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

[ECMO3]

It alleges that experienced players who enjoying leveraging the rules (a certain playstyle that rhymes with shower tamer) will overwhelmingly choose casters over martials. It does not make this claim of inexperienced players, or of players who do not participate in that approach to the game.

I understand the nuance here, but there is no evidence this is actually true. It certainly is not true at my table.

I gravitate towards Rogues first and Wizards second. If what you are saying is true I would always play wizards.

We have one guy at my table who you might call a metagame and every time he is going to play a Fighter-Barbarian multiclass every time. Since XGE he likes to add gloomstalker into that too for the extra attack on round 1 but that is hit or miss because he does not always want to invest in wisdom to multiclass. He is going to play a Dragon Born, Half Orc or Goliath every time and he is going to get GWM at level 4. This is what he likes playing.

He is an experienced player and he likes to "work the rules" to make his character an ultrapowerful melee build. I think there are just as many of those shower tamers as there are wizard shower tamers and as long as that is attractive to many (and I think it is), the argument to buff martials is weak IMO.

 

[Steampunkette]

I can largely agree with that, @Fanaelialae. Big part of why I like the A5e fighters much more than the standard ones.

Even just getting the mild social adaptations and exploration knacks makes them vastly broader in their scope, even if it's not the mystical shortcut.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I understand the nuance here, but there is no evidence this is actually true. It certainly is not true at my table.

I gravitate towards Rogues first and Wizards second. If what you are saying is true I would always play wizards.

We have one guy at my table who you might call a metagame and every time he is going to play a Fighter-Barbarian multiclass every time. Since XGE he likes to add gloomstalker into that too for the extra attack on round 1 but that is hit or miss because he does not always want to invest in wisdom to multiclass. He is going to play a Dragon Born, Half Orc or Goliath every time and he is going to get GWM at level 4. This is what he likes playing.

He is an experienced player and he likes to "work the rules" to make his character an ultrapowerful melee build. I think there are just as many of those shower tamers as there are wizard shower tamers and as long as that is attractive to many (and I think it is), the argument to buff martials is weak IMO.

That argument is not much of a rebuttal. So you say that at your table people who like to leverage rules prefer martials. @Snarf Zagyg says that players at their table who like to leverage rules prefer casters.

Neither really proves a thing. Snarf mentioned it because it framed the discussion. It wasn't offered as conclusive proof that casters are better than martials.

 

[FrogReaver]

I understand the nuance here, but there is no evidence this is actually true. It certainly is not true at my table.

I gravitate towards Rogues first and Wizards second. If what you are saying is true I would always play wizards.

We have one guy at my table who you might call a metagame and every time he is going to play a Fighter-Barbarian multiclass every time. Since XGE he likes to add gloomstalker into that too for the extra attack on round 1 but that is hit or miss because he does not always want to invest in wisdom to multiclass. He is going to play a Dragon Born, Half Orc or Goliath every time and he is going to get GWM at level 4. This is what he likes playing.

He is an experienced player and he likes to "work the rules" to make his character an ultrapowerful melee build. I think there are just as many of those shower tamers as there are wizard shower tamers and as long as that is attractive to many (and I think it is), the argument to buff martials is weak IMO.

IMO, if the optimizers at your table prefer to optimize melee/archer builds while no one else is optimizing melee/archer builds will look amazing. If your casters actually optimize to the same degree, they will be more powerful than him (at least eventually).

I do think optimized martials are a bit more powerful in tier 1 and even early tier 2. But by the time casters start to get enough level 3+ spells to potentially use one big spell a battle, and enemies get ever more hp, the martials start falling off in comparative effectiveness.

 

[ECMO3]

This is the same argument that market signal is a 1:1 correlation with a uniformly well-informed consumer base that makes shrewdly rational, cost/benefit/optimization-driven coherent decisions with their money.

It’s just not true and it’s not even in the same universe as true. The number of forces (many purely aesthetic, many irrational and inscrutable, many patently unhealthy to one’s self and/or biome, many suboptimal across a suite of metrics, many a complete expression of lack of volition as one is unwittingly puppeteered by biological or social imperatives) in consumer decision-making in market economies is legion.

Same goes for decisions on Fighter vs Wizard vs whatever.

The most likely through line of that distribution is NERDS LOVE THE CONCEPTUAL POWER FANTASY OF FIGHTERS WHETHER THAT CONCEPT IS REALIZED OR NOT…historically, NOT, being the likely reality…but what about next time…that’s when I’ll get my Fighter Power Fantasy Fix! It’s some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. It’s like the D&D version of going back to that abusive spouse after years of unfulfilled promises and oft-beatings.

It’s kind of like a players form of Story Before.

D&D is a role playing game. The entire idea of the game is to play a character you enjoy. Things like balance are secondary to that argument. If you want to play a fighter due to the "nerd conceptual power fantasy" then that means the fighter is attractive even though it is "inferior" and choosing that fighter is an entirelt "well-informed" choice. To put it in another words - if it feels good it is right.

Note this is aside from the fact there is no statistical or objective cost-benift data that clearly shows casters are better than martials. The entire underpinning of the argument is subjective and based largely on supposition. That is ok, it is what opinions and discussion are about. But don't bring the idea of rational fact-based decision making into the discussion when there is no objective basis showing that the hypothesis as originally presented is factually true to start with.

The majority opinion regarding the relative weakness of martials on this thread can not be shown to be any more coherent or well-informed than the millions of people playing fighter.

 

[Maxperson]

Well there is a secondary discusion based on it.

If spellcaster can be equal to the martials in combat AND do everything else via broken spells, should martials be buffed in everything else?

They can't, though. To be equal to the martials in combat, the spellcaster has to go through a LOT of slots which don't come back until after a long rest. They can't maintain that pace through 6-8 encounters in a day. Further, if they do that, then they aren't using the slots that they don't have outside of combat, either.

Spellcasters have to pick and choose how effective they are going to be in and out of combat. If the caster wants to conserve slots to be able to cast things like knock and such, then they are going to be using more cantrips in combat and they won't be nearly as effective as the marital PC. Further, a lot of the out of combat spells have downsides to their use that many DMs don't engage, which makes them stronger than they are meant to be.

 

[ECMO3]

The problem here is that the question is one of balance. And the last time the base fighter class gets something genuinely new rather than a single extra use of something they already have or an option that wasn't good enough to choose last time is level 11 when they take the lead for attacks per round. And level 11 is basically the last time the rogue gets anything new that they can actively choose to use rather than reactively. Most people don't of course go much above level 10

Battlemaster Fighters get unique and "entirely new" abilities at levels 1,2,3,6,7,11 and 20. Other fighters get "entirely new and unique" abilities at other levels to.

note this does not include the 5th-level extra attack because it is not "unique" to a fighter nor any of the battlemaster maneuver upgrades as we have decided they are not unique either.

Note this is somewhat unfair comparison because the battlemaster is getting more battlemaster maneuvers and the maneuvers themselves are more powerful and can be used more often. Further outside of a feat, no other class can get them. They are not "genuinely unique" but then neither are wizard spells either- A wizard gets new spells and more powerful spells at higher levels and but that is not "genuinely unique" as that character gets spellcasting at level 1. Also very few of the wizard spells are actually unique to wizards.

 

[Maxperson]

I am not sure this is true. Wizards are my second favorite class (after Rogues) and my favorite spell casting class by far. However I think that is uncommon. Sorcerers, Warlocks and Clerics are all played far more often at my table. Based on polls done last year this is consistent with the community at large.

In addition to the full casters ahead of Wizards; Rogues and Fighters are ahead of them too. Here is the full list based on a D&D Beyond survey in 2020:

• Warlock (13%)
• Fighter (12%)
• Cleric (11%)
• Sorcerer (10%)
• Rogue (9%)
• Wizard (8%)
• Barbarian (6%)
• Bard (6%)
• Paladin (6%)
• Monk (6%)
• Druid (5%)
• Ranger(5%)

The really undercuts the central arguement of this thread. Suggesting that a fighter is useless or needs to be buffed to make it equal to a wizard is a is a difficult one to support when the Fighter is 2nd most common class played (and in many polls it is 1st).

What class people enjoy playing and the power of the class are not the same thing. I loved Fighters in 1e, 2e, and 3e as well, playing as many or more of them than I did Wizards(and I love Wizards). Does that mean that 1e, 2e and 3e Fighters were equal to Wizards?

 

[Stalker0]

Majority of players don't really care about the sort of minute balance differences we here obsess about.

Extremely true.

One element that we often ignore in these white room analysis is the incredible ability for the DM to provoke balance or imbalance. If a player is feeling a little weak, a DM can throw in an encounter to really highlight there strengths and feel really cool. When your group continues to recount the time your character did that badass XYZ thing....your going to feel good regardless of absolute balance.

Where balance really gets thrown off is when the DM feels forced into certain activities frequently to maintain balance. If two players are so off balance that the DM feels they have to constantly intervene in order to keep things fair....that's when there's a true problem.

That's why I personally dislike the 6-8 encounter model for balance. I can respect making it 2-3ish....and so if I want to have 1 encounter in a day the casters will be a bit strong, and if I have 4-5, the martials win the day. That's a light adjustment I can work with. Having to generate 6-8 full encounters to maintain balance is just a chore to me.

 

[FrogReaver]

D&D is a role playing game. The entire idea of the game is to play a character you enjoy. Things like balance are secondary to that argument. If you want to play a fighter due to the "nerd conceptual power fantasy" then that means the fighter is attractive even though it is "inferior" and choosing that fighter is an entirelt "well-informed" choice. To put it in another words - if it feels good it is right.

That people are willing to play an inferior class to get the concept they want isn't a good argument for why a class needs to be inferior in the first place.

Note this is aside from the fact there is no statistical or objective cost-benift data that clearly shows casters are better than martials. The entire underpinning of the argument is subjective and based largely on supposition. That is ok, it is what opinions and discussion are about. But don't bring the idea of rational fact-based decision making into the discussion when there is no objective basis showing that the hypothesis as originally presented is factually true to start with.

There are subjective pieces but alot isn't subjective. We can compute expected damage values of any given scenario. We can even compute how many turns enemies will lose to damage. We can compute how many turns enemies lose to control spells.

The subjective factors are those to do with what the DM will throw at the party and that should be subjective as there's always a bit of a fog of war there. Speaking of fog of war, casters are better able to adapt to enemies that resist their spells. They can buff allies or use something like magic missile, wall spells to divide and conquer, or even teleport away.