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

[Gammadoodler]

To get back on topic.

I want to be able on downtime, while the wizard is transcribing a new spell to their book, to talk to the old knight who lives 2 days ride away. The old knight fought a dragon and won. I want his secrets.

When I get back in 2 weeks, I, have "Dragonkiller Assault". I can attack TEN TIMES but only to vs dragons.

I slot that in with my other martial techniques for the day.

• "Triple Threat" Attack 3 Times.
• "Bide Pain" Gain 3d6 temporary hit points.
• "Backalley Blade" Attack 5 times with a dagger against a prone target
• "Hardness of Foot" Move my speed while ignoring difficult terrain.
• "No Look Toss" Search and make a single thrown weapon attack
• "Don't Try it" Ready an attack against attacking foe that deals 8d6 bonus damage and causes CON save to not lose limbs
• "You're Fired" Attack deal bonus 8d6 fire damage (requires flametongue or other flaming sword)
• "The Long Goodbye" Shieldbash foe 50 feet away from you.
• "Shieldcracker" Attack 4 times with +2 bonus against an enemy holding a shield
• "Bulletcount" Identify and count all ranged weapons and unused ammunition within 100 feet.

I think you're kind of describing pathfinder 2e.

Our group has been dabbling recently and thus far, the martials do feel a lot better. I just wish it wasn't so fiddly generally. It works well on the foundry VTT, but seems like it'd be unwieldy otherwise.

 

[Minigiant]

I can’t grasp a martial that forget a skill one day and knows a different skill the next day. And it changing again tomorrow. I just don’t get it. I can understand a kind of assessment skill or knowledge check giving a bonus or something. But that’s about it.

Well I never said they could change it 3 days in a row. I was going on the idea of several weeks training and getting rusty on one technique they don't do often enough. Their body and mind only being able to handle X number of techniques in near perfect execution.

The warblade/weaponmaster would stop practisicing the techniques for weapons and armor they don't have or foes they no longer face.

 

[tetrasodium]

This depends entirely on the AC of the foe, the number of attacks and the encounter design. The -6 on the attack roll (-5 for extra damage, -1 for not taking an ASI) bites deep into the extra damage potential. When you consider you are hitting far less and doing a point worse base damage, you are probably looking at 2 points extra damage per attack effectively, compared to someone using the same weapon without the feats. It will be more than that at low ACs, it will be worse than that at high ACs, and worse than a character who took an ASI at very high AC.

Further, with these two feats, unless you have both of them (and the abilities to back them up) you can't count on being in position to use them effectively every turn. The sharpshooter gets nerfed when an enemy closes with him and he either has to disengage, cause an AOO, deal with disadvantage or use a melee weapon. Then GWM has to deal with turns where he is not close enough to an enemy to melee. Both of these things happen occasionally, usually once or twice a battle. An AB warlock can use EB just about every turn in combat unless he chooses to use a more effective spell. Also unless you are an actual fighter specifically, the 3rd ray at 11th and 4th ray at 17th will mean 4 attacks by a blaster vs 2 attacks by non-fighter martials.

The damage numbers you are referencing seem t be suggesting thatthe champion or the hexblade will be doing a point less than the there, that's j\so incorrect it doesn't relly matter which. Here's the math.


Champion will be doing 1d10+5+1+10 (5.5+5*+1+10=26.5) for each attack. EB from the hexblade will be doing 1d10+5 (5.5+5=10.5). They each get to attack the same number of times aside from the almost unplayed 17-19 level range. The hexblade is doing way more than a "point" less damage. The champion can miss 2 out of every 3 attacks and still outdamage the hexblade with EV if it's missing an average of even a single attack every 3. From 1-4 it's still true but needs different mods. On the bolded but, look back at @Flamestrike's post.... the champion has both feats and a +1 weapon of each. Ranged attacks with a bow in melee & ranged spell attacks with EB in melee both suffer the same disadvantage so it would be silly to throw the comparison by adding it to one but not the other.

Eldritch blast with a +1 wand & a champion with a +1 bow both target the exact same AC. very few creatures have high enough AC for the +5 of SS/GWM to matter provided it's an appropriately leveled encounter. Switching to greatsword only brings the champion further ahead since it does 2d6 rather than 1d10

Hex will narrow the gap somewhat until the hit rates get absurdly bad like 1 out of 3 attacks, but @ph0rk started out saying no spell slots.

* The dex & strength mods depend on how the champion chooses to level, but it actually doesn't change results more than just how much the champion leads by. The variant human in the post could start with a 16 in each. Have both feats by 4. Bump the more used to 18 at 6 . Bump either of them again at 8 to 20/16 or 18/18, then go on to continue towards 20/20 at 12 & 14. Yes doing both on one character is suboptimal, but the less optimal option is still so much better than the hexblade that it it's like comparing an F1 racer & nascar car to a mustang or corvette & complaining about gas mileage when racing item against the street legal cars.

edit: depending on how you do it the champion could take archery fighting style for +2 to hit with the bow to have the equivalent of 18str/20dex or 16str/22dex on the hit rolls too since an asi in an attrib is +1 while archery fighting style is double that on the hit roll with +2

 

[Undrave]

I can’t grasp a martial that forget a skill one day and knows a different skill the next day. And it changing again tomorrow. I just don’t get it. I can understand a kind of assessment skill or knowledge check giving a bonus or something. But that’s about it.

Well I never said they could change it 3 days in a row. I was going on the idea of several weeks training and getting rusty on one technique they don't do often enough. Their body and mind only being able to handle X number of techniques in near perfect execution.

The warblade/weaponmaster would stop practisicing the techniques for weapons and armor they don't have or foes they no longer face.

What if these secret techniques needed to be practiced in the morning for it to be available to you during the day more or less as an At-Will ability, BUT doing these practice would cost 1 Hit Die per technique? So the more level you gain, the more HD you can potentially spend on these, but it's a gamble to over-extant yourself, so thinking of what challenge you have ahead is important.

And I could see techniques being a bit more free form: You could have a list of conditions of varying degrees of specificity (i.e. against a certain type of enemies, against enemies equipped with Shield, when you score a crit) and a series of effect dependng on how specific the condition is, and each Technique must be designed for a specific weapon keyword. You could thus customize your Secret Techniques and the DM could introduce new ones based on their world. So you could have your Secret Technique of Dragon Wing Splitter that only works when you attack a Dragon with a Javelin and has the effect of making them lose their Fly speed until the end of your next turn, and your Secret Technique of Brutal Flattening where, when you score a crit with a Bludgeoning Weapon, all creatures with X feet of you need to suceed on a Wisdom Saving Throw or they become frightened of you.

 

[Stalker0]

Champion will be doing 1d10+5+1+10 (5.5+5*+1+10=26.5) for each attack. EB from the hexblade will be doing 1d10+5 (5.5+5=10.5).

We got to do a little bit more than that to do a proper comparison.

Champion got a +1 weapon, so lets give the Warlock a +1 attack weapon. Champion gets a feat as part of its 6th level class feature, so lets give the Warlock the hex spell as one of its class features.

Lets go with a nice level 7 comparison since that seems to be popping up on this thread alot. And since AC 16 is the standard for CR 7, lets use that for the comparison.

Champion: +4 to hit, 1d10+16 damage (21.5). 2 attacks
Miss: 55% (0)
Hit: 35% (21.5) = 21.5 * .35 = 7.525
Crit: 10% (27) = 27 * .1 = 2.7
DPR = (2.7 + 7.525) x2 = 20.45

Warlock: +9 to hit, 1d10+1d6+5 (14). 2 attacks
Miss: 30% (0)
Hit: 65% (14) = 14 * .65 = 9.1
Crit: 5% (23) = 23 * .05 = 1.15
DPR = (9.1 + 1.15) x2 = 20.5

So at first glance, the Champion and Warlock are very comparable. Now you could say the champion has the dueling ability... you could say the Warlock has repelling blast. You could say the champion doesn't need spells and can its DPR more reliably....you could counter that the Warlock is ranged and will have rounds that it gets to attack and the Champion won't.

Regardless....they are both in the ballpark, its not a slam dunk for either class.

@Flamestrike also made the point, that we should be debating the classes based on on WOTC designed the game, not how our particular groups like to play them. But if we do that.... then that means no magic weapons and no feats (which are optional rules by the book). So no GWM, and many monsters will now take half damage from the Champion, whereas very few things resist force damage.

 

[tetrasodium]

We got to do a little bit more than that to do a proper comparison.

Champion got a +1 weapon, so lets give the Warlock a +1 attack weapon. Champion gets a feat as part of its 6th level class feature, so lets give the Warlock the hex spell as one of its class features.

Lets go with a nice level 7 comparison since that seems to be popping up on this thread alot. And since AC 16 is the standard for CR 7, lets use that for the comparison.

Champion: +4 to hit, 1d10+16 damage (21.5). 2 attacks
Miss: 55% (0)
Hit: 35% (21.5) = 21.5 * .35 = 7.525
Crit: 10% (27) = 27 * .1 = 2.7
DPR = (2.7 + 7.525) x2 = 20.45

Warlock: +9 to hit, 1d10+1d6+5 (14). 2 attacks
Miss: 30% (0)
Hit: 65% (14) = 14 * .65 = 9.1
Crit: 5% (23) = 23 * .05 = 1.15
DPR = (9.1 + 1.15) x2 = 20.5

So at first glance, the Champion and Warlock are very comparable. Now you could say the champion has the dueling ability... you could say the Warlock has repelling blast. You could say the champion doesn't need spells and can its DPR more reliably....you could counter that the Warlock is ranged and will have rounds that it gets to attack and the Champion won't.

Regardless....they are both in the ballpark, its not a slam dunk for either class.

@Flamestrike also made the point, that we should be debating the classes based on on WOTC designed the game, not how our particular groups like to play them. But if we do that.... then that means no magic weapons and no feats (which are optional rules by the book). So no GWM, and many monsters will now take half damage from the Champion, whereas very few things resist force damage.

Claiming that no magic weapons should be used as "the way wotc designed the game" when they did quite the opposite .. they may have pegged the bar to that idea, but they very much intend for magic weapons to he the norm. That intent is a big part of what causes all of these problems.

 

[Flamestrike]

Champion will be doing 1d10+5+1+10 (5.5+5*+1+10=26.5) for each attack. EB from the hexblade will be doing 1d10+5 (5.5+5=10.5). They each get to attack the same number of times aside from the almost unplayed 17-19 level range.

We're assuming a resourceless champion and a resourceless hexblade at range at 11th level?

All things being equal, the Champion is at +2 to hit better (thanks to Archery F/S), if magic items exist this also favors the Champion (magic bows and arrows stack, and dont use attunement slots like RotPKs do) and there is no feat that supports cantrip spamming for the Hexblade on par with Sharpshooter for the Champion.

Eldritch blast with a +1 wand & a champion with a +1 bow both target the exact same AC. very few creatures have high enough AC for the +5 of SS/GWM to matter provided it's an appropriately leveled encounter.

The Champion above (who only had a Dex of 16 remember) also had 2 superiority dice from feats and F/S, and precise shot, and any roll of 19 or 20 (10 percent of all attacks) is an automatic hit and a critical.

He also had action surge, as the (now banned) poster made the claim that even without slots the Hexblade is better.

Meaning the champion spams 6 attacks with SS 'on' using his d6 sup dice to convert misses to hits.

In a straight up battle between the Hexblade and the Champion, the Champion goes first (higher initiative bonus thanks to peerless athlete and higher Dex) and (even without action surge) makes 3 attack rolls at +5 vs an AC of (+1 half plate) 18, needing 13's, meaning he averages 2 hits, needing to expend a sup dice to land the second.

2d8+28 damage or 37 points of damage (no action surge, because we are not using any rest dependent class features, and no rolls of 19 or 20).

In exchange the Hexblade lands 2/3 EB's (+10 vs AC 19) dealing 2d10+10 (21) damage.

So the Champion (no crits triggered) is at a clear advantage in damage to the Hexblade, by 175 percent.

 

[TheSword]

To get back on topic.

I want to be able on downtime, while the wizard is transcribing a new spell to their book, to talk to the old knight who lives 2 days ride away. The old knight fought a dragon and won. I want his secrets.

When I get back in 2 weeks, I, have "Dragonkiller Assault". I can attack TEN TIMES but only to vs dragons.

I slot that in with my other martial techniques for the day.

• "Triple Threat" Attack 3 Times.
• "Bide Pain" Gain 3d6 temporary hit points.
• "Backalley Blade" Attack 5 times with a dagger against a prone target
• "Hardness of Foot" Move my speed while ignoring difficult terrain.
• "No Look Toss" Search and make a single thrown weapon attack
• "Don't Try it" Ready an attack against attacking foe that deals 8d6 bonus damage and causes CON save to not lose limbs
• "You're Fired" Attack deal bonus 8d6 fire damage (requires flametongue or other flaming sword)
• "The Long Goodbye" Shieldbash foe 50 feet away from you.
• "Shieldcracker" Attack 4 times with +2 bonus against an enemy holding a shield
• "Bulletcount" Identify and count all ranged weapons and unused ammunition within 100 feet.

If you wanted to, you absolutely could add every one of these to the game under existing rules. They’re called boons.

My criticism of your list is that it predominantly is just adding to damage. Damage is something a fighter already excels at so really you’re just making them more powerful in combat. Which as I understand is nothing to do with the martial/caster criticism. If your argument is that the combat superstars need even more damage then you’ve lost me.

If your fighter wants to train with that dragon slaying knight you simply grant them a boon. Wing-joint attack: You have advantage on your first ranged attack roll against a flying dragon in combat. When you attack a flying dragon and hit, doing at least 10 damage the dragon’s flying speed becomes 0 for 1 minute. The dragon will fall straight down and take 5d6 damage if it hits solid ground from the controlled fall. The dragon will be very angry.

 

[Ancalagon]

I think one thing that helps to "see" the problem is looking at full spellcasters in other games.

You then realize that the "swiss army knife with 27 tools" of D&D is not "needed" to have a wizard that "feels" like a wizard.

Let us take the game Troika! and compare a wizard and a "martial". (the number before the skill indicates how good at it they are).

The "Befouler of Ponds" (a strange sort of priest):
advanced skills:
3 Spell –Drown
3 Swim
2 Spell – Tongue Twister
2 Spell –Undo
1 Spell – Web
1 Sneak
1 Second Sigh

vs the "Burglar"
Advanced Skills
2 Sneak
2 Locks
1 Awareness
1 Climb
1 Trapping
1 Knife Fighting
1 Crossbow Fighting

The Priest can use magic to do a few things that the Burglar cannot do but... he knows four spells. But that doesn't make him feel like "not a wizard". He can see magic, web foes, dispel magic and garble the speech of another (useful vs enemy spellcasters or to mess up a speech) ... or curse someone and make them drown. Someone you want on your side, despite their strange habits.

edit: However, the priests suffers by only having a few non magical skills, while the burglar has many more.

So that is how many games balance casters and non casters, and it works well.

 

[Flamestrike]

I think one thing that helps to "see" the problem is looking at full spellcasters in other games.

You then realize that the "swiss army knife with 27 tools" of D&D is not "needed" to have a wizard that "feels" like a wizard.

You do if you want it to feel like a DnD wizard though.

4E tried to back away from the traditional feel of DnD and bring in a sameness to the classes in what was a totally different system to what came before it (and after).

We all know what happened there.