D&D General Chris just said why I hate wizard/fighter dynamic

[Crimson Longinus]

So just maybe, Fighters don't actually need to be balanced with Wizards in terms of power. Maybe that's actually part of the fun.

Then that needs to be outright stated so that the players can make informed choices. Like in Ars Magica, where it is clear that the mages are far more powerful than the companions.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

How does more encounters fix the lack of cool things to actually do beyond 'I 'it 'em wit me sword... TWICE' and possibly 'I try to trip or other maneuver one in an encounter and fail through the power of bounded accuracy'.

The 5e math makes it so that manuevers succeed much more than they fail.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well in my High games the martials and rogues have plenty of shenanigans they can play with high level items or just thier own intelligence. Had a rogue in one party drug the mage, tie him up and had his guild torture him for about a week because he was bad for business. then they let him go with a warning. He never knew his own party member helped. But he was much more worried about how his spells affected the cities he was in after that. And a mage casting some big spell is no different than a cleric doing it or a rogue killing the king, or the high cleric, or the fighter starting a war with the local thieves guild and completely derailing the party and DM's plans. If your powerful mages aren't afraid of kings, nobles and high level , Clerics, Paladins, and rogues your not a very good DM. no one can watch thier back every minute of every day.
for those Dm's that only want to run dungeon crawls and don't let the campaign world impact things, find a different system, your never going to be happy with D&D or pathfinder.

Using your own intelligence isn't allowed. You have to have reality-altering class features or you suck, apparently.

 

[Mort]

Using your own intelligence isn't allowed. You have to have reality-altering class features or you suck, apparently.

Any player can use their own intelligence for their PC - so it has no bearing to a discussion on relative power level of the various classes.

The player who can use his own intelligence to get the most out of the fighter can ALSO use his own intelligence if playing a wizard, cleric etc.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Any player can use their own intelligence for their PC - so it has no bearing to a discussion on relative power level of the various classes.

The player who can use his own intelligence to get the most out of the fighter can ALSO use his own intelligence if playing a wizard, cleric etc.

Not to downplay what you want, but ultimately the amount of fun you have playing your character has more to do with choices and attitude than anything else. I agree that improvements can be made, but I just don't see WotC making the ones you want, since this an old hand problem and they're chasing the new blood in large part. This is where 3rd party products (like Level Up) really shine.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Not to downplay what you want, but ultimately the amount of fun you have playing your character has more to do with choices and attitude than anything else. I agree that improvements can be made, but I just don't see WotC making the ones you want, since this an old hand problem and they're chasing the new blood in large part. This is where 3rd party products (like Level Up) really shine.

They are rolling back so much garbage that resulted from the Playtest, we have hope.

 

[Lanefan]

I just ran a game where the wizard was an Evoker. And when we played in the naturally occurring areas - dungeons, caves, outdoors, even in a castle, it didn't matter. He cast fireball as often as possible, used his Evoker ability to make all his friends immune to the damage, and threw them with impunity. He could place it to avoid destroying the wood and rope bridge, etc. Always worked. Always exactly where he needed it. Shrug.

Don't look to WotC to fix this - ever - as their history thus far shows they're solidly on the side of magic being easy, harmless to allies, and working perfectly every time.

You're on your own here; so for your next campaign, start house-ruling.

That make-my-friends-immune ability? Heave ho, out it goes.

Always works? Make spells easier to interrupt. No more "combat casting".

Always exactly where it's needed? Not if you make 'em roll to aim it.

And if that still doesn't do the trick, make fireballs riskier by having them expand to fill their whole volume a la 1e - for quick reference that volume works out to about 33 10x10x10' cubes.

When he didn't throw fireballs, it was Firebolt. And that was all he took. I mean, he used his ritual to throw up a Leomund's Hut, and other things to ignore worrying about resting, etc., so didn't have to worry about having it memorized. He used his Detect Magic ritual to do that.

The more I hear about ritual casting the more broken it seems.

 

[Faolyn]

well my warrior was useing medium armor (cause I had mithril magic medium armor) I had some gold, my axe, a shield, a tent, some food some rope and 3 magic items (not counting the armor and axe both magic). at later levels I did carry a separate bag of cloths... what else do I need?

One of my characters has "a lot of candy" on her character sheet.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The more I hear about ritual casting the more broken it seems.

Back in 4E lots of people just ignored it because it costed time and money; so WOTC must have removed those barriers in 5th Edition?

I just ran a game where the wizard was an Evoker. And when we played in the naturally occurring areas - dungeons, caves, outdoors, even in a castle, it didn't matter. He cast fireball as often as possible, used his Evoker ability to make all his friends immune to the damage, and threw them with impunity. He could place it to avoid destroying the wood and rope bridge, etc. Always worked. Always exactly where he needed it. Shrug.

When he didn't throw fireballs, it was Firebolt. And that was all he took. I mean, he used his ritual to throw up a Leomund's Hut, and other things to ignore worrying about resting, etc., so didn't have to worry about having it memorized. He used his Detect Magic ritual to do that. So, again, unless I continually ran some kind of clock (which gets boring every. single. adventure), or specifically built environments to counter him (which I did have some monsters resistant to fire), all he had to do was throw those around. The rest of the casters in the party filled in the gaps (Cleric, Twilight Cleric/Sorcerer, Rogue/Warlock, and Arcane Archer).

And the Arcane Archer was the weakest of them all (which that class is), and always went unconscious in most fights, without targeting him specifically.

I've been on the side of "the system makes casters too powerful" for many of these threads but a wizard casting Fireball being too hard to handle is something else. Fireballing is basic stuff (especially at higher level) that should be easily handled. There's half a dozen ways to deal with it...

 

[Lanefan]

Back in 4E lots of people just ignored it because it costed time and money; so WOTC must have removed those barriers in 5th Edition?

It still takes time, but if the characters have the time this becomes irrelevant (no change there from 4e); and they can't always be on a clock.

I'm not sure about the money part.