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

[pemerton]

an ogre has 59 hp.

Spoiler: fighters get this

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Spoiler: not this

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If you want a character who "has a meaningful chance to [do 59hp of damage] in a single attempt" you need to play a rogue who has one high damage attack rather than a fighter who has multiple smaller ones.

Sure, that's a mechanical point.

What does it mean in the fiction, though? And what should it mean? That's what @Neonchameleon is pushing towards: what should a fighter be able to do in the fiction, to be worthy of appearing up against that plot-armoured ogre?

 

[tetrasodium]

Sure, that's a mechanical point.

What does it mean in the fiction, though? And what should it mean? That's what @Neonchameleon is pushing towards: what should a fighter be able to do in the fiction, to be worthy of appearing up against that plot-armoured ogre?

it's impossible to ignore the fact that fighters get multiple attacks rather than larger attacks. earlier @Flamestrike narrated out how it could play out with the last attack in the chain killing the ogre after knocking the ogre's weapon aside & demoralizing it or something but that was declared not good enough a couple posts later because the fiighter's two three four or maybe even five attacks can't individually do 59hp damage or better. Exactly what level do you think fighter with fighter's extra attack should be dealing 59 hp or more each individual swing? Should they be sacrificing their extra attack?

 

[Undrave]

You're not wrong!

d20 roll high is pretty samey! Especially since it means all functions tied to a d20 roll have explicitly 5% increments of happening or not happening.

I'd much rather have a system where different dice are used in different situations, or different potential outcomes with increasing granularity occur. Like having attack rolls vary in dice use based on class, level, and proficiency. But that ship sailed when 3e came out.

That sounds like a pain in the butt to me and needlessly fiddly.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That sounds like a pain in the butt to me and needlessly fiddly.

Isn't it basically later day 2e where everything had a specialized mechanic to resolve because the left hand not only didn't know what the right was doing,b ut also the individual fingers on its own hand?

 

[Neonchameleon]

That sounds like a pain in the butt to me and needlessly fiddly.

Honestly it sounds like Cortex Plus to me. And I'm a fan of all three of Leverage, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and Smallville (and the MHRP successor the Sentinels Comics RPG). But they are all much more streamlined than D&D. It's a unified mechanic where you roll your dice pool - which is one dice for your class, one for your skill, and one per asset. Your opponent also does - and it's the top two dice in each dice pool that matters and any 1s in your pool are setbacks.

 

[Undrave]

But many people DO NOT agree on what the fighter is - especially at higher levels. And thus, the massive disconnects on fighter implementation - especially at higher levels.

Too many people thing a 1st level Fighter is 'farm boy who picked up a sword after his village was burned down by ogres', that a town guard is a level 5 Fighter and that a Super Bowl Champion, being 'The Best' is clearly lv 20.

But a level 1 Wizard studied for YEARS to be a Wizard! No way a JOCK would need to study and practice for years too to be a level 1 Fighter! No way!

Maybe the real, underlying complaint isn't that 4e made everyone a wizard, it's that it made everyone a fighter. Roll to attack.

Those filthy pointy hat lovers couldn't stand to be 'reduced' to the same standard as a 'lowly' Fighter.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Too many people thing a 1st level Fighter is 'farm boy who picked up a sword after his village was burned down by ogres', that a town guard is a level 5 Fighter and that a Super Bowl Champion, being 'The Best' is clearly lv 20.

But a level 1 Wizard studied for YEARS to be a Wizard! No way a JOCK would need to study and practice for years too to be a level 1 Fighter! No way!


Those filthy pointy hat lovers couldn't stand to be 'reduced' to the same standard as a 'lowly' Fighter.

so level one is just you completed basic training for everyone?

 

[tetrasodium]

so level one is just you completed basic training for everyone?

maybe not even that but yes. Sometime between 2nd & 3rd when fighter picks an archetype they can probably be considered to have their MOS & over time grow from there with it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is a very astute observation and I haven't considered it before, but having this does mean that bonuses like Advantage, extra damage on hit, and riders are just quicker to resolve and less difficult to compute. Its also a bit less powerful, which helps with balance (yes, interparty balance as well).

Thanks. It took me a fair while (and some conversations with other fans) to see it myself, but it was definitely a revelation.

Do you mean that having defenses that you hit with attack rolls is less powerful than saving throws? In general I agree (5e has been light on ways to boost your saving throw DCs, but has begun to include some...), if that's what you meant.

That's an interesting take... essentially, the Fighter grew in power by becoming more people, not like a literal multiplying super power, but by essentially imposing their will on the world at multiple points through the action of their agents. While the Wizard player gets more power, the Fighter PC gets more characters to control...

Yep. These days, I think that fantasy is better-served by the Warlord (and yeah, I still think it deserves its own class), whereas the Fighter should get Deeds of Might and Guile that allow focused deviations from what is normally possible, because if you've made it to 10th level (or whatever) as a Fighter, you've stood toe-to-toe with dragons or beholders or the like and survived. Whether by luck, superhuman grit, superlative skill, or sheer blind tenacity, you've survived stuff that should've killed greater men and women. By your very existence, you defy the rules of what should be possible.

(Of course there's a bunch of other things I'd do if I had the ability to write D&D 5.5: 40th Anniversary Edition, like making Rangers and Paladins spell-less and giving Rogues and Barbarians more nice things. But that's going way into the weeds of dreamland.)

These days?!? Pretty sure it's been like that for ages.

Yeah, I had the exact same thought. People have been min-maxing TTRPGs for literally as long as there have been TTRPGs. Min-maxing didn't always look the same as it does today, but it absolutely happened at Gygax's table. It's why (frex) Charisma was a valued stat (hirelings, negotiating with the orcs so you didn't have to fight them, morale checks, etc.), because that was the gateway to all sorts of shenanigans. The Cleric was literally invented to oppose Sir Fang being a bit too OP. Having just looked it up, apparently some of the Cleric's nature owes to the serendipitous choice of the vampire's model: Sir Fang was Christopher Lee from the Hammer Films vampire movies, and the Cleric was thus inspired by Peter Cushing's Van Helsing from those same movies.

So...yeah. Min-maxing, trying to squeeze the most power you can out of the options available to you...it's literally as old as Blackmoor, if not older. Munchkins have been with us as long as there's been D&D. People just get really sensitive about seeing methods or versions of it they don't like or aren't familiar with.

 

[Undrave]

so level one is just you completed basic training for everyone?

Maybe more than that? The PHB specifically calls out that not every guard or warrior is a Fighter. We just don't have a good name for it, but a Fighter is something special and unusual, he's not a run the mill warrior (or guy with a sword). A town guard is to a Fighter what a hedge wizard is to a Wizard ya know? Now, the CAPTAIN of the Guard? That guy's probably a proper Fighter, but the guy at the city gate? No way! That guy's just out of basic and you're already better than him.