Not how I recall it, at all. The fretting was over /attracting/ new players, not retaining them (which, IMX, 4e did startlingly well compared to every other edition I've ever run for new players), and, of course, moving books...
I've run a lot of introductory games over the decades, at conventions, and in organized play.
<snip>
Another big difference I see is in retention. 5e doesn't retain and transition to DMing totally new players like 4e did, but it attracts & retains long-time & returning players extremely well.
I can't second guess your experiences (for obvious reasons!), but I am faithfully reporting what Mearls said. I have tried to find links but have failed to Google up an archive of his Legends & Lore columns - maybe they all got deleted when the WotC site changed?
He said that sales of the Essentials Red Box were good, but that retention was low.
pemerton said:
I speculate that one of those things is a chance to make "good" play decisions. In MtG this means building a good deck, or playing a clever combo. A designer (I am assuming) wants to build these possibilities into the game. And I think it's hard to build a common framework that both provides those sorts of possibilities to a new player, while at the same time immunises the system against exploitation of those possibilities by an experienced player.
IDK, that sound suspiciously like the "MMO" or 'board game like' play that's become downright pejorative. But, yes, it /is/ hard to design a balanced game that's both easy to get into, and has great depth for the experienced player, and, no, it seems like 5e hasn't quite done it - it's been too busy threading a different needle: the delicate act of acceptability to hard-core fans vs appeal to new (casual/mainstream) fans.
I don't get that first sentence of yours. D&D is a mechanically complex game (anyone who thinks that 5e is "lite" needs to play some genuinely mechanics-light games!) and has a lot of places where it is possible to make choices that are better or worse from the mechanical point of view.
For instance, if a player's lowish-level PC comes up against a heavily-armoured hobgoblin and is not buffed in some way, and the player uses the -5/+10 from GWM, then that player is probably making a bad choice, as the drop in the chance to hit will burden the expected damage more than the +10 boosts it. Part of learning to be a good player is learning both (i) the maths, and (ii) interpretation of the ingame elements, such as that hobgoblins tend to have high ACs, especially if described as heavily armoured.
When that player, or others in the group, then have the idea of pouring buffs onto that PC to offset the -5 and thereby get the benefit of the +10, the group
should feel that they have made a good decision and improved their play. That's a good part of what the play of a mechanically intricate game like D&D is about! (Which has nothing to do with it being a MMO or boardgame. But it has mechanics, quite elaborate ones as far as combat is concerned.)
Designing a system so that new players are able to have that sort of experience seems to me to be a serious design goal which can be done better or worse. The problem, which I think you agree with, is that it is hard to meet that design goal while
also meeting the goal of not having the game break in the hands of hardcore wargamers, who will see the implications of the maths, of PC synergies, etc straight away and adopt a systematic approach to maximising their output.
I'd say it'd be fair to be surprised that there aren't many more. Perhaps most of them are still playing PF?
I don't know. And I don't know enough to speculate. It seems to me that the most typical (not necessarily dominant, but it seems to me most numerous) ENworld poster, who is an experienced RPGer, is less of a wargame-type player and more of a GM-curated experience type player. For those players the issues that the OP is complaining about won't arise, provided the GM is doing a half-decent job.
AC, hps, & DPR are all part of the same race-to-0-hps of simplistic combat analysis. And, yes, DPR is the biggest baddest variable in that calculation (well, really attacks/round is).
Yes. Action economy is also part of the same analysis. Whether or not one agrees with the OP's conclusions in respect of these matters, there's clearly been no ignoring of them.
It is interesting to read some of the different takes on this thread. It would be interesting to know how some posters would summarize the OP position in three or four lines. It seems clear to me.
The OP is not complaining that high level fighters are overpowerd compared to other PCs. The complaint is that they are underpowered unless they pick some of the high-powered feats (which limits viable archetypes), and that once they power up appropriately, the GM side material (monstly monsters) is underpowered.
How does the fact that (some, maybe all) casters have a high degree of flexibility and diverse capability in the way that the engage encounters, which makes their DPR a potentially secondary concern, help show that they're not overshadowing featless fighters, at least in some cases (sorcerer and warlock were the two mentioned in the OP)?
In a single sentence: if you don't use feats, fighters get overshadowed by the damage-dealing abilities of some cantrip-users; if you does use feats, a couple of dominant archetypes (GW, SS) crowd out the rest.
I am still trying to figure out at which point GWM and SS are out of hand. Is it by level five? I don't think two attacks with these feats would be outrageous. When do FIGHTERS get three? 11th?
I would like to know what the concern really is about. Is this about fighters of 11th level or higher with GWM or SS?
<snip>
If we are talking about sorcerers, what level are they gonzo with cantrips and metamagic? It matters, I think. When we say they can kick butt this way plus have utility, how many spells do they have left for utility after doing metamagic that matched a featless fighter?
Quite a way upthread someone offered up some sorcerer numbers. I can't remember who it was, and haven't gone back for a search, but here are some quick numbers of my own:
A 6th level Dragon Sorcerer has 6 SP + 19 spell levels (4, 3, 2) for 25 SPs total. That's enough for 25 twinned cantrips, or about 6 combat's worth. Fire Bolt does 2d10+4 (assuming an 18 stat). So that's 4d10+8, or 30 damage, spread across two targets, per round, prior to factoring in the chance to hit.
The featless fighter of the same level gets 2 attacks for (say) 2d6+6 (20 stat, +1 weapon). That's 4d6+12, or 26 damage, per round. But it can be focused. Factoring in GWF style takes it from 3.5 to 25/6 per die, or 100/6 +12 = not quite 29 per round. Assuming every 2 encounters yields a long rest, and 4 rounds per encounter then 1 in 8 rounds has an Action Surge, which is another +3.5-ish damage for 32 to 33 expected damage. The fighter's chance to hit is also better than the sorcerers (+1 weapon, +1 stat for +9 rather than +7) - against AC 15, that is a 75% rather than 65% chance to hit, which is about another +6 to hit, for around 38 damage.
(If there's other stuff I'm missing, please point it out. I haven't factored in criticals, which favour the fighter, especially if a Champion.)
The fighter is about 25% ahead in damage by my maths. The fighter will also have better AC (17 or 18 at least, I'd assume, compared to 13+ DEX for 15 or so for the sorcerer). And hp at d10 rather than d6+1, plus second wind. But the fighter will be in melee, and so will have more need of these things!
The sorcerer is at range, and so doesn't have to close. This boosts damage per encounter. The sorcerer is at range, and so is more likely to suffer cover penalties. This reduces damage. I haven't tried to factor those things in.
The sorcerer has the option, at any point up to the last couple of rounds, to stop doing damage and instead use some other spell. That is a flexibility the fighter can't match. How much is it worth? I don't know, and there's probably no table-invariant measure, but surely quite a bit!
Anyway, writing that up prompted me to search back and find the post upthread that I mentioned above. Here it is:
At level 11, without feat a dragon sorcerer deals 3d10 +5 damage with fire bolt. Avg 21.5.
A fighter with great sword deals 6d6 + 15 + Fighting style for avg of 39.
Twinning fire bolt is not really efficient to get down monster. You’re still doing only 21.5 on the primary target.
If you want to be really efficient you need to use quicken, for double cost of sorcery point.
And still you’re only dealing 4 more points of damage than the fighter, and spending sorcery point like hell.
If the fighter use manoeuver or action surge he can make burst that outshine you.
A sorcerer 11 has 10 + 47 available sorcery points per day.
28 quicken spells. Enough to fuel 5 or 6 encounters.
Spending all its magic to be just a bit more efficient than the fighter,
Is the dragon sorcerer really broken?
To answer Krachek's question, I don't know if it's broken but it seems pretty strong: matching the fighter's melee damage output with quickened cantrips, and still having the option to stop doing that at any time and use its spells for other stuff instead.
If you drop feats the high AC, high HP fighter with at will damage that cannot be mitigated with disadvantage by mere proximity to foes is very valuable, has a niche and does not fall short of the cantrip wielder.
Rather, like 1e AD&D, the spell caster has a important relationship with the fighter and such that you will be twinning fire bolt and hoping one hits instead of assuming they both hit without the cover of a fighter.
Right, so this is getting into the sort of discussion I suggested upthread: can the claim that the fighter's main contribution is DPR be contested?
In my AD&D experience, the role of the fighter changed with level. At low and even mid levels, the fighter was a bold warrior who led the attack, cut down foes, and supported the MUs. But name level or thereabouts, the MUs dominated combat and the role of the fighters was to provide the sort of defence you describe, and to mop up whatever was left over after the spell assaults. I think different players have different reactions to that sort of change of role.
Anyway, if a fighter player can embrace that approach to the class, having a sorcerer compete in DPR
while shielded by the fighter may not be a problem at that table.
