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

[Gammadoodler]

Is the party fighting 4 Solars? 4 ancient dragons? 4 Balors? 4 Pit fiends? 4 Liches? If the party is fighting 4(or more) of a CR 20+ encounter, they're probably all dead before the fight begins.

That fireball is going to be less than stellar against most fights at that level.

The point was what level of enemy density is required for caster aoe spells to 'catch up' to high level martial damage with supporting feats and magic items.

For a level 3 fireball, available at caster level 5.. 4 targets.

There was no intent to debate the tactical merit of fireball in particular in high level scenarios, and I rather suspect that high level encounters will have some variety between single or a small number of individually high threat targets, and larger numbers of individually lower threat targets that are dangerous due to their numbers.

The general point is that where there are more enemies, caster damage gets waayy more competitive with and can exceed martial damage (and its not the only thing the caster can do).

 

[Maxperson]

The point was what level of enemy density is required for caster aoe spells to 'catch up' to high level martial damage with supporting feats and magic items.

For a level 3 fireball, available at caster level 5.. 4 targets.

There was no intent to debate the tactical merit of fireball in particular in high level scenarios, and I rather suspect that high level encounters will have some variety between single or a small number of individually high threat targets, and larger numbers of individually lower threat targets that are dangerous due to their numbers.

The general point is that where there are more enemies, caster damage gets waayy more competitive with and can exceed martial damage (and its not the only thing the caster can do).

Sure, in a scenario where there are a bunch of tightly packed, non-fire resistant, non-fire immune, non-magic resistant, non-counterspelling enemies for a 20th level wizard to fireball, fireball is good and not the only things the wizard can do.

 

[Maxperson]

Your poll specifically asked how to fix 5e. "Fix" carries alot of baggage. If you had instead asked would it be an improvement if Fighters got a a few additional out of combat capabilties you could have had very different results. Polls are fickle. Fun, but fickle.

Maybe it's because I don't fight fire with fire

I've never liked that saying. Fighting fire with fire is a fairly effective tool for controlling and putting out wildfires.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Sure, in a scenario where there are a bunch of tightly packed, non-fire resistant, non-fire immune, non-magic resistant, non-counterspelling enemies for a 20th level wizard to fireball, fireball is good and not the only things the wizard can do.

Or.. where they aren't that tightly packed, but you can hit 4 of them. How likely this is will vary by encounter. Yes there are circumstances that can limit its effectiveness, just as there are circumstances that can limit martial's effectiveness (e.g. flying enemies). In general, I rather suspect you will find that martials' effectiveness is limited more easily and more often.

This is also not anywhere near the cap of casters aoe options in terms of range, damage, or size of aoe. (For meteor swarm, which has 4, 40-ft radius aoes, with a 1 mile range, the number of targets needed to 'catch up'...is 1..thats probably not the most likely use case for meteor swarm, but hard to beat the efficiency).

Saying caster damage is more competitive when there are more targets is just how they work. This is not some left field stance or anything. I do realize that it is inconvenient though, if the case you're making is that martials are the unrivaled kings of damage.

 

[FrogReaver]

I've never liked that saying. Fighting fire with fire is a fairly effective tool for controlling and putting out wildfires.

If only it worked the same way in discussions

 

[Maxperson]

Or.. where they aren't that tightly packed, but you can hit 4 of them. How likely this is will vary by encounter. Yes there are circumstances that can limit its effectiveness, just as there are circumstances that can limit martial's effectiveness (e.g. flying enemies). In general, I rather suspect you will find that martials' effectiveness is limited more easily and more often.

This is also not anywhere near the cap of casters aoe options in terms of range, damage, or size of aoe. (For meteor swarm, which has 4, 40-ft radius aoes, with a 1 mile range, the number of targets needed to 'catch up'...is 1..thats probably not the most likely use case for meteor swarm, but hard to beat the efficiency).

Saying caster damage is more competitive when there are more targets is just how they work. This is not some left field stance or anything. I do realize that it is inconvenient though, if the case you're making is that martials are the unrivaled kings of damage.

The thing with those AOEs is that unless the caster is an evoker, they are fairly highly limited by the rest of the party. The wizard's player can't expect everyone else to just sit there and wait for him to AOE before they do stuff, and the monsters will be moving as well, so it's pretty likely that the enemy and party will be intermixed and that meteor swarm or fireball will just sit there uncast.

Another thing to consider is that for every juicy combat spell cast, the wizard is less effective at the out of combat shenanigans that is supposed to be his bailiwick.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If only it worked the same way in discussions

With discussions we also have the ignore feature, which has been used in this case.

 

[Gammadoodler]

The thing with those AOEs is that unless the caster is an evoker, they are fairly highly limited by the rest of the party. The wizard's player can't expect everyone else to just sit there and wait for him to AOE before they do stuff, and the monsters will be moving as well, so it's pretty likely that the enemy and party will be intermixed and that meteor swarm or fireball will just sit there uncast.

Another thing to consider is that for every juicy combat spell cast, the wizard is less effective at the out of combat shenanigans that is supposed to be his bailiwick.

Again, this depends on encounter setup. The more claustrophobic the terrain, the less useful the aoe spell (though there are also several that allow you to choose multiple specific targets rather than an aoe). But many of these spells have ranges that start at long, and extend to enormous. Such that any reasonably open ground should be usable with the barest level of advance notice.

And there's the rub, sometimes the caster is the king of combat, and sometimes they rule the land of shenanigans. They have options to do both. Hell, the wizard with time to prep can choose the loadout they bring every day.

 

[nevin]

Sure, in a scenario where there are a bunch of tightly packed, non-fire resistant, non-fire immune, non-magic resistant, non-counterspelling enemies for a 20th level wizard to fireball, fireball is good and not the only things the wizard can do.

Unfortunately those encounters tend to not happen after about 6th level in my experience. But 10th level everything is fire and electrical resistant or just flat out immune.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, this depends on encounter setup. The more claustrophobic the terrain, the less useful the aoe spell (though there are also several that allow you to choose multiple specific targets rather than an aoe). But many of these spells have ranges that start at long, and extend to enormous. Such that any reasonably open ground should be usable with the barest level of advance notice.

And there's the rub, sometimes the caster is the king of combat, and sometimes they rule the land of shenanigans. They have options to do both. Hell, the wizard with time to prep can choose the loadout they bring every day.

Yeah. I'm not too concerned with encounter set-up for this discussion, though. If the DM is setting encounters up to make either casters or fighters king, and he can do both, then that's a DM issue and not a class design issue.