D&D 5E Balancing Full Casters with Non-Casters

[Blue]

The balance now is longer fights (more rounds, not more IRL time) and more fights per day. Fighters keep on fighting. Casters run out of spells. If you run few or short combats, casters win.

This is absolutely true. Has three different resource recover mechanics - at-will, short-rest, and long-rest. It si balance around 6-8 meaningful encounters per long-rest, divided into thirds by short rests.

Harder but fewer encounters DO NOT balance this for casters. A buff that lasts all combat still lasts all combat, but now you only have 3 combats instead of 6. If there are more foes, area of effect can catch mroe of them. If there are more powerful enemies then debuffs are worth more.

Really, if you only plan on 3-4 combats a day, cut number of spell slots in half and your casters will be on-par. But sine the highest level slots are only 1 per, you still have issues in that you've giving the full amount or none. Maybe if you cast those the slot doesn't come back to the next day. But I don't recommend this - it will annoy your players, and no idea how it impacts half casters and multiclass casters.

I love 5e, but the resource management balance point having such a high number of meaningful encounters is a huge weakness.

Now, an alternate way to go is to steal form 13th Age, a d20 game that's similar to 5e. It decouples sleeping from resource recovery. In 13th Age it's balanced around four encounters, but that's an easy change to 5e's expectations. Have that short rest resources reset every other encounter (3 if one is minor), and long rest resources reset every six encounters. Suddenly resource management works. This doesn't work without buy-in from your players since it's a sacred cow.

 

[CleverNickName]

High-level casters aren't a bug, they are a feature.

They allow you to get super-creative with your adventures and dungeon designs. For example, a magic portal that can only be opened after casting the right combination of spells on it. An evil door that will crumble if a good cleric channels divinity into it. Monsters that "eat" spells, gaining temporary strength or hit points when exposed to magic. Golems that are immune to all spells except a handful of specifics.

That old Hollywood trope about the New Hotness technology being somehow insufficient, and the hero having to resort to the Old and Busted in order to save the day? That could be the plot twist in a quest finale. Wizard: "The beholder is blocking my magic! I can't bypass the lock and disable the portal!" Rogue: "I'm on it!" *puts lockpicks in her teeth, charges across the battlefield*

There's nothing wrong with letting high-level casters have their day in the sun...gods know they earned it at low levels when they had to plink along as fancy crossbowmen. As long as you throw them a curveball every now and then and give the non-casters an opportunity to shine, it can be a lot of fun for everyone.

 

[TwoSix]

Honestly, it doesn't sound like its the balance between casters/noncasters that's the problem, it's that the don't like the narrative of what higher level spell effects actually allow. And really, the only fix for that is a radical class-ectomy. Drop all 6 of the full caster classes, and look for some solid 3rd party material that can give you a broader range of fantastical archetypes that aren't high level casters. I can think of several items that would fit the bill pretty easily.

 

[Oofta]

I'll just echo what other people have stated, if you do the 6-8 encounters per long rest with a couple of short rests thrown in things work reasonably well in my experience (I've DMed and played in a couple of 5E campaigns now that went to 20th).

In order to get to that goal, I use the optional rules from the DMG that a short rest is overnight, a long rest is several days, usually a week or so. I find that it works better from a narrative perspective and I usually don't have to artificially rush in-game time.

But other things to consider are to change up tactics. If the bad guys always show up in fireball (or meteor-swarm) formation with no reason to not nuke them, then fights get boring. So mix it up. Have enemies come in waves and from different directions. Have innocent villagers captive somewhere in the orcish stronghold. Set goals for combat other than kill the bad guys. If the party is well known, have enemies hiding in the shadows casting counterspell.

Just remember that sometimes nuking the bad guys is also fun. High level spellcasters should be something to be feared, but round-for-round the vanilla fighter can also hold their own.

As far as the generic fighter feeling, well, generic and boring that can in some cases be countered by rewarding creative play. Reward them for swinging from chandeliers or set up doors that need kicking in and so on.

 

[Dausuul]

If that’s the issue, I’d recommend keeping time constraints tight in your adventures. The dungeon submerges beneath the waves in 10 hours, the bad guy will flee the city in 4, the magic bomb explodes in 8 hours, and so on. They’ll think more about their spell resources when they can’t just take a short/long rest at will. A wizard can only cast Invisibility however many times they’re memorized it, but a rogue can roll for Stealth all day long.

Yes, this is really the issue. 5E is balanced around having a bunch of encounters in a day. If the PCs don't generally face more than a couple encounters (combat or non-combat) between long rests, it skews things in favor of PCs with "long rest" abilities and away from those with "short rest" abilities. Since casters are the primary "long rest" classes, they come out on top.

Our group decided to try the "longer rests" approach: A short rest is 8 hours' sleep, and a long rest is 3 days in a safe location. It has done wonders to shift the balance between long-rest and short-rest classes. Warlock is suddenly a very appealing class.

 

[cmad1977]

I’m currently DMing a group with a 13th level sorcerer and I don’t think anyone (least of all the fighter) feels underpowered in comparison.


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[Sunseeker]

The problem with this logic is that it does not include downtime activities/ preparation where a few spells will be sufficient before they are recharged.

Yes the guy who can dig a hole with magic is superior to the guy with a shovel...if you only need to dig one hole. If you need to dig a moat or build an aqueduct or similar, you just structure it like a multi-encounter situation. X amount of dirt needs to be moved in Y amount of days. A wizard may do the job of 5 men busting their backs, but since it takes 50 men and 30 days to get this completed, that doesn't really matter.

If you're saying "it doesn't address the situation where there is no time constraints and no danger" then...what difference does it make? The wizard can do his wizarding and the fighter can go get a massage.

Also a experienced player will find ways to win without fighting to begin with (Wall of force has stopped so many combats taking place), a traditionalist players solution to this point will be not to reward so much XP whilst other players will jump on their back saying that purely combat focused xp/milestones encourages murder hobos.

I don't see how a wall of force stops a fight. Maybe delays it for 15 minutes. That can be a nice head start to run away I guess. Running away is neither winning nor successfully bypassing the encounter so....

Yeah, smart play wins the day, no argument there. But that's where the multiple encounters comes into play. Alright, your Wall of Force stopped Squad of Orcs A...what are you going to for Squads B through F?

My fix would be slower regeneration for spells regained for spell casters regardless of a full rest. Otherwise it would be a very slight nerf on spells (or the removal of certain spells altogether) and a ever so slight boost to martial classes (not including paladin and probably not monk either).

My original comment was mostly aimed at pointing out how 5E's "fix" for quadratic wizards and linear fighters is supposed to work.

The "fix" to balancing fighters and wizards was 4E. But apparently that was too something​ for some people.

 

[FrogReaver]

Another possibility is to make max level be 10 or whatever else is appropriate

 

[Swarmkeeper]

If that’s the issue, I’d recommend keeping time constraints tight in your adventures. The dungeon submerges beneath the waves in 10 hours, the bad guy will flee the city in 4, the magic bomb explodes in 8 hours, and so on. They’ll think more about their spell resources when they can’t just take a short/long rest at will.

Good point on maintaining a time stress. Related to that would be ratcheting up the chances that a rest is interrupted causing a further drain on spell resources.

A wizard can only cast Invisibility however many times they’re memorized it, but a rogue can roll for Stealth all day long.

Sorry to get all rules-laywery on you here, but I've seen other examples of people using this old edition rule. In 5e, you don't have to memorize a spell multiple times in order to cast it multiple times. Just by preparing Invisibility for the day, a wizard can cast it a number of times equal to the number of level-appropriate spell slots she has available. Nevertheless, your Rogue example should usually hold true: # of Invisibility castings per day for caster < # of likely successful Stealths per day for Rogue

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Heh, some habits die hard. Let me rephrase that to say “no matter how many spell slots a caster has…”

Sorry to get all rules-laywery on you here, but I've seen other examples of people using this old edition rule. In 5e, you don't have to memorize a spell multiple times in order to cast it multiple times. Just by preparing Invisibility for the day, a wizard can cast it a number of times equal to the number of level-appropriate spell slots she has available. Nevertheless, your Rogue example should usually hold true: # of Invisibility castings per day for caster < # of likely successful Stealths per day for Rogue