D&D General Compelling and Differentiated Gameplay For Spellcasters and Martial Classes

[Campbell]

Part of the supremacy of spell casters centers around burst capabilities. If martial characters don't have any burst capabilities then full casters can always surpass them in the combat pillar when it matters most. You've just relegated martials to being nearly fully inferior to casters. As such martials must have burst damage capabilities for game balance.

Within a context of role playing game design it is absolutely possible. You discard two of the central conceits that have been with us since Third Edition. The first is that at will abilities cannot be awesome and daily and encounter rationing is needed to balance anything that is more involved than I attack with my sword. The second is the idea that spell casters should be doing the same things other characters do, but better.

You make martial characters the undisputed masters of single target personal combat with access to techniques that match what a character with their level of skill should be capable of. You then provide a niche for spell casters that is different from the niche of martial characters and skill users. This does generally require defining what skills and martial techniques can actually do.

This is the way a number of games that are not Dungeons and Dragons have balanced spell casters and more martially inclined characters for years. In practice this largely matches my experience with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition without the fun techniques for martials. It's how RuneQuest, Legend of the Five Rings, Vampire, Exalted, Shadowrun, and Pathfinder Second Edition work. Spellcasters have to marshal resources just to keep up with martials in their areas of expertise, but are more capable in other areas like area damage, divination, protective spells, and plot device level magic like teleportation. Their spells are also less certain.

I agree these structural changes will not work with Fifth Edition as designed. I do think you could keep the existing structures in place and layer on subclasses that got more interesting at will abilities as they level up that might require some setup or perhaps use attacks as a resource so a Fighter with say the Tactician subclass might be able to use 2 attacks to strike an enemy and apply a powerful debuff. You could feed this into Action Surge as well. I really like this idea. I might start drafting something up.

 

[5ekyu]

A solution i would not push myself but...

In some games,the "less magical" get advantages in gimmick points, more hero points or plot point or drama points.

Perhaps tweaks to inspiration could serve this function, allowing certain underperforming classes direct player rationed bonuses at the tables where it is needed.

 

[Campbell]

A solution i would not push myself but...

In some games,the "less magical" get advantages in gimmick points, more hero points or plot point or drama points.

Perhaps tweaks to inspiration could serve this function, allowing certain underperforming classes direct player rationed bonuses at the tables where it is needed.

I think when it comes to potency at least in combat martial characters are largely fine. For me this is not about character power. My Ancestral Guardian Barbarian that I play in my best friend's Fifth Edition game is one of the most effective members of our party. It's just largely that I as a player do not have to do anything special to be effective and my decisions feel less consequential than the decisions of our Cleric/Druid or Sorcerer. Ragna is kind of an elemental force. His presence makes him effective - not me as a player.

Outside of combat things do feel different. Spellcasters generally have the same access to the tools the rest of us have and also tools that are deeply useful and far more certain than skills. Ritual casting largely makes this worse because spell casters do not even have to use up precious spell slots. The lack of a defined niche for skills and the certainty inherent in spell use often means we turn to spell casters to solve our adventuring problems which they often can with low level spell slots while at 10th level my Barbarian is only a little bit better at addressing adventuring problems than he was at first level.

In general I do not think bonuses to rolls will help all that much. The issue as I see it is the ability to make informed decisions that impact success. I want to be able to play Ragna well. If I make the wrong decisions we should suffer and if I make the right decisions we should thrive. I want to be challenged.

 

[Eubani]

I think when it comes to potency at least in combat martial characters are largely fine. For me this is not about character power. My Ancestral Guardian Barbarian that I play in my best friend's Fifth Edition game is one of the most effective members of our party. It's just largely that I as a player do not have to do anything special to be effective and my decisions feel less consequential than the decisions of our Cleric/Druid or Sorcerer. Ragna is kind of an elemental force. His presence makes him effective - not me as a player.

Outside of combat things do feel different. Spellcasters generally have the same access to the tools the rest of us have and also tools that are deeply useful and far more certain than skills. Ritual casting largely makes this worse because spell casters do not even have to use up precious spell slots. The lack of a defined niche for skills and the certainty inherent in spell use often means we turn to spell casters to solve our adventuring problems which they often can with low level spell slots while at 10th level my Barbarian is only a little bit better at addressing adventuring problems than he was at first level.

In general I do not think bonuses to rolls will help all that much. The issue as I see it is the ability to make informed decisions that impact success. I want to be able to play Ragna well. If I make the wrong decisions we should suffer and if I make the right decisions we should thrive. I want to be challenged.

As I have said before the issue is not one of power it is one of agency.

 

[5ekyu]

I think when it comes to potency at least in combat martial characters are largely fine. For me this is not about character power. My Ancestral Guardian Barbarian that I play in my best friend's Fifth Edition game is one of the most effective members of our party. It's just largely that I as a player do not have to do anything special to be effective and my decisions feel less consequential than the decisions of our Cleric/Druid or Sorcerer. Ragna is kind of an elemental force. His presence makes him effective - not me as a player.

Outside of combat things do feel different. Spellcasters generally have the same access to the tools the rest of us have and also tools that are deeply useful and far more certain than skills. Ritual casting largely makes this worse because spell casters do not even have to use up precious spell slots. The lack of a defined niche for skills and the certainty inherent in spell use often means we turn to spell casters to solve our adventuring problems which they often can with low level spell slots while at 10th level my Barbarian is only a little bit better at addressing adventuring problems than he was at first level.

In general I do not think bonuses to rolls will help all that much. The issue as I see it is the ability to make informed decisions that impact success. I want to be able to play Ragna well. If I make the wrong decisions we should suffer and if I make the right decisions we should thrive. I want to be challenged.

So what are three things you think should be added to your barbarian (keeping ssme race and background and choices) that would fit your bill?

Maybe if we see what you think are ways to solve it withoutcrewuiring you to have made any different choices, we can get a better grip on your position.

 

[Campbell]

So what are three things you think should be added to your barbarian (keeping ssme race and background and choices) that would fit your bill?

Maybe if we see what you think are ways to solve it withoutcrewuiring you to have made any different choices, we can get a better grip on your position.

So the fantasy of the Ancestral Guardian is that when you rage the spirits of your ancestors come to aid you, harassing your enemies and protecting your allies. Instead of existing purely as fluff why not make them feel like active parts of the battle field? As your connections to these spirits deepen they become more powerful and can do different things on your command. Managing positioning of the spirits and choosing different actions, bonus action activities and reactions that you had to choose between to actively rather than passively defend your allies could involve a great deal of player skill and also help you live out the fantasy more fully.

 

[Oofta]

You are speaking on behalf of a lot of people you don't know without figures to back up your statement.

According to DndBeyond, fighter is the most popular class.

So yes, I do know the figures. Your turn.

Now, as far as the OP:

I have some opinions here including some targeted criticisms, but I am curious what everyone else thinks.

I'm just stating my opinion. The fighter isn't broke, don't expect anyone to fix it. I like playing a mundane* fighter.

If you want a more complex option maybe a different game is for you because not every game works for everyone. If you want to continue to play D&D check out the DmsGuild, I'd be surprised if there weren't several options. If you have specific custom classes feel free to post them for feedback.

* given that D&D is basically action-movie reality.

 

[Nagol]

It's weird. When I look at The Three Musketeers or Seven Samurai or Ocean's Eleven, not one of the enumerated protagonists can fly or breathe water or do anything else magical whatsoever, and yet somehow despite this handicap they still manage to have thrilling adventures. But when it comes to D&D, people talk as if everything interesting in the world is either deep underwater or high in the sky.

Hell, even in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, where the party has an actual wizard who can do actual magic, he flies or breathes water precisely zero times. (And there's pretty strong circumstantial evidence that he can't.) When they need to open an impassable magical door, an ordinary hobbit figures out the riddle. When they need to cover a lot of ground very quickly by air, they call upon eagle allies. When they need to raise an army of the dead, well, that seems like a wizardly task if ever there was one, but nope! The ranger does it.

So if our D&D adventures come to a grinding halt because the party can't cast some certain specific spell, maybe we shouldn't be bewailing the inadequacies of martial characters. Maybe instead we should be saying, "Hey, this is crappy adventure design."

t would be crappy adventure design if the game system didn't offer such abilities like the reality inside Ocean's 11.

Since the game engine does include those abilities specifically so the inhabitants of the world can use them to overcome challenges and the game world and adventure should include varied challenges, then it isn't crappy design.

What is crappy design is locking access to the tools needed to overcome some challenges behind a few "one choice per character" options like class pick while other tools, like basic combat capability, are carfully balanced to not leave a player out.

 

[Eubani]

According to DndBeyond, fighter is the most popular class.

So yes, I do know the figures. Your turn.

We are talking about need for improvement not popularity. Something can need improvement and still be popular.

 

[Oofta]

We are talking about need for improvement not popularity. Something can need improvement and still be popular.

Hence my opinion which is in response to the OP's question. I don't think it needs to be improved. Sometimes limits to what I can do to solve a problem make solving the problem more fun than figuring out which tool on my swiss army knife will bypass the obstacle. Since it's the most popular class for the best selling version of the game, it seems that I am hardly alone in that opinion.

But I was responding to your post.

You are speaking on behalf of a lot of people you don't know without figures to back up your statement.

Moving the goalpost much? You want figures? I gave you a link.