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

[Crimson Longinus]

Some sort of... Advanced Dungeons and Dragons?

Sure, why not. I always preferred Basic over that. Both were incoherent messes, but a simple incoherent mess is better than a gigantic, bloated incoherent mess.

 

[ECMO3]

This. My objection to the champion is that there's no caster equivalent.

I don't think that is true. In fact I think a lot of casters are less complex than champion. For exmample:

Champion features: Improved Critical, Remarkable Athlete, Additional Fighting Style, Superior critical, survival

School of Illusion features: Illusion Savant, improved minor illusion, malleable illusions, illusury self, illusury reality

Fey warlock features: Fey Presence, Misty escape, beguiling defenses, dark delerium

Knowlege Cleric features: Blessings of knowlege, knowlege of the ages, read thoughts, portent spellcasting, visions of the past

I would challange the idea that the Champion features mentioned above are appreciably less complicated than most of those full caster subclass features mentioned above. Further of the 20 or so features from 4 classes above the additional fighting style has the most variablility and choices. Things like superior technique, protection, interception and unarmed fighting are quite complex to employ compared to these other things.

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[Crimson Longinus]

Feats are specifically called out as optional, meaning that if you have a DM who hates PC customization or thinks 'being competent' is OP, then you might not get that option.

Well sure, but a GM can ban anything they want anyway, optional or not. It doesn't really matter.

 

[Minigiant]

How the hell do roleplayers need a dedicated class? What insanity is this? I have always been able to roleplay in any RPG, with any character, any class, rules or no rules.

But between this and the witch thread I definitely feel that there should be a completely separate game for the people want to have a crazy amount of class bloat so that they can have their seven thousand marginally different classes that they seem to need!

Nothing stops a roleplayer from roleplay.

The issue is D&D is a game. So the roleplay can easily not match the game.

Currently a fighter cannot leverage his or her smarts in combat without magic. But any real world fighter or even fan of fantasy books, comics, action movies, or anime know an intelligent fighter can outsmart a stupider fighter to make themselves deadlier.

 

[J.Quondam]

(Just a little note: Wanting a simple-to-run class (or anything else) does not make a player "lazy." Kthxbai!)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Nothing stops a roleplayer from roleplay.

The issue is D&D is a game. So the roleplay can easily not match the game.

Currently a fighter cannot leverage his or her smarts in combat without magic. But any real world fighter or even fan of fantasy books, comics, action movies, or anime know an intelligent fighter can outsmart a stupider fighter to make themselves deadlier.

That's still battlemaster. They have manoeuvres and Know Your Enemy to represent that. Granted, they don't actually need int stat, but that because 5e tries to avoid having super MAD.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Well sure, but a GM can ban anything they want anyway, optional or not. It doesn't really matter.

Except the game doesn't specifically call out 'anything' as optional. It gives more weighty acknowledgement to ban feat, magic items... pretty much 'fun'.

 

[Minigiant]

That's still battlemaster. They have manoeuvres and Know Your Enemy to represent that. Granted, they don't actually need int stat, but that because 5e tries to avoid having super MAD.

But I rolled 15INT.

I want stab the dragon with my +2 brainpower!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Except the game doesn't specifically call out 'anything' as optional. It gives more weighty acknowledgement to ban feat, magic items... pretty much 'fun'.

This is just such pointless complaint. If you don't agree with the GM about what the game should be like, you're not gonna have fun no matter what. The books can't force that. Find a GM that has similar(ish) preferences than you.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't think that is true. In fact I think a lot of casters are less complex than champion. For exmample:

Champion features: Improved Critical, Remarkable Athlete, Additional Fighting Style, Superior critical, survival

School of Illusion features: Illusion Savant, improved minor illusion, malleable illusions, illusury self, illusury reality

Fey warlock features: Fey Presence, Misty escape, beguiling defenses, dark delerium

Knowlege Cleric features: Blessings of knowlege, knowlege of the ages, read thoughts, portent spellcasting, visions of the past

You miss the core class features. Which are however many spells you know (lots for divine classes, two spells per level for most casters). And I would absolutely call most spells as complex as any of those champion features.