D&D 5E Analyzing 5E: Overpowered by design

I've noticed that 5E is designed to be played fast and furious. Players are able to carve through enemies and recover at a much faster pace than previous versions of D&D save for perhaps 4E (excluding 4E because I have very little experience with it). And every class seems to have options that might have been considered overpowered in previous editions. I feel like the game is designed for PCs to be powerful and for fights to end quickly one way or the other, usually in the PCs favor.

It is taking some time to adjust to the expectations of this edition. In previous editions I looked for overpowered options and tried to rein them in. In this edition it feels like following this strategy would lead to chasing my tail. I would be wasting my time trying to house rule all the overpowered options in an attempt to balance the game. I'm thinking I would be better off making weak options stronger and more attractive, though that may happen later with additional splat books.

Some things I looked at for each class and what makes them appeared overpowered:

1. Fighters: Nova damage. A Great Weapon Fighter or Archer fighter with Great Weapon Mastery and Sharpshooter using Action Surge can do a pretty nutty amount of damage when buffed and using magic items, especially a Battle Master with Superiority Dice. Right now Battle Master is the best fighter archetype offering the most options for boosting damage dealing capabilities. Add in a few barbarian levels to use Reckless and Rage, you're doing crazy damage easily.

2. Paladin: The overall package. Great Weapon Fighting with Great Weapon Mastery stacked with a Vow and Smiting can do insane nova damage. Their saves are great. Their damage resistances are great. Their armor selection. Their damage boosting spells. Their archetypes are all solid. Their auras being a lot to the group. The overall class stands tall amongst all the martial classes. Self healing. Few enemies can withstand a buffed paladin for long.

3. Ranger: Archery style ranger using swift quiver spell stacked with hunter's mark and Crossbow Expert feat. Great damage.

4. Barbarian: Raging Great Weapon Mastery barbarian using Reckless with Bear Resistance. Beastly damage dealer with unequaled ability to take damage in battle.

5. Warlock/Sorcerer: Eldritch Blast with Hex and Agonizing Blast does a lot of damage per round as a ranged caster. Multiclass with sorcerer and you can do some nutty damage using quicken spell. This one works better as a multiclass.

6. Bard: Overall class. Great buffer. Excellent with skills. Nice ability to affect combat with Cutting Words. Ability to cherry pick great spells from any spell list. Able to heal.

7. Moon Druid: Ability to cycle hit points and maintain a strong hit point buffer for a lot of the day. Excellent spell list. Very hard to kill class competent in all areas of melee and spell combat with good healing capabilities.

8. Wizard: Still the most powerful class in the game with the best spell versatility. Capable of doing a little of everything with spells. The best at damage layering with the ability to summon melee minions, do direct damage, do AoE damage, and the most versatile spell capabilities in the game. The usual all around class wizard player's are accustomed to. It takes a little more mastery and the power gap isn't as wide as it was in previous editions, but the gap is still there. Rather than sitting on top of Mount Everest with everyone else at various tiers down below as it was in previous editions, it's more like being across the hall in an exclusive lounge that the other classes can at least take a look at now and again while being greeted by a bound Elemental Butler.

9. Rogue: The most mobile martial in the game. Capable of killing opponents without being seen or kiting them around without them being able to touch him. Master of skills and stealth. Excellent defensive capabilities. Able to deal moderate damage with minimal risk. Dex focus even more beneficial than in any previous editions given how many aspects of the game Dex affects. Extremely fun in all areas of the game. The ultimate stealthy skirmisher. You could fight a rogue in a forest and never see him before you died.

10. Monk: Seems a lot like the rogue lacking the same level of skill and not as capable of stealth combat. Not real sure about the monk yet. Has some nice defensive and offensive options. Limited by Ki. Seems like a nice class to multiclass with a Rogue for insane mobility.

11. Multiclassing: Multiclassing can provide big benefits for a minimal investment leading to some easily obtainable things like Advantage on Strength-based attack rolls and medium armor and shield proficiency for a spell user.

12. Cleric: Cleric seems like the most balanced, least abuseable class in the game. Though they are amazing healers as they gain levels. The best in the game.

Given all the classes have options that let them do something in an extraordinary fashion, sometimes with nearly no risk, I think I would be wasting my time to try to tone it down and balance it. I do see some weaknesses.

The weaknesses:

1. Two-weapon fighting and Dueling are not on par with Archery and Great Weapon Mastery. There is no way to spike damage for either style. No feats provide such potent inherent benefits as to make either style desirable over Great Weapon Fighter or Archery in a purely mathematical sense. I do not like this. I do not want a player choosing Dueling or Two-weapon style to feel they are taking an inferior option. I would rather they be as numerically effective dealing damage as a Great Weapon Fighter or Archer. I intend to give both fighting styles feats that allow them to spike damage.

2. Rogue damage: I understand rogue damage being weaker than fighters, barbarians, and other martial classes due to an inability to spike damage using a feat or spells and lack of multiple attacks, but I don't want the gap to become as wide as it appears right now. I'm going to be watching this closely to make sure Great Weapon Master fighters and Sharpshooter archers aren't making Sneak Attack a far too weak option.

Some things I do like about Sneak Attack is the single bit hit has a better chance of disrupting concentration and very powerful in combination with Stealthy attacking, especially sniping. I don't like that it may fall substantially behind in the typical way parties fight with everyone standing in the opening swinging at the creatures. I'll keep a close eye on this one.

What kind of trends are others seeing? What are you doing about them?

I actually think all the classes stack up pretty well against each other. Everyone feels useful, it's not all about the combat pillar. There are some classes (monk, warlock) that I haven't tried out yet.

I do agree with your initial analysis but I think provided you don't let a few combos in your game (Sharpshooter/Crossbow Expert + Fighter, Polearm Master + Warcaster + Warlock, SorcLock) then you won't run into one class that eclipses the others.
I disagree with your assessment that Wizards are the most powerful, they're certainly the most USEFUL to have around, but see how four Wizards do against Taimat compared to four sharpshooter Fighters.

Remember it's not all about combat power. Some classes, such as the Rogue, have a lot of usefulness outside of combat. It wouldn't be right for them to have the same combat power as a Fighter. Other classes like the beastmaster Ranger are designed to excel in the exploration pillar of the game.

The challenge comes in from the monster side of things. High end monsters are underpowered in the monsters manual. Vampires, Iron Golems, etc are all WELL below their CR if you use the DMG guidelines.
On the other hand I've had great results upgrading existing monsters to match the DMG guidelines. Monsters hit A LOT harder and it feels about right against my "optimised" group, especially at higher levels.

DaveDash said:

I actually think all the classes stack up pretty well against each other. Everyone feels useful, it's not all about the combat pillar. There are some classes (monk, warlock) that I haven't tried out yet.

I do agree with your initial analysis but I think provided you don't let a few combos in your game (Sharpshooter/Crossbow Expert + Fighter, Polearm Master + Warcaster + Warlock, SorcLock) then you won't run into one class that eclipses the others.
I disagree with your assessment that Wizards are the most powerful, they're certainly the most USEFUL to have around, but see how four Wizards do against Taimat compared to four sharpshooter Fighters.

Remember it's not all about combat power. Some classes, such as the Rogue, have a lot of usefulness outside of combat. It wouldn't be right for them to have the same combat power as a Fighter. Other classes like the beastmaster Ranger are designed to excel in the exploration pillar of the game.

The challenge comes in from the monster side of things. High end monsters are underpowered in the monsters manual. Vampires, Iron Golems, etc are all WELL below their CR if you use the DMG guidelines.
On the other hand I've had great results upgrading existing monsters to match the DMG guidelines. Monsters hit A LOT harder and it feels about right against my "optimised" group, especially at higher levels.

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Overpowered can cover the other pillars of the game.

Four Sharpshooters are an ideal set up for killing a dragon. Take four Great Weapon Master Fighters. They will die to that dragon or come close to it. He will kite them and kill them quite easily if they don't have access to magic to make them fly. He can easily stay out of range. If he managed to take all the archers bows, then they would be in trouble.

Tiamat may be designed to stop four wizards. She may not have much to stop four archers. I don't know.

Four high level wizards against four sharpshooter archers, I'll take the wizards in every scenario save perhaps no contingency surprised with a full round of actions on them. Four wizards kill four of any other class in a fight at high level. It wouldn't even be much of a contest if they coordinated. It would be a downright boring fight for the wizards. Wizards are still the most powerful class in the game because magic is the most powerful tool in the game. Being able to change out your spells to defeat individual targets attacking different resistances, saving throws, tactics, and the like is always going to be more powerful than firing a bow or swinging a sword.

I though about archer versus wizard. Most archers build for Dex. They may or may not have athletics. You use telekinesis to take their bow, while moving back and forth behind cover. Throw up a mirror image, build your AC high to prevent easy hitting with Sharpshooter activating Shield on occasion. . You beat them easy. Seal them in a wall of force or force cage combination with cloudkill, watch them slowly take damage. Maybe banish them if you need time. You have so many options as a wizard. You will only get more as they release more spells. It took a bit to learn. Wizards are still the top dog of D&D. I now have Planar Binding and will be getting Simulacrum soon. I'll be binding up some elementals to bring along on adventures and making a simulacrum of our toughest martial character to wander about with me. Not only will I have my regular assortment of spells, I'll also have some martial power with me to use, so I don't have to spend spell slots for easy fights.

I started a thread about this, and was saddled by questions of what I meant by over-powered. You have hit upon some big problems with the new edition. Having made attempts to tone everything down, I can tell you it isn't fun.

I think it is a design decision, where the aim is keep the players rewarded with powerful abilities across the board. I think they are trying to make it easy to be a fantastic hero, whereas with Pathfinder and the past two editions, there is more preparation and study of the rules required. Everything was designed with the idea that acquiring abilities is one favorite result of playing, and they wanted to deliver that result faster so the game can be played in a shorter time.

Celtavian said:

Overpowered can cover the other pillars of the game.

Four Sharpshooters are an ideal set up for killing a dragon. Take four Great Weapon Master Fighters. They will die to that dragon or come close to it. He will kite them and kill them quite easily if they don't have access to magic to make them fly. He can easily stay out of range. If he managed to take all the archers bows, then they would be in trouble.

Tiamat may be designed to stop four wizards. She may not have much to stop four archers. I don't know.

Four high level wizards against four sharpshooter archers, I'll take the wizards in every scenario save perhaps no contingency surprised with a full round of actions on them. Four wizards kill four of any other class in a fight at high level. It wouldn't even be much of a contest if they coordinated. It would be a downright boring fight for the wizards. Wizards are still the most powerful class in the game because magic is the most powerful tool in the game. Being able to change out your spells to defeat individual targets attacking different resistances, saving throws, tactics, and the like is always going to be more powerful than firing a bow or swinging a sword.

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The game isn't played class vs class, it's play party vs monsters, traps, hazards, and social situations. Your viewpoint is too narrow, because it only appears you're taking a class vs class point of view in combat only.

SirAntoine said:

I started a thread about this, and was saddled by questions of what I meant by over-powered. You have hit upon some big problems with the new edition. Having made attempts to tone everything down, I can tell you it isn't fun.

I think it is a design decision, where the aim is keep the players rewarded with powerful abilities across the board. I think they are trying to make it easy to be a fantastic hero, whereas with Pathfinder and the past two editions, there is more preparation and study of the rules required. Everything was designed with the idea that acquiring abilities is one favorite result of playing, and they wanted to deliver that result faster so the game can be played in a shorter time.

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If was your thread that got me thinking. I started going over all the various overpowered ways to build a character from the core rulebook. There was so many ways to be overpowered that I felt like I would be spending more time changing overpowered options than making weak options stronger.

Did you look at the Skulker feat with the Rogue's ability to hide as a bonus action? You could hide behind a corner and never be seen, while killing someone with arrows. If you're in a forest against a Skulker rogue with a bow, you might as well find a rock and start carving your headstone followed by begging the rogue to bury you and mark your grave after he's done killing you.

There's so much of this in the game and easily accessible and intuitive, like the game designers said, "Enjoy being powerful."

Celtavian said:

I though about archer versus wizard. Most archers build for Dex. They may or may not have athletics. You use telekinesis to take their bow, while moving back and forth behind cover. Throw up a mirror image, build your AC high to prevent easy hitting with Sharpshooter activating Shield on occasion. . You beat them easy. Seal them in a wall of force or force cage combination with cloudkill, watch them slowly take damage. Maybe banish them if you need time. You have so many options as a wizard. You will only get more as they release more spells. It took a bit to learn. Wizards are still the top dog of D&D. I now have Planar Binding and will be getting Simulacrum soon. I'll be binding up some elementals to bring along on adventures and making a simulacrum of our toughest martial character to wander about with me. Not only will I have my regular assortment of spells, I'll also have some martial power with me to use, so I don't have to spend spell slots for easy fights.

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A lot of assumptions there. You're forgetting archers can cast spells too (Eldritch Knight, Ranger), can move back and forth behind cover too, can misty step, can surprise you, and can stealth and generally have much better perception (and initiative) than you have.

If you're surprised or lose initiative you're as good as dead due to concentration mechanics and short buff times. The vise versa is possibly true, but unless you have Foresight the odds are you're not winning initiative.

Simulacrum has a very heavy gold cost and a massively long casting time, so it's not like this is going to be a practical tactic long term. Same with Planar Binding. Is your DM ignoring spell component costs? Also note that Forcecage requires 1500gp worth of ruby dust, so if your DM doesn't want you casting that spell, you're not getting it.

DaveDash said:

The game isn't played class vs class, it's play party vs monsters, traps, hazards, and social situations. Your viewpoint is too narrow, because it only appears you're taking a class vs class point of view in combat only.

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No. I'm not taking only class versus class. You brought up the four archers versus four wizards. I don't know Tiamat. I'm saying four wizards can handle far more encounters than four sharpshooters player versus environment.

You think wizards are only most useful, when they are still most powerful. You're thinking in a very limited fashion of what they can do. I know they can do much, much more. Maybe some Sharpshooting Archers are great against something like Tiamat. I don't know how resistance she is to everything, since I don't know all her capabilities. But four wizards can easily find a way to kill anything I've seen to date. The only thing standing in their way is Legendary Resistance. Otherwise, this wouldn't even be a contest worth talking about.

I've been looking over the spells in the PHB. If you have seen my posts in other threads complaining about concentration and Legendary Resistance, I'm happy to say I was very wrong. Wizards are still far and away the top dog. It takes a different approach to obtain it and it's more about damage layering than direct attacks. Wizards are the most powerful in the game. It will come to be known in time.

DaveDash said:

A lot of assumptions there. You're forgetting archers can cast spells too (Eldritch Knight, Ranger), can move back and forth behind cover too, can misty step, can surprise you, and can stealth and generally have much better perception (and initiative) than you have.

If you're surprised or lose initiative you're as good as dead due to concentration mechanics and short buff times. The vise versa is possibly true, but unless you have Foresight the odds are you're not winning initiative.

Simulacrum has a very heavy gold cost and a massively long casting time, so it's not like this is going to be a practical tactic long term. Same with Planar Binding. Is your DM ignoring spell component costs? Also note that Forcecage requires 1500gp worth of ruby dust, so if your DM doesn't want you casting that spell, you're not getting it.

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Your forgetting about contingency which immediately takes them out of danger and clone which brings them back to life. Then I guarantee the archer is going to go down next time they fight. You wont beat a high level wizard. Sorry, bud. You'll have to get lucky and they'll have to be bad at wizarding.

Celtavian said:

No. I'm not taking only class versus class. You brought up the four archers versus four wizards. I don't know Tiamat. I'm saying four wizards can handle far more encounters than four sharpshooters player versus environment.

You think wizards are only most useful, when they are still most powerful. You're thinking in a very limited fashion of what they can do. I know they can do much, much more. Maybe some Sharpshooting Archers are great against something like Tiamat. I don't know how resistance she is to everything, since I don't know all her capabilities. But four wizards can easily find a way to kill anything I've seen to date. The only thing standing in their way is Legendary Resistance. Otherwise, this wouldn't even be a contest worth talking about.

I've been looking over the spells in the PHB. If you have seen my posts in other threads complaining about concentration and Legendary Resistance, I'm happy to say I was very wrong. Wizards are still far and away the top dog. It takes a different approach to obtain it and it's more about damage layering than direct attacks. Wizards are the most powerful in the game. It will come to be known in time.

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Lol, no actually YOU bought up the Four Archers vs Four Wizards.

They're really not the most powerful class in combat. They're pretty good and pretty fun, but the damage a high level Sharpshooting Fighters will do puts them to shame. When I was playing high level stuff, the Fighter was doing about 500 damage per encounter vs the Wizards 160ish, and in combat damage is still the best way of killing stuff.
You can fluff around wasting 1500gp on Simulacrum* and 1000gp on planar binding, but the Fighter is still more effective than you in combat and just spent a couple of gold on arrows.

The game isn't generally played nor designed for class vs class combat either, so the comparison really isn't a good indicator of what is overpowered and what isn't. In a normal game situation there are only a few classes and combinations that can make the rest of the party feel useless, and the Wizard isn't one of them.

Anyway, you have a good assessment in general for combat, but you're forgetting the other pillars of the game.

*Some further notes on Simulacrum. You can't heal it and to repair it requires downtime, so your simulacrum probably not going to last too many fights. I use custom DMG created monsters, and they can kill a PC in 2-3 hits, so it would probably one shot a Simulacrum resulting in a hefty waste of gold. Also it has no equipment, so unless you have spare magical stuff laying around, it's never going to be as good as your standard Fighter (also half HP). It's better to Simulacrum yourself instead.
The Wizard in my game thought about using this spell, but the practicality of it ended up being not worth it. But by all means, knock yourself out, it's one of those spells that's as powerful as the DM lets it be.