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

[Cybit]

Casters are terrifying in theory, far less in practice.

As for play experience...I'm approaching close to 600 hours testing (a three hour game a week for the last 1.5 years and an eight hour game a week for about 9 months, so 3 * 75 (225) + 36 * 8 (288) + 7 single shot PvP tests for 6 hours each (42) is about 550 hours) for both new and old players, two separate groups, and having run a full campaign from 1-18.

Short version: The theory of casters is far more alluring than the reality.

1) Casters are awesome when they cut loose, but the opportunities are rare. Martials tend to be more consistent. Both times I have had a TPK, the casters all wanted to go to martial characters, and the martials were usually convinced to go to casters. (One TPK was at 14th level). They usually have to be careful about how they spend their spells, because they run out very, very quick.

2) At higher levels, Legendary creatures are a PITA. The auto-saves and the legendary actions (and lair actions) end up hitting casters much harder, because they end up having to make physical saves (DC 10 and be knocked back and prone, DC 15 or be restrained, etc) that screw with them.

 

[Jack the Lad]

2) At higher levels, Legendary creatures are a PITA. The auto-saves and the legendary actions (and lair actions) end up hitting casters much harder, because they end up having to make physical saves (DC 10 and be knocked back and prone, DC 15 or be restrained, etc) that screw with them.

When you are facing creatures with legendary actions/saves and lair actions, you can turn into them with Shapechange or True Polymorph.

How many sessions have you had which featured them? As far as I know the rules for them have only been out for 11 days.

Being knocked back is a good thing for a caster - they don't want to be in melee. Being restrained is no big deal either; you can cast freely, or just Misty Step out of it if it bothers you for whatever reason.

 

[Dausuul]

When you are facing creatures with legendary actions/saves and lair actions, you can turn into them with Shapechange or True Polymorph.

How many sessions have you had which featured them? As far as I know the rules for them have only been out for 11 days.

Cybit was part of the closed playtest. The toys we're just now getting, he's been playing with for months.

Being knocked back is a good thing for a caster - they don't want to be in melee. Being restrained is no big deal either; you can cast freely, or just Misty Step out of it if it bothers you for whatever reason.

Being knocked back is at best a very small benefit, and can be a serious harm if there are terrain hazards around. And both prone and restrained mean melee opponents have advantage when attacking you--as if the enemy didn't have enough reason to engage you in melee already. Neither one is necessarily crippling to a caster, but they are certainly not fun.

 

[Jack the Lad]

Being knocked back is at best a very small benefit, and can be a serious harm if there are terrain hazards around. And both prone and restrained mean melee opponents have advantage when attacking you--as if the enemy didn't have enough reason to engage you in melee already. Neither one is necessarily crippling to a caster, but they are certainly not fun.

Fair enough. They're not trivial. Equally, though, I don't think they're gamechanging.

And I certainly don't the fact that a caster's physical saves are likely worse than a martial's weighs much in the balance against their spellcasting - especially when the lose-control-of-your-character effects all seem to be Wisdom-based.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And yes, the spellcaster does get to shine at times, but it really is feast or famine, especially in the 6-8 encounter model.

Nod. The game /depends/ on the 6-8 encounter model...

Tell that to the Eldritch Knight or the Battle Master or the Arcane Trickster

The Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster /are/ casters.

[sblock=Nevermind the Battlemaster]The Battlemaster is so egregiously nerfed for something that's supposed to be standing in for the 4e fighter, and the 3e fighter's tactical builds, and the Warlord that it's really not a fit topic of conversation outside the 'rage-quit rants' thread. [/sblock]

In 5E at least at low levels, many of the foes are one or two shot cardboard cutouts. Minions (or tough minions, i.e. 2 shot foes). That means in order to maintain that model, PCs have to be constantly fighting lower level challenges. The moment multiple encounters take 3 or more shots to take out each foe and the party is faced with as many foes as they themselves have, then the 6-8 encounters idea flies out the window because the casters cannot keep up, both with healing and with spells.

Clearly, that's the point of the model. If casters' slots kept up with rounds/day, the 'daily' limitation would be meaningless.

 

[pemerton]

It's boring if one is doing dinky damage. It's not the attack roll, it's the damage. The high level fighter is still wiping foes every round or two. He's contributing.

<snip>

the spellcaster does get to shine at times, but it really is feast or famine, especially in the 6-8 encounter model.

<snip>

The moment multiple encounters take 3 or more shots to take out each foe and the party is faced with as many foes as they themselves have, then the 6-8 encounters idea flies out the window because the casters cannot keep up

It seems to me that, if assymetric resources are to be balanced, it has to be "feast or famine" for casters. So this sounds OK. To the extent that it is boring for players of casters, that's a flaw of the overall design model of assymetry. You can't have a game in which some players get to spike and dominate, and are always having as much interesting to do as the non-spiking players.

On the adventuring day, once the party is facing as many foes as they have, don't the mutipiers kick in? So the encounter will either have lower-level enemies or count as a higher-difficulty encounter.

 

[pemerton]

Nod. The game /depends/ on the 6-8 encounter model...

<snip>

that's the point of the model. If casters' slots kept up with rounds/day, the 'daily' limitation would be meaningless.

Good post.

 

[Jack the Lad]

Nod. The game /depends/ on the 6-8 encounter model...

If casters' slots kept up with rounds/day, the 'daily' limitation would be meaningless.

It does, and they don't, but in my experience they don't need to - 1 or 2 spells per encounter suffices.

(The Battlemaster is so egregiously nerfed for something that's supposed to be standing in for the 4e fighter, and the 3e fighter's tactical builds, and the Warlord that it's really not a fit topic of conversation outside the 'rage-quit rants' thread.)

I feel your pain on this one, my friend. Fighter was my favourite 4e class, and Warlords were cool as heck.

 

[Cybit]

I feel your pain on this one, my friend. Fighter was my favourite 4e class, and Warlords were cool as heck.

I will second this; they could have severely powered up the warlord-esque build and been fine. Mind you, in a larger group 6+, they are gorram terrifying. I really liked the fighter expertise dice concept from earlier in the playtest; where all fighters got them.

 

[keterys]

Nod. The game /depends/ on the 6-8 encounter model...

It's a damn shame that it's apparently designed around more like (non-trivial) 2-3 encounters. At least, according to http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/building-adventures

I can definitely confirm that in low encounter days, like the Adventurer's Guild adventures at Gen Con, casters pretty much kicked ass throwing out spells that obliterated encounters.

So it's very game dependent. Which makes me a little sad, but is pretty controllable at least. I did see one D&D game where the PCs basically shamed the casters into keep going without any sort of rest, despite there being no reason whatsoever not to take one, and that worked out I suppose