D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[doctorbadwolf]

Hm... I suppose it's ironic that the Monk sub-classes fall into the lowest tiers...

Ironic how?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ironic how?

It's Treantmonk's list.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's Treantmonk's list.

Ah, okay. I missed whatever discussion was talking about a list.

 

[Tony Vargas]

yeah a 'Tier' list, I, like, didn't get around to reading it right away, so was replying to a post pages back

 

[Minigiant]

This is difficult to parse.

It’s not that hard to make a warrior class. If you’re giving it spendable widgets (like the Battlemaster as a class), model it on the monk or Paladin or ranger. If it doesn’t, use average damage and the DMG for guidance, and get as broad feedback as you can.

The issue is Action Surge is just 5-9% more damage and Improved Critical is just 1 or 2 extra DPR.

That leaves little leeway to design if your baseline is the Champion Fighter.

Why does it matter that the Wizard got a new feature that makes the class not just “spells, the class”?

Because both WOTC and 3PP designers both have a history of creating ultra powerful spells that hop into the roles of other classes which are balanced by the fact that they are so niche that preparing them is a significant cost.

Before preparing Jump or Longstrider or neither was serious internal discussion. Now it's just a 1 minute wait.

 

[Mort]

I’m not sure what the issue being expressed is.

Why does it matter that the Wizard got a new feature that makes the class not just “spells, the class”?

The fact that the design team can't seem to let the fighter gain on the wizard.

Because the fighter got a small boost out of combat (yay) but they couldn't just leave it there, the wizard got a MASSIVE out of combat boost - so instead of closing any gaps it widened it.

Now, from a strict, did they make the fighter better out of combat? Yes they did, so that in itself is a good thing.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I’m not sure what the issue being expressed is.

Why does it matter that the Wizard got a new feature that makes the class not just “spells, the class”?

Because it’s not even doing that, it’s leaning even more into ‘spells, the class’ by giving them access to all the rest of their unprepared list at the ‘cost’ of a few minutes, closer to a real play ‘quantum spell list’ of previously only white room theorising territory.

The poor are getting scraps and the powerful are being rocketed even higher.

 

[Minigiant]

Because it’s not even doing that, it’s leaning even more into ‘spells, the class’ by giving them access to all the rest of their unprepared list at the ‘cost’ of a few minutes, closer to a real play ‘quantum spell list’ of previously only white room theorising territory.

The poor are getting scraps and the powerful are being rocketed even higher.

Closer to?
It's litterally ‘white room quantum spellbook’

If that makes it in, a barbarian could justify saying they roll Strength for mental saves because "my brain is my strongest muscle" outta fairness.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The issue is Action Surge is just 5-9% more damage and Improved Critical is just 1 or 2 extra DPR.

That leaves little leeway to design if your baseline is the Champion Fighter.

Why would you feel bound to the lower end of the power band for the fighter when making a new class?

I’ve never seen complaints about the BM in terms of balance, so I use that as a baseline when I can.

Because both WOTC and 3PP designers both have a history of creating ultra powerful spells that hop into the roles of other classes which are balanced by the fact that they are so niche that preparing them is a significant cost.

Before preparing Jump or Longstrider or neither was serious internal discussion. Now it's just a 1 minute wait.

Okay, that’s a Fair argument for giving the feature a limiter like a couple times per long rest or only level 1 or 2 spells or you have to spend a spell slot to do it or something.

The fact that the design team can't seem to let the fighter gain on the wizard.

Okay so we come at the game from very different fundemental mindsets, is the issue.

Because the fighter got a small boost out of combat (yay) but they couldn't just leave it there, the wizard got a MASSIVE out of combat boost - so instead of closing any gaps it widened it.

It’s not like they went “well if we are improving the fighter, we must also improve the wizard!”

They’re just trying to make each class pop and showcase what sets it apart more.

Now, from a strict, did they make the fighter better out of combat? Yes they did, so that in itself is a good thing.

At least we agree on this.

Because it’s not even doing that, it’s leaning even more into ‘spells, the class’ by giving them access to all the rest of their unprepared list at the ‘cost’ of a few minutes, closer to a real play ‘quantum spell list’ of previously only white room theorising territory.

It does distinguish them more, by making them a little more focused and dependent on the spellbook.

I’d say “put that it needs a use limit on it in the survey” but I am resigned to seeing the feature disappear because people have very little nuance on stuff like this.

Which is too bad. It’s a good idea.

The poor are getting scraps and the powerful are being rocketed even higher.

Man don’t compare it to wealth stratification. Some of us have gone from comfortable to paycheck-to-paycheck without a change in pay over the last two years. It ain’t cute.

 

[SteveC]

Round and round, it really does look like the discussion that we've been having, well, forever. I was reading the thread and thinking about it in light of what the OP was actually talking about and I think you could absolutely have a warlord class that would be absolutely awesome and better than, say, a champion fighter.

This is because there are already classes (and other fighter subclasses!) that do this and people still play champions. People go out of their way to defend the champion. So really, why not make a new warlord class? I suspect that WotC has a real reason for it that doesn't involve balance at all. I'd suspect that it's because the abilities the warlord would have move into the realm of the cleric or bard or other supernatural characters. Now I'd argue that there are fighters who've already moved into that realm so I'm truly left at a loss for why WotC doesn't do it.

So there's no reason not to make that warlord. My problem is that none of the DMs I play with would use homebrew classes, so I couldn't play one. And that's a shame because the lazy warlord I played was amazing. And not unbalanced with other characters from that edition.

So I understand the arguments that people are having about the really small design space you have when you want to trade out something like improved critical, which is not exceptionally useful on a non-multiclass fighter, to get ... spellcasting? I get that, but it seems that WotC doesn't use this metric themselves to balance classes. How they do balance them would be a very interesting discussion that I have yet to hear.