Thursday, August 8, 2024

D&D 5.5, and the long shadow of optimization

Someone on Mastodon linked to this article on the rules hacks that are already proliferating in D&D 5.5 that reflect back to the Mike Mearles comments on 3E Prestige Class optimization. It's clear that the problem hasn't gone away, and likely has gotten worse. 

The concept in the article is that there's a combination of rules to carry a shield and a scimitar (which has the just the right properties for this) to attack, attack again, then switch your current scimitar for another sheathed scimitar and attack again with the dual weapon feat because the dual weapon feat doesn't specify that the second weapon has to be in your other hand and to speed play the game now assumes a 0 cost for drawing a weapon. 

This is, to be generous FUCKING NUTS. The intent of the rules is absolutely clear and that they didn't think to hyper clarify is on the player trying it, not the designer.  

The core lesson is that you can't write rules to stop someone from trying to be a jerk. No rule set can be so perfectly written to avoid any potential from abuse by the players unless it gives the players no rules to abuse. That's one of the big advantages to the older versions of the game/OSR/NSR style where the GM is constantly making rulings based on the immediate facts on the ground and not arguing with the overlapping interpretations of what Robin Laws called Crunchy Bits. And I get the joy of crunchy bits. I do. But there are reasons why my preferred systems are very low on the crunchy bits: even 13th Age - which has a ton of powers the PCs can have - is designed to limit crunchy bits in any one attack to one so they don't stack. 

This is absolutely a "the rulebook doesn't say a dog can't play basketball" level of nonsense. That there are people out there who even think that they should be allowed to do this, or that failure to stop them from maliciously misreading the rules means the rules are broken, is just sad. 

Don't do this people. And if you're a DM, don't accept this. You don't need this at your table. 





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