Room for TREB and Phoenix Duck

TREB

14:53

@Phoenix Duck In your comment you directed at me you make a flurry of assumptions that are at my expense and your proposed solutions are not practical.

would you like to discuss them to resolve this?

Phoenix Duck

Which solution is not practical? And what assumption have I made that is at your expense, and not simply a necessary consequence of your question's lack of detail?

TREB

"It can be mitigated by having a backup melee weapon" what backup weapon for a Warlock that has simple weapon proficiency? Unless they are strength based the only viable weapon is a finesse weapon and the only simple finesse melee weapon is the dagger.

If they're strength based rather than dex based then they need to use heavy armor to get their AC up but they don't have heavy armor proficiency

I have included extraordinary amount of detail, I have repeatedly obliged requests for more detail and the response is always for more detail. At this point I want specifics, exactly what detail is sufficient and I will accept no further demands.

Phoenix Duck

Pact of the Blade, Green Flame Blade (I think Warlocks get that one, yeah?), and the aforementioned dagger works just fine. A blaster warlock who relies on spell attacks will be weak in melee. This is an intentional balance decision.

Ranged combat is already hilariously overtuned in 5e. Melee characters need SOMETHING.

Especially since a warlock's allies can easily protect him from a charging monster trying to get too close. You're assuming combat happens in a vacuum.

Which certainly doesn't happen to a warlock. Warlocks are encouraged to be team players, like most casters.

In regards to detail, I disagree. You've missed the point of the questions you have been asked. Let me elaborate:

TREB

I am familiar enough with the term "overtuned" to know different people use it to mean different things.

Phoenix Duck

I, for instance, have asked for more detail regarding why you think this entire rule change is needed. I have asked what confusion your player has already expressed. Your answers, in their evasiveness, seem to point to a no. This is a problem because, as best as I can tell, you are asking about a problem that has not actually happened. WHile there's nothing inherently wrong with this (though it is discouraged on stackexchange),

you're also asking this rule question in the context of using it to help a new player. The resounding response has been that you don't need to change the rules to teach a new player. You disagree with that, which is fine, but you're also demanding people who have taken their time to answer your question to give thesis-level defenses for answers given as personal expertise.

By all means, change the rule. It's your damn table.

My personal opinion, backed by my experience as a player and a DM, is that it's not a good idea.

ANd my answer covers why I think that.

Because I think you're massively overcomplicating a problem that hasn't even happened yet.

TREB

15:09

There's like 5 questions there, can I respond to one before you ask the next 4?

Phoenix Duck

I asked no questions.

TREB

I am responding to your allegation of insufficient detail, do you not want an answer to that?

People have asked for more detail. I give more detail. Yet they keep saying it's not enough, they want more. What specific detail do you need?

"Your answers, in their evasiveness, seem to point to a no" I've been prompted to write a small essay in my question and I'm still accused of evasiveness?

Phoenix Duck

What problem actually happened?

TREB

I told you!

Ending up in melee and absolutely hating how much of a hard counter that is.

Phoenix Duck

You've said that nothing happened. You've said this is a hypothetical.

Let me also clarify the two discussions going on:

There's a balance discussion about the rules of the game and about ranged attacks in melee.

TREB

15:13

This i s a blatant catch 22, if I give a specific example it's an anecdote, if I give a general example it's hypothetical. It's rigged.

Phoenix Duck

There's a second discussion about the merits of making fiddly rule changes in response to percieved issues that have not yet happened.

I, frankly, don't care about the first discussion. You're allowed to think ranged weapons in 5e are badly made on a system level. And I won't rebut that.

TREB

Why says this hasn't happened? I gave a hypothetical example which does not say it's never happened

Phoenix Duck

So it did happen? A player you were introducing to the game got overwhelmed by having to make ranged attack rolls?

Because if so, give details about how the player reacted. That's what people are asking for.

TREB

Why should I only prepare for that one specific circumstance that isn't going to be repeated exactly the same?

I cannot change the past

I can only prepare for future events, which means I must account for what will happen, not what did happen.

Phoenix Duck

Then that's on you to prepare for. If we don't know what you've been through, it's really hard to help you. This stack is best set up for specific advice. If you want to talk about player behavior, you need to be specific about what you're dealt with and what may have caused it.

TREB

15:19

I never asked you to help me on this!

Phoenix Duck

Because without detail, we can't know what the player actually struggled with. Maybe there's nothing wrong with the rules and you just need to teach differently.

WIthout specifics, there's nothing that can be done.

TREB

I never asked anyone's help on this, I asked for help on the consequences of changing EB.

Phoenix Duck

And if you don't want help with any social side of this, then frame the question differently.

Don't bring up the player. Don't bring up why you're doing it.

If you're so dead-set on it being the right thing.

Phrase the question as a pure numbers exercise.

TREB

I clearly framed the question as to how THIS CHANGE to EB may be appropriate and all but one of the answers barely mention EB at all.

Phoenix Duck

You were asking about a change in the context of helping a player with a problem. CHallenging the context or framing of a question is fair game on this site.

TREB

15:21

Your answer only mentions Eldritch Blast once despite the question clearly being "Would Eldritch Blast using a Dexterity Save instead of Spell Attack be appropriate for a low-confidence player?"

And you only mention EB to say it's not enough for a tangential point

Phoenix Duck

And Idon't think it would be appropriate for a low-confidence player.

But not because of the balance of the reflex save.

If the question was "Would Eldritch Blast using a Dexterity Save instead of Spell Attack be equivalently balanced" I would have given a very different answer.

TREB

But the only change IS the change to dex-save (not reflex), how can it not be appropriate for them but not because of the only thing that is changing?

Phoenix Duck

Because I disagree with "dumbing down" the rules in this way on principle. I also beleive it would end up being no more intuitive to the player than keeping the rules the same.

TREB

How are they dumbed down?

You said "Ranged attacks are not meaningfully more complex than forcing saving throws" now the change is dumbing it down, which is it?

Dumbing down is just a pejorative way of saying it's meaningfully less complex

Phoenix Duck

That was two distinct points. Allow me to elaborate:

TREB

15:27

I'm listening

Phoenix Duck

(and it wasn't the best phasing, I'll admit)

My first point on "dumbing down" is that I dont think the rules need changing. You should either teach the system as it is or pick a new, simpler system. If you do not trust a player to be able to make an attack roll, you're pulling them into the wrong gane.

My second point is that your change, in my opinion, wouldn't even make the system less complex. This is the "Ranged attacks are not meaningfully more complex than forcing saving throws" part.

TREB

That is an opinion you're entitled to, but I have a different opinion. What's the objective reasons that this change to EB is bad? You just seem to have a general opposition to homebrew in a question about homebrew.

Are you going to respond to each and every question of homebrew review saying they shouldn't homebrew and just play a different game instead? Slightly altering each answer for each homebrew?

I'm very confused what your opinion is, is this change "dumbing down" or is it bad because it doesn't make it less complex? Which is it? It cannot be both.

There is only one change under discussion here, the change of EB from ranged spell attack to Dex save

Phoenix Duck

I think it's pursuing a bad aim and also failing at that aim.

It's trying to simplify the system in a way that I don't think is needed, and also failing to actually simplify it.

TREB

That does presume you can speak for me and know what I am thinking better than I know my own thoughts. You're speaking for me that my aim is to "dumb down".

Phoenix Duck

You literally said it is!

You said this is for a player that you dont think has the conifdence for attack rolls!

TREB

15:36

That's not aiming to dumb the dame down

Phoenix Duck

That's exactly what I mean by "dumbing down!"

TREB

Is that how you describe your own actions? You describe your own intents as "dumbing down"?

Phoenix Duck

Yes, actually. Among other things, my job involves UI design. The phrase "dumb it down" gets thrown around a lot.

TREB

So it's okay when you do it. But I can't.

Let's take a breather and sum up

We're getting ahead of point I wanted to make about things you said earlier

I think it's just not appropriate for you to use broad pejorative language like "dumb it down" for a sincere concern. You may use it amongst your friends but we're strangers who don't know and trust each other.

So,

To put it more professionally, you object to my attempt to reduce complexity and it's not a mitigating factor that the complexity isn't reduced. But it's an exacerbating facor.

Is that accurate? I know you may want to characterize it as "dumbing down" but that's obviously to bias the objective analysis one way. It doesn't help get a clear picture of the problem.

Phoenix Duck

Yes.

And I did admit my phrasing was poor. "Dumbing down" was the wrong term to use without intorducing it more.

TREB

15:44

okay, mind if I review the chat a moment

Okay, this is an important point I must address "The resounding response has been that you don't need to change the rules to teach a new player." the "new player" tag was added by a moderator without my authorization, and people are getting some crazy idea that this is for ALL new players a my table.

I do NOT do this for all new players.

Did you think I was making this change as a general accommodation for all new players?

Phoenix Duck

The player is "low confidence." Since few details are given, this is presumed to be a new player. If there is a meaningful difference, you need to elaborate in the body of the question.

TREB

Well I'm in a dilemma because I don't want to just talking in detail about a friend who isn't part of the conversation. I just think it's too much detail even though we're all pseudonymous.

*I don't want to talk in detail

And clearly the more I say the more details people want. It's never enough, it becomes gossip.

Phoenix Duck

And that's fine. If you don't want to do that, you shouldn't have mentioned him/her in the first place, though. Again, since you're dead-set on your reasoning, you should have asked the question in a purely rules-based framing.

We can't read your mind. If your question isn't written clearly, we will have to make assumptions and work with what we have. It's like the paint bucket tool in an art program; if there's a big empty area, we'll have to fill it in. If you don't want that area filled in or speculated on, it has to be closed off or not exist in the first place.

TREB

Yet I got so many responses that were extremely entitled to details about why I was doing this, they wanted to know why I'd want to do this, and everyone kept wanting to know more and more!

Phoenix Duck

Because you mentioned why you were doing it and we thought it was a bad idea.

If your resoning is off limits, don't mention it.

TREB

15:55

Every accommodation for detail led to demand for more and more detail

Phoenix Duck

Then you should have edited the question to cut out the irrelevant parts that were drawing questions. Or ask a new question.

TREB

They kept moving the goalposts, they'd say "you'd only do this for X" "well it is X" then "but not unless it's also Y"

Phoenix Duck

Then you should have edited the question to cut out the irrelevant parts that were drawing questions. Or ask a new question.

TREB

You should have seen how the question was originally! The original question title was "Would Eldritch Blast using a Dexterity Save rather than Spell Attack be too powerful?" but I was told that's not enough.

Click on the edit history and look how the question originally was asked.

I deferred to those with 30k reputation that they presumably knew better than me.

Phoenix Duck

"One goal of this is to make the Cantrip much more user friendly for a player who is less familiar with the rules."

And then a paragraphs explaining how you're going for that goal.

David Coffron

15:59

While that did prompt the questions, For what it's worth, TREB did almost immediately say he wasn't interested in answers that question the premise:

"with all due respect, this question is about the viability of this solution not whether I should even consider trying"

We should have directed him to edit as you suggest Phoenix, but it became a snowball of clarification comments and close votes.

~

TREB, while this is a Q&A site where we try to help the questioner it's also a repository for people to go to receive information from experienced DMs and players. As such, answerers frequently …

TREB

I included the goal part as the meta-RPG said that it was good form to include a goal of homebrew, that questions should be voted down for not including a goal. But for including a goal that's used as a basis to refuse to answer the question but instead have "answers" that only question the goal. Pretty loaded questions.

Like one reply just warned me that I shouldn't trick my players by deceiving them and tricking them into thinking they were playing without homebrew. It wasn't specific to my question at all.

David Coffron

It is perfectly normal and acceptable for some answers on the question to not be helpful to you. That's why you have the ability to give a check mark to the answer that *is* helpful to you.

After a time, if none of the existing answers are satisfactory, and you'd like more visibility, you can leave a bounty to explain what the existing answers lack.

That's what I'd do in your situation at least. Wait to see if you get an answer you like, and give a bounty if none show up

rpg.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/set-bounties

TREB

I just feel so utterly betrayed, I did what everyone asked of me only for others to then say I accommodations I made are wrong and I'm the problem.

I don't think more attention would help this, I've been set up to fail by following advice of the meta-page, accommodating to the criticism of high-reputation users, and obliging requests for more and more details.

David Coffron

@TREB People have subtly different perspectives on what makes a good question, and your question got increased visibility from those different perspectives when it became a Hot Network Question. I'm sorry you had this poor experience.

I think what might have helped is if this question became closed for a time so that it could be workshopped. I've asked questions in the past that people suspected needed further details and I wasn't sure what to add.

Close votes can be useful to tell people to wait on asking questions and answering until you and the commmunity can work out what's needed. There are a number of meta posts about specific questions

What happened here is that the comments got flooded with a large number of dissenting views which overwhelmed the systems stackexchange has in place (in particular the large number of edits made it challenging for people to follow how the question had changed over time)

Phoenix Duck

16:16

@DavidCoffron In this respect Stackexchange has all of the downsides of a forum and all the downsides of a wiki at the same time. The smallest miscommunications can rapudly snowball. Meta expectations turned into messages turned into edits turned into comments turned into answers.

I do apologize for any role I may have had in that snowball. Had I known my answer would become just one in a whole dogpile of the same, I likely would not have written it.

TREB

I didn't know what to do, so many comments were making assumptions like "they roll a dice and add one number, if you are thinking your player can't cope with that then they are really going to struggle." which is totally wrong and biased the whole understanding of the goal.

Thank you Phoenix, I appreciate you saying that. This has been a pretty unpleasant experience all around.

David Coffron

Indeed. Right now, I doubt that your question will get new answers. People will either upvote one of the three non-mechanical answers that they agree with, or they may upvote Nobody's answer if they support the mechanical analysis he provided (or a mixture of both).

That said, it still might and you should definitely wait at least 48 hours before taking measures like bounties or further question edits

TREB

Thanks David, I appreciate it. I won't be doing anything anytime soon. Is there any way I can contact you in the next few days to ask any follow up questions?

David Coffron

@TREB Absolutely, you can ping me in this chat if it's still open, or in the TRPG General Chat if it's not.

TREB

thx

Transcript for

Room for TREB and Phoenix Duck