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D&D 5E Truly Understanding the Martials & Casters discussion (+)

It was not confused. The fighter had 14 dex because it was a strength based fighter using a bow, are you attempting to change the whiteroom being discussed? A strength based fighter with the extreme damage gap who "at least kept up" when switching to a suboptimal weapon like a 500gp+1 bow in their weak area is hardly a case for the kinds of gestalt PC level improvements being thrown about as needed.
I don't want to white room anything.
I want you (general you) to accept that in 30ish years I have seen the caster supremacy thing be a problem in all but 1 edition, and yes it is too diffrent degrees (3e was worst, not sure if 2e or 5e was better becuse or rose tinted glasses but I want to say 5e is better then 2e that was better then 3e in this regards)

but forget any 1 example (but I cna give you from play ones and I have) casters have more options more power more choices...
If it was a dex based fighter specialized in bows you could change it to 4.5(the bow's d8 avg)+5(dex+2(the bow mods)+10(sharpshooter) for a total of 21.5 per shot across 3 shots. That too is more than both 5.5+nothing(d10 avg) of firebolt and 6.5+nothing(d12 average). The the caster gains extra dice, but those gains are made adjacent to the fighter extra attack gains that multiply the bonuses & modifiers
yes and I have never argued that a fighter who is built for damage of a type in a situation of doing damage of that type can not out perform over time the at will damage of any class... my arugment is THE ONLY thing that can be built to be better is damage, and even then a caster can prep and in the right circumstances out perform... but NOTHING the fighter EVER does will let them out perform in other areas...
At the end of all that 5.5 will still aleways be less than 6.5 rather than the other way around as claimed earlier.
 

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The Champion's crit chance is a really bad damage feature, if your goal is to compare it to the effectiveness of other features. If the goal is simplicity über alles, then it is of course great because it's one of the simplest possible damage sources in the game.

Let's say we're looking at a Champion Fighter with 15% crit chance (crit on 18, 19, or 20), a typical net hit rate of 60% (this may be slightly low or slightly high, but 60% is a good ballpark; crits are part of this value) and using a greatsword (greataxe has bigger highs, but lower lows and the numbers are better for greatsword unless you're a half-orc). We'll further assume great weapon style since the Fighter can easily have that. Feats are irrelevant in this context (they're unaffected by crits; the Champion gets the same bonus from them as anyone else.) 20 Strength, of course, since any Fighter should have that by this time.

Average damage per regular hit: 4.125+5 = 9.125. Average damage per crit: 2*4.125+5 = 13.25. Expected damage per attack: .4*0+.45*9.125+.15*13.25 = 6.09375. Then, by using the expected damage without this crit benefit (.4*0+.55*9.125+.05*13.25 = 5.68125) we can calculate the average damage gained per attack. While numbers at this fine a degree are not useful for singular attacks, we're looking at averages over entire adventuring days, perhaps even over several of them, so it will be a good approximation. The Champion Fighter gets (approximately) 6.09375-5.68125 = 0.4125 extra damage per attack (averaged across all attacks, not just all hits.)

For the sake of argument, we'll take the most favorable, designer-expected conditions, that is 8 fights every day and three short rests so this Fighter is getting maximal use of Action Surge in combat. We'll also assume that the Fighter is never unable to attack anything (perhaps the axe can be thrown, but magically returns to the user, I dunno.) A typical fight is not longer than 4 rounds, usually less. That gives us 4*8 (regular combat rounds) + 4 Action Surges (won't get more per rest until level 17) = 36 combat rounds. Each combat round is 3 attacks at this level. So the expected damage increase, under these conditions, is 0.4125*36*3 = 44.55 bonus damage.

By comparison, a Battle Master that uses her maneuvers, whatever they may be, has 6d10 per short rest. I will assume inefficiency, thus this Battle Master always holds onto at least one die at the end of combat, thus never gaining the benefit of the "if you have no superiority dice and roll initiative, you regain one superiority die" feature. With four rests (finishing the long rest and taking 3 short rests), the Battle Master gets a total of 6*4 = 24d10 dice. Because there are several maneuvers which only trigger when you've hit the target and which just let you add the superiority die to your damage, there's no need to perform any hit calculations, so long as we assume that the aforementioned Battle Master can manage to land 6 attacks before each rest (an extremely safe assumption). You just get a bonus 24d10 = 24*5.5 = 132 bonus damage.

The Battle Master gets at least triple the extra damage that the Champion gets, under circumstances taken to be almost maximally favorable. IOW, Superior Critical is garbage. Even if you cut out one of those short rests, costing the Battle Master 6 superiority dice, 18*5.5 = 99, still more than double the Champion's bonus damage (before factoring in that the Champion just lost 3 rounds of crit-fishing due to getting one less Action Surge!) Further, that's in extremely unfavorable circumstances PLUS the Battle Master literally never triggering their minor recharge. (In general, it's also more efficient for them to instead take Great Weapon Master as a feat, if allowed, and use Precision Attack to mitigate the loss, since that always gives +10 damage but becomes an average of 1d10-5 = +0.5 to hit, meaning you do slightly better than breaking even on your hit chances. This is one of the reasons some DMs dislike such feats.)

Edit: Now, I didn't factor in Advantage, which would help fix some of the impact. But even with how profligate 5e is with advantage, I don't think you're going to get it often enough to have that much of an impact.

With advantage, your crit chance becomes 0.2775 while your hit chance (presuming the aforementioned 60% normal hit chance) becomes 1-0.4*0.4-0.2775 = 0.5625, vs. the normal 0.0975 crit vs 1-.4*.4-0.0975 = 0.7425, giving expected Champion damage-per-attack of .5625*9.125+.2775*13.25 = about 8.81, while non-Champions would have 0.7425*9.125+0.0975*13.25 = 8.07. This gives a net damage gain of 0.7425 per attack, or 0.7425*36*3 = 80.19 extra damage. Which is definitely an improvement, but it's not even 2/3 the bonus that the intentionally-inefficient Battle Master can bring, if the Champion is somehow always getting advantage on all attacks.
I believe that this analysis also assumes that the battlemaster never crits which would further increase the impact of the superiority dice.
 

Every fighter in every game has a +1 weapon by 5th level at the latest. Pretending otherwise is willful blindness.
I can tell you flat out this is totally and completely untrue. I often run games with the party if lucky to have a single +1 items by level 5, let alone "every fighter".

So, you might not want to assume such blanket statements are true for everyone. Otherwise, you are being willfully blind, yourself.

WotC themselves demonstrate this in the suggested starting equipment in the DMG:
1645204665804.png


You'll notice unless you play a high magic campaign, they don't suggest you have any magic items at all until level 11.
 

As has been said. Fighter powers are additive, spells are isolated. A 6th level spell will only ever be as good as it is on the page (bar some very minor tinkering from feats/subclass). Many fighter abilities stack, which in combination are better than a single spell.
what build is better then legend lore, teleport, or passwall?

If indeed they are willing to use their precisions concentration on buffs rather than bigbys hand etc. And more importantly waste the first two rounds of combat - the single biggest cost to a wizard - the action economy.
what aare you talking about? I don't understand this
How is getting advantage on saves against banishment and dominate, and all those supposedly awesome cantrips etc etc a joke? I can also add legendary resistance the mix for an extra gut punch for wizards.
so sometimes the wizards awsome win buttons don't work... so no one but wizards should ever get win buttons...

add banishment to the above list of "what build of fighter can do it better"
Every fighter in every game has a +1 weapon by 5th level at the latest. Pretending otherwise is willful blindness.
I have not only played in games that this is not true for, I can't imagine you never gave out weapons with properties that were not +1 or just didn't roll a + weapon at all...
They don’t need them, they take the enemy of the fight permanently, by killing them. Unlike hold monster which just means it needs a fighter to deal with it in a couple of rounds, when the wizard is out of spells.
so wizards can't kill and fighters can't immoblize seems fair, but how many times did fireball kill someone... seems strange
t means losing another high level slot, and spending time re-applying the buff again. Else being vulnerable.
so the downside of playing a caster is sometime your win buttons don't work... got it.
One feat. Of which the fighter get several.
clerics bards hexblades all get plenty too... at 10th level the fighter has +1 over custum linage or human or equal... at level 20 it's +1 or +2
It’s still an extra cost the wizard balances that the fighter doesn’t.
doesn't work
Yes, they generally have less Hp. That was my point. They have 66% of the hp + Con. I’m not sure why this is controversial.
1-2hp per level 20-40hp over 20 levels... and with that trade off clerics get spells that heal and give buffhp no concentration... so catch right back up, or win button, or something fighters can't do... there choice.
Mage armour gives you AC 13 + Dex. Cleric armour? It’s amazing how you try and cherry pick the best feature from each caster and pretend they apply to them all.
I'm not applying them all I am showing that they all have things... no class is a noncombat class in 5e
Plenty to spend those precious points. Though I prefer EK
not as many as a wizard knows spells... and of course you prefer EK (most do) becuse of caster supremacy
Only painfully slowly, and dependent on the time and materials available.
wow so casters can do things non casters can't but it takes time so it's okay!?!? are you listening to yourself?
Magic adept is fun. It it’s once a day. Fighter feats can add useful abilities to every single round of combat for extremely efficient action economy.
again yes feats give fighters boosts... feats give wizards boosts... feats give clerics boosts... so they are even the fighter in the BEST HIGHEST example gets 2 of them... show me any wizard who would trade 9th level spells for 2 feats
 

Then things are roughly balanced. The fighter is superior in what is in many, if not most games the most important pillar(xp, treasure, time taken during games, etc.), and the wizard is superior in the other lesser pillars. I do think the fighter could use a bit of help in the other pillars, but if he's kicking wizard rear in combat, things are working as intended.
unless you run the 2 most resent adventures... both can be combat free and most times will be combat lite.
 

And at 15th level, assuming you make it that long, the champion triples their crit chance! Wowza!

Oh wait, double is only a 10% chance. And triple is only 15%?
When you are attacking that many times, it comes up quite often.
Sounds less impressive when I put it that way.
Not really. We can all do basic math and know the percentages. The fact remains that while the 20th level wizard is critting once per 20 cantrip castings(20 rounds worth) on average, the fighter is swinging 80(assuming no action surges at all) times over the same 20 rounds and critting 12 times on average.

And that's the weakest and least played(in my experience) fighter subclass.
 

At the end of all that 5.5 will still aleways be less than 6.5 rather than the other way around as claimed earlier.

Even if you take into account accuracy?

Level 1: Average monster AC is 13:

Wizard (INT 16): +5 to hit, Chance to hit 65%. So average damage 3.58
Fighter (Dex 14): +4 to hit Chance to hit 60%. Average damage 3.9

Fighter is ahead here, but not by much (not going to have a +1 bow yet)

Level 5: Average monster AC is 15

Wizard (INT 18) +7 to hit, Chance to hit 65%, Average damage (assuming no Int added) 7.15
Fighter (Still Dex 14) +5 to hit, chance to hit 55%, Average damage 7.15

Wizard has pulled level, using a cantrip.

Assuming the fighter gets a +1 Bow (a weapon that's not his primary focus but ok)

+6 to hit, chance to hit 60%, average damage 7.8, higher - but not by much.

Level 11: Average monster AC is 17

Wizard (Int 20) +9 to hit, Chance to hit is 65%, Average damage is 10.73
Fighter (Dex 14) +7 (Assuming he actually got a +1 bow), Chance to hit 55%, average damage is 10.73

So par, even assuming a magic weapon.

I don't think that's favorable to the fighter at range. The wizard has many, many other options if he so chooses - the fighter does not without outside conditions.

This was pretty quick and dirty - welcome anyone checking my math.
 

Counter counter: the fighter lacks sufficient resources to do so without significantly diminishing their effectiveness.
They don't lack sufficient resources, though. The fighter has 7 ASI's and can easily get to 20 strength, 20 dex and a high(16-18) con. They can be very good at both ranged and two handed strikes.
 

I can tell you flat out this is totally and completely untrue. I often run games with the party if lucky to have a single +1 items by level 5, let alone "every fighter".

So, you might not want to assume such blanket statements are true for everyone. Otherwise, you are being willfully blind, yourself.

WotC themselves demonstrate this in the suggested starting equipment in the DMG:
View attachment 152088

You'll notice unless you play a high magic campaign, they don't suggest you have any magic items at all until level 11.
Starting with magic items (and selecting them yourself) is not the same as not finding magic items. Xanathars guide makes it clear that major items come online at or soon after 5th. If you want to be overly harsh to fighters then of course you can remove magic weapons. They’re pretty ubiquitous in published campaigns though.
 

More fuel for the fire: aid.

With it, my 20th level cleric can use a 5th level slot to give myself and the other two casters in the party a 20-hp boost to our maximum hps for 8 hours. Now, I have basically the same hp as the fighter, same armor, and a crap load of spells at my disposal. Oh, and the other two casters snicker at the fighter's superior hp a bit, too.

Face it, you have a party of 3 full casters and a fighter and you really have a band of heroes and a luggage boy (the fighter, in case you missed that...) once you get into tiers 3 and 4.
 

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