Are questions that ask for a list of "similar" D&D 5e features on topic?

Question

In D&D 5e character building or optimization is a substantial part of the game for a decent part of the player base. Often, there are several ways to achieve a certain goal, for example, I want to ask a question along the lines of:

How can I raise my AC without wearing armor? dnd-5eoptimization

From my decent knowledge of the rules, I expect a list of less than ten features, which are either part of a class, race, spell, item, or class-less feat. To me that seems not too broad, but I have had negative reactions to similar questions (which had similarly concise answers) in the past. I could imagine creating a community-wiki answer, so that if new material gets published and a new feature would have to be included, anyone could add it in.

Answer 1

It is on topic

However, whether the community will think your question is good or not (which will be reflected in the votes) is highly dependent on how you present the question. Good formatting, wording, and clarity play a big role.

Then there is 'research effort'. Back then Stackoverflow was originally built to be an experts site, so the system was designed to curate high quality questions and high quality answers, as expected from experts. If you can't be bothered to research a bit about what you're asking about, or you are just throwing your homework on us, that's a downvote.

I think research effort is a very useful clarification tool where you're lost and what exactly your problem is - and how to solve that. A good list question will clearly define the constraints (for example, source books) and optionally, why you need this list.

Answer 2

Probably

In my opinion, it's going to come down to wording and whether the community feels like the querent spent more than 2 minutes thinking about the topic.

Anecdotally, I feel like some questions get negative reactions because they're written like an anxious child: "hey guys, I had an idea and was wondering what all of the ways to be good with a sword were because I'm trying to make a sword swinger that's also a wizard! THANKS!" or some such.

Compared to "Looking through the PHB, I notice that some races, such as Elves, get longsword proficiency. I know that the various martial classes also get such proficiency and you can take the Weapon Master feat. What are all of the ways to be proficient in Longswords?"