result of having had to see and playtest a ton of internal ideas that never saw the light of day. I've seen developers of other games run into this situation in interviews, where they have to take a moment to separate the stuff they tried from the stuff that players will see, to the point of mixing up names and the like.

I think it's more likely that Crawford has to design for thousands of tables and he aims more toward the median experience than that of an outlier table.

I think those documents are useful because they clarify developer intent, and so when there are questions about whether something is or isn't RAW they are useful for that. However, DMs having to rule on situations not predicted by the rules is kind of an expectation in this medium. In actual play, developer intent doesn't matter as much as what will be fun for the table (short and long term).

Right, and the only reasonable way to achieve that is to leave it up to that table's DM.