D&D 5E Analysis of the Fighter and Cleric

[ThirdWizard]

Dear Reader,

I see you're about to write something about Second Wind. Please reconsider! There are several other threads where you can debate this to your heart's content.

Please let at least one thread on ENWorld go untainted by this debate. I appreciate the restraint that you are showing by doing so.

Cordially,
Everyone

[MENTION=95557]Caprica[/MENTION] thanks for the breakdown. I find this pretty interesting. A lot of these choices come down to how the playtest characters were built, and I wonder how many iterations they needed to go through to get to this point. I like the somewhat tanky cleric. It fits the mercenary/militaristic background. The fighter background, perhaps not so much, but I can live with it. It's amazing to see the fighter damage shoot up like that. Crazy impressive.

 

[TerraDave]

Thanks for this.

I know in my games we will have fewer rests, so that tones down the fighter a little bit, still, I like to see that he more then holds his own, at least through mid level.

Oh, and his noble background definitely gives him out of combat options.

 

[DDNFan]

Second Wind provides unlimited healing in the same way that Cure Wounds provides unlimited healing. You just have to wait for either to recharge, either 1 hour or 8.

Nope, a cleric needs to wait up to 24 hours to recharge their class feature, not eight, since you can only take one long rest per day. Please, stick to the actual rules instead of making stuff up. If it was every 8 hours then you'd get all your spells back three times per day. The whole point of long rest cooldowns is to limit the number of uses per day. When you disingenuously compare a one hour short rest with an 8 hour long rest, in a straightforward way, whilst ignoring the restriction on long rests, you lose all credibility.

Assume level 5 characters:

4 Cure Wounds, at 2d8 + 2 each, is 44 HP.
4 short rests for the fighter, 1d10 + 5 each, 10.5 x4 = 42 HP, but it doesn't stop there, because he can rest more often.

Comparing Second Wind to the cleric casting all his spells on one character (even himself), does not prove your point. The cleric give up a lot of damage and HP and nova capability in order to be able to cast his spells. Casting them all on healing to compete with a fighter, just means you're proving the point that SW is overpowered and broken.

And before anyone jumps in and says offside, I'm merely correcting this gross oversimplification and inaccurate post. Thank you. Let's stick to the facts, please. You don't get to just start a new thread then tell people they can't compare things.

This thread is about comparing the fighter and the cleric mechanically. If you don't like contrary viewpoints to yours, ignore them but you don't get to tell others they have to agree with you or just keep silent when you post inaccurate statements.

 

[Cybit]

Nope, a cleric needs to wait up to 24 hours to recharge their class feature, not eight, since you can only take one long rest per day. Please, stick to the actual rules instead of making stuff up. If it was every 8 hours then you'd get all your spells back three times per day. The whole point of long rest cooldowns is to limit the number of uses per day. When you disingenuously compare a one hour short rest with an 8 hour long rest, in a straightforward way, whilst ignoring the restriction on long rests, you lose all credibility.

Assume level 5 characters:

4 Cure Wounds, at 2d8 + 2 each, is 44 HP.
4 short rests for the fighter, 1d10 + 5 each, 10.5 x4 = 42 HP, but it doesn't stop there, because he can rest more often.

Comparing Second Wind to the cleric casting all his spells on one character (even himself), does not prove your point. The cleric give up a lot of damage and HP and nova capability in order to be able to cast his spells. Casting them all on healing to compete with a fighter, just means you're proving the point that SW is overpowered and broken.

And before anyone jumps in and says offside, I'm merely correcting this gross oversimplification and inaccurate post. Thank you. Let's stick to the facts, please. You don't get to just start a new thread then tell people they can't compare things.

This thread is about comparing the fighter and the cleric mechanically. If you don't like contrary viewpoints to yours, ignore them but you don't get to tell others they have to agree with you or just keep silent when you post inaccurate statements.

Do we know what Cure Light Wounds actually does in the final version?

Why do clerics only count as having 4 spells at level 5, as opposed to the 9 spells I see on the character sheet for a 5th level cleric, or the 2+spell level additional HP healed by each one his healing spells didn't count either? I mean, even with the CLW as stated above, each of those is 2d8+5 instead of 2d8+2.

May want to be careful about casting stones.

EDIT: Removed unnecessary snark.

 

[Remathilis]

I figured out how to fix the problems with action surge, second wind, AND damage-on-a-miss: ban the fighter class.

 

[Cybit]

I figured out how to fix the problems with action surge, second wind, AND damage-on-a-miss: ban the fighter class.

Victory is yours!

 

[DDNFan]

I figured out how to fix the problems with action surge, second wind, AND damage-on-a-miss: ban the fighter class.

In other words, play Pathfinder instead. Not interesting in throwing money away. If I have to houserule that fighters can miss, I'd rather just open up the books that are sitting on my bookshelf which doesn't have that "feature" that nobody requested be added to the game.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

In other words, play Pathfinder instead. Not interesting in throwing money away. If I have to houserule that fighters can miss, I'd rather just open up the books that are sitting on my bookshelf which doesn't have that "feature" that nobody requested be added to the game.

I asked for all of that and more... Maneuvers too

 

[evileeyore]

...which doesn't have that "feature" that nobody requested be added to the game.

You keep asserting this, but obviously someone requested it or it wouldn't be in there.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You keep asserting this, but obviously someone requested it or it wouldn't be in there.

Maybe he thinks "nobody" is short hand for the group of people who enjoy other play styles...