D&D 5E (2014) Is the imbalance between classes in 5e accidental or by design?

[Minigiant]

That's my point. It's not the fault of the Wizard class. The cause of the problem lies elsewhere.

I'd agree that the 6-8 encounter standard is the fault of buffs to the full casters.

 

[Flamestrike]

What about new DMs? Are they well equipped to deal with what you call 'shenanigans'? Should the game support 'shenanigans' at all?

As a general rule, No.

Its one of the leading causes of DM's quitting IME. A PC gets access to a new ability the DM has no experience with and sudden anti-magic fields pop up everywhere, railroads occur and then the DM rage quits.

Its why many games dont get past the mid levels, and as a consequence most DMs have next to no experience dealing with high level PC's and the tricks they can pull.

As to weather the game should support them, that depends on your taste I guess.

I played a level 5-6 Shepperd Druid and grew bored because of how easy it got after a while... I think it's just a problem with the expected encounter structure and the nature of spell casters in DnD.

I blame your DM. It's his/ her job to challenge you, and he/she failed you.

In fact, these sorts of problems are almost always down to the DM.

You could argue the system doesnt make it easy for DM's, but then again, DMing aint an easy job at the best of times.

 

[Flamestrike]

I blame the rest structure.

I actually agree.

It has its strengths (I can shift the spotlight between PCs by simply adding in or subtracting encounters or short rest opportunities between long rests, and it avoids 4E's 'same-e-ness') but it also has its weaknesses (namely its a chore to police as a DM).

 

[Flamestrike]

Martials just plain aren't allowed to do cool things while the wizard gets a literal catalogue of cool things to do.

Other than beat a T-rex or Balor to death with my fists, or literally fall into a volcano or from a 20 storey building and survive.

Those are pretty cool things.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Other than beat a T-rex or Balor to death with my fists, or literally fall into a volcano or from a 20 storey building and survive.

Those are pretty cool things.

"I attack. I attack. I attack."

"I passively subtract some numbers and they don't become 0"

Thrilling.

 

[Flamestrike]

"I attack. I attack. I attack."

"I passively subtract some numbers and they don't become 0"

Thrilling.

It is to a lot of players.

A significant number of people who play this game just want to roll dice and deal big damage and smack things hard. They dont want spells or complexity or resource management of slots and stuff.

I bet you even have one at your table. Most do.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The question is this setup deliberately and purposely crafted to be this way or an accident of the community preferences blowing it up.

I think it is neither.

I think the designer intent is absolutely to deliver a reasonable, balanced, equitable game where everyone contributes meaningfully and no one has an inherent leg up nor needs special DM intervention.

However, I also think that this result is not some totally unforeseeable unfortunate accident that could never have been avoided or dealt with.

Instead, as I've said, I think it's the combination of several factors:
1. Intentionally doing things that sound positive and beneficial in isolation but which link together to produce problems.
2. Preserving, reviving, or enhancing "tradition" without actually examining whether that tradition is beneficial, or whether it has aspects that could be mitigated.
3. Subconscious motives that encourage greater power for spellcasting and no gain (or even sometimes loss) of power for non-spellcasting.
4. Biased thinking, particularly biases built on thinking everyone will play in certain ways or deal with problems in the same fashion.
5. Faulty understanding/application of statistics and mathematics more generally.
6. Failure to account for player psychology in the design.

None of these require "let's make an unbalanced game!" as an intentional motive, and yet all of them are the product of intentional (if sometimes heedless) actions. Which is why I say it is intentional, but not because the intent was to make an inequitable game.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It is to a lot of players.

A significant number of people who play this game just want to roll dice and deal big damage and smack things hard. They dont want spells or complexity or resource management of slots and stuff.

And those who don't don't count?

I bet you even have one at your table. Most do.

Let's see...

We have the pet hoarder
The guy that plays the token evil teammate most of the time and cheeses skill
The optimizer who like building quirky things who is the closest to someone who values Big Damage
And the chaos goblin who likes causing trouble.

Nope, no one just wanting to do the push button thing.

No (okay, minimal) shade to anyone who does, but I don't see why my fun has to be sacrificed to them. Like they can have the existing fighter (as much as I would like to see the Champion explode forever), but can I get a good fighter?

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Use a rest variant.

As much as I know I will regret this. How do you enforce how many short tests can be taken?

Doom clocks, environmental constraints, reactive bad guys.

Occasionally telling off the players for attempting to game the rest mechanic, with a firm but gentle 'No'.

My players know not to try and game the system at my table though so the latter is rare.

Personally if I DM 5e without other house rules, I just go full gamist at this point like 13th age. Long rests are defined as occuring after six enounters and short rests after two. Remove the link to real world hours and days and even the notion of "rest". Sometimes people want a link to the fictional world and we can make one up -- "Wizard spellcaster power is linked to the impossible to perdict star alignment and each individuals magic wellspring DNA -- only when these align can you memorize new spells." And then never think about this again. Not super satisfying but better than having to always set up some scenerio that enforces the 6-8/2.

I'd rather they design the game to better reflect how people actually play rather than every encounter day being like a month of sessions to get through.

Agreed. It is one of the worst design decisions of 5e IMO.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Many that have this problem of 'Wizards are God' have it because they get 5 minute work days, often by DMs that dont know better, prefer single encounter days, or know how to DM high level play.

Im not one of those DM's.

Several people have already granted that if the DM is both (a) enforcing well-known, albeit almost universally disliked, rules of the game, and (b) actively antagonistic to spellcasters, then things will generally not be favorable to spellcasters anymore.

The problem is...both of those things!

When one group of options must be specially nurtured and supported while another must be actively punished, or else things get out of hand, that's some major imbalance. It might or might not be "a problem," but it actively requires constant vigilance. When playing the game as intended results in tedious, frustrating, or otherwise un-fun experiences, people will push away from that...and anything which was balanced around assuming the game played as intended will begin to show cracks. Again, that may or may not be "a problem," but it's an open admission that the system is sensitive and prone to bogging (or breaking) down without continuous active correction.

Most people talk about 5e as it is actually played. Which breaks the 6-8 encounters a day pattern, the intended resting patterns, and item acquisition patterns, and almost all of this pattern breaking is in ways that favor casters.

Instead of insisting, "just play the game as intended!", it seems much more productive to adjust the game so playing it rationally and enjoyably doesn't result in situations that need constant oversight. Which is one of the virtues of a reasonably balanced game.