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

[Cap'n Kobold]

Not "good" compared to other classes. Useful yes, servicable or below average is how I would rate ability unless you really focuse on combat with feats and expertise.

The Rogue is like the kid on the playground picked last to play BBall. You would rather have him than no one, but he isn't the equal of the others.

Rogue Sneak Attack damage keeps up reasonably well with basic Fighter damage of Extra Attack + Fighting Style.

Maybe the skills should be there for however they want to develop their character. If a fighter wants to be persuasive then take the persuasion skill. It’s not that the fighter can’t do things out of combat. He has the option to decide what he wants to be good at outside combat.

That has never been in dispute.
The Fighter however pays a much higher opportunity cost to do so, and will severely degrade their combat ability, without their non-combat ability ever catching up to the classes that don't pay that opportunity cost.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I don't think this is true, at least in 5E. Wizard is gimped significantly because Intelligence is not the best statistic and doesn't play well with any other class except artificer (and that has only been an official class for about 9 months).

If any caster class has an outsized infulence it is Warlock and Sorcerer.

Even in 5e, Wizards are the best spellcasters in the entire game. They have the powerful and versatile spell list, can cast more spells in a day than almost any other caster, and most of their class and subclass features enhance their spellcasting as well.

They're better at skills than fighters, and their skills are ones that can't easily be substituted out with spells.

 

[ECMO3]

If you say "we have no need for a noble class since we have the noble background" someone else can say "we don't need the cleric class we have the acolyte background." Then you are back to the "how many classes" fight.

The cleric class is anot about working for a church, it is about being a spellcaster with spells granted by your god. Being a cleric does not make you an accolyte and you don't get background feature (shelter of the faithfull) because you are a cleric. Now you can probably get something comparable by working for a church and becoming trusted, but so could a Rogue or Wizard for that matter and a Rogue or Wizard who started with the accolyte background would have that on day 1.

A fighter who wants to be a "noble" can take the noble background. If he chooses another background he does not get the retainers or privilege of position features (and gets the feature of that background instead). If he still wants to "be a noble" he can seek out a king or lord and convince said lord to knight him down the road in the same manner a non-accolyte cleric could convince the church he is working for to shelter and employ him.

To be honest the background combination as it is works awesome for this and really lets any character be any theme. My assasin can even be a noble!

No, the fighter is a big violent ball of stupid. You can just choose to weaken your fighter in combat to make it not play to its strengths.
It gets one of the lowest amounts of mental class skills and have no base class features that benefit from it having a positive mental score.

This is not true. Five of the available fighter skills are based on Wisdom or Intelligence. That is MORE mental class skills than Barbarian, Cleric, Monk, Paladin, Rogue, Sorcerer and it is the same number as Warlock and Artificer.

Out of 11 other classes only 4 have more mental class skills - Druid, Bard, Ranger, Wizard

Here's a pair of questions.
1) Do you think the Fighter should have Persuasion as a class skill to represent the common trope of fighters of merchant, noble, and royal social class?

No, especially because fighters with those backgrounds do get it already. Logically if you want to play into that trope you would take that background. You can also take training, get it through a feat or get it with a fighter subclass.

The arguement here is I want to be a noble, but I don't want to take the noble background nor the fighter subclass specifically designed to mimic a knight. That logic makes no sense to me.

2) Do you think the Fighter should have a base class feature based on Charisma that boosts the morale of allies to represent the natural leadership D&D claims mid-level fighters possess?

Where is this "natural leadership" for a fighter than you speak of? This sounds like an outdated concept from 1E and if this is actually published material in 5E, that is what should change I think.

In any case all fighters have access to a charisma-based feature through the superb technique fighting style and multiple subclasses also have available charisma-based features.

 

[ECMO3]

Even in 5e, Wizards are the best spellcasters in the entire game. They have the powerful and versatile spell list, can cast more spells in a day than almost any other caster, and most of their class and subclass features enhance their spellcasting as well.

I agree with this, but I don't think they have an oversized influence on the game. If the Wizard fans had their way there would be no Warlock or Sorcerer at all. Further look in terms of volume of the number of sorcerer or warlock threads on this board compared to wizard threads.

They're better at skills than fighters, and their skills are ones that can't easily be substituted out with spells.

This is not true. To start with virtually any class can get any skill by trading their racial skill, and if they pick a rare race without a skill they can still get it through background, so this is not really significant. There is no skill a fighter has that a wizard can't get or vice versa.

That said if we are strictly comparing only class skills, the fighter has athletics, acrobatics and perception which are three of the top four skills in the game (with stealth being the fourth). They also have intimidation which is another pretty good one.

The only really good skill the wizard gets as part of his class is investigation and this is not as good as the "big three" available to a fighter.

As for the second part, i don't see where the fighter's skills can be easily replicated with a spell. You can use spider climb instead of athletics, to climb, but that does not really replicate the full breath of the athletics skill. Trueseeing will substitute for perception in a lot of instances, but that is extremely high in cost. I don't see the rest of them, especially the most useful ones.

 

[pemerton]

To me, some of the posts in this thread are curious, because in reply to explanations of how the current structure of PC building might be changed, they take as a premise that the current structure of PC building is a fixed constraint.

Suppose someone says, I'm playing a game of 5e D&D and want to play a warrior with some social capabilities - what would you advise?, then it makes sense to suggest a Battle Master fighter with the Noble background and maybe trading off a bit of DEX and/or CON to lift CHA from a low-ish default to something mid-ish instead.

But if someone says, I'm thinking about the design of 5e D&D and looking at tweaking it to make warriors with social capabilities - a common fantasy trope - more viable, then it makes little sense, to me at least, to reiterate that the Noble background is already there. Presumably the poster already knows that, and has factored that into their reflections on the design of 5e D&D.

The focus in this thread really seems to be about the synergy between core elements of class build, and non-combat (especially social) effectiveness. I think it's taken as largely evident that many caster classes have this, either because their core class abilities emphasise a mental stat, and/or provide mind-control or influencing spells, etc.

Rogues also I think are seen to provide this, because they are not inherently multi-state dependent and have lots of skill competence as a core class feature.

Fighters (and barbarians?) are naturally the focus of discussion because the core element of their class build generate a strong emphasis on non-mental stats and they have no class elements that emphasise non-combat action except (what I regard as) some poorly-conceived Battle Master manoeuvres.

 

[Minigiant]

The cleric class is anot about working for a church, it is about being a spellcaster with spells granted by your god. Being a cleric does not make you an accolyte and you don't get background feature (shelter of the faithfull) because you are a cleric. Now you can probably get something comparable by working for a church and becoming trusted, but so could a Rogue or Wizard for that matter and a Rogue or Wizard who started with the accolyte background would have that on day 1.

A fighter who wants to be a "noble" can take the noble background. If he chooses another background he does not get the retainers or privilege of position features (and gets the feature of that background instead). If he still wants to "be a noble" he can seek out a king or lord and convince said lord to knight him down the road in the same manner a non-accolyte cleric could convince the church he is working for to shelter and employ him.

To be honest the background combination as it is works awesome for this and really lets any character be any theme. My assasin can even be a noble!

An assassin could be an awesome noble because the rogue is less penalized for taking INT or CHA or both as a secondary stat.

But I love who you skipped the part when I said the noble class would be is own class. A full on skill user tilted to exotic and advanced training over skullduggery.

This is not true. Five of the available fighter skills are based on Wisdom or Intelligence. That is MORE mental class skills than Barbarian, Cleric, Monk, Paladin, Rogue, Sorcerer and it is the same number as Warlock and Artificer.

Out of 11 other classes only 4 have more mental class skills - Druid, Bard, Ranger, Wizard

But the fighter cannot get a decent INT/CHA/WIS score without severely harming their combat ability.

rolling proficincy with a +1 from ability score is a crapshoot. It is often bettern and less harmful for the casters or the rogue to handle INT/WIS /CHA rolls. This leads to the best way to play a fighter is as a big violent ball of stupid.

If the fighter wasn't 90% fighting this wouldn't be a problem.

No, especially because fighters with those backgrounds do get it already. Logically if you want to play into that trope you would take that background. You can also take training, get it through a feat or get it with a fighter subclass.

The arguement here is I want to be a noble, but I don't want to take the noble background nor the fighter subclass specifically designed to mimic a knight. That logic makes no sense to me.

What part of "skill training without matching high ability scores is weak" are you not getting.

Your fighter with 12 Cha and Persuasion proficiency has a very low bonus to their roll. This harms the whole "I'm a noble" concept because your fighter will fail most of their checks.

Where is this "natural leadership" for a fighter than you speak of? This sounds like an outdated concept from 1E and if this is actually published material in 5E, that is what should change I think.

In any case all fighters have access to a charisma-based feature through the superb technique fighting style and multiple subclasses also have available charisma-based features.

Tell that to all the people here saying "fighters are leaders" and "we don't need warlords, scholars, or aristocrats becuase those are fighters"

Oh by the way, The Samurai and Banneret don't offer Charisma class features until 7th level.
If subclasses were the fix,you'd get them at level 3.

And taking Superior Technique at level 1 for skill manuevers is argeeing to nerf oneself hard. No one would ever do that.

 

[Undrave]

and while the party is spending a day waiting for the Wizard to swap into the spell needed, the non-magical classes will have often already accomplished the goal.

Who's 'spending a day waiting'?! If the party ends a day of heavy fighting at an inn on the edge of town with clear plan to go there for lots of important non-combat suff the next day, then the Caster can naturally pivot to their more social loadout without having to 'wait a day'. This kind of sharp shift happens naturally ALL the time!

 

[Minigiant]

Who's 'spending a day waiting'?! If the party ends a day of heavy fighting at an inn on the edge of town with clear plan to go there for lots of important non-combat suff the next day, then the Caster can naturally pivot to their more social loadout without having to 'wait a day'. This kind of sharp shift happens naturally ALL the time!

Part of the issue is that D&D is balanced around dungeon delving and time pressured adventure.

The second the heat is taken off your necks, the spellcasters get unbalanced due to WOTC's love of pumping out new spells.

 

[Manbearcat]

In my opinion, the best way to sort out a Warlord in 5e would probably be:

* Use Rogue chassis.

* Sneak Attack becomes something like "Warlord's Gambit" where the Warlord can designate one PC to get Sneak Attack as an immediate action (spending a subsequent immediate action to change it).

* Sub Thieves Cant for dealing with military personnel/hierarchies.

* Sub Cunning Action for (a) having the game actually have functional, encoded Cohort rules where (b) the Warlord can having 1-3 Man-At-Arms (scaling with level) that they can spend a Bonus Action with each turn to Move or Help. Subclass will help you trick these Cohorts out.

* Sub Expertise and Reliable Talent for a mundane Iteration of Bardic Inspiration.

* Sub Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Blindsense, Slippery Mind, Elusive, Struck of Luck for fitting Warlord type stuff. 5e tech that is thematically in line with this stuff from PbtA and FitD games:

Seeing Red​

When you discern realities during combat, you take +1.

Evil Eye​

Requires: Seeing Red

When you enter combat, roll+CHA.

On a 10+, hold 2.

On a 7-9, hold 1. Spend your hold to make eye contact with an NPC present, who freezes or flinches and can’t act until you break it off.

On a 6-, your enemies immediately identify you as their biggest threat.

I Am the Law​

When you give an NPC an order based on your authority, roll+Cha.

On a 7+, they choose one:

• Do what you say
• Back away cautiously, then flee
• Attack you

On a 10+, you also take +1 forward against them.

On a miss, they do as they please and you take -1 forward against them.

Setup Strike​

When you hack and slash, choose an ally. Their next attack against your target does +1d4 damage.

Ever Onward​

When you lead the charge into combat, those you lead take +1 forward and +2 armor forward.


FORESIGHT

Two times per score you can assist a teammate without paying stress. Describe how you prepared for this.

You can narrate an event in the past that helps your teammate now, or you might explain how you expected this situation and planned a helpful contingency that you reveal now.

CALCULATING

Due to your careful planning, during downtime, you may give yourself or another crew member +1 downtime activity.

If you forget to use this ability during downtime, you can still activate it during the score and flashback to the previous downtime when the extra activity happened.

MASTERMIND

You may expend your special armor to protect a teammate, or to push yourself when you gather information or work on a long-term project.

When you use this ability, tick the special armor box on your playbook sheet. If you protect a teammate, this ability negates or reduces the severity of a consequence or harm that your teammate is facing. You don’t have to be present to use this ability—say how you prepared for this situation in the past. If you use this ability to push yourself, you get one of the benefits (+1d, +1 effect, act despite severe harm) but you don’t take 2 stress. Your special armor is restored at the beginning of downtime.

INSPIRING CAPTAIN

Your allies recover from harm faster. They permanently fill in one of their healing clock segments and take +1d to healing treatment rolls.

LEADER

When you Command a cohort in combat, they continue to fight when they would otherwise break (they’re not taken out when they suffer level 3 harm). They gain +1 effect and 1 armor.

This ability makes your cohorts more effective in battle and also allows them to resist harm by using armor. While you lead your cohorts, they won’t stop fighting until they take fatal harm (level 4) or you order them to cease. What do you do to inspire such bravery in battle?

---

That should do the trick.

 

[Undrave]

In my opinion, the best way to sort out a Warlord in 5e would probably be:

* Use Rogue chassis.

* Sneak Attack becomes something like "Warlord's Gambit" where the Warlord can designate one PC to get Sneak Attack as an immediate action (spending a subsequent immediate action to change it).

* Sub Thieves Cant for dealing with military personnel/hierarchies.

That's pretty much where I started my own Warlord class!