D&D 5E What Level is the Wizard vs. the Fighter?

[FrogReaver]

Action surge is absolutely the most boring possible mechanic to increase the power of a class. It's just, "I attack more". That's why I'm cool with the Level Up fighter, which ditches action surge in favor of a huge passel of other stuff.

Everything sounds boring when you take all nuance away and just say it's an I do 'X' more or I do "Y' better mechanic (which virtually everything fits into).

Wizard gains spells - it's boring cause it's just 'i cast more'
Rogue gains expertise - it's boring cause it's just 'i skill better'

I'm not saying action surge is the only possible mechanic for a fighter, but it's a solid and fun one IMO. I've never once seen it be boring in actual play and it's quite impactful.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Everything sounds boring when you take all nuance away and just say it's an I do 'X' more or I do "Y' better mechanic (which virtually everything fits into).

Wizard gains spells - it's boring cause it's just 'i cast more'
Rogue gains expertise - it's boring cause it's just 'i skill better'

I'm not saying action surge is the only possible mechanic for a fighter, but it's a solid and fun one IMO. I've never once seen it be boring in actual play and it's quite impactful.

Wizards cast more of different spells, they have a lot of options there. Action Surge is always going to be used as more attack, because the best status effect to give an enemy is "dead". That is impactful, but boring and predictable. It also wrecks havoc with fights on the DM side, because your monster just went from a little scratched up to dead in one round in many cases.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Action Surge is always going to be used as more attack, because the best status effect to give an enemy is "dead". That is impactful, but boring and predictable.

This is why I like the idea of Action Surge allowing more Actions instead of just more Attacks. Sure, you can use each new action to gain 1 attack, so it functions pretty much as written, but allowing the fighters to do other things makes it more interesting.

It also wrecks havoc with fights on the DM side, because your monster just went from a little scratched up to dead in one round in many cases.

While effective to a degree, I have never, not once, seen Action Surge do anything of this kind. I am not saying it isn't possible, just it has never been my experience.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is why I like the idea of Action Surge allowing more Actions instead of just more Attacks. Sure, you can use each new action to gain 1 attack, so it functions pretty much as written, but allowing the fighters to do other things makes it more interesting.


While effective to a degree, I have never, not once, seen Action Surge do anything of this kind. I am not saying it isn't possible, just it has never been my experience.

As you say, if you can use action surge for more attacks, that's what you'll get. The situations in combat when that's not the best move are vanishing small.

As to the other, an action surging 2 or 3 attack fighter can obliterate a lot of enemies nearly instantly in my experience. Very glad that's not the case for you.

 

[tetrasodium]

Not if getting those 25 hit points back for tomorrow is made much more difficult - instead of managing that resource only in the immediate here and now you have to manage with an eye to the future. That's IMO what the current edition(s) of the game have sadly lost.

Unfortunately in o5e getting those 25 hp back has almost certainly made tomorrow easier if "much more difficult" is almost anything below a bar of "absolute certainty of tpk". Along with those 25 hp comes many to all of the resources used to power the abilities that many classes used in the initial nova.

 

[DND_Reborn]

As you say, if you can use action surge for more attacks, that's what you'll get. The situations in combat when that's not the best move are vanishing small.

That's why I am hoping our new use of AS will make it more appealing to do things other than just attack. We will see, but it will be a while.

As to the other, an action surging 2 or 3 attack fighter can obliterate a lot of enemies nearly instantly in my experience. Very glad that's not the case for you.

Out of curiosity, was it just AS or was it because of optimization, magic items, etc. as well stacked on top of AS?

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's why I am hoping our new use of AS will make it more appealing to do things other than just attack. We will see, but it will be a while.


Out of curiosity, was it just AS or was it because of optimization, magic items, etc. as well stacked on top of AS?

All those other things play their part too. Most of my players are optimizers.

 

[DND_Reborn]

All those other things play their part too. Most of my players are optimizers.

That is probably a big part of it then. I only had one player who was really an optimizer, and he has since left the group. I also encourage making choices based on character growth more so than optimization.

Thanks.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As to the other, an action surging 2 or 3 attack fighter can obliterate a lot of enemies nearly instantly in my experience. Very glad that's not the case for you.

A CR2 ogre has 59 hp. An action surging 2 attack fighter needs to be at least level 5, and 3 attack needs to be at least level 11. A power attacking STR 20 greatsword wielder/great weapon master with a +2 sword does 5+8.33+10+2 or an average of 25.33 damage per hit - meaning that it's going to take an average of just under 3 hits to take out a single CR2 creature. As for taking out creatures with 25 hit points or less an action surging fighter struggles to keep up with the obliteration from a single fireball.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A CR2 ogre has 59 hp. An action surging 2 attack fighter needs to be at least level 5, and 3 attack needs to be at least level 11. A power attacking STR 20 greatsword wielder/great weapon master with a +2 sword does 5+8.33+10+2 or an average of 25.33 damage per hit - meaning that it's going to take an average of just under 3 hits to take out a single CR2 creature. As for taking out creatures with 25 hit points or less an action surging fighter struggles to keep up with the obliteration from a single fireball.

Is this for or against my assertion? An action surging fighter can easily hit three times and kill an ogre in 1 round. That's the point I was making.