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

[ECMO3]

I think the issue mainly arises from screwing the short/long rest ratio. If there doesn't happen that much stuff in one day and casters get their spells back every day, they will obviously have a huge amount of spells to burn for that one fight that might occur or to trivial problem solving.

I don't see this as a big problem, becuase when that happens full casters don't have enough turns to use all their slots in combat anyway unless they are low level AND it is a longish battle. There are very few fights that will last long enough. Even a 5th level wizard has 9 slots, so he cares if he has 5 or 9 when the fight is only generally 3 rounds?

Further if you are fighting 1 fight a day with no short rest, 4, 5 or 6 battlemaster maneuvers is still a lot to use in that one fight unless it is unusally long. You can force use them no doubt, where a wizard probably can't actually use all his even if he tries to waste them. But that is not really relevant, because the 7th-level wizard who goes to bed with 5 unused slots left over didn't really do anything more spectacular than the battlemaster who goes to bed with 1 dice.

To be honest I think the 1-encounter a day while traveling dynamic favors the EK and AT more than any other class/subclass. Those classes come to the fight as a full fighter or full Rogue, with all the fighter/Rogue abilities while still having more spells than they are probably going to use anyway. You can add the Paladin and Ranger to that but their spell selection is not as good.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's also a pretty large Strawman of her argument. Nobody. Not one person. Has claimed that casters can cast leveled spells all day long.

One person implied that it was problematic if a Warlord couldn't warlord the majority of a day long. Other classes were brought into this as a counterpoint that most classes can't do everything all day long - or even most of the day long (at least till very high level).

 

[Fanaelialae]

But it is not on me to prove that an imbalance exists which needs to be remedied. The discussion as presented as this imbalance exists, how do we fix it.

The anecdotal evidence based on numbers playing fighters is actually contrary to the hypothesis. While it is true that it is anecdotal, it is also the only actual numerical data available.

Yet you certainly seem to be trying to prove it using dubious methods, such as trying to show that fighters couldn't possibly be unbalanced because according to one survey they're slightly more popular than wizards.

For what it's worth, as I stated earlier in the thread, I think that martials are fairly balanced with casters, even at high levels. I've played quite a few campaigns to high levels, and that has been my experience. Casters and martials have similar growth with regard to depth, which is a big part of balance. I think that even math will hold this up in reasonable white room scenarios.

The only imbalance that I've seen is with regard to breadth. Casters gain massive breadth as they increase in level. Martials gain little if any. A caster who starts out being able to dish out decent damage, understand any spoken language, and walk on walls at low levels eventually can do all that and also deal good damage, transform an ally into a giant dinosaur, and instantly transport everyone to a distant location. Whereas a martial who starts out good at dealing damage and sneaking, eventually gets great at dealing damage and sneaking.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't see this as a big problem, becuase when that happens full casters don't have enough turns to use all their slots in combat anyway unless they are low level AND it is a longish battle. There are very few fights that will last long enough. Even a 5th level wizard has 9 slots, so he cares if he has 5 or 9 when the fight is only generally 3 rounds?

Further if you are fighting 1 fight a day, 4, 5 or 6 battlemaster maneuvers is a lot to use in that one fight unless it is unusally long. You can force use them no doubt, where a wizard probably can't actually use all his even if he tries, but that is not really relevant, because the 7th-level wizard who goes to bed with 5 unused slots left over didn't really do anything more spectacular than the battlemaster who goes to bed with 1 dice.

To be honest I think the 1-encounter a day while traveling dynamic favors the EK and AT more than any other class/subclass. Those classes come to the fight as a full fighter or full Rogue, with all the fighter/Rogue abilities while still having more spells than they are probably going to use anyway. You can add the Paladin and Ranger to that but their spell selection is not as good.

My group tends to have alot of 1 encounter days. Unless you make a wizard or something that specializes in friendly AOE blasting - like an evoker wizard with fireball, the martials tend to keep up very well. After the casters have dropped their first concentration spell there's not nearly as much left for them to do. Magic Missile is okay - but doesn't keep up with the Paladins in the party. Blindness Deafness can be solid. Fighters are a little lack luster in this style of combat - but not terrible - especially if you ever get a half decent magic weapon. Rogues are much worse off, but they make up for it by being skilled in out of combat stuff for everything but this 1 combat.

 

[Maxperson]

One person implied that it was problematic if a Warlord couldn't warlord the majority of a day long.

My feeling is that so long as the Warlord can Warlord whenever he needs to, that's sufficient. A Wizard can Wizard whenever he needs to, if you include cantrips.

Other classes were brought into this as a counterpoint that most classes can't do everything all day long - or even most of the day long (at least till very high level).

They can't cast their powerful things all day long, but they can pop off cantrips every 6 seconds, 24/7.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yet you certainly seem to be trying to prove it using dubious methods, such as trying to show that fighters couldn't possibly be unbalanced because according to one survey they're slightly more popular than wizards.

For what it's worth, as I stated earlier in the thread, I think that martials are fairly balanced with casters, even at high levels. I've played quite a few campaigns to high levels, and that has been my experience. Casters and martials have similar growth with regard to depth, which is a big part of balance. I think that even math will hold this up in reasonable white room scenarios.

The only imbalance that I've seen is with regard to breadth. Casters gain massive breadth as they increase in level. Martials gain little if any. A caster who starts out being able to dish out decent damage, understand any spoken language, and walk on walls at low levels eventually can do all that and also deal good damage, transform an ally into a giant dinosaur, and instantly transport everyone to a distant location. Whereas a martial who starts out good at dealing damage and sneaking, eventually gets great at dealing damage and sneaking.

There's no martial that can single handily and safely kill nearly any enemy that can fit in a 10x10 ft box. Or 20ft cage (without teleportation).
***By casting sickening radiance and forcecage.

 

[FrogReaver]

My feeling is that so long as the Warlord can Warlord whenever he needs to, that's sufficient. A Wizard can Wizard whenever he needs to, if you include cantrips.

They can't cast their powerful things all day long, but they can pop off cantrips every 6 seconds, 24/7.

Cantrips were alraedy discussed and brought up. They are the only exception to that. Every other non-cantrip using class can't do it's stuff all day (save rogue - the only truly at will class in the game).

 

[FrogReaver]

most martial classes don’t do their special combat stuff more than a few times an encounter if that.

casters wouldn’t either but cantrips kind of bypass that.

Heck a high level Battlemaster gets 6 dice per short rest. That’s easily enough to use warlord stuff more than half their combat rounds.

@Maxperson, here was the post

 

[ECMO3]

A maneuver doing 1d8 damage at level 3 is 100 times better than a manuever doing 1d12 damage at level 20. I do think that might be where some of the flaw lies. Yes you get more dice and bigger dice but since the die size scales much slower than enemies gain hp then each dice becomes relatively less and less effective.

The saving throws also increase.

Moreover because the dice get bigger the manuevers scale better than the low-level wizard spells which must be upcast for more damage. Finally the conditions being set by the maneuver is where most of the maneuvers power is, not in the damage.

For example:
Using maneuvering attack to let a 20th-level wizard disengage from a pit fiend is every bit as big a deal as letting a 3rd level wizard disengage from a wight.

Using menacing attack to frighten a 20-th level pit fiend is as big a deal at 20th level as using it to frighten a wight at 3rd level

If you have a Rogue in the party, distracting strike is as powerful against a pit fiend at 20th level as it is against a wight at 3rd and if you have a monk in the party it is more powerful.

Moreover in addition to causing these conditions you are also doing substantial damage with your attacks (not counting the superiority dice) and at 20th level you are getting 4 of them. So these things, which all do scale, are a smaller part of your turn than at 3rd level. Using the two examples above - a 3rd level fighter with a longsword will do 12 damage from his weapon plus the maneuver affect. So it sets the condition and takes out slightly less than a 25% of the wights hps. At 20th level his attacks, if he spends a dice on each will do 64, over 20% of the pit fiends hit points and set 4 of the conditions for the maneuvers. That is a pretty basic build, adding feats and combining with a fighting style or bonus action attacks will make for more damage and more attacks.

 

[Fanaelialae]

There's no martial that can single handily and safely kill nearly any enemy that can fit in a 10x10 ft box. Or 20ft cage (without teleportation).
***By casting sickening radiance and forcecage.

Maybe, but the martial can do it pretty effectively in an antimagic zone or against an opponent with better counterspell capabilities.

Also, what happens if I (as DM) say that forcecage doesn't exist in my campaign world? I could ban longswords without unduly inconveniencing fighters.

I mean, it's a decent argument that forcecage might be OP. It doesn't prove that casters are though.