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

[Steampunkette]

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.

A Spellcaster with a Cantrip can do similar damage to a fighter on a round to round basis.

Adding all the Fireballs on top of it just makes the gap that much wider.

It's only when you add in Optional Systems that Martials become particularly powerful in combat. And even then only through a specific series of weapons and tricks.

4d10+20+12+8 (Assuming a 20 strength, a +3 weapon, and the Duelist Fighting Style) with a longsword. 62 average

4d10+20+12 (Assuming a 20 charisma, a +3 Rod of the Pact Keeper, and Agonizing Blast) with Eldritch Blast. 54 average

Yeah, the Warlock loses out on the 8 points from the fighting style... but instead can bounce fools around the battlefield or off cliffs and into other hazards. But you have to admit that's -really- close damage. Add in 4 5th level spells that can strike big areas for similar damage -per target-, and the Warlock steps up before you even -get- into Subclasses.

That said, you could argue that Battlemaster Fighters are stronger than most Warlock subclasses... but I think the best comparison would be the Hexblade against the Champion, myself... just for that 19-20x2.

Anyway. It's feats that make up the bulk of bringing Martials up in and out of combat.

 

[FrogReaver]

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.

I think the 6-8 encounters is an overused criticism. What mostly ensures Caster/Martial balance is short to long rests ratio in a day.

Though it should be noted that due to concentration, the casters 2nd leveled spell in an encounter will usually be much less effective than the concentration one. This significantly helps balance martials in lower encounter days - though maybe not perfectly.

 

[Stalker0]

Don't get me wrong. I would very much love to see high level martials as mythic, based on archetypes such as Beowulf.

This has long been a point of contention with groups. How "beyond reality" do martials get to be at higher levels?

Its one of the things I liked in 4e.... the notion of Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies really signified that the game wasn't just "higher level" it was "different". The game both moved into new spheres with each tier but made it very clear to the players and DM, setting the appropriate expectations. I think that allowed for higher level martials to be mythic in a way that made sense with the narrative.

But unfortunately there will never be agreement here. Some people want a 20th level fighter to be Captain America, and some want them to be Thor....and they are just not compatible from a philosophy standpoint.

Ultimately 3e's solution was to keep the fighters mundane....and rely on ever increasing sources of magic to give the fighters "mythic" abilities..... fly, teleport, etc. This "in theory" allowed a group to tailor the mythicness to their own tastes....in practice though I found it a clunky solution and one where the casters still tended to dominate at higher levels regardless.

 

[ECMO3]

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?

But the premise is players, or more clearly experienced players don't want to play them. I don't think that is ture

1E fighters were far more powerful than magic users. There is a myth that 1E magic users caught up at high level but that did not play out in game (unless you got silly with wish or for illusionists alter reality). With double specilization a fighter could kill an equal level magic user in 1 round at almost any level and if you played RAW magic users could generally not get off a spell after melee was joined do to the rules about casting in melee and enemies prioritizing magic users as targets. At 18th level a magic-user could summon an 8th level monster to help him.... once a day .....and it would show up 1 round later. A typical 4th-level fighter could defeat a typical 8hd monster one-on-one in 2-3 rounds.

At high levels magic users got powerful spells that could do decent damage in a round and/or completely disable the enemy if they hit ... a few times a day. But by that time the fighter and the monsters that used fighter saves had very low saves required so it would be uncommon for damaging spells to do high damage and uncommon for disabling spells to work. Note the damage from high level spells only kept up with fighters, it did not actually do better in general. The only spell that would actually outdamage what an equivalent-level fighter with 18 strength would do is meteor swarm .... if the enemy failed the save.

That is without even bringing up magic resistance.

Put a 14th-level magic user against Lolth and he would lose ... unless he was able to use a spell to flee. Put a 14th level fighter against Lolth and he will kill her in 2 rounds generally .... 1 round if he is wearing a girlde of giant strength.

I did not play as much 2E as 1E. 2E was a little better, but magic-users were still weaker than fighters.

3E is the first time they were balanced. In 3E it is really difficult to talk about balance though because it was entirely dependant on what you were fighting and how well you as a character manpiulated the rules in your build for the specific foe you were facing. Something that is overpowering against one foe is completely useless against another and something built to be powerful in broad terms would generally not be very strong or optimized in any fights. I found this to be true regardless of the class.

4E just sucked and was more of a video game than an RPG

5E is the first time classes have been generally well balanced in my opinion.

 

[Maxperson]

But the premise is players, or more clearly experienced players don't want to play them. I don't think that is ture

1E fighters were far more powerful than magic users. There is a myth that 1E magic users caught up at high level but that did not play out in game (unless you got silly with wish or for illusionists alter reality). With double specilization a fighter could kill an equal level magic user in 1 round at almost any level and if you played RAW magic users could generally not get off a spell after melee was joined do to the rules about casting in melee and enemies prioritizing magic users as targets. At 18th level a magic-user could summon an 8th level monster to help him.... once a day .....and it would show up 1 round later. A typical 4th-level fighter could defeat a typical 8hd monster one-on-one in 2-3 rounds.

Those were in white room fights, though. Not with a Wizard who was actually prepared. Sure, if you start the Wizard and Fighter next to each other with no real prep time, the fighter will often win. It rarely played out like that in game play, though. I remember how 1e was.

At high levels magic users got powerful spells that could do decent damage do in a round (albeit once a day) and/or completely disable the enemy if they hit. But by that time the fighter and the monsters that used fighter saves had very low saves required so it would be uncommon for damaging spells to do high damage and uncommon for disabling spells to work. The only spell that would actually outdamage what an equivalent-level fighter would do is meteor swarm .... if you failed the save.

There are many more useful spells than damage for such a fight.

Put a 14th-level magic user against Lolth and he would lose ... unless he was able to use a spell to flee. Put a 14th level fighter against Lolth and he will kill her in 2 rounds generally .... 1 round if he is wearing a girlde of giant strength, gauntlets of Ogre power or rolled an 18 strength.

Lolth was a goddess. She could use Command him with no save and lasting 2 rounds. With no weapon in hand or laying prostrate for 2 rounds, repeatable by her in the second round, what's he going to do?

I did not play as much 2E as 1E. 2E was a little better, but magic-users were still weaker than fighters.

Not against a well played MU.

3E is the first time they were balanced.

Balanced? Seriously?

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's important to also understand that while 'power gamer' and optimizer'; are usually just used as nerds slur, actual optimizers don't try to make the absolute best character period. They work without frameworks. So the Best Tripper Ever, or the Most Damage-Dealing Ever or literally the Best Class X Ever. It doesn't matter if the general category is suboptimal, optimizing is about doing the best at the thing you're trying to do, not the best in general.

 

[FrogReaver]

But the premise is players, or more clearly experienced players don't want to play them. I don't think that is ture

I can buy this. I think experienced players usually play almost everything. So it just depends on what they are playing at the moment.

I think it's more intermediate players are the ones that steer clear of particular classes for perceived weaknesses. I've payed just about everything in 5e and I don't think any of my characters have ended up as weak relative to the rest of the party - though i probably optimize a bit more than them and we usually end our games somewhere in tier 2.

 

[ECMO3]

Those were in white room fights, though. Not with a Wizard who was actually prepared. Sure, if you start the Wizard and Fighter next to each other with no real prep time, the fighter will often win. It rarely played out like that in game play, though. I remember how 1e was.

I started playing D&D in 1981 and played 1E more than all other combined. It was true, the designers have said it was true and they purposely intended for the fighter to be the main hero in the game. Gygax purposely made the other characters less powerful

The fighter was intended to be the hero or knight in shining armor and the others were intended to be sidekicks. There is even a video online from one of the designers about an argument with Gygax over making magic missile an automatic hit because Gygax wanted to make sure the wizard was inferior to the fighter and Gygax thought an automatic 3 points of damage would put it too close to the fighter who had to swing to make 8 average per round when not counting strength (which would later be bumped to 16 by Gygax when he wrote unearthed arcana).

Then you had the spell Chaos, which would not allow a save ..... UNLESS THE TARGET WAS A FIGHTER and then he could save.

Look at spells like the cleric's spiritual hammer, a 2nd level spell that does a lot less damage than a 1st level fighter can do. At 13th level a wizard can throw up mordankainans sword with a 14 THACO that does an average of 12 points of damage. A 13th-level fighter with a 9 strength and a TH Sword has an 8 THACO and can do 19 a turn. Add in the magic and strength bonuses common at that level and he is easily doing 3 times as much damage considering he is hitting a lot more.

There are many more useful spells than damage for such a fight.

And the vast majorty either had level restrictions, hit point maximums or saving throws that a high-level monster would usually beat. If he had magic resistance, the magic user had to beat that before he even had to save.

For example, death spell had no save and came at 11th level, but would only affect creatures of 8th-level. A 11th-level fighter will take down an 8th-level foe in 2 rounds, all day long.

Freezing sphere could be effective but it gets a save.

The only truely good combat spells for a high level 1E magic user are imprisonment and maze.
Honorable mentions:
Meteor Swarm is decent because it gives massive damage, which is still high with a save.
Power Word Stun is decent because there is no save and the hp limit is high, but because the effects are not that bad or debilitating, it is just decent. It can reliably and without fail degrade most enemies of even high level for a few rounds.

If they had 3E or 5E saves then some of the spells would be better, but as is they were not reliable when you really wanted to use them. On the other hand the fighter reliably destroyed enemies.

Lolth was a goddess. She could use Command him with no save and lasting 2 rounds. With no weapon in hand or laying prostrate for 2 rounds, repeatable by her in the second round, what's he going to do?

In 1E Command only lasts one round and you get a saving throw if you have 6 or more hit dice and he only needs an 8 to save. Yes she could do this and prolong the inevitable if he kept rolling below an 8.

Moreover Lolth was a goddess, and this speaks to how powerful fighters are. A low teens level fighter can fight her and have a reasonable chance of winning. A low teens level mage has no chance and even an Archmage is going to be severely pushed due to her magic resistance and low saves.

The reason I used Lolth in my example is I fought her as a player and then later a group fought her with me as a DM in I think it was the Vault of the Drow module. In both of these she was defeated in the first couple rounds by the fighter.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The Warlord concept is perfectly fulfilled by the 5e Battlemaster with appropriate maneuvers. He can do everything people want a Warlord to be able to do. That's conceptually. (Grant attacks, provide temp hp, reposition allies, grant an ally advantage, even push enemies away).

The mechanical implementation is where this really falls short for most people. They want to be able to grant more attacks, grant more temp hp, reposition more allies, push more enemies away.

Can such mechanics be made into a class. Almost certainly. Should they be made into a class is the real question though. Can a class focused on those things even more than a battlemaster meet balance requirements, can a class based on them add to the conceptual space of 5e in any way, will adding this class in take away too much from other already existing classes, etc?

IMO. Part of the beauty of the subclass design space is you don't have to worry about any of that.

Sure, lets also ditch the wizard because the arcane trickster can cast a few spells too.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

We still need to give the battlemaster a reasonable number of superiority dies instead of the infinite sadness they have now.

Also high level maneuvers that require spending more dice. Battlemasters are like if Sorcerers could only get 1st and 2nd level spells. How exciting, with each new level you get to pick from a dwindling list of choices you didn't think were good enough to be taken the first time around!