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

[Sithlord]

Just emphasize the part that says:

Instead of the rest?

Nah. That takes the fun out of it. I want the crazy random encounters and bartering for keys and portal locations. But I am being facetious. That is a great ability to give the ranger and works great for any other game than mine. I like what you are doing.

 

[Manbearcat]

This is something I don't quite get. Why is spell casting necessary to travel to diverse locations, including other planes? Or to put it another way, how is a group of D&D players meant to work out that an ability/skill check - probably Intelligence (Arcana) - can't be used to find a way between planes?

Page 5 of the Basic PDF talks about the fundamental importance of magic, and links it to chapters 10 and 11 (ie not the chapters about ability checks). But how do we know that it needs magic, in that sense, to travel between planes? Why can't a fighter use a skill check to find a magical crossing or portal?

I'd say this is because the spell already exists, and the sorts of things skill checks can uncover are left deliberately vague. (See also: Horizon Walker).

Of course, even if Arcana did the job, going off point buy and the stat that governs Arcana, a fighter might not be making that check even if the DC were made plain for them.

This is something beyond the thread (and should be its own thread), but the skill system being linked to attribute scores with important skills not evenly distributed across stats characters are likely to boost means that some classes just have naturally better access to the skill check game. Yes, you can build a fighter that is pretty good at Arcana (great, even, if you pump int and take Skill expert), but you are spending considerable resources to do it, and that is but one skill.

I think it is exactly the vagueness of how skills work in 5e (particularly, but not entirely, social skills) that means it is a less discussed balance domain than spellcasting, but it is an important one.

You're correct, that indeed seems like a perfectly valid thing to do. I personally removed the plane shift spell from my game, so any travelling to other planes requires finding some sort of portal or liminal zone. But basically this is one of those things where you can either have an entire adventure about it, or if you have a wizard with the spell, and they can just snap their fingers and skip the whole thing. The former seems eminently more fun to me. I really feel that these sort of 'skip the adventure' spells are the the big problem, I'm not so fussed about smaller stuff.

I don't necessarily think an entire adventure should be required. I'm a big fan of telescoping in or out in detail of action declarations to suit pacing and interest.

In 4e D&D the basic structural difference between a spell (or ritual in 4e parlance) and a check is that the former will often guarantee a success in a skill challenge. I could also envisage - depending on context - that travelling instantly between planes might open up some fictional possibilities that are closed off by having to travel to, and through, a portal.

But that doesn't make spell casting essential.

I don't play 5e D&D, and my two main reasons for not being that interested in it are the asymmetric rest periods (related to the 6-8 encounter "day") and its underdeveloped to non-combat resolution (ability and skill checks).

But for those players who find the non-combat framework satisfactory, I don't see that it needs to be tightly quarantined so as to make spells essential to achieve goals like travelling to other parts of the multiverse.

That doesn't respond to the other matters that you raise. To the extent that useful non-spell abilities are gated behind non-physical stats, it makes sense to think about how those stats can be made viable for martial PCs.

The thing about high level casters is not that they can solve the problem of travelling to another plane with a spell; it's that they can approach solving an entirely different problem by travelling to another plane, or teleporting the party across the world, or summoning an outsider for a chat.

And spells generally just work. The problem with skills in D&D is that if we do x, then we can do y, then we can do Z, doesn't really work too well, but there's not much guarantee you can do X, so thinking too far ahead doesn't work.

Spells let X just happen. If travelling to another plane is the first step to possibly solving the problem and your chance of success is uncertain, both probability wise, but also in regard to the steps involved, then you're less likely to even throw it on the table.

And also this is the fun of high level D&D. I think you're really missing something if you don't have the experience along the lines of where you prepare that the only person who knew the true name of the lich king is dead and you expect them to track down his family and investigate and finally find that his secret has been passed down over generations to a young woman living an entirely ordinary life, but instead the PCs go visit the god of the dead and negotiate with him permission to travel into his realm, find the soul of the dead guy and speak to him directly.

Would I let PCs do this with just skills? Yes. Would they? My experience is probably not. (Well maybe in Planescape) People whine about players looking at their character sheets to solve problems but that is part of the fun, people look at their character sheet - see Planeshift and start thinking "How can I leverage that?"

Just grabbing all of these posts (which I agree with) that all engage with the same thing which is related to what I posted upthread (about why you don't have Arms Race shenanigans around lifting Wizard Spell Component Pouches off their belt in other games...because their cosmic power is still awesome, but its not overpowered!).

Its really a problem of holistic design/integration. There are many ways to solve the "overpowered Wizard problem." One well known-way is (a) have the game be scene-based where you (b) balance everyone on the same resource scheduling/recharge rate and (c) mechanics interact with this scene based design. Further, the "scene transition" mechanics are spread around (Rituals and Epic Destiny Features) so that all PCs can have access to them. This is also makes improv/Story Now play tremendously more easy. This is the 4e D&D and Cortex+ approach.

Then you have the Dungeon World approach where (a) everything works within the same move structure so Fighters swording and Wizards spellcasting both have to make moves/roll dice to make their archetypal shtick go. Further, where there are conflict mechanics, its all unified (like 4e mentioned above and other games with conflict mechanics). This brings me to a play excerpt I mentioned not long ago in @darkbard 's game that recently finished. The players were facing a multi-staged, brutal climb off a sheer face (which would be governed by "Climb Moves and Climb Conflict Mechanics") but the Wizard said "nah, I'll take us to a scary journey through the Ethereal Plane instead where we'll be dealing with potential dangers that lets us better leverage our strengths/movesets" (what meant they no longer needed their hired Sherpa and Porter Cohorts so they said goodbye to them, then play transitioned to a "Cast a Spell Move and then Journey Conflict Mechanics."):

Now they're playing a Blades in the Dark game where they're a Cult and darkbard is a Whisper (that game's Wizard/Sorcerer/Warlock archetype). One of the Spellcasting moves you can select at 1st level (you only get one choice) is like Ritualist in D&D. It looks like this:

Ritual
You know the arcane methods to perform ritual sorcery. You can Study an occult ritual (or create a new one) to summon a supernatural effect or being. You begin with one ritual already learned.

* Notice that he has ONE Ritual at the beginning of play. 1.

* Further, in order for him to cast this Ritual he has to spend 1 Downtime Activity (a precious resource in Blades).

* Further, there is a base cost to cast a Ritual equal to its Magnitude (Level) = to its Stress. So a level 3 Magnitude Ritual costs 3 Stress! That is 1/3 of the engine that you use to step-up/empower your moves during Scores and/or avoid Consequences!


And that is just the start of things. For instance, his Ritual is basically a version of 4e's Grasping Shadows. He "primes it" w/ his Downtime Activity and then unleashes it during a key moment of a Score. When he does so, he has to make the equivalent of a "Cast a Spell" move via Attune to see how well it goes off (and the group can martial resources to help him with this). Its Magnitude 3 however, so its Effect is virtually always going to always be Great early on (you "assess Factors" to determine Effect and Magnitude 3 means that 3 things would have to be against him - Scale/Potency/Tier/Quality - in order for him to even be break-even with Standard Effect...not going to happen much). So he can deploy Grasping Shadows during a Score to (a) get a Position/Effect boost on a Stealth move or (b) level a massive AoE Control effect when they need one (which doubles in its prowess because it doesn't kill...so it doesn't generate Heat).

Its super cool and super powerful. But there are many costs and it can absolutely go wrong and trigger Complications.

Sounds like what Wizarding should be yeah?


Further, maybe darkbard (the Whisper) wants to research a new Ritual that visits some horrific calamity upon one of Duskvol's wards (like a supernatural flood from the Ghost Field that prepares the way for his Goddess' return) that will (a) lay low an enemy Gang (reduce their hold and Tier as a result) while (b) keeping the Military and the Ministry and Bluecoats preoccupied so the Cult can reduce their Heat and opposition on a another Score.

* Well, he's going to have learn it via an 8 segment Progress Clock (which would be triggered by an extremely dangerous Occult or Social Score with an ancient power/demon that uncovers it). This will cost multiple Downtime Activities (probably 3) to pull off.

* Then we have to go through the procedures to resolve its creation. This sounds like a Magnitude 6 Ritual which is enormously powerful and dangerous and volatile.

* Now he has to spend a Downtime Activity to cast it (and, again, 6 Stress to deploy!).

* Given how powerful and dangerous it is, he'll be at Desperate Position to cast via an Attune Roll (which brings big time Complications on even a 4/5 result - Success w/ Complications).

* Then we create 2 Faction/Setting Clocks. One of those is a 6d6 Fortune (for the Magnitude 6 Ritual) vs the Crew they are laying low (which they'll have an opposing dice pool based on their Tier...so probably 2-4d6). That probably resolves within 2 Downtimes (very likely with the Crew suffering major losses and Down-Tiering). The second one is the same 6d6 Fortune vs all the factors of the Ward (which would end up with probably a 8d6ish dice pool. This one I would make Tug of War 10, starting at 4 (the result of the city's dice pool increasing this w/ the result of the Ritual's dice pool pulling it back). As long as its in action, the various security of the city is compromised (creating lower opposition for Scores related to or bulwarked by the city's infrastructure/security) and Heat is lowered for Scores.

* We'll start a multi-staged Clock that they can work on to bring their Goddess into the world. However, given the enormous danger here, we're also going to start another dangerous Clock against them called "Demonic Notice". They can try to interact with it to prevent it from going off but that will be difficult due to the Magnitude threat they would be squaring off against. When/if it goes off, they have a big time supernatural problem.



So again, cosmic power that profoundly changes situations/setting....but massively costly...hugely volatile and dangerous...extremely limited-use...and the system has extremely robust, encoded, table-facing structure and resolution machinery to resolve all of this.

Powerful, awe-inspiring, unbelievably dangerous and costly Wizardry.

And neither GMs nor PCs are sitting their inhabiting the (imo utterly brutal and disruptive and not remotely fun) cognitive workspace of ARMS RACE (including legerdemain shenanigans to pilfer component pouches...extradimensional spell/book-filchers...1001 other Calvinball Blocks) TO SHUT DOWN (or facilitate if you're the PC spellcaster or Team PC) THE SPELLCASTER'S CONSTANT DOMINATION OF PLAY!

 

[ph0rk]

It's good enough for what it needs to do.

Unless you're playing next to a barbarian that has figured out rage, reckless attack, and great weapon master.

Then, no, it isn't all that great; because it gets absolutely trounced at the thing it is supposed to be good at by what is a pretty simple thing to put together and play. Reckless attack for easy advantage and GWM isn't rocket surgery.

This is why I advocate separating out high level play into Epic levels.

Because if the most powerful archmage in your game world is Level 12 then you don't have Planeshift.

This is one of the easier fixes, true, but the problem is the book goes up to 20, so people want to see more than 60% of the range (whether or not that desire makes any sense).

Sort of like how once the epic level stuff for 3/3.5 was published, people wanted to play in that range, which was super broken even by 3/3.5 standards.

 

[Maxperson]

Unless you're playing next to a barbarian that has figured out rage, reckless attack, and great weapon master.

Then, no, it isn't all that great; because it gets absolutely trounced at the thing it is supposed to be good at by what is a pretty simple thing to put together and play. Reckless attack for easy advantage and GWM isn't rocket surgery.

It's still good enough for what it needs to do. The game isn't only about damage output, but also flavor. The Fighter class has a very different flavor from Barbarian and it does just fine at 5e.

 

[ph0rk]

The game isn't only about damage output, but also flavor.

The champion is about as flavorful a subclass as a fifty cent packet of ramen without the dust.

It has weak to no flavor and isn't even particularly good at what it is packaged as being (low maintenance damage output). It could be better at that and still be just as low maintenance, but it is not that.

 

[Undrave]

Nah. That takes the fun out of it. I want the crazy random encounters and bartering for keys and portal locations. But I am being facetious. That is a great ability to give the ranger and works great for any other game than mine. I like what you are doing.

I'm not doing anything, that feature was from the 4e book Martial Power

At best, I'm making a Warlord class...

 

[Maxperson]

The champion is about as flavorful a subclass as a fifty cent packet of ramen without the dust.

That's an opinion, but it's not the only one.

It has weak to no flavor and isn't even particularly good at what it is packaged as being (low maintenance damage output). It could be better at that and still be just as low maintenance, but it is not that.

So it could be better at damage. So what, really. It's still plenty good for 5e. Damage output isn't the end all, be all of playing the game.

 

[ph0rk]

So it could be better at damage. So what, really. It's still plenty good for 5e. Damage output isn't the end all, be all of playing the game.

It is at once bland and bad at damage and not terribly useful (in terms of subclass features) out of combat. As a subclass it gives little in the way of roleplaying hooks, particularly few outside of combat, and is also not even that great at combat.

But it's "okay" because 5e isn't hard.

By that argument, spellcaster balance is "okay" because 5e isn't that hard. Yet, here we are, in a thread predicated on the idea that spellcasters probably aren't balanced all that well in 5e and that it is not okay.

If you can make an argument about why it is good without resorting to ad populum, I'd like to see it.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Have u looked at the starting age of a wizard in 1E, mid 30s. It was explained that it took decades to be able to learn to cast a first level spell. That’s why I don’t like the ease of multiclassing for 3E and 5E.

And yet 3 months later the rogue is only 1 level ahead. And 12 months later the fighter is a level BEHIND.

 

[Maxperson]

It is at once bland

Subjective opinion.

and bad at damage

Also subjective opinion. At best you can say it's not as good as X, but rating it "bad" is pure personal opinion, and one that I disagree with. It's not at all bad at damage. It's just not as good as some other classes, and that's a big so what in an RPG. An RPG is not all about the damage, unless it is, in which case the issue is with whoever is making it all about the damage and not the subclass.

and not terribly useful (in terms of subclass features) out of combat.

Sure, but it doesn't have to subclass features for this. Everyone is automatically useful out of combat due to bounded accuracy. Unless the DM is screwing things up and inappropriately creating super high DCs for everything.

As a subclass it gives little in the way of roleplaying hooks, particularly few outside of combat, and is also not even that great at combat.

That's up to the player. I don't need subclass abilities to give me things to roleplay. I can make it up

But it's "okay" because 5e isn't hard.

By that argument, spellcaster balance is "okay" because 5e isn't that hard. Yet, here we are, in a thread predicated on the idea that spellcasters probably aren't balanced all that well in 5e and that it is not okay.

That's also opinion, though. I've seen no spellcaster dominance in the 5e games that I've played. Between concentration and most spells just being plain bad, and coupled with many fewer slots than prior editions, spellcasters are good, but not super god like. But then Fighters, including the Champion, are also good.

If you can make an argument about why it is good without resorting to ad populum, I'd like to see it.

Seeing as I've never used that fallacy here, I've already done it. I've said nothing about the popularity of the Champion. I've said that it does a good job at damage in 5e, because 5e is so easy that it's really easy to do a good job at damage.

If you want to counter my argument, you need to do better than, "Nuh uh!" which is what you've been doing with your declarations of, "It's bland," and "But another class does more damage," moving the goalposts to "out of combat stuff" and accusations of fallacies that aren't even being used.

So far you've given no valid counter argument.