D&D 5E Rule of Three: 7 Feb. 2014

[Lokiare]

In my D&DN experience so far, extra attacks are awesome. With those, action surge, and cleave, a fighter is basically a fireball on legs.

So 6-8 attacks that deal 1d12+5 damage is equivalent to 8-42 attacks that deal 4d6 damage half on a save? I don't think so. Doesn't even come close. Look at your averages: 11.5 for the Fighter 8 times is 92. The caster gets 14 * 42 which is 588. Not to mention lost damage when you kill a weak creature which the caster still comes out far ahead.

There is only one instance where a Fighter comes out ahead of a caster and that is when fighting a single high level creature meant to be an entire combat by itself. Even then the casters non-damaging spell will likely outstrip the Fighters attacks.

I'm sorry, but unless the DM favors Fighters through house rules and 'auto sucesses' as per the rules then the Fighter will be inferior to the casters at just about any level beyond 5th. Even at lower levels the casters at-will spells combined with the few daily spells they get will outstrip the Fighter in every way.

This is one of the main reasons I'm not a fan of 5E. It goes back to the earlier editions vancian paradigms without really fixing any of the problems.

This doesn't seem like a fair characterizaiton to me. First, we don't know what controls might be in place for high-level wizard spells like Wish. Second, the article mentions that high-level fighters should be able to stand toe-to-toe with a dragon and that they can shrug off death. Sounds like the fighters are going to be the people you want in a fight (go figure) -- that's how they reshape the world.

Except casters can insta kill dragons (see many spells from about 3rd level on) and don't need to worry about death at all (see the clone spell).

Hey EnglishLanguage

Fair points and well made. My views on that are:

1. This is D&D not a Conan novel or a Greek Myth. The game has a history of it's own. It is not generally considered a magic weak game. In all editions except perhaps the last...a wizard became very powerful at higher levels. I think games like Runequest would be better suited to cover those low magic styles of play. If you dangle the carrot of world changing, reality warping magic in a low level mages face...I don't think it is good to then say...sorry but that 'Wish' spell is only worth a plus one because it might upset the player who is playing a guy in a loincloth with a lump of iron. Just to be clear my all time favourite class to play is a Fighter. I don't care that the wizards are better at high level...I am having my own fun, charging about and battling monsters. The stand off-ish nature of a mage class is a bit too boring for my liking. By the way...I don't do multi-classing and don't allow it in my games. A discussion for another thread but I think it leads to power gaming/ point matching and that is not my thing.

2. I used to have a character that had a vorpal blade in 2nd edition. That little sword and some lucky rolls made my hero the match of any wizard. I guess it is each to their own...in games I have played it is not common for wizards to end up with loads of magic items other than those that enhance their normal class abilities. Staves, wands, rings, scrolls...stuff that lets them turn people to dust. Because we avoid multi-classing...the Fighter types get the magic armour, big shiny pointy stuff and glowing shields..that tend to level the playing field for them without having to nerf the mage or pretend that the fighter's suddenly got bitten by radioactive spiders and start running up walls and acquiring the strength of ten men etc. That's how we play and as such where my comments and experience come from.

3. Roleplaying has nothing to do with class? Well it does a bit doesn't it. A good banana is not the same as a good apple but they are both still fruit. The actions and conversations you role-play are going to be different based on class...

anyway...I guess we play and want different things from the game. No problem..it looks like Mearl's and co. are putting in options to allow both of us to be happy. Hope that happens

My character in 2E/3E had the black blades of destruction spell memorized multiple times and the ability (through a feat or magic item, I can't remember) to dual wield spell weapons so he went around touch attacking creatures who then innstantly disintegrated, even if they made their save they took more damage than a Fighter with a vorpal weapon. He did this twice per round or 3x with haste on.

So yeah, even if you were playing gear that happened to have a meat bag carrying it around, the casters were still one up if they wanted to be.

We can do this all day, but the fact of the matter is casters out did non-casters every time before 4E. Sometimes this was mitigated by DM fiat favoring the non-caster classes or putting in challenges that casters couldn't overcome (like rooms with anti-magic shells and some other challenge) or by the caster player deciding to 'play nice' and allowing the non-caster to do their bit by leaving some creatures for the non-caster to take care of or by instead of instantly killing the creatures casting haste or strength on the non-caster.

Now personally one of the main things that drew me to 4E was the fact that casters and non-casters were on equal footing.

Also: Mearls is NOT putting in options for the rest of us. There aren't any options to allow non-casters to be on equal footing with casters.

 

[mlund]

Problem is, the world is rarely impacted by the martial power of one person.

Problem is, the world is also rarely impacted by the magical power of just one person either. Unless you're reading a fantasy paperback banked upon an over-done Chosen One or One True Evil you don't get that happening - and neither of those archetypes are appropriate design space for a party-based RPG.

More typically, a great Magician either changes the course of human events through judicious application of knowledge and influence (like Merlin or Gandalf) or has a massive impact on a small stage that then ripples forward into the world through social change.

Wahoo levels of world-changing magic like blocking out the sun, sinking the Imperial Capital into the ocean, creating a massive horde of rampaging kill-bots are not "Spells" that a "Wizard" simply pulls out of a spell-book. They are plot-device super-weapons the likes of which are conceived by Bond Villains and require massive infrastructure and borrowed power to bring about. You need stuff like conduits, human sacrifices, demonic pacts, artifacts, and a celestial convergence at the exact right moment (conveniently the exact moment the PCs show up to murder you, or the BBEG's emerges to murder your party depending on whether you're trying to take over the world or save it).

One of the real problems with some editions of D&D and variants is that it seemed like every time someone thought up a magical effect that was good to put on an non-playable Antagonist someone eventually said, "Better put it onto the Spell List and sell a splat-book." Because everything Elminster, Gandalf, or the Arch-Heretic of Asmodeus could possibly do has to be accessibly daily by a 17th level Wizard or the game's just not complete, right?

Heck, 13th Age has an Archmage Icon. He's basically a demi-god wizard-lord who is in charge of keeping the empire in one piece by managing a massive system of magical infrastructure that keeps the weather mild; wards the kaiju monsters from invading the inland sea; suspends a floating city or two in the atmosphere; and stops demons, living dungeons, and undead hordes from just boiling out of the ground indiscriminately and eating everybody. Even he's so busy in conducting maintenance on all that infrastructure that's been put together by his predecessors and subordinates he can't just go out and pull reality-warping stunts out of his butt to show how much more awesome he is that everyone else. The feat requires massive support of non-magicians in the Empire via economy, labor, information, and bureaucratic function. In the grand scheme of things he's probably about as important and powerful at shaping the world as the Emperor. If either one screws up badly enough the other one won't be able to hold things together.

Changing the world isn't about waking up in the morning, grabbing your spell-book, and summoning brute force to bludgeon reality into submission. It's about some building some sort of physical, social, military, and/or magical infrastructure at great cost.

Likewise, the greatest thief in the world isn't going to get to be the wealthiest man ever by being the best pick-pocket and assassin and taking things through personal force. He's going to get their by engineering massive boondoggles that would make a modern politician blush. ;

More to the Encounter side of things, "save or die" magic should never circumvent hit-points the way it did in some editions. Hit points should make you harder to defeat. It shouldn't be significantly faster / easier / more convenient to perma-frog someone (or frog + squish) with a Baleful Polymorph or Flesh to Stone than a focused damage attack of the same level. If you fail the save and have greater than X HP you should be able to lose the HP instead of suffering the other ill effect. If you don't have that many HP available and fail your save, well, sucks to be you frog-boy.

Likewise I'm pretty happy with how Concentration is working in D&DNext. I think Concentration-based Buff / Debuff spells should scale with Spell Slots in almost all cases, though. If you cast a spell in a higher level slot you should be able to add more targets, have it last a few rounds after concentration breaks, or generate a larger effect. 13th Age really got a lot of good concepts down in this department including "cast for power" vs "cast for wide effect" and having almost every lower-level spell have higher-slot casting options.

- Marty Lund

 

[Lokiare]

Problem is, the world is also rarely impacted by the magical power of just one person either. Unless you're reading a fantasy paperback banked upon an over-done Chosen One or One True Evil you don't get that happening - and neither of those archetypes are appropriate design space for a party-based RPG.

More typically, a great Magician either changes the course of human events through judicious application of knowledge and influence (like Merlin or Gandalf) or has a massive impact on a small stage that then ripples forward into the world through social change.

Wahoo levels of world-changing magic like blocking out the sun, sinking the Imperial Capital into the ocean, creating a massive horde of rampaging kill-bots are not "Spells" that a "Wizard" simply pulls out of a spell-book. They are plot-device super-weapons the likes of which are conceived by Bond Villains and require massive infrastructure and borrowed power to bring about. You need stuff like conduits, human sacrifices, demonic pacts, artifacts, and a celestial convergence at the exact right moment (conveniently the exact moment the PCs show up to murder you, or the BBEG's emerges to murder your party depending on whether you're trying to take over the world or save it).

One of the real problems with some editions of D&D and variants is that it seemed like every time someone thought up a magical effect that was good to put on an non-playable Antagonist someone eventually said, "Better put it onto the Spell List and sell a splat-book." Because everything Elminster, Gandalf, or the Arch-Heretic of Asmodeus could possibly do has to be accessibly daily by a 17th level Wizard or the game's just not complete, right?

Heck, 13th Age has an Archmage Icon. He's basically a demi-god wizard-lord who is in charge of keeping the empire in one piece by managing a massive system of magical infrastructure that keeps the weather mild; wards the kaiju monsters from invading the inland sea; suspends a floating city or two in the atmosphere; and stops demons, living dungeons, and undead hordes from just boiling out of the ground indiscriminately and eating everybody. Even he's so busy in conducting maintenance on all that infrastructure that's been put together by his predecessors and subordinates he can't just go out and pull reality-warping stunts out of his butt to show how much more awesome he is that everyone else. The feat requires massive support of non-magicians in the Empire via economy, labor, information, and bureaucratic function. In the grand scheme of things he's probably about as important and powerful at shaping the world as the Emperor. If either one screws up badly enough the other one won't be able to hold things together.

Changing the world isn't about waking up in the morning, grabbing your spell-book, and summoning brute force to bludgeon reality into submission. It's about some building some sort of physical, social, military, and/or magical infrastructure at great cost.

Likewise, the greatest thief in the world isn't going to get to be the wealthiest man ever by being the best pick-pocket and assassin and taking things through personal force. He's going to get their by engineering massive boondoggles that would make a modern politician blush. ;

More to the Encounter side of things, "save or die" magic should never circumvent hit-points the way it did in some editions. Hit points should make you harder to defeat. It shouldn't be significantly faster / easier / more convenient to perma-frog someone (or frog + squish) with a Baleful Polymorph or Flesh to Stone than a focused damage attack of the same level. If you fail the save and have greater than X HP you should be able to lose the HP instead of suffering the other ill effect. If you don't have that many HP available and fail your save, well, sucks to be you frog-boy.

Likewise I'm pretty happy with how Concentration is working in D&DNext. I think Concentration-based Buff / Debuff spells should scale with Spell Slots in almost all cases, though. If you cast a spell in a higher level slot you should be able to add more targets, have it last a few rounds after concentration breaks, or generate a larger effect. 13th Age really got a lot of good concepts down in this department including "cast for power" vs "cast for wide effect" and having almost every lower-level spell have higher-slot casting options.

- Marty Lund

I'd rather they go with a model where your non-damage spells count up to current hp on that creature and when they hit the current hp they trigger their effect. Then have it where they are concentration mechanic based and last multiple rounds. So a Flesh to Stone spell might look like:

Flesh to Stone
You slowly turn the creatures flesh into unyeilding stone.
Duration: up to 10 rounds of concentration
Effect: Each round of the duration of the spell the target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failure they sustain 1d8 stone points. These points remain until the creature receives healing. When it receives healing these points are removed at the same rate as the hit point recovery. If these points equal or exceed the current hit point total the creature is turned to stone.
Special: If you use this spell from a higher spell slot it gains +1d6 stone points per level increased.

A disintegrate spell might look like this:

Disintegrate
You aim a beam of pure red energy at the target who then begins to disentigrate
Duration: Up to 5 rounds of concentration
Effect: Each round make an attack against the targets Dexterity score with a bonus equal to your spell casting bonus and Dexterity bonus. If you hit the target sustains 1d12 disentigrate points. These points remain until the creature receives healing. When it receives healing these points are removed at the same rate as the hit point recovery. If these points equal or exceed the current hit point total the creature is disentigrated.
Special: If you use this spell from a higher spell slot it gains +1d8 disentigrate points per level increased.

That would be a nice way of dealing with it for my side (4E). However for the other side you would have alternative descriptions that just say "If the target fails a Constitution save they become Stone."

That's how they should have done it, but that's not what they are doing.

 

[Derren]

It is noteworthy that you completely ignore the mythic and literary figures.

As apparently Hector and Achilles is not mythic enough for you:

Conan was quite intelligent (book version) and had the highest impact on the world when he was king and not when he walking alone through the country killing things by hand. And Arthur was more known for pulling the sword and his reign than using said sword. And Selmy? He is quite known, but what effect had he on the world so far? Nothing really. The biggest contribution he is likely to make is not with his sword but by simply backing Danny.

I'm simply saying the following two things: 1) There certainly are people who made an impact on the world due to martial prowess; many of those people listed above never would have gone on to conquer had they died before getting to that point

And yet martial power did not make them famous or change the world. It helped them to stay alive. Thats it.

 

[pemerton]

Conan was quite intelligent (book version) and had the highest impact on the world when he was king and not when he walking alone through the country killing things by hand. And Arthur was more known for pulling the sword and his reign than using said sword.

<snip>

martial power did not make them famous or change the world. It helped them to stay alive. Thats it.

I think this is a very shallow reading of the Arthurian myths, and a complete misreading of REH's Conan. Conan succeeds as a ruler because of his supreme martial prowess - he redeems (at least temporarily) the degradation of civilisation. And this motif is even played out in narrative form in the stories that deal with Conan's kingship: Phoenix on the Sword, Hour of the Dragon, Scarlet Citadel etc.

 

[Klaus]

More so than extra attacks, Fighters currently get other stuff that makes them remarkably unwilling to die. At 9th they are getting Defy Death (Con save to avoid being reduced to 0 hp, instead going for 1), and at 13th they are getting the equivalent to Magic Resistance, but for everything (Indomitable).

If we consider the simplest Fighter (Warrior), at 15th level he adds a special effect to all his attacks: Str save vs. stun, no save vs. 0 speed, or no save vs. 1d6 + 1/2 level ongoing damage.

If we go by the Weaponmaster, the maneuvers he gets are quite potent, and at 15th level he can cause even creatures with ability scores of 30 to lose reactions, grant advantage or be knocked prone.

IMHO, an epic Fighter in D&D would be close to Greyhawk's Kelanen, the Prince of Swords: he can attack several opponents with his sword, even if they are at a distance, he can cause a sword to fight by itself, and swords simply refuse to attack him. Add to that stuff like parrying spells, cleaving magical barriers and other effects, and you put the Fighter in equal standing with the Wizard.

 

[RevTurkey]

I just started running some B/X-Labyrinth Lord (with Advanced bits) as a tip of the hat to the 40th Anniversary. Going to run it up 'till the Summer when I hope to be able to buy the new version of Dungeons & Dragons and try that.

It's been interesting so far. It has really highlighted how vulnerable low level characters are, especially the Magic Users. However, some of their spells....are awesome! Hard to save against (if at all) and can last ages...making them very potent.

I also just tried some 13th Age which I liked very much. This off the back of some DCC RPG..which I liked very much...oh and some Pathfinder....which I liked very much...oh and some Castles & Crusades...which I liked very much...oh and some 4th Edition which I liked very much...you see the pattern? All good fun...all good games...just pick one, play it and enjoy it.

I'm bored listening to myself get kind of dragged into vague edition wars (guilty as charged)...I enjoy D&D and most other Roleplaying games. I'm off to go play some instead of waffling about which version of Sleep spell I should use...or whether my +3 Sword of Dobba deserves to be more powerful than Mungo the Black's Spell of utter mediocracy.

I am done moaning and bickering

 

[Argyle King]

And yet martial power did not make them famous or change the world. It helped them to stay alive. Thats it.

Are you suggesting that they could have risen as zombies and inspired their followers?

 

[TwoSix]

We have a recent 582,346 page thread vehemently debating the reality of Linear Fighters/Quadratic Wizards in pre-4e D&D. One side argues that it exists and is a detriment to play. The other side exists that it is nonexistent. Both sides utterly committed to their position. Of course this is just one (mega) thread of many on the subject.

Then we have this thread where the 3rd rail of the LF/QW debate, again utterly committed, makes itself known; "LF/QW is a not only a real thing, but it is a canonical feature of D&D rather than a bug (working as intended). "

3 mutually exclusive positions:

1) LF/QW is pervasive, unintended, malignant and must be undone.
2) LF/QW is a tempest in a teapot.
3) LF/QW is pervasive, intended and mandatory for canonical D&D.

Human perception is so unhinged. How in the world did the WotC designers successfully pitch the lofty notion that one, modular ruleset chassis would not just appease, but please all of the deep divisions of D&D. We cannot even carve out the same perception with respect to the nature of the the existence of something that appears completely, and innocuously, self-evident to all three groups.

Good post. (Couldn't XP, sorry.)

But I don't think it's particularly mysterious to understand where these distinctions arise. In games where the players either don't have or don't exert much system mastery, or the DM uses a strong hand in creating encounters to emphasize spotlight balance, LFQW simply isn't going to arise as a perceivable issue. And that playstyle often overlaps with your 3rd rail, where players have internalized non-balance as being part and parcel of the class definition.

In my 3.X/now PF group, one player often fondly refers back to his monk with the comment "I liked that guy. Boy, did he suck." It's pretty much a table meme at this point that monks are awful. But it's just assumed that sucking is part of the reason you choose a monk. Not because of the greater difficulty, but sometimes it's just funny to play a bad character.

On the flip side, in our high level game, the 19th level witch (an alternate wizard) cohort of one of the characters singlehandedly won a combat against
multiple balors by using Time Stop. The table reaction? "What are you going to do? It's Time Stop, that's just what it does." Again, its overpowered nature is just assumed to be part and parcel of the spell definition, and by extrapolation, high level wizards are just better.

Do I like this particular approach? Not really. But I've become sensitive to just how ingrained certain expectations of the D&D experience are to a wide swath of gamers. My enjoyment of constant evolution and new concepts often leads me to be the odd man out in my play group's preferences.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Problem is, the world is rarely impacted by the martial power of one person.

Which is more than the never it has ever been affected by the spellcasting power of one person.

And in many cases (especially Genghiz Khan) the leader was leader because they were a kick-ass fighter. In other cases (Gustavus Adolphus, Richard the Lionheart, Charles Martel) they didn't have to fight their way up - but their personal skill in battle and ability to take to the front lines was a huge factor in raising the morale of their troops. (I think that the 30 Years War was the final European war where this was the case; gunpowder weapons make it too easy for a peasant thirty yards away to take down any warrior). Arthur and Lancelot in the myths, and Conan in the stories were all very much leaders in this school.

So where are the "martial superheroes" of our world? Hector and Achilles play second fiddle to Odysseus

Hector and Achiles impact compared to Odysseus? Seriously? You need to re-read the Iliad. Odysseus had one major impact on the course of the Trojan War (the Wooden Horse). He then spent the next ten years struggling to sail a ship from one end of the Aegean to the other. And he only got his chance because Achiles was powerful enough that when he wasn't in the battle (before the death of Patroclus) the Greeks were being pushed back into the sea, and when he was the Greeks were winning. Achiles mere appearance on the battlefield caused the Trojan army to flee back behind the walls. In short, Achiles presence on the battlefield was enough to rout a victorious army.

And I've said it before and I'll say it again, Save or Die should be the exclusive domain of the fighter. I don't care who you are, having a sword through your brain or your head cut off is a kill. Unfortunately D&D warriors (in any edition) wield nerf-bats rather than swords. And wizards have enough power to make Gandalf green with envy.