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

[Maxperson]

Absolutely you can. As a matter of fact you can do it with a 10 constitution and d6 hit dice. Try a bladesinger! That character will outlast anyone in melee and after 10th level he can outlast most martials even if the enemy starts throwing save for half damage spells.

In general by mid levels most enemies will have to roll a nat 20 with disadvantage to hit an optimized bladesinger in bladesong. With things like bracers of defense and a ring of protection you can push your effective AC to 30 AND at the same time impose disadvantage with protection from evil or blur.

I have seen multiple bladesingers at my table go several levels in a row without getting HIT one single time in melee even though they were in melee every single fight. Before 10th level breath weapons and such can hurt them, but absorb elements goes a long way to mitigating even that.

Now it is a specific build to do that and such a character is not going to be able to do a lot of damage and can't really afford to use spells for damage if they are playing the defender role, but they can do it EASILY. The only thing close is a barbarian and he better have some healing between fights.

I'm doing that right now in the game that I play. I actually got hit last session for the first time in ages. Can't remember the last time. My AC is 21 while dancing, 26 with the Shield spell, and I talked the group into letting me have the Cloak of Displacement that we found.

 

[Maxperson]

A lot of features with low complexity can make for a character as complex as one with very complex feature.

Not in this case. The cast majority of class features the Champion gets are static, like crit on 19-20. No choice is involved. The spellcasting feature gives HUGE amounts of choice and complexity. Dwarfing the Champion.

Absolutely the race and feat options are valid because they are part of the character build. The argument is you can't make a complex champion and that is just not true. You can have a champion with a ton of different spell choices or a bunch of different skill choices or drive your build a number of other ways.

So feats cannot be used, since they are an optional rule that must be added in, so they cannot be assumed in a valid comparison. Race is useless to add in, since no matter what you add in to the Champion, the Wizard can have it too, so it does nothing to show which class is more complex than the other.

The thing with 5E is the race, subclass, background and feat combinations mean you can tailor any class to be any kind of character.

Class yes. Subclass, no. At best, I'll give you a Champion of moderate complexity, and that's with your feats, battlemaster maneuvers and Drow abilities. There is no Wizard that's as low as moderate.

The idea that fighters can't have any options other than swinging a sword is simply false and if you feel you can't do it then it is because you don't understand those options or you are unwilling to make the tradeoffs to get them.

This is a Strawman. Nobody, especially not me, has argued that they can only swing a sword.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You use knowledge skills with int, that gives you information about foes. In 4e you could have absolutely terrible dex and still dodge things just fine. That was blatantly absurd.

Why was it absurd? If you can recognise that someone's casting a fireball with a second to spare you've still a better chance of dodging it than someone with better reflexes who doesn't recognise the spell until the firey bead leaves the wizard's finger.

And I'm sure that the MMA trained people in this thread would be able to tell us about figuring out what someone's fighting style actually is when meeting them for the first time. Or for a more fictional example which stat do you think covers knowing that if you're using Bonetti's defense then an expert will attack with Capo Ferro?


And no Stephen Hawking can't dodge well. Skill and practice matter. But Int backed by Wis dominates the macro, Dex the micro. And practice is far far far more important to any skill than raw talent.

Or to put things another way Dex is almost useless for protecting yourself in a gunfight - you can't dodge bullets. Int and Wis are the defensive stats you need to not be in line of the bullets in the first place. (Dex is of course useful for attacking in a gunfight).

 

[ECMO3]

Not in this case. The cast majority of class features the Champion gets are static, like crit on 19-20. No choice is involved. The spellcasting feature gives HUGE amounts of choice and complexity. Dwarfing the Champion.

To start with choice and complexity are two different things, second the Champion gets two fighting styles and there a ton of choices with them, especially when you consider superior technique alone has numerous different builds.

So feats cannot be used, since they are an optional rule that must be added in, so they cannot be assumed in a valid comparison. Race is useless to add in, since no matter what you add in to the Champion, the Wizard can have it too, so it does nothing to show which class is more complex than the other.

I did not say you can't make a wizard more complex than a champion. The argument is that "any wizard" is more complex than "any champion" as if the class and subclass alone determine complexity and that simply isn't true.

Sure you CAN make all those choices with a wizard too, but that isn't the point. This is not a competition to see which can be built with the highest complexity.

As for feats, remember we are talking about any champion, which would include champions at tables that do allow feats (and that is most of them). If you are at one of the few tables that does not allow feats that severely restricts the amount of diversity you can build into any character. It also means you can't use two of the races, including the most popular race played (Variant Human).

Class yes. Subclass, no. At best, I'll give you a Champion of moderate complexity, and that's with your feats, battlemaster maneuvers and Drow abilities. There is no Wizard that's as low as moderate.

The Dwarf illusionist example I gave earlier is pretty darn simple. Certainly not as simple as the simplest fighter (which I am not sure is even a champion), but simple none the less. You can absolutely make a far more complex wizard.

 

[Maxperson]

To start with choice and complexity are two different things, second the Champion gets two fighting styles and there a ton of choices with them, especially when you consider superior technique alone has numerous different builds.

Not in this case. Most of the Champion's abilities are static. You make the choice and you're done. There's no additional choice with extra attack, most fighting styles, ability score improvements, improved critical, remarkable athlete, superior critical, or survivor. Literally everything a Champion gets is one and done as far as choice goes, EXCEPT if the Champion chooses BM Maneuvers, which doesn't do much at all for complexity.

I did not say you can't make a wizard more complex than a champion. The argument is that "any wizard" is more complex than "any champion" as if the class and subclass alone determine complexity and that simply isn't true.

You cannot make a Champion more complex than ANY wizard. Even the simplest wizard is more complex than a Drow Champion with BM maneuvers and feats.

As for feats, remember we are talking about any champion, which would include champions at tables that do allow feats (and that is most of them). If you are at one of the few tables that does not allow feats that severely restricts the amount of diversity you can build into any character. It also means you can't use two of the races, including the most popular race played (Variant Human).

We're comparing classes, not what tables do. Some tables allow Gestalt characters. Are we now going to add a second class to the Champion to figure out complexity? No. You go by RAW when comparing classes. What tables do is irrelevant.

The Dwarf illusionist example I gave earlier is pretty darn simple. Certainly not as simple as the simplest fighter (which I would argue is not a champion), but simple none the less. You can absolutely make a far more complex wizard.

Illusionists are one of the most complex Wizards out there. With illusion magic the sky is the limit with what you can come up with and do.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And no Stephen Hawking can't dodge well.

But in 4e he would. Sure, for every task you can argue that several things contribute to it. Hell, I feel it would be far stronger argument that wis should contribute avoiding attacks, as that determines your awareness. But most RPG systems can't track all that, it would be too complex. So you must choose what is most important, and in this case it is getting your body physically out of way of the attack and that's dex. If you can't do that none of those other things matter. In 4e a super intelligent but insanely clumsy character that can barely walk without tripping on their own feet is just as good dodging blows than a super agile panther with cat-like reflexes (who's dumb because they're a cat and not a human.) This is simply bizarre way to model things and doesn't produce intuitive results at all.

 

[pemerton]

In 5e D&D the fat guy down the local pub who wins every darts competition also wins races, can perform handstands and is able to dodge dragon breath. Your champion rock climber is also a champion weightlifter. And someone who never catches a cold nor feels nauseated after a dodgy takeaway is also a champion marathon runner.

The actual 4e builds that use INT for AC and Reflex defence are wizards, swordmages, psionicists, some invokers, some warlocks, and some warlords. In the fiction, these are characters who use their knowledge and insight to anticipate their foes' attacks. In the mechanics, it's a device for ensuring the right numbers are constructed using the available system inputs - just like a monk's WIS bonus to AC in 3E and 5e, or a barbarian's CON bonus to AC in 5e (I would have thought its STR that gives you muscles of steel; it's not clear to me how having great endurance makes you harder to hit in any literal sense).

By changing it from a class feature to a general rule, all that differs is that there is less need for rules text. The breakdown of the 4e AC system isn't in the use of INT, but in the emergence of classes that don't use heavy armour and don't use INT or DEX as a stat and so need ad hoc, class-specific fixes like the 5e ones for monks and barbarians: STR-based sorcerers, barbarians, etc.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But in 4e he would.

No Stephen Hawking wouldn't dodge well in 4e for the simple reason he isn't an adventurer. He isn't a D&D PC in any way, shape, or form. He's an NPC. And almost certainly as far as combat is concerned he's a minion.

This is why I find games with rules-as-UI like 4e or Fate to be vastly, overwhelmingly more consistent and coherent than games with rules-as-physics. In a game with rules-as-UI NPCs have essentially whatever stats you think fits their character.

Meanwhile your example of a high Int low Dex wizard? Still has the lowest AC in the party because they don't wear armour. They've got a good Reflex because they are very good not at moving at the last second but realising that things are coming one second earlier than anyone else so stepping out of the way. Meanwhile the cat is amazing at last second dodges but has to work hard to get them (and probably better than the wizard thanks to class bonuses). I don't find it particularly counterintuitive that stepping out of the way works as well as last second twists and turns.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The actual 4e builds that use INT for AC and Reflex defence are wizards, swordmages, psionicists, some invokers, some warlocks, and some warlords.

And, when I'm playing one of my old PCs, a geriatric berserker inspired by Terry Pratchett's Silver Horde. He moves pretty slowly but he's a lifetime's worth of experience of Not Dying. And because he's seen almost everything before he moves with a minimum of effort to put his sword exactly where it needs to be.

By changing it from a class feature to a general rule, all that differs is that there is less need for rules text.

And it opens up some interesting build options like my berserker above. If I was going for raw power dex is a stronger stat than int, but having the option there lets you build against type and still have it be a viable character.

 

[Flamestrike]

Now try and do it with an arrow through the ogre's eye.

Arcane Archer Fighter 3, Combat superiority F/S, Sharpshooter feat.

Critical hit - ('shot to the eye').

Damage = 6d6+2d8+13.