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

[Zardnaar]

It was a uniquely elegant and customizable design, and had the misfortune of being in 3e.

I think there's potential in that basic design. Better feats, no +11/+6+1 and scaling saves. Something like the SWSE soldier with 4E or 5E engine.

Just looked a 4E again and yeah they essentially stretched 8-10 levels over 30. Their level 29 dailies are roughly a 5th level spell in 5E.

E6 accomplishes sonething similar.

 

[Hussar]

Except my "obviously" was in response to the question of who had more choices (obviously spell casters), so you misconstrued my point entirely.

You whole argument seems to be predicated on the idea that have more choices is better. I disagree. It is different, but whether it is better or not is a subjective experience. For D&D, I am happy to argue that having some classes with more choices and some with fewer is better design that serves more players, and as evidence I present the popularity of the game as it is designed, and the relative unpopularity of the one edition of the game that moved away from that model (hard to narrow that down to just one factor, though). Given that fighters are the most popular class and it isn't close, and other non-spell casting classes are also popular, it seems that quite a few players are happy to play classes with fewer choices to make.

Speaking from personal experience, sometimes I want a complicated class, and sometimes I just want to play the barbarian, and most players I know feel the same way. So the premise that "more choice=better" in the context of D&D is an unfounded assumption.

Not quite my assumption though.

If you want a simple caster, there’s the warlock right there. Plus a variety of half casters.

If you want a complex non-caster, you are SOL.

 

[FireLance]

This is just a germ of an idea which has slowly crystallized after reading through several martial vs. caster threads.

I recall someone commented that martial PCs need magic items to balance high-level caster abilities. So, why not ensure that martial PCs can always gain the benefits of possessing magic items as they gain levels? Something like:

• Every PC gets up to 6 attunement slots as they level up: an Uncommon slot at 4th level, a second Uncommon slot at 7th level, a Rare slot at 10th level, a second Rare slot at 13th level, a Very Rare slot at 16th level, and a Legendary slot at 19th level.
• Each slot can be used to attune to a magic item of the stated rarity or lower.
• ALL magic items require attunement, or they only function as a non-magical item
• Martial PCs gain an ability called Martial Attunement which allows them to use an attunement slot to attune to a mundane item and have it grant them the same benefits as if it was a magic item of the same rarity as the slot
• If you prefer more mundane martial PCs, this could mean attuning to weapons, a shield, and a suit of armor to grant (non-magic) bonuses to attack rolls, damage rolls, and AC, or a cloak (perhaps made of a special material) to grant bonuses to saving throws
• If you prefer more explicitly supernatural PCs, the items could grant giant strength, flight, invisibility, ESP, etc.
• If you also want to scale back full casters, 6th or higher level spells could require spellcasters to attune to them before they can be cast. 6th and 7th level spells require a Rare or higher attunement slot, and 8th and 9th level spells require a Very Rare or higher attunement slot. This means a high-level spellcaster can only have up to 4 spells of 6th or higher level that they can cast at any one time, and doing so means they can only attune to 2 Uncommon magic items.

 

[Zardnaar]

It was a uniquely elegant and customizable design, and had the misfortune of being in 3e.

Kinda feel tgat way about the 3.5 bard. Good class wrong edition

 

[Vaalingrade]

It was a uniquely elegant and customizable design, and had the misfortune of being in 3e.

It really wasn't.

It was the skeleton of an elegant and customizable design, but they were so afraid of what they made that they then immediately designed feat trees to put any decent feat on a high shelf so that event he fighter who only got feats as class features, couldn't reach them in a reasonable time and instead had to settle for 'you no longer suck at this basic maneuver they teach children in karate class'.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Kinda feel tgat way about the 3.5 bard. Good class wrong edition

That one's the community's fault.

Absolutely no one was in the mindset to figure out how the bard was supposed to work until the optimizers accidentally'd their way into a couple of weird tricks that turned out to be the actual point of the whole class. Like, the bard is a class that can by 5th level just stop every encounter with anything of appropriate level with mind, and the WotC boards was just swimming with jokes about how this physical god of a class was useless.

 

[Zardnaar]

That one's the community's fault.

Absolutely no one was in the mindset to figure out how the bard was supposed to work until the optimizers accidentally'd their way into a couple of weird tricks that turned out to be the actual point of the whole class. Like, the bard is a class that can by 5th level just stop every encounter with anything of appropriate level with mind, and the WotC boards was just swimming with jokes about how this physical god of a class was useless.

We liked it and broke the class.

+8 to hit and damage fairly early on archer part with rapid shot.

Could have got it up to +16.

Even without cheese we still liked it, wrong edition and advanced class.

Hell we made a decent 3.5 monk.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Rolling attacks is an efficient use of bard. Roll performance check which someone somehow thought would result in a fair DC for mind control. Average roll at 1st level is 19. No one is safe.

 

[Zardnaar]

Rolling attacks is an efficient use of bard. Roll performance check which someone somehow thought would result in a fair DC for mind control. Average roll at 1st level is 19. No one is safe.

I knew that in 2000 lol dragon article.

Don't think we bothered doing that to much just made a skill monkey/uber buffer.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I crushed souls and made my enemies intimately attracted to fire with little recourse.

Then I use the Song and Silence feats to do that to things without minds. Or souls. I crushed souls that didn't exist until the moment I crushed them.