D&D 5E Spellcasters and Balance in 5e: A Poll

[Mort]

I have seen this argument being thrown a lot around the internet, but as someone who has experienced 4e from the playtest up to it's final days, I just cannot see this as true.

The "sameness" people keeping parroting about is just regarding the resource recharging system, and I don't see it as a bad thing. Now that every class recharge their abilities at a different rate, DMs complain that it's hard to balance an adventuring day without being forced to run eight combat encounters in a row.

I agree. From experience actually playing 4e the fighter played nothing like the wizard which played nothing like the rogue etc.

BUT

They had the same recharge mechanic (as you say) and that immediately led to some people saying either 1) OMG they turned fighters into spellcasters D&D is ruined or 2) OMG all the classes are essentially the same now, it doesn't matter what I play they're all the same! And other iterations of those arguments.

If pressed they'd just retreat into "well, it just doesn't feel like D&D..." and since that's basically 100% opinion there's nowhere to go from there.

it was frustrating to deal with because I thought 4e brought a lot to the table and deserved more of a shot than many people were willing to give it.

 

[Undrave]

I just also think that Casters should get their spell slots per day savagely curtailed and way more spells as rituals so their in and out of combat contributions are differently managed, but Morrus and ENWorld didn't go that direction.

Rituals are severely underexploited as a mechanic... How many are there in the game? The wiki I just checked list only 30 of 'em!! That's ridiculous.

In 4e, you could cast Knock as a Ritual, but it was pretty expensive early on so the logic was that someone who could lock pick what a much cheaper and efficient solution... but you had a plan B. Rituals being 'plan b' for skills that a Martial character can do reliably is a solid design space if you ask me. A Ritualist could shore up the team's weakness without necessarily overshadowing anyone. Plus, it means you can throw reagents as treasures, or give players the chance to harvest them, and not just pile up money.

 

[Manbearcat]

puffin forest has a pretty good video about 4e, the powers being copied so much comes up a couple times in the video and the link starts at one. He probably had to cut it for detailing specific powers or something but an older version of the video covered a bunch of them & mentioned how he just started searching for the effect to find the cloned powers in every class

With respect to "puffin forest" (whoever that is), if that analysis is what I think it is (extrapolating from what you've written), then that is someone who is offering the shallow critique of either (a) someone who didn't play the game, (b) someone who didn't understand the game, or (c) both.

Powers were one layer of the multi-layered ring of each individual class's actual manifestation in the play of the game. A Fighter's <damage + Slide 3> Power doesn't do anything near the same type of work as a Wizard's <damage + Slide 3> Power (neither thematically nor consequentially as it pertains to (a) its deployment and (b) its mechanical interactions with the rest of the game's mechanical architecture).

4e was filled with dozens of these sorts of complaints because a cross-section of people were being introduced to these concepts for the first time (unified mechanics differentiated by thematics and keywords, reskinning, keyword tech, an alternative to classic resource scheduling, closed-scene based resolution - Skill Challenges + Fail Forward/Change the Situation/Success w/ Complications as techniques, on and on and on) and they had deeply internalized models for all manner of things TTRPG.

Those same people would invariably go on to hate Cortex+ games, Mouse Guard, and dozens of other TTRPGs (which they would likely bin in the "dissociative mechanics", not RPGs, ludonarrative dissonance, Fail Forward is ezmode, player empowerment and table facing mechanics = entitlement, any game underwritten by genre logic rather than process sim is nonsense - bin).

 

[Undrave]

Where is "I don't care about balance" as a choice? No one I've ever played with has ever brought up the topic, in over 40 years of playing.

Well my experience is the 'I don't care about balance' people are usually Wizard players those pointy-hatted bastards

I agree. From experience actually playing 4e the fighter played nothing like the wizard which played nothing like the rogue etc.

BUT

They had the same recharge mechanic (as you say) and that immediately led to some people saying either 1) OMG they turned fighters into spellcasters D&D is ruined or 2) OMG all the classes are essentially the same now, it doesn't matter what I play they're all the same! And other iterations of those arguments.

If pressed they'd just retreat into "well, it just doesn't feel like D&D..." and since that's basically 100% opinion there's nowhere to go from there.

it was frustrating to deal with because I thought 4e brought a lot to the table and deserved more of a shot than many people were willing to give it.

4e didn't deserve to just be swept under the rug... tons of ideas could have used a refinement instead. You could have easily played with the ratios of At-Will, Encounter and Daily powers, for exemple, and maybe replace some levels where you get new powers with more passive class features so there's not another choice at every level that adds complexity.

 

[Fenris-77]

Rituals are severely underexploited as a mechanic... How many are there in the game? The wiki I just checked list only 30 of 'em!! That's ridiculous.

In 4e, you could cast Knock as a Ritual, but it was pretty expensive early on so the logic was that someone who could lock pick what a much cheaper and efficient solution... but you had a plan B. Rituals being 'plan b' for skills that a Martial character can do reliably is a solid design space if you ask me. A Ritualist could shore up the team's weakness without necessarily overshadowing anyone. Plus, it means you can throw reagents as treasures, or give players the chance to harvest them, and not just pile up money.

Well, just those 30 significantly increase the power of well-built caster PCs. I don't think more would actually be better.

 

[Minigiant]

I wouldn't go THAT FAR.

4e "Fixed" the problem I'm referencing by making it so everyone used the exact same sort of At will, Encounter, Daily, and Utility powers. It's the -blandest- and most samey method of fixing the problem there is.

Same with how 5e took the problem of describing different sources of power and made it all "The Weave" so everything you do that isn't swinging a sword is exactly the same magic.

It "Fixes" the problem by making everything as close to identical as possible. Not just in throughput but style. You lose a ton of granularity and texture when you look through the 4e books and see the exact same mechanics used for every class except for one class-defining function (Like Psions and their Power Points or Wizards changing their Spells out).

Instead, I'm suggesting giving everyone a similar baseline and then moving from there into the different mechanics that make them unique, and those unique mechanics being the MAJORITY of the class rather than just one or two details.

4e eventually fixed that in Essentials aka 4.5 by figuring out the equivalence of At will, Encounter, and Dailies and giving them out in different amounts. A fslayer or knight got no dailies but more encounter powers and a stronger at will whereas the mage was all cantrips and dailies.

Much of 4e Essentials was the precursor for 5e. The main difference between it and 5e in design theory was the role emphasis was removed and an emphasis on simplicity was added. And now we have this thread.

 

[Mort]

Well my experience is the 'I don't care about balance' people are usually Wizard players those pointy-hatted bastards

4e didn't deserve to just be swept under the rug... tons of ideas could have used a refinement instead. You could have easily played with the ratios of At-Will, Encounter and Daily powers, for exemple, and maybe replace some levels where you get new powers with more passive class features so there's not another choice at every level that adds complexity.

You'll note that quite a bit of 4e actually made it into 5e - but it wasn't advertised as such. For example hit die healing during short rests is basically healing surges - to a lesser and renamed degree. And short rest recharge are basically encounter powers under another name. There's a lot more - but you have to look for it, the designers (and the PR team) were pretty gun-shy about ANY association with 4e.

Edit: From a design front anyway. From a fluff perspective - it seems quite a lot overly made it right into 5e: Dragonborn, warlocks, eladrin (I think) the feywild and more. Anything that wasn't mechanics related, WoTC wasn't shy about visibly porting right over.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

With respect to "puffin forest" (whoever that is), if that analysis is what I think it is (extrapolating from what you've written), then that is someone who is offering the shallow critique of either (a) someone who didn't play the game, (b) someone who didn't understand the game, or (c) both.

Powers were one layer of the multi-layered ring of each individual class's actual manifestation in the play of the game. A Fighter's <damage + Slide 3> Power doesn't do anything near the same type of work as a Wizard's <damage + Slide 3> Power (neither thematically nor consequentially as it pertains to (a) its deployment and (b) its mechanical interactions with the rest of the game's mechanical architecture).

4e was filled with dozens of these sorts of complaints because a cross-section of people were being introduced to these concepts for the first time (unified mechanics differentiated by thematics and keywords, reskinning, keyword tech, an alternative to classic resource scheduling, closed-scene based resolution - Skill Challenges + Fail Forward/Change the Situation/Success w/ Complications as techniques, on and on and on) and they had deeply internalized models for all manner of things TTRPG.

Those same people would invariably go on to hate Cortex+ games, Mouse Guard, and dozens of other TTRPGs (which they would likely bin in the "dissociative mechanics", not RPGs, ludonarrative dissonance, Fail Forward is ezmode, player empowerment and table facing mechanics = entitlement, any game underwritten by genre logic rather than process sim is nonsense - bin).

Nah, their analysis seemed pretty correct and they've played the game. And so have I. It was super gamey mechanics first edition. You're healer, you get these exact same healer powers than everyone else, with some lip service fluff which may or may not make any sense with the mechanics. Same for all the roles. The classes were not built to emulate and evoke archetypes, they were build to fill specific gamey roles and anything else was an afterthought. And don't get me wrong, the mechanics were pretty solid and there were several mechanics I wish 5e had kept, but the criticism of bland gamey dissociative sameyness is absolutely correct.

 

[Manbearcat]

Nah, their analysis seemed pretty correct and they've played the game. And so have I. It was super gamey mechanics first edition. You're healer, you get these exact same healer powers than everyone else, with some lip service fluff which may or may not make any sense with the mechanics. Same for all the roles. The classes were not built to emulate and evoke archetypes, they were build to fill specific gamey roles and anything else was an afterthought. And don't get me wrong, the mechanics were pretty solid and there were several mechanics I wish 5e had kept, but the criticism of bland gamey dissociative sameyness is absolutely correct.

Yeah, I've heard you say that before.

Wasn't correct then. Still not correct now. Won't be correct tomorrow.

 

[Undrave]

Much of 4e Essentials was the precursor for 5e. The main difference between it and 5e in design theory was the role emphasis was removed and an emphasis on simplicity was added. And now we have this thread.

I feel like role emphasis was what helped the design of the 4e classes be more focused and more solid. It didn't need to be called out in the class description, but knowing what you're building for is way better than trying to cram every single idea that ever graced a class of the same name (looking at you, Monk...).

For example hit die healing during short rests is basically healing surges - to a lesser and renamed degree.

Eh... I don't think the hit die really do all that Healing Surges could do. Just the concept of a hard cap on daily HP is pretty much gone with spells and potions just handing out free HP with no expenses from the target. There was a lot of design space that was used by healing surges, like how they could be taken away by traps or used to fuel certain things like rituals and magic items, or how your number of surge could be reduced by a long time condition like a Disease or a Curse.

Well, just those 30 significantly increase the power of well-built caster PCs. I don't think more would actually be better.

They could have balanced them out better through the cost to cast them, and probably by having them be a bit more narrower in usage so there's a bit more of an opportunity cost to pick one. I'm not going to redesign the whole thing here but I'm sure there was something to be done here.