D&D 5E Martials v Casters...I still don't *get* it.

[ph0rk]

I agree wholeheartedly, but I've already seen a half dozen tables disallow Tashas material. In one case, specifically because the Primal Companion "wasn't balanced" against the other beasts you could pick.

Which is the problem with fixing existing subclasses by releasing new material, alas.

 

[Mort]

I agree wholeheartedly, but I've already seen a half dozen tables disallow Tashas material. In one case, specifically because the Primal Companion "wasn't balanced" against the other beasts you could pick.

Of course they're not balanced against the other beasts you can pick. That's what "replace" means!

The rules for the beastmaster and the companion were 100% underpowered - these aren't "extra options" they're essentially errata.

But from your tone I suspect you know that and are rolling your eyes at those tables?

Overall I've found the changes in Tasha's welcome and quite good.

 

[DnD Warlord]

how is a warrior with manoeuvres a wizard? unless they seem to spell slot like.
also, why go back to the just run up and hit it warrior instead?

I don’t think they are.
I would love a martial class that was like a 4e class. I would also not mind a bunch of Bo9S inspired classes

The last year before 4e was announced we had stopped playing 3.5, before that we stopped allowing PHB fighter wizard cleric and Druid but allowed the complete book classes and bo9S classes.

 

[Sithlord]

I think a warlock is far more complext to play than a wizard. The rest mechanic is more complex, upcasting everything of lower level adds complexity and in terms of story design, working the patron into the game with the DM is complex. This last bit makes Warlock overall the most complex character to play.

Disagree completely. But I do agree with the story part with patron. Especially if you have a DM that will work with it. I also find short rests can be DM dependent, but that is independent of your position.

 

[Seramus]

Of course they're not balanced against the other beasts you can pick. That's what "replace" means!

The rules for the beastmaster and the companion were 100% underpowered - these aren't "extra options" they're essentially errata.

But from your tone I suspect you know that and are rolling your eyes at those tables?

Yes, I absolutely understand and support the Primal Companion being a replacement. I'm moderately flabbergasted that the DM in question doesn't allow it because he thinks it wouldn't be balanced against the PHB version. I mean, I can see how he gets there "This is blatant powercreep from the PHB", but he completely fails to see the PHB beastmaster as underpowered in the first place.

 

[ph0rk]

Disagree completely. But I do agree with the story part with patron. Especially if you have a DM that will work with it. I also find short rests can be DM dependent, but that is independent of your position.

I agree - I've played both concurrently and both the level of prep is lower and the size of the decision tree in actual play is smaller for the Warlock.

The choice to go Blade Pact or not is pretty easy, really. Do you want to hit stuff, up close? But if the answer is "no" there is some thinking about Tome vs Chain. Once that's done, you have a handful of interesting choices re: invocations (or not, if blade) and a handful of spells to pick. You have them all, and can get a lot of those spells back with a SR,

With wizard you're planning out rituals takes vs action cast takes (most Warlock rituals will be DM fiat, not so with the wizard) and you have your prepared list to reconfigure. Then, with arcane recovery, when you have several slots spent - which ones do you regenerate? Then there's list differences, stuff like contingency.

Wizards just have a larger decision tree, no way around that.

 

[Mort]

I don’t think they are.
I would love a martial class that was like a 4e class. I would also not mind a bunch of Bo9S inspired classes

The last year before 4e was announced we had stopped playing 3.5, before that we stopped allowing PHB fighter wizard cleric and Druid but allowed the complete book classes and bo9S classes.

I agree,

I loved the Bo9S and think it was a great addition to 3e - finally fighters that could keep up.

I also liked the 4e fighter and it BY FAR had the closest parity to the caster classes.

BUT, I guess this must be a minority opinion.

4e introduced the much simplified fighter (Knight or something like that) in the later essentials supplements - clearly because of the whining for the need of a "non caster" fighter (even though the 4e fighter played nothing like a caster) and 5e reversed the whole complex fighter thing (though the Battlemaser does have some options and Tasha's even took some baby steps into giving manuevers that are meant for out of combat use).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes, I absolutely understand and support the Primal Companion being a replacement. I'm moderately flabbergasted that the DM in question doesn't allow it because he thinks it wouldn't be balanced against the PHB version. I mean, I can see how he gets there "This is blatant powercreep from the PHB", but he completely fails to see the PHB ranger as underpowered.

Well, that is an issue caused by the way WotC presents these things. Instead of flat out saying that the PHB Beastmaster is underpowered, here's an errata to fix that, they represent it as an alternative option. So if one doesn't understand the unstated background of these new additional rules, it is very easy to just compare the 'options' presented and see that one is clearly just better than another and thus imbalanced.

 

[TheSword]

As opposed to you that swears the 2nd best selling edition of all time flopped because he said so

You my friend are somewhat misinformed. Pathfinder’s 3e spin-off outsold D&D 4e for some time. It was actually the 3e market that was split with players who stuck to D&D 3e/3.5 and those that migrated to Paizo. Say what you like about Pathfinder but Paizo went from a magazine publisher to publishing the worlds most popular RPG in an extraordinarily short length of time.

Whether you like 4e or not is irrelevant. No point starting an edition war about this rule or that change. The fact is, it failed to do what WOC wanted it to do, which was be a successor to 3e, in such a way as to persuade the majority of previous edition players to move over to it... the purpose of every D&D edition before or since.

Top 5 RPGs--Q2 2011

Top 5 RPGs--Fall 2012

Top 5 RPGs--Spring 2013

Top 5 RPGs--Fall 2013

Top 5 RPGs--Summer 2014

 

[ph0rk]

Yep, at the end of the day, units sold is how success is measured.