u/Zardnaar

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Its been a while since ive played them

Normally I'm a builder. Recently played pirates and gaians

So I was playing as pirates on the second highest difficulty iirc.

Anyway all my cities died and turned into colony ships. Late game was getting near ascending.

Reloaded autosave same thing happened..

Quit and started new game random faction. Got pirates again.

Is this a glitch or a pirates thing?

So yesterday I started a new campaign for my second group. Party was fey warlock, champion fighter, wikd sorcerer and homebrew invention domain cleric.

I used the Tide of Teeth adventure in Baldurs Gate section of Adventures in Faerun. Fleshed out the city ising that, Descent into Avernus,the 1990 Forgotten Realms Adventures amd a few locations from Saltmarsh (3.5 DMG 2).

Ran it as a sandbox. I prepped 3 short sidequest adventures. They did 5/6 encounters (fleeing 1)and I used some 3D terrain and a 3D ship, deck plans in a map book and some tiles of a ship for the lower decks.

Anyway level 3. Everyone gets a subclass. Inter class balance is mostly fine. Primary casters have 5 spells minimum. We had 1 short rest the warlock got 4 lvl 2 spells. Sorcerer empowered 2 chromatic orbs lvl 2 both bounced and twinned a tashas hideous laughter. In effect cast 3 level 2 spells and a wild surge dealt 4d10 damage on top of the COs bouncing.

We are having a rogue player join us next session. Level 3 and 4 they're fine. New player on tbe warlock she had played BG3 a bit and her bladelock did really well. Agonizing blast true strike. Sorcerer had Sorcererous Burst explode a few times as well.

As DM prepping was easy. Took maybe an hour and I have the other two Adventures in my back pocket. Im using 5 factions and the side quests give magic items and reknown. I let the characters from the 2024 starter set keep their items and the new characters got an uncommon item or 2 common (subject to approval). + 1 longsword, wands of the warmage, clockwork amulet and Gleaming half plate were chosen. Fighter had +1 plate from the starter set he aquired at lvl 2.

Combat flows fast. Character creation went faster than anticipated. A ship isnt a big dungeon as such. Adding a few linea of dialogs etc up the next main quest adventure and 2 more side quests. 4 hour session. Basically I enjoyed it, players had fun and pickup new player wants more and got along well with the group. Its easy to run, fun to build and not to complicated for newbies and everyone else.

Thoughts?

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Basically your thoughts on taking the EK, renaming it to Divine Champion.

Replace the word wizard with cleric and intelligence to wisdom. It uses cleric spell list.

Thoughts? Any big problems one can think of?

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So using the encounter rules 6 lvl 8 PC (1 was an NPC) encountered a beholder.

Tough fight. Terrain, flight, antimagic and DC 16 eye rays+ legendary actions resulted in a bit of control shutting PCs down. Paralyzed, sleep one almost got petrified, death rays dropped a PC, the NPC got disintegrated as reduced to 0 hp even half damage on save you get disintegrated.

Tension was through the roof.

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So online theres a lot of discussions around martials being underpowered, this class sucks and 5MWD etc. Sometimes theres some pushback sometimes not. Usually its because someone one has sit-down crunching numbers. Treantmonk does it and everyone kind of jumps on the bandwagon. Treantmonk has been around since 3E at least online and I remember him from that era. Early 2000's.

The big problem with this approach however is simple. Every DM is different. For example Treantmonk posted a wizard video where he dump stats his wisdom. In my games thats a terrible idea. I don't 5MWD in my games and I use a variety of encounters, techniques etc to keep PCs on their toes. Also martials in my games tend to get good magic weapons so a white room theory craft won't work. A spell caster dumping wisdom would be begging for a double tap.

The typical D&D player is hard to pin down. WotC has released some numbers. I dont think they're lying and I have had suspicions about some things since 3E at least. The typical player is more casual, probably has only played 5E, is 18-39 years old and the combat day is 1-3 encounters. Apparently most games wrap up by level 7, 10% hit lvl 10 and high level games are 1%. By any conceivable metric my games are not typical. Swings older with half the group having 16-33 years experience playing. My games typically end around level10-13.

DPR calculations are good comparing strikers to strikers but fail hard at other things like support. For example I have been playing a Cartographer lvl 1-8. Basically sucks at damage but I've built it as a hybrid support/controller that manipulates initiative. Not as good as a primary caster in a white room but probably better than a Rogue. For damage I use cantrips and an enspelled weapon with guiding bolt. Guiding bolt functionally is my cantrip and in effect I'm the tactical co-ordinator. Works very well but you cant really account for that in a white room. Any downtime I'm crafting scrolls. Its a lot of fun to lay, effective and the other players love buffs.

Ask the DM also helps a lot. Back in 3E prestige classes were strictly optional. The internet treated them as RAW. This applies to most things outside the PHB. If you take this spell add it to this ability from this book then add xyz etc sure. Most people probably don't own those books or know enough to look ut up online. We do but we are not typical players. Silvery Barbs a problem? Just say no.

Rangers and Rogues might be the worst classes. But if most games are over by level 7 you wont really notice as they're both good tier 1. This also assumes the games is combat heavy. They suck for DPR. Theres 3 pillars to the game. That assumes everyone knows how to optimize for damage. Veterans and powergamers can. Reverse gravity into prismatic wall. How many people will see that actually happen? Remember when Conjure Minor Elemental comes online? Its around the same levels as Rakshasa and Beholders start turning up.

As always ask the DM;).

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So 5.5 has guidelines about what to hand out and when in terms of rarity. I'm running a bit close to that. I treat it as guidelines for a 4 person party. Mines 6 person so im running a bit higher in quantity. 5.5 guidelines dont account for party size. Strict RAW smaller party is better.

Generally magic items are an art form not a science. 3E and 4E tried to price them better but in effect obsoleted 80-90% of them. One can still do the magic item mart in 5.5 but you might need to do it yourself or find a DM who does. I prefer sell the occasional item. Alot of D&D boils down to ask the DM.

The other slight problem is online discourse. Some people claim one can't hand out xyz items often when they have contrived some fantasy scenario that falls apart. Some DMs might sell common items, forget they exist or not sell them in unlimited quantity. 1000 gp theoretically can buy 20 potions of healing or 20 clockwork amulets. I do not but you can buy a smalker amount of healing potions. In all editions bulk items tend to beat 1 expensive one

The rules say that the first rare item drops tier 1 and the first very rare can drop tier 2. That can be level 1 and 5. Older D&D editions this was common enough. Here's a frost brand at level 5 or 6. Heres a +1 flaming sword that deals +1d6 damage lvl 2.

The 2024 starter set has a set of +1 full plate. This dropped level 2 in my game. RAW thats fine its a rare item dropping tier 1. Great find right? This is essentially how older D&D operated.

Note this however doesn't give PCs any control over drops. A hard ass DM can essentially screw PCs over. +1 chain mail is worse than full plate AC wise. A +2 weapon, shield, +1 armor and a vicious weapon are all the same rarity. Older D&D favored martial items more than spellcaster items. No attunement so a magical fighter with two +3 or better weapons, armor, boots, cloak, gauntlets etc wasn't uncommon. I've seen a level 13 2E fighter solo a lich, adult dragon and marilith in 3 rounds. Old D&D could do that. Modern D&D not so much.

So generally I continue that tradition. I do give spell casters items bit I'm careful about things like staffs of power and wands. A plus 1 or 2 spell DC item is fine 3 of them stackimg are not (+3-+9 spell DC) Generally you want to avoid over powered items that enable combos. Items with spells in them such damage dealing spells, buff spells, and are generally safer to hand out eg wands of magic missile or an and spelled weapon with guiding bolt. Decent items good, combo enablers and massive spell DC buffs bad. At low levels extra curated spells (scrolls, wands, enspwlled items)are nice, later on push martial items.

So what kind of weapons and armor should one hand out? In a white room two handed, dual wielding, sword and board then archery probably deal the most damage in that order.. Last two might be swapped around build depending eg hand crossbow. In a real game 1 handed weapons tend to drop more often than two handed and missile weapons in official adventures. Otherwise it varies by DM.

Generally you want to funnel the better weapons to the weaker styles and classes. If you do magic mart those styles will always be better. A rare greatsword costs roughly the same as a rare spear. If you funnel the best items to the best styles you're essentially encouraging players to always pick those styles. Worse if you have players in the same party using other styles getting a bit screwed if the great weapon user has a flametongue weapon and they have a +1 or none. Best styles best weapons bad idea. If a weaker styles has best weapons try and give the best styles something decent vs nothing. Example +2 greatsword, flametongue longsword.

Of Vicious Weapon.

The vicious weapon is a new item to 5.5. +2d6 damage, rare. No attunement required. They're kinda of just better than everything else thats rare. If you're doing magic mart a dual Wielder will probably to buy 2. Its more of an issue with magic mart than the weapon itself. Vicious wespons are nice to seed on weapons with smaller dice and back up weapons. Eg spears, javelin, shortbows and one handed weapons not generally used in dual wielding. Late tier 2 and early 3 you may place them for better styles without to many issues. A dual wielding champion with short sword and dagger both vicious level 12 is a beautiful thing. Basically be careful when and how you drop these. RAW you can drop them lvl 1. If a player got a ranger to level 11 a vicious weapon might turn up. They're a good band aid for the "weaker" classes no rewrite needed.

The Monk/Ranger/Rogue and the BG3 Effect

These are the classes that "suck". At least in damage theory craft white rooms. Rangers and rogues are fine tier 1. Monks are mostly fine as they have other options to layer onto their damage. White rooms doesn't account for overkill or finishing off multiple wounded foes on low HP via multiple weaker attacks. Rangers do start falling off around level 10 and 11, rogues fall off from lvl 5 and Monks need a smaller bump imho. A good magic weapon or item can be funneled to those classes to give them a boost.

In BG3 Monks are great due to items that stack and strength elixir. Ignoring strength elixirs they can get wisdom modifier to damage, an extra d4-d10 via gloves, d6 via amulet, d10 ascended Astarion etc. Effects that add more dice benefit classes with more attacks. Our party has a monk and she has the cold gloves from the game at lvl 8. Extra d4 cold damage on unarmed strikes. The barbarian has +1 are with extra d6 lightning damage whole the sword and board paladin has a legendary Morningstar thats a +3 +1 d6 lightning damage +1d10 crits. In effect they're all dealing similar damage depending on the situation. Barbarians and Monk will get some upgrades in near future, Paladins got his final weapon.

Selling Magic Items.

Personally don't like magic mart. I dont miss that from 3E and 4E. If you like it you can add it to 5.5. However I do want them to have a somewhat equal early game. I sell basic +1 items uncommon items. This is mostly shields weapons and +1 wands of the warmage and similar items. I do seed vendors around selling curated items. This gives PCs things to use money on while avoiding combos I dont want to deal with. Similar to BG3 but a lot less items. Curated items dont go above rares generally.

Other Sources.

Also buffs exploration. Sidequests often offer cash bonuses tied to things they can do in the main quests. Those rewards also get them reknown. Get enough reknown they get an uncommon item generally. I do not count these extra items against the DMG guidelines. Generally an extra curated uncommon item wont break the game. One PC really wants adamantine armor and 10 reknown with the purple dragon knights will do it. Of course factions and sidequests I use them to foreshadow events, rumors background information and recurring villains if theyre secretly a villian.

Crafting.

RAW one can craft. A lot of players don't bother. 5.0 didnt encourage it, most havent played 3E or 4E. I've had one PC be interested. They're not on a strict time limit but they dont have 50 days of down time either to craft a rare items. One PC has crafted a luckstone. Generally you dont want to over do it as it resurrects magic mart. Said player she's the resident power gamer and wants 6 uncommons. She didnt realize thats a huge % of the dmg recommendations. In effect its allow crafting but don't abuse it. Try abusing it that door closes. Tbf she has no rares but she does have several uncommon items she wanted. Monk has 3 rares go figure. She might get 6 eventually but not all at once.

Bastions.

We are testing bastions. Generally we kinda forgot and were to far away to use them much. They're about to hit level 9. Here they can function as magic item factories. They create items for sale, turn that money into a magic item they want. Wash, rinse repeat. I'm fine with them creating an item or 2 but I want to play D&D not turn it into an accounting and crafting simulator. Use it dont abuse it. One can always retire optional rules if it becomes an issue. Book keeping and accounting has sucked the fun out of games in older D&D that involved domain rules.

The Artificer

This class is really hard to rate. Its very player skill dependent and DM dependent. I dont count its replicate magic items against whatever I'm doing. I dont mind if they craft but dont want a self propelled magic item factory. Power wise I think they're probably ahead of rogues, Rangers and maybe Monks. Generous DM they can ascend to S tier. Overall theyre a B. In online theorycrafting 3/5 are great at level 11. I've had fun with the cartographer to lvl 8, armorer didnt enjoy it at 10, alchemist was weak tier 1 even vs cartographer. More testing required.

My Campaign (as DM)

Example. Current Party Lvl 8.

Current party With rares+

Barbarian: berzerker. +1 shocking axe (+1d6 lightning). 3.5 item, rare, +1 half plate.

Cleric:knowledge No rares. Headband of intellect, amulet of devotion+1, some other commons/uncommons.

Druid: star. Prayer beads, several uncommons including enspelled staff (cure)

Monk:shadow Bracers of defense, winter gloves, dragon hide belt

Paladin: avenger +2 charisma mask (very rare), legendary shocking burst Morningstar (3.5 items). Sword and board

Bard:lore +1 studded leather, +1 drums, vicious shortbow

Close to the dmg guidelines (added more 6 person party) 1 legendary added as extra (from older adventure).

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First things first. My group doesnt do 5 minutes work days. Usually we play to around level 10-13. I use the illusion of tension basically to prevent it. This assumes the 5MWD is actually a problem vs the internet making a mountain out of molehill. If people are having fun doing it I'm not arrogant enough to claim its wrong. My players get a player guide and a session 0 for new players where I cover how I run things and what to expect. I'm not a fan of gotcha type games.

What is the illusion of tension? Basically its the threat of consequences. This applies to combat as well. I dont actually want my players to die. In the last 7 years I have had 2 PCs die. One essentially suicided the other bit off more than she could chew and the dice went against her. I live with her and the basement is comfy.

The 5MWD to me is metagaming at its finest possibly cheating. Its mostly a DM skill issue. To some extent all editions of D&D have it but its made worse by modern D&D. Modern D&D is 3E onwards but 4E and 5E made it worse. This is basically due to regaining full hit points and spell slots overnight and how long combat takes. I have somewhat recently played 2E and 1E adventures using 2E and clones and the players had to return to town due to attrition via wandering monsters. Just walking around in the wilderness was exhausting. New D&D takes that attrition and turn it up to an 11 via ht point inflation and removal of various things.

Pulling a 5MW pre 3E could still easily get you killed due to damage scaling and things like save or die. Dragons breath or a fireball could outright kill you 1st encounter on full health. In 5E terms you regained 1-3 hit points overnight, fireball in effect dealt 15d6-30d6 (2E) and up to 60d6 (Pre 2E). Dragons breath could be around 70d10 or d12 in effect. It was actually 5-24 d6-d12. BUT monster hit points have inflated to around triple hp or more. PC hp was lower (around half at level 15+). A 5d6 2E fireball is better than an 8d6 5E one most of the time.

This is not a "Back in the good old days" things were better. Older D&D has its own set of issues eg THAC0. Its very noticeable when you play an older editions side by side with 5E vs 25-30 year old memories. I had reasonably low player fatalities back then as well. Due to the illusion of tension. Remember consequences. Its kind of the sword of damocles in a way. You dont want to kill your PCs but you want them to feel the risk of that sword. Older (pre 5E) D&D has things in it most players probably wouldn't accept now.

There is very little risk in 4E, 5.0 comparatively and modern playstyle reflects that and the players have figured it out. The risk is a bit higher in 5.5. High encounter, DM rolls well a crit and two or 3 hits can often drop a PC. 3E retained pre 3E death risk but in effect the hp attrition model collapsed and never really recovered. Not helped by rapid edition cycles where WotC has essentially reinvented the wheel 3 times. Pre 3E it was more evolution vs revolution with the various editions. Each new version creates new problems.

Side effect of more HP has resulted in slow combats along with a trend of needing a battle mat. Its difficult to fit in more than 3 combats in a 3 or 4 hour session unless they're fairly trivial. Combat slowed down 2E to 3E to 4E. 5.0 picked up again (closer to 3.0) 5.5 has slowed down again. 1 session equals one long rest is easier than keeping track of everything between sessions which might be 1-4 weeks apart ymmv. More incentive to 5MW in game and IRL constraints.

So how does it work in practice? Essentially I run a living world type game. The world keeps happening if the PCs do nothing. Mostly it's day to day life. But if theres an asteroid heading towards the PCs bastion and they choose to craft items instead vs doing something the asteroid will hit the bastion. To some extent this is the old realism vs gamist debate. I'm not trying to simulate real life just consequences for the most obvious things. If you decided to pick a fight with the local police, FBI, military, secret service etc, then decided to take a 8 hour break we can imagine the consequences. Storming Omaha beach and run out of ammo the world didn't freeze.

With new players in session 0 I normally compare spell slots to shotgun shells. Its up to you when you reload but remember it takes time. If you give the enemy 8 hours you may fail the quest. PCs may or may not know theres a time limit. They should be aware though there might be a time limit. Older adventures often had a Dungeon going on alert. If the PCs pulled a 5MWD things become harder. Residents move around the dungeon and reinforce, get reinforcements or evacuate.

If they evacuate they might take the best loot with them. I hated 3E and 4E magic mart and do a more pre 3E type of magic items. Fairly similar to the 5.5 DMG recommendation +50% as I have a larger party of 6. This means thr best items are in dungeons or owned by NPCs. If they withdraw or flee you potentially miss out. Tier 2 RAW rares and very rates start t drop with legendares in some adventures.RAW rare items can drop as early as tier 1. The 2024 starter I handed out +1 full plate at level 2 to a new player. Thats what the adventure had. If I seeded that in a real game they're PCs risk losing it if they pull a 5MWD.

Basically don't run a static world. By that I mean clearing room A then B then C and nothing happens. At tier three and four NPCs could even resurrect defeated foes. Perhaps using resources players could capture if they're a bit quicker. Potions and scrolls use them if PCs retreat. Key is dont over do it. You dnt want to beat them over the head or screw them over just because. But there might be consequences. Generally I find you only have to use consequences once or twice and they'll get the idea.

If youre a player another solution is. Just dont do it. No ones forcing you to. If you and the DM are having fun it doesnt really matter. If you aren't having fun just don't do it. Its like eating chocolate to the point of making yourself sick. If you enjoy it go for it. If you dont the solution is obvious.

So thats basically it. All editions of D&D have daily resources. You cant really fix it unless you remove them. That would raise questions like does it need fixed and is it D&D if you removed dailies? More likely would the players accept removing dailies? I suspect by now its to much of a sacred cow. Moo.

Broadly speaking theres 3 types of gamers when it comes to combat in D&D. There are subtypes eg a powerganer but they can exist in any of these 3 groups. Mostly it relates to experience. Note this doesnt mean theyre better to have at the table. Social dynamics> game knowledge.

My group has 6 members and all 3 are represented but a couple are transitioning. They've been playing for 2-23 years the average is around 12 yeaes the mean around 6. I've been actively playing since 1993.

1. The Newbie/casual player.

The vast majority of players. Tactics are basic. Run to the nearest opponent and hit it hard, cast fireball. DMs run things by the book or design reasonably basic adventures. One of my earliest ones was evil cleric is animating the village undead. I have recently (2024-26) been running groups two and 3 from these players due to DM shortage. Skill levels vary, ability scores are all over the place ad they might do things like play a warlock and not take eldritch blast. The greenest ones dont know a d4 from a d10. Can also include players who played occasionally back in the day or last played when TSR owned D&D. They start figuring out basics like focus fire and death is the best debuff (in every edition tbf).

2. The Veteran.

This player has probably played for several games, DMed a game and played multiple classes into tier two possibly 3. They know basic spell combos (eg fly+greater invisability), what conditions are good and can do a reasonable amount of number crunching. Recruiting players as a DM is easy. Recruiting Veterans with the right social dynamics is hard. Good ones become key players. They can usually identify good spells and tactics to use. They can sometimes string togather elaborate combos or tactics but they're generally not to interested. For myself it took around 5 years to get to this point (no internet as such).

3. Tactical Veteran.

Generally the most experienced players and DMs. Theres no purity test but generally a decade plus of experience and have played multiple editions and can both play and DM a game. Those on the player side of things can maximize the tactics a party uses not just themselves. Ideally without bossing everyone around. They can string togather elaborate combos involving 3 or more players. A DM can create elaborate combat scenarios, easily work in extra planar environments, ad hoc an entire session while keeping it structured and the players wont even notice. 2 maybe 3 of the 7 people in my group fit into this category (the warhammr 40k player, 1 who played 3E-5E). Its hard if not impossible to get a party like this. A long term stable group is the closest thing generally. They might collude at character creation in essence powergaming to some extent the entire party. Generally people play whatever with little regard to rest of party.

These are very broad categories. One could also progress through faster eg those playing 3-5 sessions a week. Once upon a time we did 8 hour sessions and the longest was 27 hours. Those days are long gone (think 90s school or university).

So how do you get everyone to play togather? D&D is mostly a social game. Having type 2 and 3 players run with newbies is fine. As long as theyre not bossing them around or trying to run characters for them. Thats just annoying. In newbie groups I like adding one or two veterans. Often to help with character creation and keep things on track.

Its virtually impossible even to get Veteran players to work 100% togather as a cohesive unit. Theyre all individuals and what the best play or fun for you may not be the best for them. Elaborate combos at more happenstance than planned out in advance. Even Veteran players sometimes just want to chill out and hit the nearest thing hard. They'll focus more if the poo hits the proverbial fan. None will really crunch out math to a huge extent. Thats an online thing generally. Finding an entire group to do that that doesnt piss each other off good luck.

So what do I mean elaborate combos? Mostly ones involving 3+players doing something that combos tofather. A basic combo might be fly plus greater invisibility. Or paralyze a foe and hit it hard for the free critical. Stoneskin used to be a greatspell by itself (2E) but combined well with 5.0 blade ward and armored of agathys/warding bond.

A more elaborate combo might be something like a player paralyzes something. They get yeeted (thunderwave, push weapon mastery, repelling blast etc) into an emanation or zone that hurts them. They're stuck in it until they can get out. Another player knows they automatically fail a dex save (sacred flame. Fireball etc) or they get free criticals. A world tree barbarian dumping a paralyzed foes after a free nom nom into a spirit guardians spell beside another paralyzed opponent setting up two free criticals for chromatic orb comes to mind. Seen that happen.

Older D&D could teach you this but there was less forced movements. It was more stacking bonuses an optional rules eg flanking, cover, what weapons to use vs armor types elevation, speed factor if used.. Focus fire is very universal. Pre 3E damage dealing spells were better, crowd control scaled worse and magic items were more prevalent. A magical fighter could be kitted out with multiple very rare and legendary item in 5E terms. +3-6 intelligent weapons with abilities, +5 armor, ACs in the 25-30 range in modern terms. There were more higher level adventures to mine (still uncommon however) more DM advice.

As always social skills trump edition and player knowledge of rules. I'll take a newbie everytime over someone who is skilled at the game but antagonize other players even inadvertently. 4/7 of my group DM and looks like I'm a player next time and theyre talking about Daggerheart. I built the group but I wanted the right social dynamics. 4/7 were recruited via reddit from non D&D sub reddits.

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So online a lot of people still push the wizards are overpowered narrative. Those who actually play are noticing something different.

The reason is people look at high level wizards and the spell lists and make assumptions. 5 minute work days, DMs who provide scrolls, treasure,time willy nilly and the whole 1-20 class. In reality players tend to use the same spells over and over. Class power is more who has A and S tier spells at levels that matter (1-7) or a combination of survival and damage for martials.

WotC and ex designers however are on record as saying most games end by level 7, 10% hit lvl 10, 1% hit the epic levels and average campaign is 6 sessions.

In effect lvl 10 not 20 is your capstone class. Arguments could be made level 6 or 7 is your real capstone. Treantmonk is not remotely representative of a real game.

My last campaign went to level 13. My current one is level 8 probably wrap up lvl 10 or 11. Ive inherited several players from other games that basically fell apart. Theyre not worried my games dont go to lvl 20. Theyre grateful they hit level 10 and I have a stable non toxic group. Several came from games where PCs kill each other or the DM is sleeping with players and have their favorites. Or you have the game store guy with dubious hygiene.

Ive also done a bit of playtesting lvl 7-12. I've actually seen CME being used or Conjure Celestial in a real game. Not theory crafted. The bladesinger was a sad panda.

What the internet also misses is the majority of players are casuals. Wizards for example are good at rituals and summoning relative to other casters. Theres no big red sign in the phb saying that however. Casuals aren't playing the class like the internet assumes. Casuals barely touch the class vs warlocks and sorcerers from what I'm seeing.

Online assumptions are nothing new. Listening to the internet one woukd think 3E was horribly broken. Once again I dont think they considered how people actually played the game. Class XYZ and 10 levels of whatever probably fell into the theory crafting levels again. The old sweat spot was 3-7 or so pre 3E.

The relative lack of high level games I suspect isn't new. The majority of the big selling 1E adventures mostly fell near the sweet spot (Tomb of Horrors and Spider Queen were the high lvl ones 10-14 not 15-20)and the B (lvl 1-3)and E (lvl 4-14) parts of BECMI. That was the 1980s. Real life vs edition limits high level games imho. Hitting lvl 10 might take 25 sessions. 6 months to a year real life.

So yeah thats it. Most of the player base are casuals. Most games are low level. Alot of internet issues are just that. Real games dont play that way or reach the high levels where martials 'suck". Spoiler alert martisls don't suck lvll 10+ BTW. Most efficient way of defeating foes is martial plus spellcaster combo. Martials lack control and control is poor at killing foes generally.

WotC discovered some of this somewhat recently. 5E plsytest and post buying beyond. 4E collapsed because it fixed issues that weren't issues to most players. 3E moved away from the classic playstyle. I suspect most AD&D games were run as advanced BECMI in effect. 5.0 returned a bit to a more casual playstyle that 3E and 4E ignored and late 2E was trending towards.

Casuals like fireball, powergamers will go for crowd control. Crunching math is anathema to casuals. They can spot big obvious things though or cool effects.

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Just got out of the theater. Been watching the movies in theater since RotJ.

Best Disney movie after Rogue One imho. Some EU Easter eggs and nods to ANH and cartoons and show.

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So thinking of a bew game or custom game. Vs Baldurs Gate or Dalelands game.

Something a bit not typical. What races would you spotlight?

Humans and elf are locked in. Elves are a bit to popular to cut imho. I may rewrite the fluff though.

Champion (half Vampires)

Gith

Warforged

From PHB thinking dragonborn, tieflings, aasimar, Goliath.

Thinking remnant of a fallen empire reduced to a peninsular (inspiration Byzantine Morea or Goth Crimea).