D&D 5E The core issue of the martial/caster gap is just the fundamental design of d20 fantasy casters.

[Staffan]

Was there more to the story in that tweet than just “we made a class, people thought it was good, but it wasn’t”? Cause I am only able to see that first tweet, and it feels like… not a story at all.

There's a pretty lengthy thread that can be summarized as:

1. A lot of people thought the Arcanist class in PF1 (a class that combined elements of sorcerers and wizards) was OP, but it really wasn't. A well-build wizard or sorcerer would be stronger. What it was was forgiving: less system mastery was needed to make it perform OK.
2. D20 spellcasters traditionally have very broad potential abilities, that let them do almost anything. This is hard to balance, which tends to make casters the strongest classes in the game.
3. In PF2, they solved that by both making magic a bit weaker than in previous editions, and by assuming that a caster has at least some spells available that are good for a particular situation.
4. Another way of balancing casters is to make them limited in scope but more powerful within that scope. That's what they did with the PF2 kineticist (even if it isn't technically a caster): give them mostly unlimited magic use but with very little versatility.

 

[overgeeked]

Now, I dont think overgeeked was being fully serious in defining the Wizard

No, not really. But, to be fair, it was only the slightest of exaggerations. Wafer thin, if you will.

but the fact is you have a few folks around here who absolutely are...passionately incorrect in the view of the Wizard and the 'problem' with Martials.

Yes, that’s true. Trouble is we all disagree about who that is. I think those defending the status quo are “passionately incorrect” and they think anyone pointing out the problems with the default game are “passionately incorrect.”

We even have people listing the 7-9 house rules they use to fix this exact problem also claiming the problem doesn’t even exist in the first place. They seem to miss the bit where if it wasn’t a problem then they wouldn’t need those 7-9 house rules.

Even when direct mathematic comparisons are made and the disparity is shown in black and white, people still pretend it’s not real.

It’s honestly a weird topic.

 

[mamba]

The core issue with the Martial Caster gap is just, the design of casters in dnd-like games, they are classes designed around doing everything on a limited resource, with few other downsides but that, with decent planning or smarts you can just...not care, and be ready for most situations.

this to me is the core of the issue, they can do basically anything with a spell and slots are plentiful enough for this to not actually be a limiter

And if you wanna balance it, you have to nerf down casters to a point where the fact that they have to use limited resources to just weak things feels terrible in play, and they only get worse the longer they play.

I will turn them all into half-casters the way the 2024 Warlock was supposed to go, brings down the number of available spells while leaving enough for combat.

Whether that means only Warlocks remain or Wizards and Sorcerers end up on the same chassis is tbd, I see no real reason to keep either around as a separate type, also meshes well with my general intent of lower fantasy

I think this is workable in general, still will tweak some spells so they are not the clear and obvious solution but more of a last resort, so other chars can shine too

 

[Charlaquin]

There's a pretty lengthy thread that can be summarized as:

1. A lot of people thought the Arcanist class in PF1 (a class that combined elements of sorcerers and wizards) was OP, but it really wasn't. A well-build wizard or sorcerer would be stronger. What it was was forgiving: less system mastery was needed to make it perform OK.
2. D20 spellcasters traditionally have very broad potential abilities, that let them do almost anything. This is hard to balance, which tends to make casters the strongest classes in the game.
3. In PF2, they solved that by both making magic a bit weaker than in previous editions, and by assuming that a caster has at least some spells available that are good for a particular situation.
4. Another way of balancing casters is to make them limited in scope but more powerful within that scope. That's what they did with the PF2 kineticist (even if it isn't technically a caster): give them mostly unlimited magic use but with very little versatility.

Cool, thanks for the summary!

 

[Scribe]

Yes, that’s true. Trouble is we all disagree about who that is.

I dont know that we really would if we sat down in a room and hashed it out.

 

[overgeeked]

I dont know that we really would if we sat down in a room and hashed it out.

Fair. It’s hard to keep track of who’s who online.

 

[Tony Vargas]

the idea of Martials in the frontline and Casters in the backline, and 3e kinda got rid of that, and the game has never recovered,

You probably just blinked for 2 years after 3e and missed it, but the martial/caster gap was narrowed significantly, and the Fighter firmly placed in the front line, the Wizard having reason to stay in the back, much of the time.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

They cannot, and so their position is already compromised, and it bleeds into dozens of threads across multiple separate sections of the site, leading to a mistaken view on what the issues are and how to correct them.

Now, I dont think overgeeked was being fully serious in defining the Wizard, but the fact is you have a few folks around here who absolutely are...passionately incorrect in the view of the Wizard and the 'problem' with Martials.

Yeah I mean I think there are real issues worth addressing, but…yeah some folks act like fighters can’t do anything past level 5 and the only fix is to make them Goku.

But I think the thing OP hasn’t considered is that you can bring back casters needing to be wary of combat and martials being bane to an enemy caster without making caster not fun to play for swathes of players.

Make it so casting in melee sucks more than it currently does unless you have some feature or other or make it harder to ditch disadvantage, make it so martials can potentially interrupt spells*, and let physical damage potentially break force effects and other persistent but not permanent magical effects, and you’re most of the way there. You also need to allow protection fighting and stuff like it to include movement and have passive defense benefits for the character you’re protecting, probably.

Bump what non magical skill use can do as you level up to actually meet and then exceed what real humans can do, and you’re about as close as you can get without writing a different game or killing martials for the people who already like them, IMO.

*bonus action to prepare to interrupt, reaction to do so as a reaction attack, target must make a constitution saving throw or lose the spell. Requiring setup with an on turn action, a successful reaction attack, and the target failing a save, which IMO makes it fine for it to be at-will.

Now, I wish we could get a version of D&D that is 5e except class and subclass spell lists are vastly more focused and limited and full casters are actually all interesting rather than wizards especially being “spells: the class” and nothing else. Sorcerers can have punchier metamagics and recover sorcery points more and get more from subclass, Druids can really go nuts with Wild Shape, Bard and die in a fire and rise from the ashes as an actual Bard class, etc.

The wizard core class should be much more limited in spells with every subclass granting themed bonus spells, and then make the spellbook do more, and bring signature spell and the other one down much lower level, but starting with like “1 level 1 spell can be cast at-will or bonus action instead of an action or whatever” and scale as you level. Ya know, an interesting class.

But barring that, just make martials be able to break walls of force with thier weapon (with maybe damage type mattering in some way and kick the enemy mage to stop them casting.

 

[Aldarc]

I think it can be done with an effort to bring other classes up in other areas of the game, while protecting the 'melee combat' niche (the Warlock Blade issue of the latest packet is an abomination) and then tightening up the spell lists for Casters considerably.

If Casters were more focused (Wizards are Control/Utility, Sorcerer is the Bomber, Bard is the Face/Lore Guy, and Warlocks get to pick with their limited spell slots) then we could get somewhere.

Unfortunately there are too many on either end of this who have wildly different views.

This would be closer to my preference. I would like the classes redesigned not only just in terms of their archetype fluff but also in terms of having much clearer playstyles. Magic the Gathering does this with its five color system. I don't think that would be the worst model for WotC redesigning classes, particularly the casters.

Thereby, a GM could help new players easier by pointing to certain classes for a given playstyle. For example, play the sorcerer if you want to focus on damage and blowing stuff up with your spells. Play the warlock/necromancer/nethermancer if you want to focus on dark, shadowy magic.

 

[ECMO3]

This is a really good hypothesis. I was about to say "what about 1E", but it covers that - 1E casters used limited resources to do weak things.

I don't like the idea of specialization at all, especially when it comes to casters. I am ok with a core area where certain casters excel (and I think the game has that), but I think casters in general should be able to "do it all" effectively with the right race, feat, subclass and spell selections.

That versatility did not exist in previous editions and I think it is what makes 5E better than those editions.