Do you consider 5e (the subject of this thread) one of those "certain role playing systems"?
While 5e is significantly better than 3.X (3.0, 3.5, and PF1e), that is somewhat like saying that the top of Mount Everest is significantly more survivable than the vacuum of space. The statement is completely true--not even just technically true--but "more survivable" and "not dangerous to survival" are not the same thing.
So, while I fully grant that 5e has come down from the bonkers extremes of the past, I still find that it gives much too much to some and basically nothing to others. Keep in mind, part of my reasoning there is that I consider common, shared baselines to not count for or against either side. That is, for example, every character gets four skill proficiencies as an absolute baseline, so "you can contribute through skill checks" is irrelevant--everyone can do that, that's background radiation. Bards and Rogues get more skills and a wider selection, so that
does count to some extent (albeit, IMO, relatively weakly.) Now, if skills were as broad and flexible as they were in 4e, this
might be a different story, but I fear 5e has mostly hewed to the narrow methods of 3.X and previous editions.
I'm not clear how degenerate cases really prove much of anything when we're discussing a table of cooperating players who are willing to share the spotlight. Degenerate cases typically don't exist at such tables.
Well, the issue is that
the system itself was the degenerate case. It didn't even have to be Druid, though that class was the one most prone to it (literally just taking one PHB feat was enough to make the Druid the second- or third-most powerful class in the whole game, and even
without Natural Spell, Druids were still crazy strong.)
Again, the issue (for me) is not solely "the Druid
can fix everything, and is
choosing to fix everything, so no one else has anything meaningful to do." Instead, it is that a Druid simply trying to play well--not even trying to do amazing!--CAN at any point do that. Meaning, the only reason I get to contribute anything meaningful is because said Druid is
choosing not to do everything. Hence why I said it feels patronizing, and why I referenced
Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit, which you should totally watch if you haven't. Five minutes of pretty good humor, almost Pythonesque.
If you have even a
moderately well-built Wizard or Cleric in the party, they can do just as well, just in their own way. That's why we have "God Wizard" builds (which, while the guide is written tongue-in-cheek, really do present
allowing others to do things as a gracious act, since it would be quicker and simpler to do it yourself if you really wanted to.) That's why we have "CoDzilla" (Cleric or Druid zilla.) Given you're unfamiliar with the Angel Summoner reference, you're probably unfamiliar with those terms as well. Point being, some classes were just head and shoulders above everyone else; for them, optimizing simply made them grossly overpowered as opposed to slightly overpowered, while for classes like Monk, Fighter, and Paladin, optimization was necessary
just to pull your own weight.
Degenerate example aside, the example I gave was of someone trying to do it all and not sharing the spotlight. In 5e, if you have a party of PCs around the same level and players willing to share the spotlight, your concerns would not come to fruition, IMO.
And I responded with an example of someone who not only
could try to do it all, but who really could say, "Anything you can do, I can do better." Instead, they
graciously allow me to do it myself, even though my efforts will be inferior to theirs. That bothers me almost as much as the person who hogs the spotlight. And no amount of niceties on the part of the player can fix this--it is literally baked directly into their choice of playing one of those "tier 1" classes. (Archivist, Artificer, and Spell-to-Power Erudite were the other three classic "tier 1" classes, though the Artificer required rather more optimization than the others of its tier.)
5e, as stated, is
much better about this than 3e was. I'll never deny this. But I still find that the high-tier classes (primarily Wizard, Bard, and Cleric) leave the low-tier classes (Rogue, Fighter, Monk) in the dust for nearly every contribution they could make, unless of course the latter choose spellcasting subclasses. And then there's the poor Ranger, that not even spellcasting compensates for. Non-spellcasters (and Rangers) are simply, consistently,
permanently at a disadvantage compared to spellcasters, and non-spellcasting solutions are essentially always inferior to spellcasting solutions for the vast majority of problems a party can face. Why bother bringing a Fighter when a Paladin is just as good for combat and brings a bunch of extra flexibility too?
I don't like playing a game and feeling like a second-class citizen solely because I feel like playing a monk this campaign.
