Remathilis
Legend
Whereas some people want a high level fighter and rogue to be able to do more than witness the awesome destructive power of a wizard...
D&D 5E D&D Next Q&A: 01/24/2014
- Thread starter Giltonio_Santos
- Start date
Whereas some people want a high level fighter and rogue to be able to do more than witness the awesome destructive power of a wizard...
Klaus
First Post
So a character spending less than 1/10th of his daily power allotment to defeat 56% of all statted opponents is *too little*?
Plus, in the next round he whips out an 8th level spell to kill all stragglers. Multiple. From a distance. Without exposing himself to harm. Two spells, two rounds, anything less than epic in scope is dead and buried.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
It's a 40 foot radius cloud from a mile away. It's an army killing spell, not a Big Bad Guy killing spell. I don't think the math is off at all.
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Giltonio_Santos
Hero
Well, take a look at a 17th level assassination rogue. Attacking a creature during a surprise round, he benefits from both level 3 Assassinate and level 16 Death Strike. With Dex 20 and no magic weapons, using one short sword, he can pull 47 damage with a single attack against a surprised opponent, and double that in a failed Con save. If I counted it right, the later is enough to kill 111 of those monsters, including the lich, the vampire and the death knight, which are all out of range for the single 9th level spell, and here we have a 17th level character without a single ring of protection to call his own.
Everybody remembers the mage that wiped the army of orcs with a single meteor swarm, but nobody seems to remember the rogue that sneaked into the castle with +15 stealth and killed the villain with a single strike. At least with the mage you get to be in the scene when it happens. You know how many times a rogue can pull that? Not once per day, but once per fight, all he needs is a surprised opponent!
Do you think I'm worried about that? I'm not, because it's a 17th level PC! If each level corresponded to 5% of the challenges of the game, I believe a 17th character only needs to be fair to 20% of the challenges in the game, and should in fact be unfair to the other 80%. A mage can wipe an army with meteor swarm? Cool, evokers are all about battlefield control, a 17th level one should be able to control a small army. Assassination rogues are about backstabing things? A 17th level one should be able to one-hit kill most creatures in the game. I don't believe that's unfair, I believe that's what high level characters are supposed to do.
Cheers,
From my experience, 5E wizards and fighters are roughly equal in combat. A wizard is much better at laying waste to large groups of foes, but a fighter is much better at beating down a single big enemy.
I do think fighters should be a bit better than they are, because wizards have so much out-of-combat utility that fighters lack. But it's nothing like high-level 3E.
I do think fighters should be a bit better than they are, because wizards have so much out-of-combat utility that fighters lack. But it's nothing like high-level 3E.
Are you able to comment on the maths of flame blade which was discussed a dozen or so posts upthread? I tried to do a quick comparison, but my familiarity with Next is not as great as yours.
Klaus
First Post
You're comparing apples and oranges. The 17th-level rogue, in order to inflitrate the evil stronghold and single-handedly dispatch the enemy leader is undergoing a solo adventure. It'd take dozens of rolls to infiltrate the castle, either staying out of sight (and going the loooooong way through the shadows) or bluffing/assassinating/fighting his way to the evil leader, and *then* getting the drop on the leader while he's unaware. All that takes far more effort and risk than looking at the army of Mordor from a mile away and wiping them out before they've reached Minas Tirith (just to use an example).
Giltonio_Santos
Hero
One more time, if I'm a 17th level rogue, I hope it's as easy to me to do that as it's easy to the 17th level mage to wipe an army with Meteor Swarm. As I said earlier, I don't believe such powerful characters should be fair to the world around them. That rogue would certainly make various rolls (not dozens in my own game, because I use Luke Crane's "let it ride" rule for D&D), but thanks to Reliable Talent at level 11, none of those would be lower than 25 by level 17. If you want to protect against a level 17 assassin, you should hire your own level 17 bodyguard. Or maybe a dragon. I like the game this way. People who want fairness already have 4E, the edition that banned all unfairness of the game. They should simply keep playing it.
Cheers,
Klaus
First Post
And it isn't. You were claiming that a 9th-level spell is too weak, because it only wipes out 56% of the monsters in the Bestiary. And you compared to the 17th-level rogue doing enough damage to assassinate creatures that would be able to survive a Meteor Swarm. And, as I said, those are completely different situations, since the mage would be able to wipe out multiple enemies from a safe distance, while the rogue will take out a single enemy, up close, possibly alone (due to the need for Stealth).
Giltonio_Santos
Hero
To be really honest, a high damage roll could wipe more than that. After realizing that and, as @Mistwell pointed to us, that this spell is supposed to wipe armies, not single opponents, I have to agree that it's probably fair as it is now.
No, I never compared. If you look at my view of character power you'll see that I believe comparing different classes is bad for the game, as each one should do its thing. But someone else said that fighters and rogues would have to witness the destructive power of the mage, and with that I disagree, because each of those classes is equally - or even more - destructive.
"Well, but the rogue needs to succeed in various ability checks to be destructive as a mage".
And that's probably the reason why they designed a rogue that will need a lot of effort to fail an ability check in his fields of expertise. In gameplay, the fact that a rogue needs some rolls to accomplish this great feat of strength is neutralized by the fact that by level 17 he won't achieve anything below a 25 in a stealth check. That means a non-proficient creature with Wis 20 will only spot him with a 20. No, I won't pick the bestiary and count how many of those creatures have Wis 20.
So, by the RAW, it's easy as it gets for a rogue to enter a heavily guarded fortress and kill a 94 HP opponent, unless you're going for a theme park-style game, where suddenly the kings that a level 17 rogue needs to kill become level 18 paladins with level 16 bodyguards. While I believe there's a lot of space for this kind of game (I play a lot of WoW, the quintessential theme park adventure), that's not how I like my D&D. I like it when level 17 characters don't see a lot above them in the food chain.
Cheers,
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