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

[Gammadoodler]

So there are a few issues with the white rooms set up here.

Sure. There usually are. This one was not particularly detailed and was directly comparing to fighter damage calculated by @tetrasodium without any critical reading of their calculations. The point was to look at where the break points are for fighter damage vs aoe spelcasring using one of the most common aoe spells (not even a high level one)

Firstly the creatures may be large. There are plenty of large minions out there. Dire wolves, ogres etc

Certainly. Call it 16 squares out of 44 (though it really needn't be that high as long as apart of the creature is on the aoe, they are effected) so we can go with 40% occupied, and hey dire wolves have pack tactics and so have incentive to clump together. Fireball is definitely more effective with smaller creatures, but can still be effective otherwise. It is still also only a third level spell available at character level 5.

Secondly while fireball may be great for clearing out large numbers of low CR creatures it tends to be the single high CR creature leading the group that is the greatest threat.

The beauty of bounded accuracy is that this statement can be true, but it is entirely dependent on encounter setup. We can say you're right those enemies are inherently not a threat..or we can say that those enemies usually aren't a threat because they are so easy to remove with AoEs. There's a case either way.

Thirdly it is better tactically to kill an enemy and remove its contribution to the enemy side, than deal damage to lots of creatures but leave them in the fight. Particularly when a minions participation can hangs on the presence of a single creature.

I will agree that dead is better than alive, but, absent aoe healing on the enemy side, more damage is also better than less damage. All the hp have to go away one way or the other.

Fourthly the wizard can’t mix his damage, it gets spread evenly. So the wizard can end up wasting 2/3 of his fireball damage. While the fighter can attack until dead, move then attack the next person till dead.

I'm not actually sure what concept you're trying to describe here. Wizard overkill?

Fifth, the fighter doesn’t have 1-4 attacks depending on level, they have 1-6. Because they may well be triggering extra attacks from Great Weapon Master and Sentinel, Polearm Mastery, Off hand attack, Batttlemaster abilities etc whichever route they have taken

The fighter damage I have compared to is not mine. Moreover, your max range in all versions of fighter you've described is 10 ft. If no creature is in that range, they do not have 1-6 attacks..they have zero attacks. Fireball has a 150ft range. It's significantly easier to use.

Hell, with range disparity alone, you can afford to use it even less optimally than we've discussed. All this, and again..fireball is one 3rd level spell, one of many casters have access to, and one they get at character level 5.

 

[TheSword]

Wizards also greatly benefit from feats, magic items and stat increases. AC and HP are also pretty important for them, optimizing a wizard is pretty much just picking the right spells and multiclassing to get armor (or get a race that grants armor prof).

Can you expand on this? Which feats are improving wizards power - the ability to improve what they already do better. Rather than just giving alternatives.

I agree that to a large extent, building a wizard is just picking spells. That’s my point.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Also worth adding that "frontline" is a bit misleading due to how easy it is to just get past the martials at the front if you're willing to take the attack of opportunity, unless they have something like Sentinel. Even then, it's still one guy at best, if a bunch just run past a Fighter to murk the Wizard, there isn't much he can do about it.

 

[FrogReaver]

We talk a lot about how fighters are more dependent on stats, but in truth they just get more benefits from stats than a wizard does.

Casters get bonuses to multiple skills from their primary stat
Get to prepare more spells.
Have an additional reason to care about constitution (concentration)
Boost the hit/save DC of all their spells (save the ones that don't require hitting or saving)

Fighters gain more damage from their stats

IMO, the only reason it feels like Fighters get more from stats is because they don't have anything but damage going for them.

A wizard’s intelligence adds to the hit chance of their spells, and spell DCs which is obviously crucial. But it doesn’t increase damage (in all but evoker and then only once). It adds flexibility to an already flexible character but doesn’t make the one spell per round the wizard can cast, do more (beyond helping it hit)

Generally speaking - wizards spellcasting increases damage via higher level spell slots and higher level spells. Their increase in damage with spells is built directly into their class (and cantrips damage increase is built directly into character level).

Wizards aren’t intended to absorb damage so extra hp doesn’t help them do that. They don’t want to be in the thick of combat so moving a poor AC to a mediocre one isn’t very useful to their role.

This one is such a big reach IMO. I don't know how to respond to it in a way that isn't going to come across as mocking.

The fighter is getting direct boosts to their effectiveness in every stat increase, feat, magic item, extra attack, or ability, and every buff their Allie’s puts on them.

What does the wizard really gain to increase power apart from spells once they’ve put level 4 and 8 ASI’s into Int?

Wizards increase power via higher level spells, spell slots, and increasing their spell DC's. The question isn't really how the classes increase power, it's how those increases in power actually compare with each other.

 

[Minigiant]

I think there is a more tactically sound way to play. You want characters that are effective at range but can shift to melee to engage enemies that get to close. Something like a longbow archer Fighter that swaps to a rapier at the last moment to engage an enemy trying to run by him.

A HUGE blow to the fighter is that the ranger is the game's best switch hitter because Magic buffs the low melee damage of DEX rangers or the low ranged damage of STR rangers.

Lightning arrow, flame arrow,* hail of arrows conjure volley, and swift quiver to boost Ranged
Searing smite* to boost Melee
Hunter's mark, beast bond*, magic weapon*, and zephyr strike* boosts Both Melee and Ranged
Ensaring Strike and Entangle* to Zone.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Can you expand on this? Which feats are improving wizards power - the ability to improve what they already do better. Rather than just giving alternatives.

I agree that to a large extent, building a wizard is just picking spells. That’s my point.

Warcaster or Resilient Constitution improve their concentration greatly, letting their spells stay up for longer.

Alert gives higher init, letting them throw their spells first to incapacitate the big threats or throw a good Fireball before the enemies can move, and stops surprise so they can't be murked without being able to react, important with the lower defenses.

Fey Touches and Shadow Touched give both ASIs and even more spells known, along with free castings.

Elemental Adept to ignore resistance, good for Fireball.

Eldritch Adept for Warlock Invocations.

Metamagic Adept to steal from the Sorcerer.

Lucky . . . just Lucky.

Telekinetic and Telepathic give spells and ASIs as well.

Tough gives them HP on par with a d10 class like Fighter.

The armor feats for more AC.

 

[Gammadoodler]

A HUGE blow to the fighter is that the ranger is the game's best switch hitter because Magic buffs the low melee damage of DEX rangers or the low ranged damage of STR rangers.

Lightning arrow, flame arrow,* hail of arrows conjure volley, and swift quiver to boost Ranged
Searing smite* to boost Melee
Hunter's mark, beast bond*, magic weapon*, and zephyr strike* boosts Both Melee and Ranged
Ensaring Strike and Entangle* to Zone.

Generally speaking, I'd say that the bigger blow is how comparable ranged damage is with melee damage combined with how much riskier melee combat is compared to ranged.

The tradeoff is unbelievably unfair.

 

[TheSword]

Warcaster or Resilient Constitution improve their concentration greatly, letting their spells stay up for longer.

We have heard earlier how concentration isn’t really a limit on power as a wizard can just cast another spell. I disagree with that viewpoint but it’s worth acknowledging as an argument.

I do think Warcaster does increase power and is a must take for every serious caster. An extra spell is very good too though hampered by how rarely it will happen.

Alert gives higher init, letting them throw their spells first to incapacitate the big threats or throw a good Fireball before the enemies can move, and stops surprise so they can't be murked without being able to react, important with the lower defenses.

Alert is no guarantee of going first. It also offers a very real toss up between buffing yourself in the first round or casting that fireball. Depending on the foes faced. The swinginess of Initiative means that this is by no means a given. That said it is effectively giving you an additional to if you get in first so does increase power. Of course it only works if other people haven’t got it. Initiative is relative. In a party of rogues, rangers and Dex fighters it probably won’t help at all.

Fey Touches and Shadow Touched give both ASIs and even more spells known, along with free castings.

More spells doesn’t increase power. It maybe useful for reasons of versatility but it isn’t making what you do more effective.

Elemental Adept to ignore resistance, good for Fireball.

The problem with this spell is that it is so circumstantial. Many energy types don’t have a great spell of that type at every level. In the same way that the resistance is highly circumstantial, the benefit is highly circumstantial too.

The 1’s become 2’s boost is so negligible as to be almost useless. A fireball booster to level 7 doing 12d6 damage will do an extra 2 points of damage on its roll on average.

Eldritch Adept for Warlock Invocations.

Most invocations won’t improve a wizards spellcasting power. Unless they have taken the Eldritch Blast feat. They just add more choices

Metamagic Adept to steal from the Sorcerer.

My personal favourite feat. Definitely makes wizards more powerful but in a very limited way. To put it in context if you quicken that spell, you can still only cast a cantrip… once per day. You can only twin up to 2nd level. Good but not amazing at the point you get the feat. 2 sorcery points and your options are limited.

Lucky . . . just Lucky.

It’s a great feat. Great for everyone. But of a wizards main role - acting spells - many if not most of a wizards spells don’t have an attack roll. Fighters become much more powerful with this feat. Much more so than wizards. Ironically this feat is best used for Eldritch Knights (rangers, paladins etc) as they can take a full attack action and cast a spell. It’s far more useful for them than for wizards.

Tough gives them HP on par with a d10 class like Fighter.

Sure but as discussed your wizard isn’t intended to be in the front line. You can try and expend resources to make your wizard like a fighter but they still won’t be as tough as a fighter. It also doesn’t help your spell casting power.

The armor feats for more AC.

Same principle as the previous post. [Edit] Both are addressed in more detail in my next post to Frogreaver.

 

[TheSword]

Generally speaking - wizards spellcasting increases damage via higher level spell slots and higher level spells. Their increase in damage with spells is built directly into their class (and cantrips damage increase is built directly into character level).

I agree. However removing spell scaling by caster level for non-cantrips made a massive difference to wizard spellcasting. Keeping it in cantrips was a very necessary balancing method. I don’t think it came close to making up for the loss in power. It’s a gesture to stop wizards firing crossbows in my opinion. A kin to the str fighter picking up that longbow. Not terrible, but not optimal.

This one is such a big reach IMO. I don't know how to respond to it in a way that isn't going to come across as mocking.

Of course Hp and AC are nice. They’re useful. But to put it another way. A fighter is having their hp and AC tested and stretched in most rounds of combat. How many times is that effecting a wizard… if they’re on their own and exposed then sure a lot. If they have a fighter in combat taking the pressure off then not a lot. A lot of the best wizard buffs - blink and mirror image being my two favourites - dont even interact with AC or hp. Shield is only good if wizards are targeted infrequently because of its limited uses in which case it is excellent. But this relies on wizards not getting targeted. 4 rounds of combat from multiple attack creatures and the wizard is out of shields.

I agree that hybrid characters acting at range and close up are fun and versatile. The changes to full attack make this far less important than it was. You used to be able to kite around a single monster so it only got 1 attack. Not so much now.

While it does mean foes can also get through back ranks easier I do think the simplicity of AOO and the reduced methods of avoiding them means monsters pay a price if they do. When I’m DMing my monsters don’t usually take AOO unless they have to, even without Sentinel.

 

[FrogReaver]

Generally speaking, I'd say that the bigger blow is how comparable ranged damage is with melee damage combined with how much riskier melee combat is compared to ranged.

The tradeoff is unbelievably unfair.

I don't fully agree. But alot depends on whether we view the game on the individual PC level or on the PC group level. Melee has alot of inherent advantages on the group level that always get left out of these discussions. Easier advantage (prone, reckless attack, etc). Disincentivizing enemies from targeting backline allies (combination of DM roleplaying the NPCs and OA's). Assisting other frontline characters survival by making it more likely they spread their attacks over more PC's. Dealing more damage with OA's when enemies move by them. These aren't trivial advantages IMO.

Also, most ranged play assumes the party is playing very tactically to gain big advantages. That's not the case for most groups IMO. The less tactically minded the party the less inherent advantages ranged has.

Point isn't necessarily that melee equals ranged, but their advantages are often not even considered.