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

[Minigiant]

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 don't know what was not evocative of the name slayer.

It's a Slayer. It is a warrior who slays things. It focuses on dealing high damage and surviving counterattacks to deal more high damage.

It made sense, had an image,and its mechanics matched the image.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

It's not the core of the issue at all. That classes need to be evocative archetypes doesn't preclude balancing them. Now does it mean that some themes cannot function if certain power level is desired? Sure, but that's true for any RPG. I certainly accept that 'guy in the gym' is not a valid archetype in a game where the casters are Doctor Stange. Except for Ars Magica. One thing that also must be understood when talking about D&D, is that one of it's core assumptions is a massive power growth. This means that the fiction of the classes must be built so that it can thematically support that power growth; the archetype must be able to evolve. A normal bloke with a sword is a fine concept for level one fighter, it is not for a level 20 one. One thing I feel 4e did better, was articulating the tiers of play. There was a clear transition to another power level.

Furthermore, 5e's class + subclass structure is an excellent way to keeping classes both thematic, yet customisable. Classes itself should be very broad and general archetypes whereas the subclasses are more narrow ones. Granted, I feel the execution isn't always perfect, for example there are too many caster classes, leading them becoming thematically confused.

 

[Fenris-77]

It's a Slayer. It is a warrior who slays things. It focuses on dealing high damage and surviving counterattacks to deal more high damage.

Not to pee in your cornflakes, but as opposed to what? A warrior who doesn't slay things? Who perhaps relies on high level sarcasm and mockery? IDK...

 

[Vaalingrade]

Not nearly as imaginative and evocative as Fighter, let me tell you.

 

[Fenris-77]

Not nearly as imaginative and evocative as Fighter, let me tell you.

I like Bubblegum-Free as a class name.

 

[Minigiant]

Not to pee in your cornflakes, but as opposed to what? A warrior who doesn't slay things? Who perhaps relies on high level sarcasm and mockery? IDK...

The Slayer focuses 90% of its class features on slaying and thus uses greataxes and greatswords: the highest damage weapons.

Other warriors would go down to lower percentages by using one handers, polearms, daggers, thrown weapons, or bows.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The Slayer focuses 90% of its class features on slaying and thus uses greataxes and greatswords: the highest damage weapons.

Other warriors would go down to lower percentages by using one handers or bows.

It is insanely specific fighter build as its own class. And it really has no flavour beyond 'a guy who hits things hard with big weapons.' I know, I played one for years; changed my barbarian into it when I got tired of most of my powers being useless in most fights as DM didn't include multiple foes. (IIRC that was one annoying 4e thing. Instead of getting to use any encounter power X times in a fight, you got to use each once. And if there were no situation to use one, at-wills it was. Like old-school spellcasters. The slayer wasn't like that, but it had like one encounter power total and it got to use multiple times and nothing else.)

 

[Fenris-77]

The Slayer focuses 90% of its class features on slaying and thus uses greataxes and greatswords: the highest damage weapons.

Other warriors would go down to lower percentages by using one handers, polearms, daggers, thrown weapons, or bows.

So slaying large beasts. A whit more evocative than "a warrior who slays things".

 

[Minigiant]

It is insanely specific fighter build as its own class. And it really has no flavour beyond 'a guy who hits things hard with big weapons.' I know, I played one for years; changed my barbarian into it when I got tired of most of my powers being useless in most fights as DM didn't include multiple foes. (IIRC that was one annoying 4e thing. Instead of getting to use any encounter power X times in a fight, you got to use each once. And if there were no situation to use one, at-wills it was. Like old-school spellcasters. The slayer wasn't like that, but it had like one encounter power total and it got to use multiple times and nothing else.)

That's all the flavor it needed.

Look at all the Battlemaster Builds in TCOE. There is a universe where each in built into their own classes. Maybe not 12 like TCOE but the fighter could easily be broken up into 3-6 parts. Each one focusing on the theme of the class and using mechanics made for the theme.

Part of the spellcaster and martial balance issues is that D&D tries to put a dozen warrior concepts into one class and can only round the square pegs with MOAR DAMaGE and MOAR HP. So then the fighter becomes narrowly focused on damage and HP when spellcasters aren't. Thuse there are only 2 levels to judge combat effetiveness one since a major archetype only has access to one angle of it.

 

[Sithlord]

I don't know what was not evocative of the name slayer.

It's a Slayer. It is a warrior who slays things. It focuses on dealing high damage and surviving counterattacks to deal more high damage.

It made sense, had an image,and its mechanics matched the image.

could you be a little less vague. I’m not sure I get what you are saying