D&D 5E Sharpshooter/Great Weapon Master and Why They Are Broken 101.

FormerlyHemlock · Nov 2, 2016

Fanaelialae said:
Four 5th level wizards have eight 3rd level spells to go between them (up to 12 if they all use Arcane Recovery to recharge a 3rd level slot, but that may not be the best choice for a long adventuring day, particularly if you want to cast Shield regularly). Assuming average damage and a roughly 50/50 split of failed saves, a fireball deals 21 damage. Against a CR 2 ogre (a low deadly fight could involve up to 5 of these guys) that's 2 or 3 fireballs (even assuming they all fail their saves which, granted, is likely). That also assumes that the ogres are grouped closely enough to all be targeted at once. If not, 6 fireballs might be more realistic. If an ogre gets lucky and rolls well on saves, again 6 fireballs are needed.

Why would you ever Fireball a lone CR 2 ogre when you can just kite him to death with Expeditious Retreat and Ray of Frost? You may not even need Expeditious Retreat at all.

Whichever wizard is closest to the ogre can close with it and Dodge or Blur to keep it occupied/threaten opportunity attacks. Wizards are pretty durable in 5E thanks to Shield.

Meanwhile, if there are five CR 2 Ogres, it's absolutely worthwhile to spend 2-3 Fireballs plus a few cantrips wiping them out, since five ogres constitutes a full third of the adventuring day. (3500 of 14,000.) Fireball spam is still probably not the best choice compared to a combo like Web + Hypnotic Pattern + Fire Bolt spam--but it might be the most fun! And with twelve 3rd level slots, the wizards can definitely afford to do "fun but non-optimal".

FormerlyHemlock · Nov 2, 2016

Fanaelialae said:
In a typical day, you should be mixing it up. I've never done a day of 7 medium difficulty fights. That seems like it would be mindlessly boring. I'm also not at all convinced that an all fighter party would fair any worse against your proposed encounters.

Besides, do you normally start your campaigns at 10th level? In order to become a 10th level wizard, you typically have to survive that long. How well do you think they'd do at 3rd level? Cause I'm pretty sure the all fighter party would handle things fine.

I didn't claim the fighters would fare worse, especially not at 5th level. Stick to what I actually did say, including the note that a wizard-heavy party is not the only powerhouse configuration in 5E. The dirty little secret of 5E is that, much like the old DOS game Master of Magic, it is actually chock-full of powerhouse configurations that stomp all over DMG difficulty guidelines. That's part of what makes it fun--a game with one brokenly good strategy is boring, but a game with twenty brokenly good strategies that can be mix-and-matched for replayability is a classic for the ages!

I'm not worried about the all-wizard party's viability at level 5 or level 3, but I'm not worried about the all-Fighter party either.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go make an 11-book Death Mage and use exponentially-multiplying ghouls and lycanthropes to conquer the entire map by turn 100.

Corwin · Nov 2, 2016

Tony Vargas said:
It also doesn't really consider wizards, just some hypothetical class that can only cast fireball.

Well, to be fair, white-room-encounter wizards always have the exact right spells for the job and enough slots to cast them.

Helldritch · Nov 2, 2016

For the ogre's suggestion. All simulations (I did this whole day 5 times just to see) put them to rest with the wizards dancing on their bones with most of their spell slots intact (assuming a 40 feet standard distance 5 out of 7, with no surprise on behalf of the ogres or wizards).

Scorching rays are really usefull with a familliar doing the help action. The amount of damage potential and scouting ahead that is available with invisible familliars is mind boggling. A small rat will almost always be ignored (pests are common in any dungeons) and will be able to do some scouting at low levels. Mapping a dungeon this can be really usefull for any party but our party of wizards will be about to do it quite a lot of time. And the higher they get in levels, the stronger their scouting and evading powers become.

Fanaelialae · Nov 2, 2016

Hemlock said:
I didn't claim the fighters would fare worse, especially not at 5th level. Stick to what I actually did say, including the note that a wizard-heavy party is not the only powerhouse configuration in 5E. The dirty little secret of 5E is that, much like the old DOS game Master of Magic, it is actually chock-full of powerhouse configurations that stomp all over DMG difficulty guidelines. That's part of what makes it fun--a game with one brokenly good strategy is boring, but a game with twenty brokenly good strategies that can be mix-and-matched for replayability is a classic for the ages!

I'm not worried about the all-wizard party's viability at level 5 or level 3, but I'm not worried about the all-Fighter party either.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go make an 11-book Death Mage and use exponentially-multiplying ghouls and lycanthropes to conquer the entire map by turn 100.

Characters in 5e are meant to be strong. The encounter guidelines put the odds in the favor of even casual players. Ever consider that if a group of all wizards is a "powerhouse" and a group of all fighters is a "powerhouse", then maybe this is simply 5e's version of normal? Granted, some configurations will be stronger than others, but I have yet to see the case where one is so far above the baseline that I would consider it brokenly strong. Unlike other editions, in 5e I've yet to feel like I need to bend over backwards to challenge my players. The other guys at my table who've run 5e seem to feel the same way.

FormerlyHemlock · Nov 2, 2016

Fanaelialae said:
Characters in 5e are meant to be strong. The encounter guidelines put the odds in the favor of even casual players. Ever consider that if a group of all wizards is a "powerhouse" and a group of all fighters is a "powerhouse", then maybe this is simply 5e's version of normal? Granted, some configurations will be stronger than others, but I have yet to see the case where one is so far above the baseline that I would consider it brokenly strong. Unlike other editions, in 5e I've yet to feel like I need to bend over backwards to challenge my players. The other guys at my table who've run 5e seem to feel the same way.

You're missing the point. Allow me to restate:

Party power scares superlinearly in the number of wizards in the party, due to synergies and pooled spell knowledge.

That is all I have claimed. I have expressed no opinion about the scaling of Fighters. (I suspect scaling is roughly linear but I haven't thought through all the scenarios involving proning/etc.)

If you ask for a strong commitment, I suspect that I'd wind up telling you that a party of all wizards will handle at least twice the total adjusted XP of monsters per day that a party of all fighters would. Nailing down enough parameters to do a generalized analysis would be enough of a pain though that I'd prefer to just avoid making any such comparative claims. However, that also does not mean that I'm conceding some kind of equality between fighters and wizards, and you certainly can't draw inferences about "5E normal" from that concession, which hasn't even been conceded.

I stand by my observation that a wizard-heavy party is an extremely strong configuration in 5E. (Especially if multiclassing is involved, and especially at levels 9+.) This claim is prima facie obvious enough that I'm surprised that there's even anyone controverting it. How can anyone not see this?

Edit: I agree with you though that 5E is geared to be quite easy. IMO it's more fun if you crank up the difficulty quite a bit.

Flamestrike · Nov 2, 2016

cbwjm said:
The thing is, if you have an entire party of wizards, then they are likely able to share the load, casting fewer spells each while destroying their opponents and therefore able to keep plenty of spells in reserve. For instance, if they are all 5th level, then it might only take two of them to drop a couple of fireballs to essentially finish the combat with some minor mop-up.

Exactly. So you design your encounters with this in mind.

You dont have to make them 'more deadly' - you just have to account for the spells known and spellcasting ability of the PCs'

Which (the more high level casters you have) the harder it becomes.

Personally I would design the adventuring day with a ton of spells required just to do stuff. Planar travel, teleportation, knock, flight etc are all requirements to get to the next encounter, or complete a section of the quest etc. In this way you maintain constant attrition of spell slots.

That way when they get to the combat encounters, they'll have less slots to toss around.

The actual combat encounters should feature things with resistance to their main forms of damage, magic resistance, anti magic, a couple of enemy mages with counter spell, the encounters themselves occur on the planes with planar traits affecting magic, etc. Not all of the encounters mind you (you want more than a few where they can show off a barrage of flashy spells).

You need to keep up the casting pressure. With one wizard its easy to do. With 5 of them (all of them with dramatically different spell load outs) it's much more challenging.

Imaro · Nov 2, 2016

Hemlock said:
You're missing the point. Allow me to restate:

Party power scares superlinearly in the number of wizards in the party, due to synergies and pooled spell knowledge.

That is all I have claimed. I have expressed no opinion about the scaling of Fighters. (I suspect scaling is roughly linear but I haven't thought through all the scenarios involving proning/etc.)

If you ask for a strong commitment, I suspect that I'd wind up telling you that a party of all wizards will handle at least twice the total adjusted XP of monsters per day that a party of all fighters would. Nailing down enough parameters to do a generalized analysis would be enough of a pain though that I'd prefer to just avoid making any such comparative claims. However, that also does not mean that I'm conceding some kind of equality between fighters and wizards, and you certainly can't draw inferences about "5E normal" from that concession, which hasn't even been conceded.

I stand by my observation that a wizard-heavy party is an extremely strong configuration in 5E. (Especially if multiclassing is involved, and especially at levels 9+.) This claim is prima facie obvious enough that I'm surprised that there's even anyone controverting it. How can anyone not see this?

Edit: I agree with you though that 5E is geared to be quite easy. IMO it's more fun if you crank up the difficulty quite a bit.

On a side note I do wonder just how powerful a group of Battlemaster fighters (half melee/half ranged) could become with the right mixture of feats, maneuvers and fighting style synergies. Maybe not as versatile as a group of wizards but I think they could definitely bring decent versatility and alot of pure power to an encounter.

Helldritch · Nov 2, 2016

Imaro said:
On a side note I do wonder just how powerful a group of Battlemaster fighters (half melee/half ranged) could become with the right mixture of feats, maneuvers and fighting style synergies. Maybe not as versatile as a group of wizards but I think they could definitely bring decent versatility and alot of pure power to an encounter.

I guess that it would be pretty awesome. I can imagine a few things like a king Arthur's theme like a set of knights righting wrongs. Versatility would be weak but with backgrounds and a few tweaks it could be really fun. Damage output could be something to behold too. One GWM, one shield master with two SS. I can even imagine them taking a two level dip into life cleric. Bless all around with a few healing spells. Not much but enough to go by.

FormerlyHemlock · Nov 2, 2016

Imaro said:
On a side note I do wonder just how powerful a group of Battlemaster fighters (half melee/half ranged) could become with the right mixture of feats, maneuvers and fighting style synergies. Maybe not as versatile as a group of wizards but I think they could definitely bring decent versatility and alot of pure power to an encounter.

Sounds like a new thread! "Test To Destruction: Post Your Battlemasters-only Party!" with a mix of combat-oriented encounters and simple linear skill challenges (including traps). See whose group can get the furthest in the adventure.

D&D 5E Sharpshooter/Great Weapon Master and Why They Are Broken 101.

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