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

[Flamestrike]

Nope.

The Warblade can do FOUR Dashes and a Attack and still have their move. That's 5 actions in one turn. FIVE.

And thats useful how often exactly?

Climb Sheer Surfaces. Walk steep inclines at no penalty.

Rope.

Walk difficult terrain with no penalty.

Mobile feat.

Climb speed. Swim speed.

Not needed as one doent make checks to climb or swim in 5E in most cases anyway, and when they do its Athletics, which your average Fighter has and is good at.

Swing from vines and ropes perfectly.

There is no check to do that at present.

Exploit weaknesses. I

Improved critical.

Identify Weaknesses. Indentify HP.

Battlemasters can already do this.

Call Shots.

Improved critical.

Get bonus to dance.

Ok. Now Im sold.

 

[Minigiant]

And thats useful how often exactly?

The enemy is always in Axe to the Face range.

Rope

In the middle of battle?

Not needed as one doent make checks to climb or swim in 5E in most cases anyway, and when they do its Athletics, which your average Fighter has and is good at

No checks for Warblade. Just spend stamina. No fail chance.

Mobile feat.

Feats are optional.

There is no check to do that at present

Most DMs will call for a roll.

Improved critical

Not on demand

Improved critical.

Not on demand.

Ok. Now Im sold.

Bonus to Painting and Sculpting too.

 

[Flamestrike]

The enemy is always in Axe to the Face range.

Well no, but seeing as our Rogue Fighter can dash up to three times, it leaves a pretty narrow range of encounters where it would actually be useful.

In the middle of battle?

Yes.

No checks for Warblade. Just spend stamina. No fail chance.

No checks for a Fighter climbing or swiming either (unless its super choppy water, or a sheer vertical surface with no handholds)

Feats are optional.

Nearly everyone uses them though, and you're talking about some weird homebrew class that no-one uses.

Most DMs will call for a roll.

They're wrong, and that's one of the reasons why Fighters get the raw end of the stick.

There is no appreciable chance of failure in swinging on a rope.

Not on demand

But without resource expenditure.

Not on demand.

Yes on demand. Its their 7th level class feature. Gives them all the enemies stats almost.

Bonus to Painting and Sculpting too.

Sounds broken.

Those skills define the fighter, and always come in handy.

 

[Minigiant]

@Flamestrike
I don't think you get the point of the discussion. Many want the fun of the complexity and resource management of spellcasters but as a warrior.

So one idea is to create a new class that has deeper martial resource management and options.

 

[TheSword]

@Flamestrike
I don't think you get the point of the discussion. Many want the fun of the complexity and resource management of spellcasters but as a warrior.

So one idea is to create a new class that has deeper martial resource management and options.

I don’t think anyone would bregrudge someone coming up to our their own homebrew class.

From my point of view, I just don’t think it adds a weight to the idea that there is a Martial - Caster disparity.

One of several criticisms of 4e was that it homogenized all classes into the same kind of style and it didn’t feel materially different playing a wizard or a fighter. I can see that. You seem to see it as a feature though.

 

[Stalker0]

One of several criticisms of 4e was that it homogenized all classes into the same kind of style and it didn’t feel materially different playing a wizard or a fighter. I can see that. You seem to see it as a feature though.

Again though with 4e it was more a presentation issue than actual play. On paper a fighter and wizard had "the same stuff".

In actuality, Fighters had strong encounter powers and decent at-wills....but wizard dailies were game changers. I ran a campaign from 3 all the way to 20th with both a fighter and a wizard...and believe me they didn't look anything alike in actual play.

 

[Asisreo]

We have had 30 pages of people basically all stated the same general things in 400 different ways. Is there really anymore to say? I guess the question is....did anyone switch sides after hearing the debates?

Well, the true goal was never for anyone to switch sides, at least not this thread. The goal was to simply question, listen, and understand.

The reason its hard to switch sides in this discussion as-is is simply because its all talk but no real experience. There isn't a "how many wizards get every component" list or "how do all DMs actually handle martials" statistic.

Its kinda why I'm set on using examples, experiments, challenges, and adventures to truly witness if everything being said about Casters/Martials are true.

I think very few people have played high level D&D here, and I think even less have done it with a DM with experience in running them. My theory is that the way the adventure is set up and prepared is much more important to overall class balance, even if we were to take the situation of a "no slog" 1-combat mini adventure.

This is why I've been working on the high-level D&D mini-adventure, because I want to witness this all for myself. I'm still very much willing to run it and hopefully, it will help one side demonstrate their frustrations to another in a visual aspect.

 

[Asisreo]

Again though with 4e it was more a presentation issue than actual play. On paper a fighter and wizard had "the same stuff".

In actuality, Fighters had strong encounter powers and decent at-wills....but wizard dailies were game changers. I ran a campaign from 3 all the way to 20th with both a fighter and a wizard...and believe me they didn't look anything alike in actual play.

Its not the distribution of the power's strength, but just the distribution of powers in-general.

Sure, your tactics changes drastically every class, but how they're played (looking through lists of options/descriptions, always choosing the best one, rinse repeat) was basically the same. But I dislike that gameplay loop so I'd naturally dislike how 4e handled it.

Add on to that that 4e was naturally fiddly already, and we kinda have a problem that turns off more casual players of the game.

 

[Stalker0]

My theory is that the way the adventure is set up and prepared is much more important to overall class balance, even if we were to take the situation of a "no slog" 1-combat mini adventure.

Add in how the DM makes their rulings as another critical factor.

So maybe at the end of the day, the only thing we could REALLY debate, would have how does the balance look in Adventurer's League....as that is a common baseline we all could in theory work from. But yeah...its clear that many of us just have vastly different gaming experiences from each other...so of course are opinions about various aspect of the game are going to be radically different.

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

I disagree. Eldritch Blast. Agonizing Blast. Nothing else is necessary to make a competent ranged attacker. You have exactly 2 spell slots, which refresh per short rest, so you aren’t really tracking spell slots like other casters. And you aren’t a prepared caster, so you don’t have to choose your spells each morning, and you don’t even need to learn how other spells work.

You can optimize to get more out of the class, but you don’t HAVE to.