D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Aldarc]

Well, that would be part of why I think a distinct Warlord full class is so useful. Instead of having to try to squeeze both a "complex Fighter" concept and a "simple Fighter" concept into the same chassis, you fork out the complexity into a distinct class so that each one can live its best life. "Fighter" then becomes a range from ultra-simple (Champion), to semi-simple (I'm given to understand Rune Knight is fairly straightforward), to semi-complex (Battle Master and Eldritch Knight). "Warlord," or "Captain" or "Commando" or whatever it ends up getting called, thus spans the higher end of things, from semi-complex (I'd put Resourceful and "Lazylord" here--basic effects, nothing fancy) to fairly intricate (Bravura with its risk-reward tradeoffs, Tactical with its tricksy nature) to ultra-complex (Sapper engineering-type, Knight-Enchanter part-wizard magical strategist). Both can have ranges, but be comfortable in a low-complexity or high-complexity focus, with the middle-pointing subclasses of each starting to blur the line a little.

One thing that I liked about 4e (among many) was how the Martial classes really felt like WotC acknowledging the four different versions of the "fighting-man" of old: i.e., the Fighter, the Rogue, the Warlord, and the (spell-less) Ranger. WotC arguably could have included another Martial, maybe more of a Strength-based Striker.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The issue is that '6-8 encounters a day' generally means a dungeon bash. Now I love a good dungeon bash. But particularly as you get to higher levels lots of sessions feature other things, like travel, diplomacy, mystery solving, and so on. So a lot of adventuring days might only feature one or two fights, but they are likely to be bigger ones with large groups of enemies or important plot points. The battle of attrition that 5e is balanced against doesn't come up and play more closely resembles a fantasy novel or movie.

Our last adventuring day featured two encounters (we're at level 16 travelling through the Cairn Hills)

1. A battle against 25 sword wraiths, which was won by the casters spamming area effect spells and turn effects. My fighter did use a wand of lightning bolts to do some damage but I didn't get into melee at all - by the time they were close enough there were so few left that the casters could mop them up with cantrips and there was no benefit to me providing them with a melee target.
2. An ambush from a house by a bunch of crossbow-wielding hobgoblins and two ettins. My fighter get into melee against the ettins, but a lot more damage was done by firestorms, blade barriers, and so on from the casters.

Yes, this is pretty typical. This is how we play and I suspect how most people play these days. And gritty rests fix most of the issues for this type of pacing. I literally don't understand why people refuse to use it; using it is hella easier than redesigning the entire game from ground up around the assumption of fewer combat encounters between rests. The biggest mistake WotC did was to not make the gritty rests the default, as it better match the pacing of a typical game and a lot of people refuse to touch optional rules.

 

[pemerton]

a skill challenge for example is not a strategic player decision. It is just a tactical decision, which is also quite simple (use the (character with the) best skills available to do the challenge). There is no strategy in Skill Challenges. Their impact is short term.

This is not an accurate account of skill challenges, as I experienced them in 4e D&D play.

Obviously, they are not part of 5e D&D.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes, this is pretty typical. This is how we play and I suspect how most people play these days. And gritty rests fix most of the issues for this type of pacing. I literally don't understand why people refuse to use it; using it is hella easier than redesigning the entire game from ground up around the assumption of fewer combat encounters between rests. The biggest mistake WotC did was to not make the gritty rests the default, as it better match the pacing of a typical game and a lot of people refuse to touch optional rules.

Because gritty healing does not fix the issue. The issue is not the length of the rests but the number of combat rounds. If the group wants to rest, they rest.

If they don't dungeon crawl, changing rests time won't make them dungeon crawl.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Because gritty healing does not fix the issue. The issue is not the length of the rests but the number of combat rounds. If the group wants to rest, they rest.

If they don't dungeon crawl, changing rests time won't make them dungeon crawl.

Of course it fixes it, unless your world is so static that the characters can just rest for a week anywhere, anytime, between every combat. No dungeon crawling required, just normal adventure pacing where you have 0-3 combats per day and then occasional longer downtime when nothing urgent is going on.

 

[Minigiant]

Of course it fixes it, unless your world is so static that the characters can just rest for a week anywhere, anytime, between every combat. No dungeon crawling required, just normal adventure pacing where you have 0-3 combats per day and then occasional longer downtime when nothing urgent is going on.

They won't do anything for a week.

I've seen it

I've seen a party Nova the hell out of a problem, do jack squat for a week, then complain when the DM springs more that 1+2 encounter of problems on them during the week.

It's the "quantum encounter" problem.

"I call shenanigans. Where did all these goblins come from?".

Ironically it works better in the higher less restricted magic of older editions which justified enemies just popping up.

Because like I said before the playstyle they have doesn't have so many encounters close to gether. Really only security, armies, and dungeons delvers fight so often regular. Once you take those options out, 6-8 combats every week strung together makes less sense.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

They won't do anything for a week.

I've seen it

I've seen a party Nova the hell out of a problem, do jack squat for a week, then complain when the DM springs more that 1+2 encounter of problems on them during the week.

It's the "quantum encounter" problem.

"I call shenanigans. Where did all these goblins come from?".

Where did they came from when you sat on your arses for a week? Gee, I wonder! Seems like an attitude problem, not a game problem. In an adventuring game there usually is some sort of a situation/crisis/conundrum going on, that needs solving, and you just cant dillydally for weeks at any moment. I really don't understand what sort of static games people are running if this is not the case.

Ironically it works better in the higher less restricted magic of older editions which justified enemies just popping up.

Because like I said before the playstyle they have doesn't have so many encounters close to gether. Really only security, armies, and dungeons delvers fight so often regular. Once you take those options out, 6-8 combats every week strung together makes less sense.

It doesn't need to be that many in one week, as there can be some uneventful days between them, just not a whole week of nothing. But ultimately a huge chunk of D&D's rules are about combat, so if people don't like playing in style where combats are at least somewhat frequent occurrence, they're playing the wrong game to begin with.

 

[Gimby]

Where did they came from when you sat on your arses for a week? Gee, I wonder! Seems like an attitude problem, not a game problem. In an adventuring game there usually is some sort of a situation/crisis/conundrum going on, that needs solving, and you just cant dillydally for weeks at any moment. I really don't understand what sort of static games people are running if this is not the case.



It doesn't need to be that many in one week, as there can be some uneventful days between them, just not a whole week of nothing. But ultimately a huge chunk of D&D's rules are about combat, so if people don't like playing in style where combats are at least somewhat frequent occurrence, they're playing the wrong game to begin with.

It doesn't even really need to be sat doing nothing - consider LOTR - the journey from Bag End to Mount Doom takes about six months. In that time how many fights do the fellowship get into? When they do it's often a flurry in short order (Helm's Deep, Siege of Gondor)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It doesn't even really need to be sat doing nothing - consider LOTR - the journey from Bag End to Mount Doom takes about six months. In that time how many fights do the fellowship get into? When they do it's often a flurry in short order (Helm's Deep, Siege of Gondor)

It indeed is a good example. How many times they had just time to rest for a week?

 

[Aldarc]

One thing that I liked about 4e (among many) was how the Martial classes really felt like WotC acknowledging the four different versions of the "fighting-man" of old: i.e., the Fighter, the Rogue, the Warlord, and the (spell-less) Ranger. WotC arguably could have included another Martial, maybe more of a Strength-based Striker.

Maybe reshuffle the names a bit. The Fighter becomes the Strength-based Striker and the Knight becomes the Defender.