D&D 5E Martials should just get free feats

[James Gasik]

may i ask why you fundamentally think that the fighter, the iconic champion of martial combat, should not have exclusive martial abilities that surpass the capabilities of other classes? the wizard has high level magics only they can use so why isn't the fighter allowed the same grace in their own area of expertise?, everybody has their own niche, the thing only they can do or excel at beyond everyone else and that's just balance in another form.

I think I can field this. From the very beginnings of the game, Wizards were supposed to be better. For some people, this is just a D&Dism that they have no issue with. Linear Fighters and Quadratic Wizards is not a bug, but a feature; it's how the game is meant to be.

Corollary to this is that the Wizard's power cannot be easily quantifiable on a spreadsheet like a Fighters. A Fighter only needs to get into melee (or not, if they are a ranged build), you can calculate their chance to hit a creature of CR X, and the damage they do turn after turn.

There are minor things like "how many Superiority Dice do they have, is Action Surge up", but the base Fighter's numbers can be dropped into a program and you can have data to look at.

A Wizard that does DAMAGE can be judged by the same merits.

But there are some things that you can't account for in a white room. For example, if a Battlemaster frightens an enemy, how many actions are lost by that enemy? How much damage was prevented? Do they drag other enemies into the fight? Are they never seen again? Do they provoke opportunity attacks that lead to them dying quicker?

Now look at casters, who have whole reams of spells that might be game changers. Or they might be duds. Did the enemy save? How many enemies were affected? Was terrain a factor? Were there immunities or abilities that trivialized the spell's effect? Or made it worse, like casting Web on icy ground?

Utility spells are even harder to judge; was casting Fly really the way to overcome a gorge? Would the time saved matter? Was there another way to do it that wouldn't cost a spell slot?

For every tale of a spellcaster ending a fight by casting Slow or Evard's Black Tentacles, you have a story where the Wizard cast forcecage and the enemy just dispels it or teleports. For every encounter where you turn a dragon into a turnip, there's an encounter where the Wizard was petrified on round 1 and couldn't even be restored until the enemy was dead.

Because of this, you have this disparity where you can't accurately judge a class, as I said; imagine the following scenarios:

*In campaign A, set piece battles are designed by the DM assuming full party resources, short rests are rarely taken.

*In campaign B, players are slowly going through a dungeon crawl, with as many as 10-15 mini encounters (which could turn into real encounters if the players aren't careful) between long rests, and its impossible to take short rests without the enemies finding the party and preparing an ambush.

*In campaign C, the DM makes casters meticulously track spell components, so that no matter how many rests they gain, they will run out of spells.

*In campaign D, the DM doesn't track components at all, and only asks that you deduct money every time you cast an expensive spell.

*In campaign E, the game world has random zones of dead and wild magic.

*In campaign F, it's a long-term campaign with lots of downtime between encounters.

*In campaign G, the players exist in ancient Netheril, which is a magocracy, and everyone has to have some kind of magic or be seen as a second-class citizen.

*In campaign H, NPC spellcasters of high level are common.

*In campaign I, the PC's are the only high level spellcasters in the world.

I could go on, but the experience of being a Wizard, even the disparity betwixt Wizard and anyone else, can vary wildly. It's not unreasonable for people to simply not see problems with casters at all in some of these scenarios.

The only point of contention I've ever had is when someone says "never seen, it, can't possibly happen", lol, because they seemingly fail to acknowledge that other ways to play the game exist.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Ummm, no? Gygax had all sorts of rules and stuff in place to balance classes?

Different leveling rates so that Fighters and Rouges would level faster.
Magic item rewards were designed to boost Fighters with powerful magic weapons.
D4 hit dice for Wizards to make them glass cannons.
Many spells had expensive component costs and drawbacks to curtail their use.
Weren't many high level spells not actually meant for PC use and were NPC tools?
Wizards were meant to be weak in the early game to balance out late game powerfulness.
Didn't high level Fighters get their own armies then?
Edit: And I can't forget Dungeon crawls and long adventuring days were meant to force Wizards to carefully manage their magic use!

I think I can field this. From the very beginnings of the game, Wizards were supposed to be better. For some people, this is just a D&Dism that they have no issue with. Linear Fighters and Quadratic Wizards is not a bug, but a feature; it's how the game is meant to be.

Corollary to this is that the Wizard's power cannot be easily quantifiable on a spreadsheet like a Fighters. A Fighter only needs to get into melee (or not, if they are a ranged build), you can calculate their chance to hit a creature of CR X, and the damage they do turn after turn.

There are minor things like "how many Superiority Dice do they have, is Action Surge up", but the base Fighter's numbers can be dropped into a program and you can have data to look at.

A Wizard that does DAMAGE can be judged by the same merits.

But there are some things that you can't account for in a white room. For example, if a Battlemaster frightens an enemy, how many actions are lost by that enemy? How much damage was prevented? Do they drag other enemies into the fight? Are they never seen again? Do they provoke opportunity attacks that lead to them dying quicker?

Now look at casters, who have whole reams of spells that might be game changers. Or they might be duds. Did the enemy save? How many enemies were affected? Was terrain a factor? Were there immunities or abilities that trivialized the spell's effect? Or made it worse, like casting Web on icy ground?

Utility spells are even harder to judge; was casting Fly really the way to overcome a gorge? Would the time saved matter? Was there another way to do it that wouldn't cost a spell slot?

For every tale of a spellcaster ending a fight by casting Slow or Evard's Black Tentacles, you have a story where the Wizard cast forcecage and the enemy just dispels it or teleports. For every encounter where you turn a dragon into a turnip, there's an encounter where the Wizard was petrified on round 1 and couldn't even be restored until the enemy was dead.

Because of this, you have this disparity where you can't accurately judge a class, as I said; imagine the following scenarios:

*In campaign A, set piece battles are designed by the DM assuming full party resources, short rests are rarely taken.

*In campaign B, players are slowly going through a dungeon crawl, with as many as 10-15 mini encounters (which could turn into real encounters if the players aren't careful) between long rests, and its impossible to take short rests without the enemies finding the party and preparing an ambush.

*In campaign C, the DM makes casters meticulously track spell components, so that no matter how many rests they gain, they will run out of spells.

*In campaign D, the DM doesn't track components at all, and only asks that you deduct money every time you cast an expensive spell.

*In campaign E, the game world has random zones of dead and wild magic.

*In campaign F, it's a long-term campaign with lots of downtime between encounters.

*In campaign G, the players exist in ancient Netheril, which is a magocracy, and everyone has to have some kind of magic or be seen as a second-class citizen.

*In campaign H, NPC spellcasters of high level are common.

*In campaign I, the PC's are the only high level spellcasters in the world.

I could go on, but the experience of being a Wizard, even the disparity betwixt Wizard and anyone else, can vary wildly. It's not unreasonable for people to simply not see problems with casters at all in some of these scenarios.

The only point of contention I've ever had is when someone says "never seen, it, can't possibly happen", lol, because they seemingly fail to acknowledge that other ways to play the game exist.

 

[James Gasik]

Ummm, no? Gygax had all sorts of rules and stuff in place to balance classes?

Different leveling rates so that Fighters and Rouges would level faster.
Magic item rewards were designed to boost Fighters with powerful magic weapons.
D4 hit dice for Wizards to make them glass cannons.
Many spells had expensive component costs and drawbacks to curtail their use.
Weren't many high level spells not actually meant for PC use and were NPC tools?
Wizards were meant to be weak in the early game to balance out late game powerfulness.
Didn't high level Fighters get their own armies then?
Edit: And I can't forget Dungeon crawls and long adventuring days were meant to force Wizards to carefully manage their magic use!

About that leveling faster though, taking a quick look at the xp charts notices some funny business going on- for example when Wizards hit level 12 at the same time Fighters are level 11 and Rogues are only one level ahead but don't have a 6th level spell.

I know, you mentioned late game power, but that's a funny balance point when you are used to being a lot better than a finger wiggler and suddenly he's a level above you!

As for whether or not high level spells were for NPC's, they were put in the PHB and nowhere did it say "oh don't let PC's cast this ever".

That standing army isn't really very large*; it's gained at what most people would consider "late level", and from what I keep hearing, the army wasn't even used that much, since people still wanted to go dungeon crawling.

*Let's take a closer look:

So ironically, this table works a bit backwards, you get more troops with a low roll, 100 infantry and 20 light cavalry. You could end up with all infantry, or 60 crossbowmen, or all cavalry, none of which are really ideal for an army.

In fact, this isn't an army at all! Let's look at actual medieval warfare: starting from the hundred years war, France called up to 50 000 – 60 000 soldiers, even though they weren't stationed in one place. There was a single unit with around 25 000 soldiers. England had around 30,000 soldiers.

The big prize is your level ~6 lieutenant, the rest of these 0-level chumps are meaningless when the Monster Manual says Orcs can be encountered in lots of up to 300!

 

[MichaelSomething]

Are we arguing intent or effectiveness?

 

[James Gasik]

Are we arguing intent or effectiveness?

No idea, lol. I think you were talking about intent, and I got hung up on effectiveness. Although with Gary, it's hard to tell, he would often say one thing and do another. In the end, it comes down to the fact that not all of those attempts at balance were very popular, and I personally don't think making a class annoying to play is a good way to balance it.

I'd rather just power down the spells than go back to AD&D casting rules. But a lot of people seem to want the genie from Aladdin in their spell slingers; phenomenal cosmic power, teeny tiny living space.

Anyways, I don't really want to be in an argument at all; I think there's room for multiple interpretations but in the end it comes down to whether WotC will finally pick a side or just continue with this wishy washy Wizard For All Seasons.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Once again mentioning I think alot of the current balancing issues with the wizard would be fixed if they were basically utility and support casters, take away their damage spells, leave warlock and sorcerer to be the magic blasters, but the wizard has the capacity to dominate in all three pillars of play loosing half their capacity in one of them isn’t going to ruin the class because honestly they’re still going to be great at controlling the battlefield even if they can’t blast fireballs

Like the idea of the wizard is that theyve mastered all these intricate fancy magic tricks right? Make that actually the core of their class identity being the one with all the magic solutions to problems so long as it isn’t a troll charging them down they’ll have something up their sleeve to deal with your obstacles, and even then if they can’t kill a troll they’ve still probably got a dozen ways to disable it from being effective.

 

[James Gasik]

Once again mentioning I think alot of the current balancing issues with the wizard would be fixed if they were basically utility and support casters, take away their damage spells, leave warlock and sorcerer to be the magic blasters, but the wizard has the capacity to dominate in all three pillars of play loosing half their capacity in one of them isn’t going to ruin the class because honestly they’re still going to be great at controlling the battlefield even if they can’t blast fireballs

Like the idea of the wizard is that theyve mastered all these intricate fancy magic tricks right? Make that actually the core of their class identity being the one with all the magic solutions to problems so long as it isn’t a troll charging them down they’ll have something up their sleeve to deal with your obstacles, and even then if they can’t kill a troll they’ve still probably got a dozen ways to disable it from being effective.

I'm of two minds about this; on the one hand, you're right, the Wizard loses very little if you take away their damage; it's the least efficient thing they could be doing. On the other hand, everyone does damage as their primary means to end a combat.

When the rest of the team does 100 damage to an enemy and the Wizard turns them into a halibut, it feels like the damage didn't matter at all. So having the Wizard deal damage (or at least, use spells where damage dealing does matter, like Sleep or Power Words) is really what I'd rather they be doing, so it still feels like a team effort.

The gripping hand, of course, is that you can't take toys away from the Wizard; many people, even people who don't even play or like Wizards, feel that their role is "all the magic"*, and changing that makes them "not feel like Wizards".

*Except for restoring hit points, for some reason. That's the only limitation a Wizard really has, and it's pretty inane; the more people who can keep the party high on hit points the better, so it's never just one person's responsibility.

 

[ECMO3]

may i ask why you fundamentally think that the fighter, the iconic champion of martial combat, should not have exclusive martial abilities that surpass the capabilities of other classes? the wizard has high level magics only they can use so why isn't the fighter allowed the same grace in their own area of expertise?,

Because it will detract from the game if other classes can't contribute in a meaningful fashion. If we give the fighter more exclusive martial abilities beyond those he already has it will weaken the martial contributions of other classes and thereby make the game less fun.

Fighters already have this niche in terms of armor proficiency, weapon proficiency, fighting styles and more attacks. Only the Paladin brings both heavy armor and martial weapons to the table and that class lacks the fighter extra attack and the breadth of martial-focused fighting styles.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The gripping hand, of course, is that you can't take toys away from the Wizard; many people, even people who don't even play or like Wizards, feel that their role is "all the magic"*, and changing that makes them "not feel like Wizards".

Worse, if you do give nice things to the non-Wizards, a vocal minority will complain. They demand that Wizards get the same benefits, or vehemently decry how you're making Fighters that can shoot lightning out of their unmentionables. Even if that's literally not at all what you're doing.

 

[ECMO3]

Ummm, no? Gygax had all sorts of rules and stuff in place to balance classes?

Different leveling rates so that Fighters and Rouges would level faster.
Magic item rewards were designed to boost Fighters with powerful magic weapons.
D4 hit dice for Wizards to make them glass cannons.
Many spells had expensive component costs and drawbacks to curtail their use.
Weren't many high level spells not actually meant for PC use and were NPC tools?
Wizards were meant to be weak in the early game to balance out late game powerfulness.
Didn't high level Fighters get their own armies then?
Edit: And I can't forget Dungeon crawls and long adventuring days were meant to force Wizards to carefully manage their magic use!

There was not much balance in AD&D. Once weapon specialization became an official part of the rules Fighters and Cavaliers (and their subclasses) were way ahead of everyone else, including Wizards. Casters faced a big problem in that at high levels they could not memorize all their spells because it took too long. They actually needed down time (not just a long rest) to memorize their spells back again and be "full". This was a severe cap on caster power, as they got to higher levels they got ground breaking spells but could only cast them once in a multi-day adventure. From memory I think it was 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep (screwed if a wandering monster came by) plus an additional 15 minutes of study or prayer per spell level for each spell they memorized. So memorizing all your spells took like 15 hours at 10th level and only went up from there. At low levels this was not a big problem, but at low levels they were really weak. Also cantrips were mostly useless.


Then there was the problem if you memorized the wrong spell.