D&D 5E 5th Edition -- Caster Rule, Martials Drool?

[Tony Vargas]

So yeah, the melee types are hitting for more than twice as much damage and can do about 39% to 46% of monster hit points per round (if they hit). Casters with cantrips, about 15% to 20% (if they hit).

At that rate, we could expect a combat to last about 3 rounds. At 10th level, with casters having 15 spells to spread over 6-8 encounters, that's about 2 spells per encounter. So two casting, one cantrip. The cantrip's one round of half damage would have to make up for both rounds of casting, which'd mean each spell could only do, on average, 25% more than the 'full attack' (let's call it) of the melee types. If we assume the casters are supposed to get equal DPR from the back while the melee types suck it up in the front to dish out theirs. I'm pretty sure spells do better than that.

Assume the lower half of the caster's spells are consumed on utility or the like, leaving them with 1 spell/encounter, and that spell would have to be about double the damage potential of the melee type - again, to equal the DPR of the melee type who sucks it up in melee while the caster hangs out in the back, and who is shown up out of combat by the caster devoting all his lower-level spells to utility. So, really, it should come in lower.

I have a feeling this math has all been done during the closed playtest and that what they came up with was, indeed, 6-8 medium-hard encounters. Tough and/or boring as that may sound.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I do not want wizards fireballing every round. I do want the players of wizards to feel useful. The 5th level wizard can fire off 3 fireballs a day. But, his first level spells tend to be wimpier than melee PC damage per round, so those are no longer as worthwhile. They are his new cantrips.

Actually his cantrips that just started doing double damage are his new cantrips.

Mostly, a caster's two highest levels of spells are the ones that are really cool and anything lower than that tends to be average at best.

I'd guess it's more like his top 6-8 spells. Y'know, about 1/encounter. Below that, every single slot can potentially do something a non-caster couldn't hope to do (without a magic item) because they're maaaagic! Using it for damage may be 'just' better than plinking with a cantrip, but the potential of each slot is a lot more than just average damage.

What I want:

1) 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. 5E advertises it, but I do not think it delivers shy of PCs using a ton of group stealth and foes being mooks most of the time. I like real challenging fights where the players feel like their PCs are actually threatened and lots of them, not fights that are challenging only to resource management.

I suspect that the encounter guidelines are like the National 55 MPH speed limit of the late 70s, that would theoretically has saved gas if everyone hadn't kept driving 65. They're a 'let's pretend' way to make the numbers look good. Nothing stops a DM from trying to make the game 'more exciting' by having half as many, decidedly harder or deadly encounters, giving the casters room to cut loose every round and radically out-perform. For that matter, nothing really discourages the 5MWD (or does Inspiration, comparatively minor though it may be, go away when you rest?).

It's up to the DM to enforce encounter guidelines by fiat.

2) Pure spellcasters to be able to do their schtick once per encounter (on average). A cantrip or a light crossbow is not their schtick. They should feel productive in most encounters, at least for one round.

I think we're prettymuch there out of the lowest levels, even if we were to follow the guidelines.

3) Melee PC to feel productive most encounters as well. If the wizard is casting Fireball 3 encounters in a row at level 5 and winning most of the encounters by himself, the melee PC players will feel non-productive, just like when the 5th level melee PCs rush into the room and take out half of the foes with their double damage before the wizard can cast his one or two cantrips in a one or two round fight.

4) PCs to NOT be fighting mooks most of the encounters in order to get to that 6-8.

Nod. This was an issue with the 5MWD/LFQW debates in the 3e era. If you /did/ posit enough combat per day for the non-casters' 'unlimited' melee attacks to start pulling ahead, those combats had to be pretty trivial, and the casters would still shine in the important fights, while the non-casters did mop-up of the pointless ones that were just there to fill the day out.

Sure, Dimension Door is good at any level, but it doesn't really make the caster shine offensively. There are a lot of utility spells or defensive spells that do not mean that the caster is hogging the show.

Utility spells can certainly take center stage, especially out of combat or ahead of combat, to help set up an easy victory. They can put the caster in the driver's seat, as his decisions of what slot to use for what spell determines the way the party approaches challenges.

 

[Supersonic159]

It's really hard to tell at this point. Between the lack of experience we have with 5e and not knowing how the Martials abilities will stack up to Casters. Just remember that there is the slot system that jails a lot of the spells later, so that may help even the playing field.

 

[pemerton]

It shows balance

I said a caster downgrades half the they if ALL 4 big spells work in great situations.

The average is only 2 times.

Casters get 3-5 big spells a day.

Do non-casters get to downgrade 2 to 4 encounters a day? (That question is not rhetorical, by the way.)

 

[KarinsDad]

At that rate, we could expect a combat to last about 3 rounds. At 10th level, with casters having 15 spells to spread over 6-8 encounters, that's about 2 spells per encounter. So two casting, one cantrip. The cantrip's one round of half damage would have to make up for both rounds of casting, which'd mean each spell could only do, on average, 25% more than the 'full attack' (let's call it) of the melee types. If we assume the casters are supposed to get equal DPR from the back while the melee types suck it up in the front to dish out theirs. I'm pretty sure spells do better than that.

Assume the lower half of the caster's spells are consumed on utility or the like, leaving them with 1 spell/encounter, and that spell would have to be about double the damage potential of the melee type - again, to equal the DPR of the melee type who sucks it up in melee while the caster hangs out in the back, and who is shown up out of combat by the caster devoting all his lower-level spells to utility. So, really, it should come in lower.

I have a feeling this math has all been done during the closed playtest and that what they came up with was, indeed, 6-8 medium-hard encounters. Tough and/or boring as that may sound.

I think that the assumption that the lower half of the caster's spells are sucked up for other things is a reasonable assumption because they sure as heck are not doing damage. For example:

Let's take a wizard. 16 spells (including arcane recovery and he recovers his highest level slot).

4 first
3 of each other level

I'll compare non-shield non-casters as about 26 points of damage * .65 chance to hit plus crits = 17.5 points per round. Spells below include crits.


First level spells:

Burning Hands is about 10 * .65% + 5 * .35% = 8.5 points of damage against 2 or 3 foes. The non-casters average the same unless it is 3 foes.

Magic Missile is 10 automatic points of damage. Non-casters average 17.5.


Second level spells:

Melf's Acid Arrow. 15 * .65% + 5 * .35% = 12. Below the non-casters.

Scorching Ray. 7 points of damage against 3 foes * 0.65%. At 15, still below the non-casters.


As can be seen, the first and second level damage spells fall behind pretty quickly to the point that they are lucky if in one round, the caster is doing the same total damage as the non-caster.

It's only the highest level spells that are consistent.


Note: This is less true for things like Charm or Hold or anything which has a save for an effect.


If the caster's main spells are levels 3, 4, and 5, the caster is down to 9 "Hey, I'm a caster, hear me roar" spells. First, second, and even third level spells start being sucked up for utility (Mage Armor, Shield, Fly, Invisibility, Darkvision, etc.).

And the non-casters tend to have Encounter and/or Daily abilities that he can nova with as well. So, it's not just the caster.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think that the assumption that the lower half of the caster's spells are sucked up for other things is a reasonable assumption because they sure as heck are not doing damage. For example:

Let's take a wizard. 16 spells (including arcane recovery and he recovers his highest level slot).

4 first
3 of each other level

I'll compare non-shield non-casters as about 26 points of damage * .65 chance to hit plus crits = 17.5 points per round. Spells below include crits.

So, again, we're considering the higher-damage melee types, not, say an archer or something. That's fine, just assume that they 'need' their armor & extra 2 hps/level to get in there and deal their damage.

First level spells:

Burning Hands is about 10 * .65% + 5 * .35% = 8.5 points of damage against 2 or 3 foes. The non-casters average the same unless it is 3 foes.

Magic Missile is 10 automatic points of damage. Non-casters average 17.5.


Second level spells:
Scorching Ray. 7 points of damage against 3 foes * 0.65%. At 15, still below the non-casters.

All evocations, which, at level 10, let the Evoker add his stat bonus. That'd boost Burning Hands to 12 per target, Magic Missile to 14 vs one target (or 7.5 each for three, 22.5), and scorching ray to a scorching 11 damage each vs three, or 24 average damage.

The Evoker /is/ the heavy-hitter build, just like the GWF, afterall.

Then there's Flaming Sphere, at 2nd, which neatly tacks on 7 save-for-half (5-6) as a bonus action for as long as you concentrate on it. Tack that onto an Evoker's cantrip each round and you're keeping up, all combat, for /one/ 'certainly not doing damage' spell, 3 levels below your highest.

Note: This is less true for things like Charm or Hold or anything which has a save for an effect.

Indeed. Since saves scale with Proficiency, such spells lose no relative power as you gain levels (if you can target non-proficient saves they /gain/ power as you level, with no need to use a higher level slot - vestige of LFQW that was missed this time around).

If the caster's main spells are levels 3, 4, and 5, the caster is down to 9 "Hey, I'm a caster, hear me roar" spells. First, second, and even third level spells start being sucked up for utility (Mage Armor, Shield, Fly, Invisibility, Darkvision, etc.).

That's more than 1/encounter. And it's not like spells 'sucked up' for utility do nothing, they give the caster a moment of awesome for each non-combat challenge he uses them in.

And the non-casters tend to have Encounter and/or Daily abilities that he can nova with as well. So, it's not just the caster.

Not so much. The Champion and Battlemaster have no dailies, and no one's taking an hour rest after each of 6-8 combats in a day.

 

[Remathilis]

I do not want wizards fireballing every round. I do want the players of wizards to feel useful. The 5th level wizard can fire off 3 fireballs a day. But, his first level spells tend to be wimpier than melee PC damage per round, so those are no longer as worthwhile. They are his new cantrips.

It sounds like you are interested in one of three fixes:
a.) Spells that scale with caster level (so that spells scale without resorting to spell slot upping)
b.) An inverse spell acquisition (As PCs level, they get more spell slots in higher levels than in lower, IE a fifth level caster with 2 first, 3 second, and 4 third level spell slots)
c.) A way to "trade up" by combining low level spell slots in higher ones (typically done via a spell point system).

1) 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. 5E advertises it, but I do not think it delivers shy of PCs using a ton of group stealth and foes being mooks most of the time. I like real challenging fights where the players feel like their PCs are actually threatened and lots of them, not fights that are challenging only to resource management.

"Mooks" is a relative term in 5e. There's a thread somewhere around here where someone posits 24 orcs can kill a 20th level fighter in a half-dozen rounds thanks to bounded accuracy. Unlike 3e, where you typically fought an opponent with a CR equal to PC's level +1d4-1, 5e is much more interested in smaller encounters to augment the big battles; 4e was the era of big set-piece encounters every battle.

2) Pure spellcasters to be able to do their schtick once per encounter (on average). A cantrip or a light crossbow is not their schtick. They should feel productive in most encounters, at least for one round.

Again, this comes back to "I want magic all the time". A wizard is not DPS; a single sleep spell should make the wizard feel productive. I can't believe in a thread where people are complaining about forcecage and polymorph you can come in and say "wizard's are productive in most encounters".

3) Melee PC to feel productive most encounters as well. If the wizard is casting Fireball 3 encounters in a row at level 5 and winning most of the encounters by himself, the melee PC players will feel non-productive, just like when the 5th level melee PCs rush into the room and take out half of the foes with their double damage before the wizard can cast his one or two cantrips in a one or two round fight.

This completely contradicts what you just said. How can a fighter be amazing if the wizard is constantly bringing to bear "spells better than melee attacks". Melee is a constant damage output, magic is spike damage. The only way to even them out is to make them do the same thing. (Melee getting attacks that scale on par with magic, magic getting reliable use equal to melee attacks.) Now, where did I see that before? Oh yeah. Fourth Edition.

I think that 5E accomplishes part of this. I think it is (like 1E and 2E and 3E without cure wands) weak on out of combat healing which means fewer real encounters. And I think that the DM can adjust the number of decent encounters that casters can cast in with a few judicious offensive wands and healing items.

Every class has HD. Bards can heal every short rest. Fighter frickin regenerate if you chain enough short rests/second winds together. Healing is NOT something PCs lack for except at levels 1-3.

Mostly, a caster's two highest levels of spells are the ones that are really cool and anything lower than that tends to be average at best. Lower level spells can become a bit obsolete, especially offensive ones. That's an average of 4.5 spells per day that are generally cool and some that are, not so cool. Some levels have a few more, some a few less. There are some spells (like maybe Hold Person) that scale well for 8 levels or so. Some like Shield are always good. But many spells do not scale that well (and putting them into higher slots means that they are no longer a low level spell).

See, you're trapped in the same negative feedback loop: you only want "meaningful encounters" and then you only want "your best attacks" because everything else is useless against it. How bout using those low level spells on those "mook" encounters? Burning Hands still fries goblins the same at 5th level as it did at 1st.

Sure, Dimension Door is good at any level, but it doesn't really make the caster shine offensively. There are a lot of utility spells or defensive spells that do not mean that the caster is hogging the show.

Just like more consistent damage, better hit points, and better AC does not necessarily mean that the non-caster is hogging the show. It only means this if the caster is not being that productive many encounters.

Challenging, meaningful encounters every round? Check. Healing spread out and used as a method of resource depletion? Check. Having your best magic for every encounter? Check. Magic not outshining Martial Check.

You want fourth edition. Go check out Heroes of the Fallen Kingdom; I think it might just be what you're looking for!

 

[Jackal_]

PHB's have finally arrived for most of our gaming group. Where the 4th ed fighter was very popular, no one in the group could imagine themselves playing the 5th ed fighter. He'll just go back to where he was when we played 3rd ed, unplayed. It didn't make 3rd ed any less fun, so we're still on board with 5th ed.

 

[KarinsDad]

Again, this comes back to "I want magic all the time". A wizard is not DPS; a single sleep spell should make the wizard feel productive.

...

This completely contradicts what you just said. How can a fighter be amazing if the wizard is constantly bringing to bear "spells better than melee attacks

I do not want magic all of the time.

I want magic (on average) at least once per encounter. And it does not have to be the strongest magic the PC has, just something which is not a cantrip. As a player of a wizard, I am taking the low hit points and low AC and other risks so THAT I can nova. Not so that most of the time and I twittle my thumbs and cast a cantrip.

The 4th level wizard casting sleep and putting one Gnoll to sleep is totally fine. The fighter still shines as he kills another Gnoll and damages a third. If the wizard takes out one with Sleep and the fighter takes one out with damage, how is this not the fighter being amazing?

At 4th level, this IS the wizard casting a spell better than a melee attack because it took a foe out (at least until an NPC wakes up that foe and then it was purely defensive and ate up one or more NPC actions).

But the wizard cannot cast Sleep every encounter. Even with 7 total spells a day (and I picked level 4 because it has the most highest and second highest level spells, other levels have fewer), he might not manage this. He might put up Mage Armor. He might get attacked and put up Shield. He might do an Identify, or in a non-combat situation do a Charm Person. Or cast Knock to get past a locked door the rogue couldn't pick. The wizard could roll 12 total on the 5D8 and it affects nobody cause the current fight is Orcs with 15 hit points. Or, the PCs might be fighting 6 HD creatures and even a good roll doesn't affect them. Or he might affect 2 mook Goblins while the 3 Orcs are unaffected. Although Sleep is powerful, very few PC wizards will ever get 7 of them that actually work in a given day unless they are higher level (with more overall spells) and fighting mooks.

And Sleep only affects a lot of foes and outright wins the encounter if the foes are mooks. Otherwise, it tends to take out 2 foes at most and often just one. The human 1st level ranger with Sharpshooter can do that nearly every other round against a lot of different foes. If the foes are mooks and I am the player of the fighter, I WANT the wizard to sleep 4 of them so that we can move on to a real encounter. Mook fights are boring unless there are a ton of them in the fight (and then it becomes a real challenge).


And another thing, the wizard using Fireball to seriously damage or kill multiple foes is a good thing in my mind. I want 6-8 actually difficult encounters, not 6-8 against 5 mooks each. If the 5th level wizard partially wipes out 3 real encounters, that's 1.5 more encounters per day overall just from 3 spells. Sure, the wizard SHINES in those 3 encounters, but he starts running out of good things to do in the other 3 -5 encounters whereas the fighter shines in most of those encounters. The fighter shines more in the 3-5 non-Fireball encounters than in the 3 Fireball encounters, but he still shines. Ditto for the cleric that does not need to heal or buff much in those 3 encounters. The cleric can cast more spells per encounter in the other 3-5 encounters. Same with the druid. Same with the paladin.


It's a party cooperative thing when one PC novas, not a party competition thing. Every PC gets multiple chances per day to shine. I'm not quite sure why that is difficult to understand and there is this "your PC can do this, but mine cannot" attitude. It's a cooperative party endeavor.

 

[KarinsDad]

PHB's have finally arrived for most of our gaming group. Where the 4th ed fighter was very popular, no one in the group could imagine themselves playing the 5th ed fighter. He'll just go back to where he was when we played 3rd ed, unplayed. It didn't make 3rd ed any less fun, so we're still on board with 5th ed.

The 5E fighter is one of the strongest martial PCs in 5E. He can self heal; do the equivalent of action points; cast spells, or do maneuvers, or critical more than anyone else; and at levels 11 on, he gets more attacks than anyone else.

The 5E fighter is the bomb, especially the Battle Master or the Eldritch Knight.

He's not a defender like in 4E, he's a striker and can be a very versatile one.