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

[Minigiant]

When magic is in the game usually it's either tied to a mental stat or to a magic stat. 50% of games are designed that way. The other 50% has a separate magic power stat.

Physical stated characters don't have to jump through hoops to do anything - unless you are trying to count not casting spells as jumping through hoops...

My point is that the mental stat and physical stat grows in supernaturalness at the same rate.

In Vampire, the super strong Brujah and super fast Toredor are as supernatural as the blood mage Tremere and body warping Tzimisce and mind controlling Ventrue.

Might, Mind,and Magic grow at the same rate of fantasy.

If a caster keyed off Con, things would be worse not better. Those casters would be even better tanks than fighters.

Half of 4e warlocks were Con based and they were still squishy. Mine died*.

*technically it was a suicidal heroic sacrifice. The man was nuts and brave.

Keying off mental stats has been a thing for forever (and isn't isolated to just D&D) - for better or worse it's a thing.

I have no problem with keying off of mental stats. My issue is that mental stats get attached to afast growing fantasy while physical don't.

Making Dex be better doesn't help the fighter or Barbarian. Generally people feel the dex based classes get enough utility.

That's most like I said 5e protected some of the physical stats by nerfing the combat spells. You can't stack buffs and can't nonchalantly toss them out until level 9+.

Demigod feats goes back to people in general not actually wanting to play demigod fighters. They want more grounded fighters.

I think this is wrong. The D&D fanbase is divided on this. That's were half the issues come from. Some players want grounded fighters at higher levels. Others want fighters to break the bonds of "base game reality".

That's why I keep saying D&D might need to create new "fighter classes"

 

[Maxperson]

So just like Minigiant said, you're still forcing a clock.

Just to service the broken long rest system.

Nope. The world didn't stop in 1e, 2e or 3e, either. I'm forcing nothing. I just play a living world is all. The group can choose to wait for as long as it wants, but the world will move on without them or towards them as the case may be.

 

[Campbell]

If only there were some way for some groups to use one set of rules and another group to use a different while playing the same game. Some sort of module as it were.

More seriously I think Pathfinder Second Edition handles the more out there high level abilities pretty well. The more modular character design let's it be largely up to the player and/or group decision. Especially with the real out there stuff being marked as uncommon or rare and thus much more in the hands of the GM.

World Without Number also utilizes much more modular design for that sort of stuff.

 

[Undrave]

Page 100! Woo! We're on fire...

 

[FrogReaver]

Half of 4e warlocks were Con based and they were still squishy. Mine died*.

*technically it was a suicidal heroic sacrifice. The man was nuts and brave.

4e was a different system with different Con rules.

 

[Minigiant]

4e was a different system with different Con rules.

Not really.

Every edition describes CON the same. 4e was just the one to take the description to its logical fantasy conclusion.

If CON is your health, stamina, and ability to withstand pain and exhaustion without it affecting you, then you could have a PC whose gimmick is that they are gifted with power physically and the higher their CON, the more they can be gifted.

I've toyed with the idea as a new class based on CON where you take a number of invocation like abilities based on your level and CON score. Eventually the PC looks a lot like the fantasy version of a 40k Space Marine due to withstanding alchemical, runic, demonic, or lycanthropic enhancements. Never finished the class though.

 

[FrogReaver]

Not really.

Every edition describes CON the same. 4e was just the one to take the description to its logical fantasy conclusion.

If CON is your health, stamina, and ability to withstand pain and exhaustion without it affecting you, then you could have a PC whose gimmick is that they are gifted with power physically and the higher their CON, the more they can be gifted.

I've toyed with the idea as a new class based on CON where you take a number of invocation like abilities based on your level and CON score. Eventually the PC looks a lot like the fantasy version of a 40k Space Marine due to withstanding alchemical, runic, demonic, or lycanthropic enhancements. Never finished the class though.

In 4e your Con didn't increase hp by con mod per level. In 5e it does. This has a significant effect on tankiness in 5e. It's a huge difference. And one that I honestly cannot believe you are downplaying. Making a con caster in 5e would be terrible from a game balance perspective. I mean I get it conceptually and it does have a conceptual place - but unless con only marginally increases hp it's not something able to be placed into a game.

*In 4e con most notably increased your number of healing surges - primarily increasing how many encounters you could go through before a long rest on an adventuring day.

 

[Minigiant]

In 4e your Con didn't increase hp by con mod per level. In 5e it does. This has a significant effect on tankiness in 5e. It's a huge difference. And one that I honestly cannot believe you are downplaying. Making a con caster in 5e would be terrible from a game balance perspective. I mean I get it conceptually and it does have a conceptual place - but unless con only marginally increases hp it's not something able to be placed into a game.

*In 4e con most notably increased your number of healing surges - primarily increasing how many encounters you could go through before a long rest on an adventuring day.

I think you are missing the obvious that a CON caster in 5e would be spending HP in some way as they cast so they wouldn't be that tanky

 

[Tinker-TDC]

I think a CON caster would be cool and could probably be balanced with hit-dice and armor options (though multiclassing makes that hard) but isn't the crux of this argument about casters vs martials?

I'd love some sort of blood mage that takes the spellcasting right from their body but a mage is still a mage.

Unless that's a barbarian thing where your 'recklessness' is auto-damage for barbarian maneuvers or something.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think you are missing the obvious that a CON caster in 5e would be spending HP in some way as they cast so they wouldn't be that tanky

Spending hp for effects is also a nearly impossible to balance mechanic with characters that cannot do so. You always end up in a situation where spending your hp for a spell saves more hp or where it saves less. It also lets you indirectly convert your hp into allies hp (defacto spreading damage). Given that you start with more hp this way and given how concentration works, it essentially makes already versatile casters much more versatile and stronger.

And I guess the biggest issue of all, healing restores your spells and it's easy to get out of combat healing to be super efficient. How on earth does something like this get balanced in 5e?