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

[Maxperson]

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

so pathfinder pulled ahead when WOTC stopped putting out books...

edit: can we go back to caster/noncaster now? or is the edition war the only way to stop people from talking about making the game mor efun?

The last 4e product released was in August of 2012.

 

[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.

I've seen you use the phrase "optimizes too much..." or variations of that phrase quite often. What exactly does it mean?

A player takes a Diviner wizard, puts his high stat in INT takes a few divination spells and a smattering of attack and defense spells. Completely standard, and yet she's as "optimized" as any build you can get basically level 2-20. Is that too optimized?

A player takes a a few levels of hexblade in-between paladin levels, is that too optimized?

A player takes sharpshooter and crossbow expert, is that too optimized?

Or are you only talking about true cheese like the coffeelock (which should be explicitly banned anyway)?

 

[Lanefan]

IMHO, what I liked about 4e rituals wasn't just how it did them - it required time, skill checks, expenditure of material components or wealth, and sometimes other people expending their healing surges - but also the usual spells that existed exclusively in ritual form. A wizard could still do extraordinary and reality re-defining things, but there was a limit to how much they could do it in combat or even how readily they could do it out of combat too. I would personally prefer a greater distinction between magical spells and magical rituals.

That distinction can easily be achieved - and in effect was, as far back as 1e - by simply stating that certain spells have a casting time of 10 minutes, or even more. (and as IMO all spells should have a casting time anyway rather than the 3-4-5e start-and-finish-all-within-your-turn paradigm, this is trivially easy to do once those casting times for all spells are in place)

 

[Lanefan]

I don't trust DnDBeyond's numbers on that: champion fighters are the only free subclass on the platform and if you haven't bought the PHB, it's the only option you have. I wager the same thing is true about the evoker wizard, life cleric and thief rogue. I seem to recall a while ago that Matt Mercer's gunslinger was more popular than all the Xanathar subs too, probably again due to it's free status rather than an uptick in pistol-packing fighters.

What do roll20's numbers look like? That'd probably be a better sample as, I think, all classes are equally available there.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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.

Except in Ars Magica, everyone has a magi (the real character) and multiple grogs (the dirt farmers). Troupe play seemed to be common in D&D's early days, so it didnt matter if fighters kind of sucked because you had multiple to support your main (wizard) character.

A sidebar explaining that fighters are weak also doesn't help the player who wants to actually play a mythic warrior on par with the casters.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I specifically mentioned "the buff", whatever it was, knowing that there's going to be only one with concentration. Both are good, depending on circumstances.


If a fighter wants to play the tank properly and intercept threats, he has to take Sentinel, and he has the opportunity to do so.

I love how fighters have to spend a feat just to (poorly) do their job. Call me when casters have to spend a feat to cast each level of spells.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

There are plenty of complex options out there. Don't want to play a champion fighter? Play something else. It's not like you're lacking options.

They aren't fighter types though. We want a good mythic warrior, which doesn't exist. We want to not be beholden to DM pity with itemization to function.

Just because you love oatmeal doesn't mean we can't want steak without having to wear a robe.

 

[Faolyn]

Y'all need to be looking into Level Up, with its martial maneuvers. You can use them in 5e if you don't want to go whole-LU.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

You have no stats, but I'm with @Oofta on this one, not been a problem for us in any edition, ever, from BECMI to AD&D to 3e to 5e, and we've done 20 campaigns of that last one so far.

"I have a sandwich, how can anyone else be hungry?"

Maybe accept people at their word when they say fighter types as is in 5E are unsatisfying? We have a half dozen caster classes, a number of them redundant wastes of space (hi sorcerer/druid), so why does a certain crowd always pop up to shout down a new, complex fighter type class that they have no interest in playing anyways?

 

[Mort]

Y'all need to be looking into Level Up, with its martial maneuvers. You can use them in 5e if you don't want to go whole-LU.

Sure, I just checked them out. Disappointed that most are combat focused. So for the most part do little to aid the other tiers. There are SOME good additions, like soldier knacks that add outside of combat - and they're a great start.