Devs - this is why paladins don't need the best DPS

[Chai]

Wizards WERE balanced with melee by good DMs who did not let them rest just because they ran out of spells.

You mean terrible DMs who ignored the rules. /oberoni

Objective readers read entire posts Thrudh. They don't cherry pick one sentence out and then claim this was the entire premise made by those they disagree with. Read my entire claim, and you will see I did not claim the party can rest whenever they want to, I claimed that the rules (something youre still ignoring) stipulate the party rests after 4-5 encounters, and that DMs did not have sole say on when parties got to rest.

DMs which didn't allow resting to regain hp and spells arbitrarily due to "no rest because I said so" are somehow better DMs than those who went by the ruleset? Only in the land of make believe where melee is balanced with casters.

[Thrudh]

I claimed that the rules (something youre still ignoring) stipulate the party rests after 4-5 encounters, and that DMs did not have sole say on when parties got to rest.

Sure, but they had SOME say...

"Hey, DM... we're resting in this corridor that leads to the kings banquet hall... We wasted all our spells on the flunkies in this corridor, and now we don't have enough for the big fight in the next room..."

"We'll just rest here 8 hours until we get our spells back... We've already had 5 encounters, so the rules say you can't have anyone find us or attack us until we're fully rested... That's the rules!"

DMs which didn't allow resting to regain hp and spells arbitrarily due to "no rest because I said so" are somehow better DMs than those who went by the ruleset in the land of make believe where melee is balanced with casters? /oberoni

If you're talking real high level characters, there wasn't much balance, but from 1-12, there was decent balance because wizard spells were limited. They had to chose them BEFORE knowing what they were going to encounter, and they only got a few...

A good DM didn't have to say "no rest because I said so"... He just had to use logic and coherent gameplay like "Guards DO patrol these rooms at regular intervals you know".

[Chai]

Sure, but they had SOME say...

"Hey, DM... we're resting in this corridor that leads to the kings banquet hall... We wasted all our spells on the flunkies in this corridor, and now we don't have enough for the big fight in the next room..."

"We'll just rest here 8 hours until we get our spells back... We've already had 5 encounters, so the rules say you can't have anyone find us or attack us until we're fully rested... That's the rules!"

Nope, its more like...

Wizard: /use extended rope trick - level 5 = 10 hours.
/everyone gets in
/pulls up rope
/rests
/gets back out.

If you're talking real high level characters, there wasn't much balance, but from 1-12, there was decent balance because wizard spells were limited. They had to chose them BEFORE knowing what they were going to encounter, and they only got a few...

Try levels 1-6. After wizards stop being hilariously bad crossbowmen and start becoming wizards, its over. As the levels get higher, the disparity between melee and casters gets wider.

A good DM didn't have to say "no rest because I said so"... He just had to use logic and coherent gameplay like "Guards DO patrol these rooms at regular intervals you know".

How are those guards in the kings hallway detecting the rope trick? Arbitrarily? Keep in mind, that since you presented this scenario Ive thought of 4 ways to still rest here if I want to.....this is the easiest one to defeat....and will not be defeated by guards walking up and down the halls.....

So much for mundane logic, where magic is involved.

[Thrudh]

Nope, its more like...

Wizard: /use rope trick
/everyone gets in
/rests
/gets back out.

We house-ruled rope trick out... It's a stupid spell. Sounds to me like you played D&D as a tactical combat game, instead of a logical universe. 5 fights, rest, 5 fights, rest. Not sometimes 5 fights, dungeon is over, sometimes 10 fights because the dungeon was more involved... Not knowing made things a lot more interesting.

DDO was more fun too when there was resources to worry about. SP conservation used to be a real thing in this game. I dislike games where you have unlimited resources. My favorite part of single-player FPS games is usually near the beginning when you only have 7 bullets for your pistol and you have to be careful with each shot. As opposed to mid-game, where you're carrying 6 different weapons each with 200 rounds.

We did find a scroll of rope-trick once... When we tried to use it one time, just like you said, to rest in the middle of a dragon lair, we had some nasty results because we weren't familiar with the spell and our rogue had a bag of holding explode (we had to roll for each item to see if it survived - we lost a couple of nice things)

From the description of the spell:

Note: It is hazardous to create an extradimensional space within an existing extradimensional space or to take an extradimensional space into an existing one.

[Chai]

We house-ruled rope trick out... It's a stupid spell. Sounds to me like you played D&D as a tactical combat game, instead of a logical universe. 5 fights, rest, 5 fights, rest. Not sometimes 5 fights, dungeon is over, sometimes 10 fights because the dungeon was more involved... Not knowing made things a lot more interesting.

DDO was more fun too when there was resources to worry about. SP conservation used to be a real thing in this game. I dislike games where you have unlimited resources. My favorite part of single-player FPS games is usually near the beginning when you only have 7 bullets for your pistol and you have to be careful with each shot. As opposed to mid-game, where you're carrying 6 different weapons each with 200 rounds.

We did find a scroll of rope-trick once... When we tried to use it one time, just like you said, to rest in the middle of a dragon lair, we had some nasty results because we weren't familiar with the spell and our rogue had a bag of holding explode (we had to roll for each item to see if it survived - we lost a couple of nice things)

From the description of the spell:

As I suspected, you play rule zero D&D. Theres nothing wrong with that essentially. Its when you start claiming non sequiturs, like anyone else who plays by the rules had bad DMs, where the issue lies. We didn't limit our play to tactical combat, we just played using the rules, as written. This allowed us to provide true feedback about the actual game to those running the test group(s), and they could honestly see where the game was balanced, and where it was broken / could be abused, etc...

[Thrudh]

As I suspected, you play rule zero D&D. Theres nothing wrong with that essentially. Its when you start claiming non sequiturs, like anyone else who plays by the rules had bad DMs, where the issue lies. We didn't limit our play to tactical combat, we just played using the rules, as written. This allowed us to provide true feedback about the actual game to those running the test group(s), and they could honestly see where the game was balanced, and where it was broken / could be abused, etc...

You didn't really understand the power of D&D if you only played by the "rules". D&D is not Monopoly.

The whole point of having a human DM and an actual story that changed based on the players actions was apparently lost on you guys.

We'll agree to disagree on what constitutes "bad DMing". It's subjective, but I wouldn't have lasted long in your group... Too boring, too much like Monopoly.

It really does explain your ideas behind game balance... You really didn't think rope trick and the ability to get back all spells whenever you want, regardless of situation, was over-powered?

Did your DM at least start making adventures where time was of the essence? That's what I would have done to limit your use of 100% safe, whereever you want, 8 hour rests. You probably would have accused me of "trying to kill the party", and not "playing by the rules".

[Chai]

You didn't really understand the power of D&D if you only played by the "rules". D&D is not Monopoly.

The whole point of having a human DM and an actual story that changed based on the players actions was apparently lost on you guys.

We'll agree to disagree on what constitutes "bad DMing". It's subjective, but I wouldn't have lasted long in your group... Too boring, too much like Monopoly.

It really does explain your ideas behind game balance... You really didn't think rope trick and the ability to get back all spells whenever you want, regardless of situation, was over-powered?

.
We understood it perfectly and played by the rules on purpose in order to test the game. Again, theres nothing wrong with playing rule zero D&D, but arguing rule zero D&D is better than rule as written is oberoni.

Who said "regardless of situation"? In this example, a good DM will design things into their module before hand (before the players characters are even known) and use them. A bad DM comes up with excuses on the spot which were not designed into the module, plays those cards arbitrarily, then witnesses their players attrite on a session by session basis.

Did your DM at least start making adventures where time was of the essence? That's what I would have done to limit your use of 100% safe, wherever you want, 8 hour rests. You probably would have accused me of "trying to kill the party", and not "playing by the rules".

As a wizard, I can just stop time. Theres a spell for that too....(unless of course you rule zeroed out every method which can be used to control that as well)

This enforces my assertion that by claiming casters and melee were balanced, you weren't taking into account how powerful casters in D&D tabletop really are.