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

[Undrave]

I think the simple reason would be that he's dead. He isn't doing anything well right now.

Unless he came back as a Lich!!! Ah ah!

Wow. You're more heated than I am over this and you haven't even been arguing with him about it. Heck, I'm not even heated. I'm just kinda flabbergasted that he would think that it's the number of class features and not their complexity that determines class complexity. These two classes aren't even in the same complexity ballpark. Wizards are in the majors and Champions are in Little League.

Well I did read everything and I've been finding his arguments iritating for quite a few pages.

 

[pemerton]

Luke Skywalker is not a Fighter.

I think that's up for grabs . . . but then how about Perceval in the film Excalibur, who is a peasant boy who hangs out in the kitchens at Camelot and then is able to make a credible offer to face Sir Gawain in a joust? And goes on - in that version of the story - to find the Grail.

My point is that I think treating martial prowess of D&D PCs as if it is all training, and not "fate" or "destiny" or divine grace creates a very limited niche for them to live within, that will probably bump into "realism" limits on their abilities pretty quickly. I mean, Conan has most of the prowess he has not because of any training, but because he's just that tough! But the most natural way to model that in D&D would be by giving him levels in a martial classs (take your pick from fighter, rogue, barbarian, ranger or warlord).

I know there's a school of thought that holds that everything "innate" should be in stats and race; that all divine grace should be in cleric or paladin class features; etc. But I think that pretty quickly becomes pretty unworkable, and gives rise to the standard problems for martial PCs especially moving into 10th+ level.

In his DMG (pp 111-12) Gygax observes that "the accumulation of hit points and the ever-greater abilities and better saving throws of characters represents the aid supplied by
supernatural forces." Given this, there's no reason to think about fighter class abilities in terms of "basic training" vs "veteran" vs "grizzled veteran". Give them abilities that fit the genre (feats of physical prowess and command are the obvious candidates) and that balance with other classes, without worrying about how they trained to achieve them.

It's still a GAME. Sometimes, you just gotta put up with some nonsense for the game to work properly. It's either you let minions in (to represent enemies that are so below your fighter that they can run them through in one shot) or you ignore the terminology of 'hits' and stuff when it comes to HP and accept it's not meat. It's gonna be gamey, one way or the other.

I'm one of those who thinks "hp as meat" is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure @Neonchameleon agrees.

But if we accept that nearly every ogre has enough luck and "plot armour" that it's always going to take multiple attempts to bring them down, then (and this was Neonchameleon's point as I understand it) why are fighters not getting the same sort of benefit of living in that same genre-space of high (even gonzo) fantasy?

 

[pemerton]

I generally prefer more consistent uses of ability scores, but also a more even distribution of them ala PF2 or any game where there are exponential costs for specialization. Given how attainable a basic level of physical conditioning is the idea of the frail spellcaster is pretty much a D&D proud nail. Any wizard who spends a sizeable portion of their time adventuring should acquire basic physical competency pretty quickly just from all the backpacking they are doing. It's pretty much only a D&D thing. You don't see it in other games or fantasy fiction not directly inspired by D&D.

The wizard PC in the Burning Wheel game I GM has amazing Forte - because his player is excellent at optimising the advancement feedback loop from those Tax tests!

 

[Flamestrike]

That isn't actually putting it any other way.. it's just adding a straw man comparison (in this case, almost literally..seriously..replace "weak and untrained" with "straw"..uncanny..)

It's nonsense. But so are "meat hp". They both lead to silly results. It's just a matter of taste for which version of nonsense is more palatable to the table.

"We waved our chunks of metal around as a group for awhile, making the monster depressed, and irritable, and frustrated, until one of us was able to physically land a blow that killed it"

Vs.

"We physically struck the monster repeatedly with our chunks of metal without seriously injuring it until one of us landed a killing blow"

Only the Sith deal in absolutes.

Each blow is narrated individually. Some might strike glancing blows. Some might be parried or dodged at the last minute. Some might luckily glance off armor, or they might luckily duck at the precisely right moment. Some might hit with the flat of the blade, jarring your opponent.

Some actually cut or pierce your opponent as well, with the hit that takes them to 0 likely a critical wound.

 

[Undrave]

Sorry if you don't like math. It is over a minute a day and you should only be fighting 2 minutes a day.

If you play the game as it was designed to be played you will have 6 fights averaging 3.5 rounds each (21 seconds) and have 12 battlemaster maneuvers to do at 3rd level (72 seconds)

Now if you are not playing the game as it was designed to be played then

72 seconds out of about 120 seconds of combat in the entire day.

with 6 fights a day, each fight averaging 21 seconds (3.5 rounds) you

Sorry if you find math insulting

The problem is that you don't get to be a Battlemaster all the time, you're only a Battlemaster SOME of the time. To say nothing of the fact that your Battlemaster is basically nothing outside of combat. You get an Artisan's Tool proficiency (OOOOH! Nice flavor but pretty useless 99% of the time becaus it have almost no problem solving ability) and you get Know your Enemy, only really gives you information related to combat. It took them YEARS to give us maneuvers in Tasha's that can do stuff outside of battle... which goes back to being a Batlemaster less than 2 minutes in a day.

An Illusionist is an Illusionist all day long all the time. The Battlemaster is only that part time and only during combat.

That point aside, protection, interception and Great Weapon fighting are not static and unarmed fighting involves choices which change the damage between three values.

Protection and Interception are a little more complex because they compete (badly, I might add) with your opportunity attacks, sure, but Great Weapon Fighting is totally static, even if you pick up the dice again. It's not like you AREN'T going to reroll those 1's. The condition is met, you get the thing. It's that simple, there's no decision point in Great Weapon Fighting.

Most fighting styles are like that: once a condition is met, you get the bonus and the condition are usually pretty simple: use this weapon loadout, wea this armor, or someone triggers condition X for you to use your Reaction. There's no tradeoff when using a fighting style. Same with the Champion's crit range. You just GET it whenever you throw a d20.

Fighting styles and maneuvers can't be upcasted. You don't have to anticipate the type of enemies you'll face every day before you prepare your loadout like you can with spells. At worse, you can just change weapon on the fly. If you prepared too many spells that target the same saving throw and you only encounter enemies who get a good save of that type you're gonna have a bad day. Same with damage types. You also have to think about your utility spells, and for Druids and Clerics you have to think about which ones you could cast as rituals! Do you need ALL the healing spells or just a few?

That's way WAY WAY more decision points and trade off to consider on a consistent basis. "Do I use my Second Wind now or wait a turn?" is nothing compared to that.

 

[tetrasodium]

The problem is that you don't get to be a Battlemaster all the time, you're only a Battlemaster SOME of the time. To say nothing of the fact that your Battlemaster is basically nothing outside of combat. You get an Artisan's Tool proficiency (OOOOH! Nice flavor but pretty useless 99% of the time becaus it have almost no problem solving ability) and you get Know your Enemy, only really gives you information related to combat. It took them YEARS to give us maneuvers in Tasha's that can do stuff outside of battle... which goes back to being a Batlemaster less than 2 minutes in a day.

An Illusionist is an Illusionist all day long all the time. The Battlemaster is only that part time and only during combat.


Protection and Interception are a little more complex because they compete (badly, I might add) with your opportunity attacks, sure, but Great Weapon Fighting is totally static, even if you pick up the dice again. It's not like you AREN'T going to reroll those 1's. The condition is met, you get the thing. It's that simple, there's no decision point in Great Weapon Fighting.

Most fighting styles are like that: once a condition is met, you get the bonus and the condition are usually pretty simple: use this weapon loadout, wea this armor, or someone triggers condition X for you to use your Reaction. There's no tradeoff when using a fighting style. Same with the Champion's crit range. You just GET it whenever you throw a d20.

Fighting styles and maneuvers can't be upcasted. You don't have to anticipate the type of enemies you'll face every day before you prepare your loadout like you can with spells. At worse, you can just change weapon on the fly. If you prepared too many spells that target the same saving throw and you only encounter enemies who get a good save of that type you're gonna have a bad day. Same with damage types. You also have to think about your utility spells, and for Druids and Clerics you have to think about which ones you could cast as rituals! Do you need ALL the healing spells or just a few?

That's way WAY WAY more decision points and trade off to consider on a consistent basis. "Do I use my Second Wind now or wait a turn?" is nothing compared to that.

Xge gave a lot of those tools the same effect as leveled spells without needing to consume a spell slor. You of course are not impressed by that because the spells you are talking up ate just as niche & pretty much impossible to predict a need for even if a caster could cast them in yheory

 

[Undrave]

My point is that I think treating martial prowess of D&D PCs as if it is all training, and not "fate" or "destiny" or divine grace creates a very limited niche for them to live within, that will probably bump into "realism" limits on their abilities pretty quickly. I mean, Conan has most of the prowess he has not because of any training, but because he's just that tough! But the most natural way to model that in D&D would be by giving him levels in a martial classs (take your pick from fighter, rogue, barbarian, ranger or warlord).

I'm not a big fan of 'chosen one' narratives most of the time, myself. Too many writers using it as a crutch for bad characters... but I admit it's just a taste thing.

Still, I'd rather Chosen Ones be more the exception than the norm... And I think such a character would probably better served by another class than a Fighter... Otherwise the class just becomes a jumble of anybody who doesn't fit the other classes for X reasons (he doesn't have magic he doesn't have sneak attacks, etc) instead of having an identity of its own. It also perpetuate all those expectations of 'Realism' that are used to argue against the Fighter getting anything unique or special... There's people out there who think that if a Fighter can do something then everybody else should be able to do it, because "It's just a Fighter".

I think that kind of lack of focus just hurts the class in the long run (and I feel has hurt it already in the past) and I would argue that a Lazy Lord build worked way better to model a Chosen One character (hence why I gave my Warlord class a subclass literally called 'Chosen One') since it can model a charismatic person who attracts allies and can influence the world through a combination of luck, pluck, cunning and destiny.

Either that or DnD just doesn't really model those types of character well without some convoluted 'level 0' mechanics or Commoner class system.

But if we accept that nearly every ogre has enough luck and "plot armour" that it's always going to take multiple attempts to bring them down, then (and this was Neonchameleon's point as I understand it) why are fighters not getting the same sort of benefit of living in that same genre-space of high (even gonzo) fantasy?

They already do? I mean, the Ogre probably can't kill the Fighter in one hit either and the Fighter can use his Second Wind to recover and continue to beat up the Ogre and his allies.

 

[Undrave]

Xge gave a lot of those tools the same effect as leveled spells without needing to consume a spell slor.

Leveled spells? Really? Like what?

 

[tetrasodium]

Leveled spells? Really? Like what?

I'm in bed right now. Brewers tools & detect poison is one that comes to mind

 

[Campbell]

At the very least if we want any kind of consistency in the fiction we have to be willing to reassess what physical training is capable of in D&D if we're not willing to provide space for divine intervention. D&D fighters regularly face down things that would be impossible for even the most highly trained people to fight. If you can face down a marilith you better be way more skilled of an athlete than even a genetic freak like Rob Grankowski or Usain Bolt.