[RPG] worry about players making “bad” choices on level up

balancecharacter-creationdnd-5eoptimization

When I came back to RPGs (after 20 years) I discarded pathfinder after reading about the complexities of the systems and the fact that there was a real chance of getting “bad characters” if you made bad choices and didn’t put enough time into reading the rules (different tiers of classes and stuff also) and thinking your character through ahead of time (it seemed to be a consensus at least pathfinder requires more investment).

We’re a bunch of 40 yo players with children and very little time so I moved to D&D 5e with the aim of simplifying. My understanding was it was more streamlined and simpler and we could just move in, chose a desired race and class and that would be just as powerful as any other without having to worry too much about choices, that is, that choices would shape the role playing part of the game and no so much the balance of the party.

Then I came across this question about two weapons fighting being subpar for fighters. It seems to imply that different paths for a fighter may yield very different “power levels” and that somehow there’s a “right” way and a “wrong” way of creating a fighter.

Now, I can’t say I understand the math involved so I’m not sure if that question deals with marginal differences or two fighters, one with a two handed sword and one with two weapons will make the second feel being outperformed and regretful of the choices he made through.

I’m also worried that happens for other classes.

Is this something I have to worry about with my players? I don’t expect them to read the PHB throughout so, should I become an expert and somehow advice them to the right paths or are these kind of differences not likely to get my players to feel frustrated?

Best Answer

Short answer: No, mostly.


I come from a D&D 3.5 background, so I've had ample experience with the extreme power difference that you can get between a straight-class Monk and an optimized Ruby Knight Vindicator. D&D 3.5 had a lot of complexity: Bloodlines, Templates, Prestige Classes, Organizations could all be mixed and matched, and some combinations were insane, really rewarding deep knowledge of the game.

By contrast, D&D 5.0 has far fewer options. None of the aforementioned Bloodlines, Templates, Prestige Classes, for starters. Simplified skills system. Fewer feats to choose from, etc...

The lack of flexibility makes for a much more balanced game, because designers were able to pay attention to a lot of interactions:

  • Any single-class character with its Ability scores correctly assigned is viable.
  • The power difference between two different "specialization" of a given class are not that big.

If we look at the example of the Two-Weapon Fighting Fighter, it is indeed less powerful than a Great Weapon Fighting Fighter.

There are two things to notice, though:

  1. It is not THAT much less powerful. We are not talking about a factor x2 here; taking a Str of 20 (+5) and 4 attacks, the formula given yields 47.5 DPR for TWF and 53.2 DPR for GWF. That's a mere ~12% difference.
  2. It allows using Dex rather than Str as your attack ability, which is actually good for optimization as Dex also gives Initiative, AC and saving throws whereas Str doesn't give much.

The worst part is equipment -- having to get two magic weapons -- as a DM that's really the easiest part to solve.


As you can see if you peruse the comments to this answer, there are apparently a few "traps" to avoid, such as Ranger (Beast Master) and Monk (Four Elements).

In general, though, it could happen that a player starts a character with a certain picture in mind, and it turns out in play that the character just does not live up to their expectations. Maybe they misread the rules, maybe they can hardly ever pull it off. It's happened to us all, really.

There are also choices that were superb at 1st level, and whose utility decrease as time passes.

In this case, you should allow the player to tweak their character's past choices. There are already classes which allow switching some choices at pre-determined intervals -- the Warlock switching known invocations, the Battle Master switching maneuvers -- so it's fairly easy to allow switching Fighting Style or Feat when gaining a level, and much less work than creating and integrating a new character in the campaign.

This approach alleviates the pressure from your players: if they make a bad choice, they are allowed to correct it; no sweat, no fuss, the show just goes on!


Unless your table is very concerned with optimizing, and it doesn't look so, then D&D 5.0 should really be a straight improvement.

I personally find it extremely freeing; in D&D 5.0 you can play a sub-par character because you had a cool idea you want to toy with, and yet still contribute to the party without requiring extra work for the DM because you are not that far below the power curve.

One class, one specialty, and you've got a viable character. It's that simple.