D&D 5E Might&Magic: the linear fighter and the exponential wizard

[Rossbert]

I don't think that amping up the power of the martial class will help. I think the answer is narrowing the *versatility* of casters. Look at what warhammer 2nd ed did - no not the chance of spell failure and madness, let's stick with D&D's safe magic concept shall we? But rather in the narrow focus of each caster. If you were a fire wizard, you did fire stuff. No teleporting around or seeing the future.

I like this, but right now it is a table-by-table thing. Lately about half to a third of my spell selection is themed. I find it much easier on a sorcerer than a wizard though. I feel my party expects me to have staples like fly, invisibility and haste, regardless of my "theme."

 

[CapnZapp]

Just put all classes in the same genre.

Again with this "just", as if it was a reasonable request.

They already are in the same genre. That genre is called "dungeons and dragons". It can't come as a surprise - it's been like that for forty years.

You're claiming it is in a genre it's not. No wonder you're disappointed.

There really is nothing more to it. Maybe you like to be disappointed. At least that's the only reason I can find for insisting something is what it isn't, and not only that - then getting disappointed when it clearly fails to be what it never intended to be...

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm of the opinion that it's important to test the endurance of spellcasters in order to maintain some semblance of balance. It's probably fair to say that most campaigns don't hit the 6-8 encounters per day and I certainly don't. So, I use house rules to adjust the rest schedule (8 hours of rest = a short rest) and that allows me to sit inside what I consider to be a comfortable cadence of encounters and still create space for a fighter or rogue to shine.

My players are very conservative with slinging spells as a result because they don't know how many days it will be before they can complete a long rest (normally 3 days for my setting - called "a cycle" - but can be a single day in a place of "sanctuary"). It was simple enough to implement and has done wonders for me as a DM.

It turns out my players are happy to play martials even though I rarely manage to force a 6-8 encounter workday, let alone half that.

It will be interesting to see how they handle Omu (in ToA) where I have strictly regulated the number of long rests.

I can only imagine how the martials would blow the casters out of the water if days were seven encounters on average.

My impression so far? Fighters are fine, and that WotC have finally consigned the concept of LFQW to history. (That doesn't mean Wizards won't become very powerful indeed. It means I don't see fighters being demoted to carrying the wizard's palanquin, or however you put it)

The more pressing issue is the lack of build depth. We would dearly like more crunch in our charbuilding.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Again with this "just", as if it was a reasonable request.

It really is a reasonable request - or, rather, would be if it were any game that wasn't D&D, that didn't have 40+ years of inertia & stereotyping perpetuating the split-genre/double-standard, and closing the game to a wide swath of fantasy-sub-genre emulation and playstyles.

But, if one were to take 5e's founding principles of inclusion and supporting /more/ playstyles seriously, it might also seem a reasonable request to add options to facilitate such things.

They already are in the same genre. That genre is called "dungeons and dragons".

A game can't emulate a genre it defines, that'd be circular reasoning.

Maybe you like to be disappointed.

Like I said, some of us just like complaining about it. ;P

Another unpleasant reality of the situation is that if fighters weren't horribly under-versatile victims of 'realism,' and casters weren't wildly over-powered 'supers,' you might well see all-fighter or nearly-all-fighter (or at least all-martial) parties ('cleric-less' parties have always been a problem, and even with Druids/Bards/Paladins as alternative in 3e & 5e, the healer-less party is still a problem), because the heroic archetypes the fighter represents (however poorly) are far more popular than those represented by the cleric or the like.

The more pressing issue is the lack of build depth. We would dearly like more crunch in our charbuilding.

That's something I appreciated about 3.x that's still somewhat lacking in 5e.

 

[LapBandit]

That's something I appreciated about 3.x that's still somewhat lacking in 5e.

Oh dear gods of the multiverse no. I will never again be subjected to the Monte Cook school of design if I can help it.

The easiest way to balance fighters with full casters is to change short rests to a night's sleep and a long rest to many consecutive days of rest. Let normal HD recharging and exhaustion be short rest recharged. The end.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The easiest way to balance fighters with full casters is to change short rests to a night's sleep and a long rest to many consecutive days of rest. Let normal HD recharging and exhaustion be short rest recharged.

That's adjusting the balance point to fit a campaign with different pacing. Which isn't terrible, but isn't ultimately any different than just forcing tons of encounters & short rests into every 'day.'

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Stop referencing the supers genre and you can enjoy D&D for what it is.

I don't enjoy the part of D&D where wizards fly around and shoot disintegration beams out of their eyes. That sort of thing belongs in the supers genre, and not the dungeon fantasy genre.

 

[Fanaelialae]

The AD&D fighter level title at level 8 was Superhero ... just saying

If I recall correctly, that actually had it's roots in wargaming. A unit could eventually become a hero, and then a superhero. Meaning "better than a hero", as opposed to "you are now one of the X-Men".


As to LFQW, I remember it well from 3.x, but I can't say I've noticed it in 5e (we've played up to 19th level). High level casters are undoubtedly different from non-casters, but my impression hasn't been that they are better. Just different. YMMV

 

[Garthanos]

If I recall correctly, that actually had it's roots in wargaming. A unit could eventually become a hero, and then a superhero. Meaning "better than a hero", as opposed to "you are now one of the X-Men".

I was mildly tongue in cheek but you opened the can. What exactly do you suppose superhero means? D&D, Expert D&D and AD&D all unabashed used the term ( remember in Chainmail those Fireballs and Lightning bolts were death magic and basically usable every round of battle. The spell was even for the Hero level game token death unless you save so if you are going with origins here that mu was definitely beyond the Xmen)

And it has been pointed out the magic user at 8th level in those earlier editions(not Chainmail) was starting to be a functional match for an X-Men in comparison to the everyman and the mu a few levels later say level 12 was possibly defeating the whole group of Xmen (who are actually pretty weak as supers go LOL ). It looks to me these name caliber superheros were meant to be bloody awesome, even if some fell chronically short.

Looking for magic at all similar nature to D&Ds in legend and n mythology I have really only found groups like the Tuatha de Danaan, The Celts were into big magic and their fighting class characters like Cu Cuhlaine were very over the top and arguably the source for the D&D concept of Feats, the lot of them were more ahem "super" heroes (whose leaders got godified in later interpretations) .

Yes the raw potency in one area of endeavor combat for the Wizard type is now more inline with martial types. The Martial Types could if allowed Lugh Lamfadas mundane skill versatility still no where near match the magic users out of combat ability. (Lugh was also a sorceror however)

 

[Fanaelialae]

I was mildly tongue in cheek but you opened the can. What exactly do you suppose superhero means?

snip

I was simply clarifying the terminology (AFAIK). Superhero in those wargaming terms was "hero plus". By my understanding, it was not intended to imply the superhero genre.

You're certainly free to interpret it that way, but AFAIK that wasn't the intended meaning.

As to who would win, a high level wizard or the X-Men, it might be fun to debate but it's no more productive than arguing who would win in a fight between Darth Vader and Old Man Logan.

If you want to run high level non-casters as superheroes, more power to you. Just give them a lot of leeway when it comes to doing things. Let high level fighters chop mountains in half (or whatever) if that's what you want.