Recent content by EzekielRaiden

So they reflect real life when it's useful to you, and don't reflect real life when that would be useful to you. I hope you can see why this argument looks like cherry-picking. While I am not surprised that you haven't played it, I genuinely am surprised to hear that you would give it a shot...

Almost entirely among forum-goers. So where does that put your analysis here? It was the forum-goers who hated 4e. Their sustained hate campaign would have been impressive if it weren't so depressing.

So.... WotC built D&D 5e based on feedback from unrepresentative forum-goers who created a game that most people play for only a couple of years and then quit? That sounds like a really damning conclusion!

You keep tripping on the word "optimized". You don't need to be optimized. You just need to be not-stupid. Genuinely. Plenty of people I've talked to--on and off forums--have specifically seen people stumble into ridiculously OP stuff. Because that's how utterly borked 3rd Edition was.

Not at all. It is a matter of one player being GIVEN superiority by the game, solely for their aesthetic choices, while another is crapped on by the game, solely for their aesthetic choices. This is a game design principle I despise.

No. Tolerance for degrees of imbalance is subjective. Imbalance is, in the vast majority of cases, rooted in objective analysis. Doesn't this blow a hole wide open in the claim, then, that forum-goers are necessarily incapable of representing the average player specifically because people have...

It doesn't need DMM cheese. Literally just the PHB1 Druid, played with even a modicum of intelligence, will outshine Fighters or Monks in the party. You get an entire SECOND CHARACTER. For free. That is almost as good as having another Fighter in the party!

They don't need to "figure out" anything. The innate, radical imbalance is so severe, more than half the time they'll just stumble into it.

Then put it this way: WotC themselves, using their own data about 5e, concluded that players were NOT happy about multiple underpowered options in 5.0. Warlocks and Rangers in general (and to a lesser extent Fighters in general), Berskerers and Champions in specific. I mean, unless you're...

... I used people in this thread as an example of this actually happening at real tables, yes. But it doesn't have to be them. It can literally be anyone. Literally anyone writing "Cleric" or "Druid" at the top of their sheet is already MILES ahead of someone who writes "Monk" at the top of...

I never spoke of people on this forum. I spoke of people writing Cleric or Druid on their sheet.

Are...you seriously saying that no average player ever plays a Cleric or Druid?

A hemomancer--inspired directly by ATLA's bloodbending. Someone whose magic specifically affects blood, and things that possess blood. The vampire has them under their thrall, but not actually a spawn or vampire, because only someone with living blood of their own can become such. The...

...I am talking about 3.5e, Zardnaar.

As usual, your apologia of 3e and your hatred of 4e shine through.