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

[Mort]

any monster can be given more spell resistance, more hitpoints, and higher saves. boom high level monster. I think the current trend of people wanting rules to fix everything and GM to just be a referee kill GM creativity.

Sure, and that's fine.

But, for me, I like high level play to actually be different.

I don't always want orc but bigger and better. Hill giant but tougher and better etc.

For high level play to be fun (for me) the stakes have to be higher and the challenges something that just were not a thing in the lower levels.

It's one reason the early pathfinder modules rang hollow for me (maybe the latter fixed this?). Higher levels were basically the same adventures/challenges as the lower levels but with the numbers increased.

 

[Mort]

Same things here. There are so many factors influencing what's happening around the table, from the situations and monsters chosen by the DM to the way characters are played to what the party finds as treasure (Wizards need gold for their Spellbooks for example) that theoretical considerations about balance have very little value in practice. I think that was one of the realisations of 4e, by creating something extremely formal, they thought to solve the problem of balance, and they did, but in a way that stifled the game. Some people with high creativity went around the limitations, but it's clear that the 5e design aimed at reinstating the DM's control that allows full creativity for all as well as giving him the tools to balance things.

Not sure I agree on 4e. 4e played MUCH better than it read - I found running it smooth and easy and the players all had a blast with few rules clashes etc. coming up in play.

But reading through it was a bit of a slog. The endless powers and the truly boring and dry lists of magic items were a downer. Now, I was ok - sadly I'm quite used to reading loads and loads of dry material. But it couldn't have helped the actual game - and 5e adjusted accordingly it reads quite well, even though that sacrifices some precision.

Moreover, in the end, it's not a question of power or possibilities, it's simply a question of fun, which might be linked to neither of the two points before, depending on player preferences in particular. And there, the DM has all the tools at his disposal for the cases where the players, as mature players, don't actually regulate themselves like the players at our tables do, with casters buffing martials and people being conscious that spotlight hogging is not the right way to play a collaborative game.

Now here I mostly agree. BUT the problem is, this model is GREAT for an experienced table/group of players. It's awful for new groups. They don't know the balancing issues, the best way to synergize the classes, etc. And the game doesn't really tell you. If the DMG was upfront about this stuff and had advice on how to make it all work in play - that would go a LONG way for new groups.

 

[Lyxen]

Not sure I agree on 4e. 4e played MUCH better than it read - I found running it smooth and easy and the players all had a blast with few rules clashes etc. coming up in play.

It worked for some tables, and did not for all. As for us, it's not that it did not work technically, it's that it was not creating the kind of game what we prefer.

But reading through it was a bit of a slog. The endless powers and the truly boring and dry lists of magic items were a downer. Now, I was ok - sadly I'm quite used to reading loads and loads of dry material. But it couldn't have helped the actual game - and 5e adjusted accordingly it reads quite well, even though that sacrifices some precision.

It's honestly a completely different game, both in reading and playing, especially if you play it out of the box (in particular TotM).

Now here I mostly agree. BUT the problem is, this model is GREAT for an experienced table/group of players. It's awful for new groups. They don't know the balancing issues, the best way to synergize the classes, etc. And the game doesn't really tell you. If the DMG was upfront about this stuff and had advice on how to make it all work in play - that would go a LONG way for new groups.

And the thing is that the technical imbalance only really happens at high level or for people who optimise too much, so IMHO it's self-correcting.

 

[Mort]

And the thing is that the technical imbalance only really happens at high level or for people who optimise too much, so IMHO it's self-correcting.

Optimization is a combat thing in 5e (mostly) and that's not where I see the problem at all (as in everyone is mostly fine at combat, especially at low levels). The problem comes into play in the other pillars, and not only at high level, where martials have significantly less mechanical support than casters and the DM has to make up a lot of the difference.

 

[Lanefan]

lets say a campaign makes it to 9th level with 0 scrolls and 0 spell books in it for the wizard.
they start with 6 spells at 1st level and get 16 more for the 8 levels... so at level 9 with no treasure no extra they have 22 spells over 5 levels.
8 1st
4 2nd
4 3rd
4 4th
2 5th

If that's 5e by RAW then it's way more generous than what I'm used to.

In 1e by RAW you start with 4 spells (with a DMG option to make it 5 instead) and you get one new one each time you train, of the highest level you can cast; thus by 9th your minimum would be:

5 1st (optionally 6)
2 2nd
2 3rd
2 4th
1 5th

Most important, all* of these spells are randomly assigned! The wizard has no choice; she gets whatever spell the trainer happens to teach her.

* - at 1st level three of the spells are randomly assigned one from each of three lists: offensive, defensive, and miscellaneous. The fourth (and fifth, if used) can be any. All the other spells are random among the entire list for that level.

 

[Lanefan]

I agree I think more options in combat (as well as outside of it) for fighters would be nice. It bothers me that 99% of the time the best option is always "attack". There is rarely any reason to do anything else--no maneuvering, no tactics, virtually nothing.

I guess I'm in the camp that says "just attack" is fine; because even then there's always options that don't involve attacking: move, talk, parry, run away, etc.

If I want "battlefield control" I'll just yell in-character to my fellow front liners to push forward or form a line or whatever; it's up to them (and sometimes their dice) whether they (are able to) comply or not, I can't - and shouldn't be able to, IMO - force them.

Things like position, grappling, etc. should be more impactful IMO, but the design of 5E is simplicity so such things have gone by the way side.

Position and facing is pretty easy to add back in. Grappling - well, dunno 'bout you but I've yet to see a rule-set for grappling that's of any use at all, so I'm happy if it never really comes up.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Grappling - well, dunno 'bout you but I've yet to see a rule-set for grappling that's of any use at all,

LOL I agree for the most part (I like to think ours helps a bit), but that is really part of the problem. In fights, grappling is huge thing, and it always has been in real combat. So, why can't we come up with a viable option that is actually useful, at least against some opponents? What is it about grappling that makes that so hard to do?

 

[Lanefan]

There have been very few suggestions other than things like giving fighters an at-will jump spell along with people saying that fighters should be better than world-record setting modern athletes.

I suggested some ways and means of reining casters in some through making spells both harder to cast and in some cases riskier to use, but I'm not sure if it was in this thread or another.

But IMO reining casters in is the answer, not boosting martials - the game's over-the-top enough at high levels already, no need to make it any worse.

 

[Lanefan]

and according to wikipiedia 4e ended in 2011
View attachment 151307

Those are release dates only. Applying your logic to the chart above, 5e must have ended in 2015.

Seems a few people might not have got the memo...

 

[FrozenNorth]

And the thing is that the technical imbalance only really happens at high level or for people who optimise too much, so IMHO it's self-correcting.

That was true 20 years ago, but it is not true now when a first-time player (not wanting to break the game, just wanting to be effective) copies a build off the Internet.