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

[Mort]

It's not a race where turtle & the hare style slow & steady vrs fast & intermittent averages out in meaningful ways . Hitrates in o5e are usually around 60% or better so there is no reason to fractionalize the attacks that do hit

• Even if the hitrate drops significantly due to an unusual high ac monster it still favors the numbers still favor the higher damage attack because the smaller but reliable attacker is also affected by that AC & in this case the attacker with the higher damage attacks also has more chances (one Xd10 firebolt vrs X[1d8+statmod+weaponmod+featmods+fighting style mods] attacks) in a true inversion of the tortoise & the hare type of averaging you are doing.

You're not claiming that a melee focused fighter will ALSO have a ranged fighting style, ranged feats for support AND as good a weapon as he uses for melee, are you? Because that's really, really unlikely.

Or are you saying the fighter will get to use his melee skills soon enough and that has to factor? That's much better, but the wizard has cool things he can do outside of firebolt too!

But let's talk about the actual point I've been making since early in the thread. Even if you concede that fighters are fine, even excel in combat (which I actually did early on just for convenience):

1. The other classes excel too, maybe in different ways, but no class is a slouch in combat. The game is designed that way.

2. They get very, very little support out of combat for the other 2 pillars. And the support they can get (feats, ASIs etc.) is often sacrificed so they can be the beast in combat everyone expects them to be. And IMO - that's an issue.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I know I'm breaking my own rule here but I wanted to attempt at clarification.

When we're playing D&D and resolving issues, our groups often discuss and brainstorm together. I'll make suggestions to the players of PCs that can do things my PC simply cannot. I don't care who does the bada-bing-bada-boom thing, all I care is that it happens, that different people worked together as a team. At work we have a network administrator. Without them, things crash. Their job is very important, but I don't want to be a network admin, even if they do have power I don't have. There are any number of other positions and roles I could mention. It's the same with an adventuring team.

People don't have to have exactly the same level of power or options in order to contribute and be part of a functioning team. I accept that when I play a fighter, if I want to fly I either need to get a magic item or ask the wizard to cast a spell. On the other hand, the wizard frequently has to make choices. Cast prismatic spray or save a slot for teleport if they need it? I don't always want to have to make those kind of choices.

As far as changes? Actual concrete, actionable suggestions:

• I could see tweaking how casters get back spells. Not as a nerf so much as giving groups more flexibility. Make it similar to arcane recovery which gives you back 1/2 your level in spell slots. Instead make it X times your level in spell slots with 4 times your level during a long rest being enough to almost always get back all your spells (I'd have to double check math). It gives people an option outside of the gritty rest rules I use to balance things out a bit, just lower X to the point that makes sense for your group.
• I think fighters could use a bit of a boost. Give them a second fighting style after 1st and after first level they can choose either another fighting style or get expertise in a skill. Include the fighting styles from Tasha's in the core.
• Make longbows versatile.
• Grant more action surges and let them use action surges out of combat to get advantage on an ability skill check. Maybe. I don't want to step on the rogue niche too much.

So change how casters recover makes what spells they use when more costly if you care, give fighters an option to beef up combat or out of combat a little. It doesn't change the nature of the game, but I don't think it needs that.

P.S. If we can have a conversation about real, concrete changes that could happen, great. If we just go back to bickering I won't bother responding.

it must be nice to have such a cooperative gaming circle perhaps it is this that makes it hard for you to see our point.
glad to see you at least agree on the versatility problem of the fighter it means you half-agree with us.

 

[FrogReaver]

Pretty much an insistence that fighters apparently spend the majority of encounters engaging monsters hovering 20 feet up as summarized here and that strength based fighters are incapable of using a bow or thrown weapon because they would need to be suboptimal with a nonmaxed dex for the bow or limited number of attacks that could be made with strength based weapons because unlike the quantum spellbook where the perfect spell is always available the quantum fighter is always designed to bne worst at any given situation. That and average 5.5 damage per die is greater than average 6.5 per attack with the same scaling on dice/attack numbers



I assume you are talking about this post. Yes you did math, but that math is not done in a way that models what you are trying to model for several reasons.

• The math you did is the kind of breakdown you would want to do if you were looking at a situation like one of those world of warcraft raid trackers that looks at everyone's damage per second across hundreds of attacks. Even then it's an oversimplification that distorts things in that situation
• It's not a race where turtle & the hare style slow & steady vrs fast & intermittent averages out in meaningful ways . Hitrates in o5e are usually around 60% or better so there is no reason to fractionalize the attacks that do hit
  • Even if the hitrate drops significantly due to an unusual high ac monster it still favors the numbers still favor the higher damage attack because the smaller but reliable attacker is also affected by that AC & in this case the attacker with the higher damage attacks also has more chances (one Xd10 firebolt vrs X[1d8+statmod+weaponmod+featmods+fighting style mods] attacks) in a true inversion of the tortoise & the hare type of averaging you are doing.
• Both firebolt and the bow need to hit the same AC so it's not like 3.x where the spell was targeting touch AC. The only reason the fighter with a bow & 14 dex is lacking in tohit is because this situation of a monster hovering 20 feet up is one that fits squarely into the strength fighter's weak area in a way that makes them find using a less than optimal damage per round weapon to be the most optimal choice for them to make that round. Even with that situation being their "weak" area they still pull slightly ahead of the wizard with firebolt getting to make use of a strength it has.
• This is why the spreadsheet here draws out the whole process in a step by step thing you can analyze attack by attack & round by round for the various hit percentages it offers. To quote the FAQ on it "Q: weren't there easier ways you could have modeled results of hit & resist chances? Why show every step? A: oh heck yes. I deliberately did the hit/miss/resist pages trying to show as much math as I could to give a peek behind the curtain & hopefully improve the level of discourse around a few areas with conventional wisdom in conflict with the reality to a shocking degree"

In a way that math you did is almost as bad as the earlier 5.5*X cantrip damage is greater than 6.5*X bow damage where X is number of dice/attacks. math.

Morts maths was right.

More importantly though, why are you arguing against positions no one actually took? That isn’t helpful to good discussion. It’s the kind of thing that tends to derail good discussions.

 

[TwoSix]

People don't have to have exactly the same level of power or options in order to contribute and be part of a functioning team. I accept that when I play a fighter, if I want to fly I either need to get a magic item or ask the wizard to cast a spell. On the other hand, the wizard frequently has to make choices. Cast prismatic spray or save a slot for teleport if they need it? I don't always want to have to make those kind of choices.

I find it pretty simple. Being a sword-swinger and being a spell-caster is ultimately a matter of aesthetic. Having simple gameplay with relatively few choices and widgets, or more complex gameplay with more choices and widgets, is ultimately a matter of playstyle preference.

You should be able to combine your preference of aesthetic and your preference of playstyle in as many possible permutations as possible. If there are simple sword-swingers, there should also be complex sword-swingers. If there are complex spellcasters, there should also be simple spellcasters.

 

[Asisreo]

People get mad because the caster-martial divide is a stand-in for a deeper division between visions of what D&D should be like. The game simply can't be packaged as a big enough tent to include everyone's vision because so many concepts are mutually exclusive. People are attached to D&D, so naturally they're going to feel strongly about concepts that are totemic as to what the game is all about.

I see. And it was said previously that it was a mix between expectations of past editions and interpretation of the current material. I think there has to do with mainstream appeal forming expectations as well, especially newer players.

So then, the discussion goes back into what D&D as a whole means both thematically and mechanically.

For me, D&D is a dungeon-crawling system where magic is necessary for survival which might be why I don't quite understand the divide. Still, people view D&D differently, something like a mythic adventuring system.

Of course, that means some people are upset because in those types of games, the given abilities to a high-level spellcaster can be enormous. For me, though, I just don't play those games.

Do I think it's wrong for people to play those games? Absolutely not. But another thing I don't understand is why does D&D have to carry that burden? Some have said it's been marketed as such, but I still haven't seen anything official saying D&D is optimized to play all kinds of games. Even the creators make it clear that some fantasy styles would need homebrew adjustments if you were to incorporate them.

But Pathfinder does it better. And I think it's good that D&D has a separate niche distinct from those games as it prevents a monopoly via popularity. If you want to play a game where the high-level fighter feels like a superhero, play a marvel TTRPG. This isn't about kicking others out of the game or genre either, it's about advertising great, underrated systems that keep on being swallowed by the TTRPG behemoth D&D.

This isn't me being dismissive about how the people that want D&D to cover their genre feel. It's me explaining why changing the system's themes from the ground up to generalize the system could needlessly uproot the other TTRPG's. I don't think we should have all our eggs in one basket.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I see. And it was said previously that it was a mix between expectations of past editions and interpretation of the current material. I think there has to do with mainstream appeal forming expectations as well, especially newer players.

So then, the discussion goes back into what D&D as a whole means both thematically and mechanically.

For me, D&D is a dungeon-crawling system where magic is necessary for survival which might be why I don't quite understand the divide. Still, people view D&D differently, something like a mythic adventuring system.

Of course, that means some people are upset because in those types of games, the given abilities to a high-level spellcaster can be enormous. For me, though, I just don't play those games.

Do I think it's wrong for people to play those games? Absolutely not. But another thing I don't understand is why does D&D have to carry that burden? Some have said it's been marketed as such, but I still haven't seen anything official saying D&D is optimized to play all kinds of games. Even the creators make it clear that some fantasy styles would need homebrew adjustments if you were to incorporate them.

But Pathfinder does it better. And I think it's good that D&D has a separate niche distinct from those games as it prevents a monopoly via popularity. If you want to play a game where the high-level fighter feels like a superhero, play a marvel TTRPG. This isn't about kicking others out of the game or genre either, it's about advertising great, underrated systems that keep on being swallowed by the TTRPG behemoth D&D.

This isn't me being dismissive about how the people that want D&D to cover their genre feel. It's me explaining why changing the system's themes from the ground up to generalize the system could needlessly uproot the other TTRPG's. I don't think we should have all our eggs in one basket.

I always got more of an epic adventure simulation tool vibe, hence I find when the type of adventurer I want to play is weaker and kinda narrow I find it wrong and depressing.

 

[TwoSix]

Do I think it's wrong for people to play those games? Absolutely not. But another thing I don't understand is why does D&D have to carry that burden? Some have said it's been marketed as such, but I still haven't seen anything official saying D&D is optimized to play all kinds of games. Even the creators make it clear that some fantasy styles would need homebrew adjustments if you were to incorporate them.

It doesn't have to carry that burden, but it does carry that burden. Over half the TTRPG market plays one game, and the hundreds of other games divide up the rest of the base. It's much easier to find games and support if D&D is the type of game you prefer, so obviously people want to shift D&D into the modes of play they like.

 

[FrogReaver]

I know I'm breaking my own rule here but I wanted to attempt at clarification.

When we're playing D&D and resolving issues, our groups often discuss and brainstorm together. I'll make suggestions to the players of PCs that can do things my PC simply cannot. I don't care who does the bada-bing-bada-boom thing, all I care is that it happens, that different people worked together as a team. At work we have a network administrator. Without them, things crash. Their job is very important, but I don't want to be a network admin, even if they do have power I don't have. There are any number of other positions and roles I could mention. It's the same with an adventuring team.

People don't have to have exactly the same level of power or options in order to contribute and be part of a functioning team. I accept that when I play a fighter, if I want to fly I either need to get a magic item or ask the wizard to cast a spell. On the other hand, the wizard frequently has to make choices. Cast prismatic spray or save a slot for teleport if they need it? I don't always want to have to make those kind of choices.

As far as changes? Actual concrete, actionable suggestions:

• I could see tweaking how casters get back spells. Not as a nerf so much as giving groups more flexibility. Make it similar to arcane recovery which gives you back 1/2 your level in spell slots. Instead make it X times your level in spell slots with 4 times your level during a long rest being enough to almost always get back all your spells (I'd have to double check math). It gives people an option outside of the gritty rest rules I use to balance things out a bit, just lower X to the point that makes sense for your group.
• I think fighters could use a bit of a boost. Give them a second fighting style after 1st and after first level they can choose either another fighting style or get expertise in a skill. Include the fighting styles from Tasha's in the core.
• Make longbows versatile.
• Grant more action surges and let them use action surges out of combat to get advantage on an ability skill check. Maybe. I don't want to step on the rogue niche too much.

So change how casters recover makes what spells they use when more costly if you care, give fighters an option to beef up combat or out of combat a little. It doesn't change the nature of the game, but I don't think it needs that.

P.S. If we can have a conversation about real, concrete changes that could happen, great. If we just go back to bickering I won't bother responding.

IMO. We can’t even get basic agreement about what kind of fighter is as strong as a wizard in combat.

is it a fighter with no feats or magic weapons that just maxes his attack stat?

does he require 1 combat feat? 2? Is a certain level of magical weapon or items required?

until we can talk about that I don’t think talking about concrete suggestions makes much sense.

my take is that a str fighter needs at least 1 combat feat and a basic magical weapon, max str, and high con to compete with a typical wizard in combat (past tier 1).

This really leaves minimal things the fighter can invest in outside combat. For those that think a str fighter just needs max str and nothing else, those fighters have much more leeway in taking out of combat feats/abilities.

But IMO the discussion centers around the amount of investment a fighter needs to make to be a wizards combat equal. Because that’s what guides us about how much non combat stuff they can get.

 

[Asisreo]

Posts like yours in #702 where you link discussions around martial features with gatekeeping the LGBTQIA+ community make your expressed intent to have a sincere discussion rather suspect.

"Why are we even talking about this when we could be saving the whales or ending world hunger?" is hardly a fruitful basis on which to have a sincere discussion.

I disagree. The squeaky wheel gets the oil and it is an incredibly bad look when the same forum where martials and casters are seen as a monumental problem is the same forum where the sexualization of bikini woman armor in art isn't really that big of a deal. Some people are still upset about that, by the way.

And it doesn't have to be about social justice, the basic mechanics themselves are broken. Simulacrum needs a heavy nerf. Some magic items break the game in ways a DM would be unable to predict. The guidance on creating adventures in the DMG could use some more work. But right now, it seems like the forum finds martials much more important than any of these.

 

[Undrave]

They do scale. The dice increase as the Battlemaster increases level.

There are plenty of great maneuvers. Particularly with the advent of Tasha’s. They also stack well with additional attacks. Making the enemy prone for instance and then getting the remaining attacks at advantage.

They scale in damage but not in applicability. In a world like D&D, there SHOULD be martial techniques designed to take on the kind of threat a higher level Fighter encounters. At higher levels, Tripping Attack should no longer be limited by the basic rule of 'the creature must be no larger than 1 size more than you', as an exemple, or maybe it disables a creature's flight speed for a certain amount of time.

Disarming Attack is nice when you're facing bandits in the countryside, but once you're fighting Abominations from the Far Realm that's not gonna be particularly useful.

I know right it is not like buffing martials will lead to casters suffering somehow?

I think Casters SHOULD suffer more

People get mad because the caster-martial divide is a stand-in for a deeper division between visions of what D&D should be like. The game simply can't be packaged as a big enough tent to include everyone's vision because so many concepts are mutually exclusive. People are attached to D&D, so naturally they're going to feel strongly about concepts that are totemic as to what the game is all about.

I blame Wizard players

that is a fair point you got any idea what the competing visions are as right now they are kinda murky?

Now, this is just a theory, but I see a very clear through line between certain styles of old school DnD and the olden days 'Jock VS Nerd' mentalities. The Jock (the Fighter) and the Bad Kid (the Rogue) should bow to the truly superior person: the Nerd (The Wizard). A lot of people have absorbed this aspect of old DnD without really thinking of it in those terms. It was just how DnD was to them.

It's known that when 4e was being designed, the lead designer had to fight the team so they wouldn't make the Wizard more powerful than the other class. Wizard fans probably won't come out and say it outright (some may) but they just want their class to be the Golden Boy that shines brighter than other and gets all the accolades. And that they deserve respect for playing that Wizard because it's an ADVANCED class. It's not easy and you need to be SMART to play it well.

Basically there's a vision that say 'Magic is COOL! It's so rad and it's the best thing ever! But it's also really complicated and it's for MASTERS! If you use Magic, which is cool, well, then you yourself are cool."

And another vision that say "Man, playing a hero is COOL. Kicking butt and saving people is COOL and being COOL is FUN!"

It's "You gotta earn your COOL!" vs "Everybody gets COOL"