I mean… Gnolls are evil. Basically all fiends are evil. Having evil races where killing them is almost always morally correct is not a problem in itself. The problem is making it so that some races are inherently evil without actually explaining why. All my examples have some kind of cosmic evil embedded in their nature. But that’s not gonna be the norm. If all your evil races and all your good races are so by nature without any way of changing that, it’s bad writing and bears the risk of implying that people are created either good or evil.

And as far as I can remember, that kind of explanation never existed for Orcs or Kobolds. They were evil by nature without explanation.

Sounds like the real problem was not your strategy but the fact that this weapon was very much not scaling with you powerlevel and really unbalanced.

I am somehow very happy that you actually mentioned that you’ve never played DnD. The honesty just feels very refreshing somehow.

While that is correct, it’s not like your allies are indestructible cover, so I’d say it’s fair. But I don’t really have to tell you I guess.

So when he realised that your last build would have been more balanced then the current one, he just decided to do what he could have done from the start by adding more enemies?

I meant consistently as in “has no chance of failure”. Wish is already powerful enough and is likely intended as the “brute force solution” anyway.

A fair method. I sometimes wish DnD was designed around it a bit more.

I know you did. Not saying you didn’t. I just wanted to mention it.

And generally I think you’re right.

I think the only capstones really worth it are from Cleric, Paladin and maybe Barbarian or Artificer. Fighter is cool, but also a bit lackluster.

I think people overestimate what hiding can do for you. Hiding does not immediately shield you from harm. You can’t hide if there’s nothing to hide behind. If an enemy walks around your cover, even the best stealth roll in the whole world won’t keep you hidden.

How did the DM react to your new strategy?

I actually don’t like the “magic exist so fuck simulatiounism” reasoning, since it implies that as soon as magic exists, any rational explanations are off the table. I generally prefer to establish what can and can’t be done, so we have as baseline for what’s possible. Otherwise you quickly loose consistency. Martials should be able to do more than regular people in our world, but there should be guidelines on what they can do.

Yes the game is not a simulation. But I prefer using examples aside from magic. Magic is not simplification for game purposes, magic is part of the setting. Things like HP, the turn order and armor class vs. saving throws generally work better as comparisons.

Very much this. It even feels very “rogueish” to employ that strategy and it’s far from broken, so I don’t see why you would ban it.

Get’s transported to a time where all Sphinxes have died.

Did the DM just not like Rogues or were they new to DnD?

I’d say it gets you the exhaustion, but as long as you do not actively mess up the wording the spell will work, since it’s specifically said that the spell can be used to do that so it should be able to do so consistently.

Pretty much, yes. I also think it’s not necessary for characters not to become better in all abilities even as the game goes on, but I generally like that characters typically continue to have weaknesses as they level up. Th unfortunate part is that those weaknesses are a lot less punishing for some classes then for other.

Yes. And RAI means „rules as intended“. The technical interpretation of those words seems very much unintended.

I really like this approach. I’d say few dungeons are really places of inner conflict though, since that usually either resolves itself quickly by one side winning or fleeing, because few people like to have a potential rival as a direct neighbor. But of course, there are exceptions and even dungeons belonging to a single faction should feel like the monsters are actually alive.

Oh shoot you’re right. Guess you only need to get to level 17 then, but that’s barely a challenge, right?

Yes. That’s the point. But you don’t need rule of cool for this. You just need to use at least a single braincell to apply RAI.

Definetly. Though some role-players might find it annoying that it creates the impression that your character just eventually becomes decent at everything.