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

[Don Durito]

Thunderwave is a first level spell, which means
1. The wizard has to have it prepared
2. They can only do it a limited number of times per day.
3. There may be better uses of their 1st level spell slots.
4. Thunderwave makes a very loud noise within 300', which will likely alert monsters.

Meanwhile a fighter can shove people around at will and do it more efficiently and with less consequences.

The point of spells is that they can be "I Win" buttons in very specific situations. But there are (or at least, there should be) consequences. If the consequences aren't severe enough for the effect of the spell, then it's a design issue.

Yes but something that is impressive once is generally better than something you can do many times to little great effect.

You may only need it once. Forced movement is most useful (and satisfying) when the terrain is in the right conditions. For example, someone has cast a wall of fire and you want to shove someone right through it.

Pushing one person doesn't reshape the battlefield. The ability to do this is something Fighters in 5E really lack. Plus unless you choose a particular weapon set-up and a particular feat you have to give up an attack - which is rarely worth it. So you aren't going to be pushing people every round - even if you can.

Not to mention that if you choose it as a Sorcerer or a Bard you can cast it as many times as you have 1st level slots - which will almost certainly be more times than you wish to use it.

I picked Thunderwave as an example because it's really not beyond the bounds of what 4E Fighters could fairly routinely do.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I’m also not sure I agree with the notion that classes like the fighter can’t do anything super special out of combat. Look at it in context. A fighter, even a lower level one, can grapple a brown bear. That’s pretty freaking heroic, and there are literally legends built around stuff like that. With higher str scores, prof bonuses, and things like remarkable athlete, fighters can do things no other class can, and do them all day long.

Similar to a rogues stealth ability. They can pretty much go invisible whenever they want at higher levels. How is that not a mundane super power? Do you know anyone who can do that?

It’s all about putting things in perspective. Fighters and rogues can do out of combat feats that can replicate the heroic acts from legend and folklore. That sure seems like it counts what people are asking for. And if someone is asking that a fighter replicate what magic can do, well, then learn magic. It’s magic for a reason.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yes but something that is impressive once is generally better than something you can do many times to little great effect.

You may only need it once. Forced movement is most useful (and satisfying) when the terrain is in the right conditions. For example, someone has cast a wall of fire and you want to shove someone right through it.

Pushing one person doesn't reshape the battlefield. The ability to do this is something Fighters in 5E really lack. Plus unless you choose a particular weapon set-up and a particular feat you have to give up an attack - which is rarely worth it. So you aren't going to be pushing people every round - even if you can.

Not to mention that if you choose it as a Sorcerer or a Bard you can cast it as many times as you have 1st level slots - which will almost certainly be more times than you wish to use it.

I picked Thunderwave as an example because it's really not beyond the bounds of what 4E Fighters could fairly routinely do.

Fighters get better armor class, more hp, greater healing, better routine damage over the long haul, more feats, and now you want them to have all the same ability as casters too? Seems a bit unfair, don’t you think, towards casters?

 

[Don Durito]

How often do you grapple Brown Bears out of combat?

In any case. Given the Bounded Accuracy - High level Fighters will be frequently failing at things they try to do.

(Rogues are somewhat different)

A single classed Fighter can have at most +11 to a roll. So even with a maxed Strength and Athletics the fighter may still fail a moderate DC.

 

[Sacrosanct]

How often do you grapple Brown Bears out of combat?

In any case. Given the Bounded Accuracy - High level Fighters will be frequently failing at things they try to do.

(Rogues are somewhat different)

A single classed Fighter can have at most +11 to a roll. So even with a maxed Strength and Athletics the fighter may still fail a moderate DC.

It was an example. I’m sure you can think of many other examples of where feats of strength or dexterity happen outside of combat. The point is that they can, in fact, accomplish heroic actions out of combat.

 

[Don Durito]

Fighters get better armor class, more hp, greater healing, better routine damage over the long haul, more feats, and now you want them to have all the same ability as casters too? Seems a bit unfair, don’t you think, towards casters?

Ok. Obviously there's no useful good faith conversation to be engaged in here.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Ok. Obviously there's no useful good faith conversation to be engaged in here.

Apparently not, because you’re refusing to acknowledge all those things a fighter has that casters don’t.

We have a saying in the QA world: garbage in, garbage out. Meaning if you’re starting with a fundamentally flawed methodology, doesn’t matter how you do your analysis, it will be garbage.

 

[Monayuris]

Yes but something that is impressive once is generally better than something you can do many times to little great effect.

You may only need it once. Forced movement is most useful (and satisfying) when the terrain is in the right conditions. For example, someone has cast a wall of fire and you want to shove someone right through it.

Pushing one person doesn't reshape the battlefield. The ability to do this is something Fighters in 5E really lack. Plus unless you choose a particular weapon set-up and a particular feat you have to give up an attack - which is rarely worth it. So you aren't going to be pushing people every round - even if you can.

Not to mention that if you choose it as a Sorcerer or a Bard you can cast it as many times as you have 1st level slots - which will almost certainly be more times than you wish to use it.

I picked Thunderwave as an example because it's really not beyond the bounds of what 4E Fighters could fairly routinely do.

Despite that there are plenty of consequences for spell casting.

Specifically for Thunderwave, the noise it makes and needing to be close to the action are significant.

Generally, there are probably better uses for those slots... the entire spell vocabulary of the spell caster is in competition for spell slots. Each spell slot is precious (or at least should be) and even if you are a bard or sorcerer each use of a spell slot on one spell prevents you from using it on another.

Granted. I'll give you that 5E by default just provides too many spells and too much access to and ability to use magic. I've used the 1 week long rests option in the DMG and it helps quite a bit.

But, yeah, if you play for about 3-4 hours and/or with an expectation of a long rest whenever it is convenient... you are going to have 'All magic - All the time' and Spell casters will dominate.

 

[5ekyu]

As I read the OP, Eubani is correct. See eg

​

The issue is not about potency - the ability to efficiently overcome challenges presented to the players by the PC - but about the ability to impact the fiction in distinctive, character-revealing ways.

In post 13 in this thread, @Campbell says:

Game mechanics can be written in a way in which they embrace GM judgement and fictional positioning to allow for creative play. You do this by explicitly calling out areas for the GM to apply their judgement as a referee and having fictional positioning requirements built in to how you design mechanics.​

Fictional positioning requirements need not be highly situational. And there is no reason that they must work poorly in "theatre of the mind". Fictional position is not about the location of a token on a map. It's about the table, through play, establishing true descriptions of the circumstances of the characters.

A concrete example from my Classic Traveller game - one of the PCs has a suit of powered armour (battle dress) and a rather powerful plasma gun. The use of these is effectively at will. In combat, they are rather awesome in their effects. But the player does not have his PC use them all the time, because it is awkward to do so. Besides their blatant character, there is the devastation that the plasma gun tends to inflict.

The two things that @Manbearcat mentions are closely related. And they are not about "player control of fiction" as you mean that. They're about the way that the consequences of checks - both success and failure - are established. The focus is on framing of the situation, on calling for checks only when something of established significance is at stake, and on allowing successes to not just change the fiction, but to allow them to change the fiction so as to give the player what s/he wanted out of the situation.

In D&D, 4e is the only edition that has systematised this sort of approach. Most of the systems that Manbearcat mentioned upthread as having addressed the concerns raised in the OP adopt some version of this sort of approach.

"The issue is not about potency - the ability to efficiently overcome challenges presented to the players by the PC - but about the ability to impact the fiction in distinctive, character-revealing ways."

Tonight, the barbarian impacted the fiction multiple times.
Tonight the ways the barbarian did these were very distinctive.
Tonight they did reveal aspects of the character.

So, pretty much, done.

Nine of our house rules played a role in that tonight, do, it was pretty straight 5e.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Hmmm...so one way to come up with what a class would have is by trying to imagine what the class normally can do

A slightly different way to look at what a class should maybe have as an option is what kind of person typically takes up the job of that class and what that type of person typically excels at in a way deviant from the average person

Here is a little of how the two different parts of that can affect developers decisions about classes:

A fighter needs to and will learn to be a proficient fighter. This is not just a physical thing. It is also a mental skills set. Both of these affect the type of person likely to even attempt taking up the skill set (what they are like before they ever even became a fighter) and stimulates things about the persons development physically and mentally both in ways people stereotypically expect and in ways they don't expect.

So getting into that second bit what do we know about the average person who in reality tries to become a professional fighter on average compared to those who dont (like a soldier, policeman, mercenary, prize fighter, martial arts professional instructor and so on) some of which i believe hasnt been as thoroughly considered as woth other classes (some of which also has)?

Well

they are strong obviously
Healthy in body and mind (good con/wis save or ability or something)
Coordinated
Noticeably better at math than most especially visual spatial cognition
Noticeably better at logic and dynamic planning
Much more likely than average to be a community leader
Heavy career bias toward math, logic, gov and politics, science (usually hard sciences but also psych and med), law, business, and economics.
Easily commits things to muscle memory
Good group collaboration skills (no. This is not actually something all classes excel at. Actually the lore makes clear that though parties include them, some classes tend to suck at it at least from lore)

Now you might say some of this doesnt sound all that related to my idea of a fighter to which i would say PRECISELY! Thats because what most people including most class designers think of as the basic most typical person who would become a fighter is actually very inacurate! As such all of this can be used to rethink what some class abilities a fighter maybe should have added might be. None of them are really explained as game abilities or skills, but thats intentional. Im saying look at my list and realize there are class abilities skills and or whatever based upon these truths ive shown you that could be related to or based on these.

Ill give an example, better than typical visual spatial comprehension and logic being strongly present in soldiers (irl fighters) suggests that maybe a class feature should be advantages against visual illusions. Or outside of battle perhaps an advantage at using a map or solving a puzzle or making it through a maze.

This whole list of reasons is suggestive of many possibilities. The big stupid fighter stereotyoe is inaccurate. Even if stereotypes are usually accurate this one is not. So this may be the road to answers.

Also apologies. As someone else correctly guessed my first language is not english. So some of this may be slightly out of sorts.