Level Up (A5E) Do you feel A5E has Addressed the Martial/Class divide sufficiently?

[FallenRX]

One of A5e's ambitions was addressing the very much hot topic Martial/Caster Gap, without completely changing the fundamental math of 5e, it does this by not only giving martials more options and choices in progression but also giving them a spell-like Maneuver system, allowing them to customize their play and options.
On top of this, they also nerfed the power of some spells, making them weaker and more on level, and removing the "Auto-win" utility of some spells.

Do you feel it succeeded at addressing this issue?

 

[zen_cat]

One of A5e's ambitions was addressing the very much hot topic Martial/Caster Gap, without completely changing the fundamental math of 5e, it does this by not only giving martials more options and choices in progression but also giving them a spell-like Maneuver system, allowing them to customize their play and options.
On top of this, they also nerfed the power of some spells, making them weaker and more on level, and removing the "Auto-win" utility of some spells.

Do you feel it succeeded at addressing this issue?

I think it has given us more tools to address this divide. The divide can vary depending on the type of game that is being run and my personal belief is that magic often feels stronger because it is a case of clicking your fingers together to advance the story, where the DM often won't allow skills to do the same.

I think supply and journey challenges will help with this at lower levels. In a standard 5e game it's barely considered how you get from point A to B without starving, so the ranger feels superfluous. Encumbrance is rarely considered, so handle animal for cart driving rarely has an in game use. A5E provides tools to make non spell casters feel more relevant.

 

[Pedantic]

I've found most of what A5E has done pretty orthogonal to the problem? There is definitely some improvement to martial utility from exploration knacks, and the in-combat experience of playing a martial character is improved by the increased decision points maneuvers offer, but the fundamentals aren't really any different.

The exploration/journey game with the attendant Supply rules are great and I definitely like them a lot, but that's a whole different minigame that doesn't really touch on the general problems solving capacity of spells, so much as give every class something else to do in a new arena and encourage a new play loop.

I've long held this is a fighter side problem though, and that's only worse in any 5e derived environment. The usual changes everyone asks for is pushing casters to largely interact with the skill system, and that's not an area A5E made any real changes. Skills are still largely undefined and mostly reactive things players roll as challenges are thrown at them, instead of abilities they leverage to do things. Fundamentally, the thing casters are doing, allocating limited resource to overcome challenges (in the form of spell slots) is a better gameplay loop with more proactive player agency.

We can quibble about the exact utility of spells (e.g. at what level should consistent flight becoming normative?), but until every class has that level of declarative cachet, the problem will continue. "Fighter" hasn't generally proven an archetype people are willing to give anywhere near sufficient power to, and I think that suggests it's the problem.

 

[Morrus]

One of A5e's ambitions was addressing the very much hot topic Martial/Caster Gap, without completely changing the fundamental math of 5e

Was it?

 

[VanguardHero]

Was it?

I would argue even if it wasn't STATED, it is an implicit necessity of making a competently designed 5e. Balance cannot exist intact with it at the sorry state 5e has is in with the disparity, and as a result neither can meaningful Monster and Encounter Difficulty guidelines.

Do you feel it succeeded at addressing this issue?

So. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who hates 5e more than I do. Level Up put a LOT of work in and made an actually good system.

Skills being disjointed from set Ability Scores means Martials get to do more outside of like 3 Skills that are easily eclipsed by Spells.

Spells were actually brought in line with a mathematical backing that designers didn't break because "They're iconic" or because they just didn't design them well.

Martials also actually get...stuff! Combat Maneuvers are the obvious one and most comparable to spells, yeah. But they also get Social and Exploration abilities to actually exist.

More benefits from Short Rests means they're more worthwhile to bother to take instead of 'If you can take an hours rest safely you can usually take 8' benefiting Casters entirely.

Also the expected Adventuring Day scaling with levels, they just aren't designed around 'Can still function 8 fights in' which no one really does anymore.

There are some remaining issues I wish were different, absolutely. But those are all wrapped up in the Skeleton of the system, which has to remain the same because backwards compatibility is largely what makes the system financially viable. So I find it hard to really complain about those things that were out of their hand. I'd love Short Rests to be Short, and Feats to be more plentiful and not an ASI alternative for example, but the system Skeleton assumes those things and keeping those keeps Level Up as more of a direct replacement than an alternative.
(Copied from my Discord post about the same question earlier today in case that wasn't you)

 

[Stalker0]

I can say that gap has narrowed at the very least. As classes now get a lot of innate little exploration or social abilities, I do notice the martials feeling more active in such encounters. Maneuvers that allow for extra healing and condition removal also make spells feel a little less essential to deal with certain challenges.

 

[TheHand]

I voted "Slightly Better", but I think I'd vote "Mostly Better" if that were an option. One of the things my group missed from 4e were the tactical choices and special abilities that martial classes had in that system. Combat Maneuvers do a fine job of giving back those choices and abilities to the martial classes while still playing like 5e, and were a huge draw to LevelUp for us. In fact, I've house-ruled out the limitation of each martial class having to pick 2 traditions from among their proffered lists, as it now opens them up to much more versatile builds that once again gets us a little closer to that martial/magic parity.

Short Rests are also houseruled to about 15 minutes in our games, which also helps the martial characters out.

 

[VanguardHero]

Short Rests are also houseruled to about 15 minutes in our games, which also helps the martial characters out.

Ah, so you have Short Rests and Long Rests instead of Long Long Rests and Short Long Rests. Any outliers to it further closing the gap to watch out for?

 

[delericho]

Level Up is a great game, though it's also one I'll probably never play - I'll end up mining it for material rather than playing the whole thing.

As for the martial/caster disparity: it helps, but would probably benefit from going further.

 

[CleverNickName]

I voted "no difference," but I wanted to add a bit of nuance: I don't think the "Martial/Caster divide" was ever a rules problem. It seems like it has always been a matter of mismatched player expectations, or differences in playstyle.

That said: A5E is an excellent product and I recommend it to anyone who plays 5E.