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

[Crimson Longinus]

They're still a warrior, just not a DPS warrior. Paladins, strangely enough, protect people. Like they're good guys or something instead of Frank Castle in plate.

Fighters? Also Defenders. Rogues are the strikers who deal a bunch of damage.

Frank Caste in plate is a perfectly valid paladin concept. Also a fighter by no means need to be a defender, they can be focusing mostly on dealing damage; that is conceptually perfectly valid. In 4e they had to add a completely flavourless slayer class to fulfil that. Pigeonholing classes, that should be evocative thematic archetypes into some rigid MMO roles is simply a terrible idea. That sort of bland gamey nonsense is why 4e got rejected and unfortunately some good innovations with it.

 

[Minigiant]

A perfect example of an issue caused by writing the classes rules first instead of themes first. Paladin is holy warrior, that's the theme. Mechanical role is secondary, and mechanics should be flexible enough that you can build characters to fulfil different roles within that theme, or indeed one that is a hybrid. Thematically 'avenger' is a paladin, and in themes first design such a build would be part of the paladin class.

But high damage Avenging Paladin build was in the PHB. And once more books came out, classes were able to break out more or players had more classes to more that theme to

One of the issues with 5e is that so much page space was dedicated to full casters, that martial chacters, expert character, and partial casters were extremely limited. And since fullcasters can widen themselves faster, non-full-casters could never catch up.Like terewas any real effort to. The caster bias in WOTC is and huge and has been for decades.

 

[Fenris-77]

Rogues are the strikers who deal a bunch of damage.

I do not support this definition of rogue.

 

[Asisreo]

I think that's more a presentation problem though.

For example, you could just play a spellcaster that has 1 spell a level, and all you do is cast that spell. Presentation wise I give you a few "standard" spells, you choose a couple, and never look back. Just because you can choose 10 different spells doesn't mean you have to.

Likewise with fighter maneuvers, you can put at the top a few stock standard ones, pick 1 or 2, and just spam them forever.


the trick is, its far easier to take a complex classes and simple it down to a few options, than the reverse.

The problem is that requires a balance between these limited options so tight that no matter what, any one option isn't inherently better than another on any tangible level.

For example, if its something like Magic Missile or Shield for the level 1 spell, well, there's an argument that both are equal...except as a player, I can more easily control the fact that I don't have to be in a position where I'm easily targeted while throwing out magic missiles.

From a strategy standpoint, Magic Missile is the best out of the 2 options because it puts you from neutral to advantage (not 5e lexicon) where Shield requires you to be at disadvantage only to bring you back to neutral best case scenario.

And this sort of design consideration must be made at every level or else you'll begin to pidgeonhole the actual best path of play. Suddenly, those with system mastery that knows the optimal build is playing at a superior level to those without any system mastery.

 

[Asisreo]

Sorry for the tangent, but does anyone know how to get their players to stop stressing about optimization?

I just don't want to be deadweight in the fight. I've played wizards several times where I'd end up contributing a net 0 to the combats because I didn't choose great spells in combat. From concentration being broken before buffs practically work to creatures with high dice/resistance/modifiers nullifying my spells, spells just are kinda finnicky already and kinda stressful.

Add onto the fact that..."ah, no, uh you're out of range for that bonus action aspect of that spell." Or "Oops, um, that's an invalid target because its undead." Or "Whoops, looks like you forgot the casting time was 10 minutes."

All these considerations that make spells a huge headache. Sorcerers are regarded as "too non versatile" and I'm still overwhelmed with choice from time to time.

Maybe I do overthink but I'd rather take an extra 5-10 minutes to calm down and think than risk someone else's character because "Oh, wait, I did actually prepare healing word and could have casted it 4 rounds ago? Shoot, I'm sorry Ned."

 

[Vaalingrade]

In 4e they had to add a completely flavourless slayer class to fulfil that.

That was Essentials. We don't talk about essentials.

Also, you're proving my point about baseless complaints based on class name instead of what the character does.

 

[Stalker0]

And this sort of design consideration must be made at every level or else you'll begin to pidgeonhole the actual best path of play. Suddenly, those with system mastery that knows the optimal build is playing at a superior level to those without any system mastery.

This is always true though, because frankly even beyond system mastery there is "play mastery".

Even if the rules only have standard mechanics for "you attack with a sword", DMs and creative players will come up with called shots, swings on the chandeler, grapples, etc etc.

I am fine that if a person wants to make a dirt simple character that does the same thing all the time, that they should be reasonably effective. But in no circumstance will that person ever be equal to the creative person willing to look at many possibilities, whether they are in the rules or not. That's just how it is, and no rules system will change that.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That was Essentials. We don't talk about essentials.

Also, you're proving my point about baseless complaints based on class name instead of what the character does.

It's not baseless, you're just one of those engineer-minded people who like 4e and don't get that to vast majority of people classes are evocative archetypes and not trait packages. Seriously, I have no use for class based system where the classes are not built around strong themes. If I just get some bland powers that I get to refluff how I want, then I rather play some game which doesn't even pretend to offer the fluff and in which I can built the character from scratch with some points and such. Classes for purely mechanical reasons hold zero interest to me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's not baseless, you're just one of those engineer-minded people who like 4e and don't get that to vast majority of people classes are evocative archetypes and not trait packages. Seriously, I have no use for class based system where the classes are not built around strong themes. If I just get some bland powers that I get to refluff how I want, then I rather play some game which doesn't even pretend to offer the fluff and in which I can built the character from scratch with some points and such. Classes for purely mechanical reasons hold zero interest to me.

I mean, good for you, but this is pretty much the core of why the question of decent balance will ever-elude D&D.

Every class must be both massively narrow so as to match the expectations of people who want classes to be that specific thing while being so wide as to allow any play style with them. And it has to be 'simple' for some reason.

With this onus shackled to it like a millstone, balanced, focused, effective design is beyond D&D's grasp.

The fighter MUST be limited to being the Guy At The Gym. The mage has to be Magic Batman. We can't get away from these and that's a problem because people keep trying to fix the fact that martials aren't allowed to be well designed by making mage design worse.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's not baseless, you're just one of those engineer-minded people who like 4e and don't get that to vast majority of people classes are evocative archetypes and not trait packages.

I'm a narrative minded person who feels classes don't represent a literal job in-universe. They're a collective description of abilities. Most of 4e'w issues for me came from trying to force flavor into the class like the rogue having limited weapons for no reason other than 'rogue'.