D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[tetrasodium]

There was another thread that tempted me to post this, but it feels more at home here.

In 1e Wizards were pretty awful at everything but spells. Bad to hit, d4 hit points, no armor. Imagine taking a real world stereotypical librarian or chemist (who didn't have a background of like being ex-military or mixed martial artist) but giving them a spectacular limited set of things they could call up once in a while, and then sending them off with the crew from Predator.

What if the full caster wizard with the current spell list went back to that - d4 hp, really bad to hit, etc... And then if someone doesn't want to be a complete glass cannon they should spend some levels multiclassing and getting trained in something combat useful.

Or, if that would be an unfun trap class for most people, put it in the DMG and make the default be a 3/4 caster and put that in the PHB.

If you look around over the last decade you will find a lot of people who outright state that moving away from that hurt the wizard by giving them buffs that had nothing to do with their gameplay niche forced the down-tuning of their spells just as giving meaningful at will unlimited cantrips were a shift in power budget away from the core competency of most spellcasters in order to bolt on support for someone else's role

Doing that would also give the sorcerer room to be a less incredibly squishy &not as dedicated but still mostly competent spellcaster who is still meaningfully behind the wizard in enough areas for distinctiveness.

 

[overgeeked]

If you look around over the last decade you will find a lot of people who outright state that moving away from that hurt the wizard by giving them buffs that had nothing to do with their gameplay niche forced the down-tuning of their spells just as giving meaningful at will unlimited cantrips were a shift in power budget away from the core competency of most spellcasters in order to bolt on support for someone else's role

I don’t mind that wizards no longer suck like the old days. I’m fine with casters being cool and fun to play. What bugs me is that non-casters suck in comparison.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not actually sure I like casters having endless attack cantrips. Constantly pew-pewing with magic lasers seems a tad video-gamey to me.
I kinda liked them having to conserve their attack spells or ending up shooting a crossbow badly like a peasant.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, utterly Level 5 is like still a beginner adventurerer. Yes, they are not total noobs anymore, but they just graduated from slaying giant rats and baby dragons. I don't think a lot of people have a problem with Wizards and fighter at Level 5. It's the Levels above 12 that make problems.

Right, but level 5 does show that martials don’t need better skills and flight/teleport/etc to be balanced with spells.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not actually sure I like casters having endless attack cantrips. Constantly pew-pewing with magic lasers seems a tad video-gamey to me.
I kinda liked them having to conserve their attack spells or ending up shooting a crossbow badly like a peasant.

It wouldn't hurt much to resort to crossbows. It's not a terrible weapon in 5e. If feats are allowed, particularly so. And you're likely proficient, with the same proficiency as everyone else, and under BA.

Yeah, now you need DEX, but, DEX is nice for AC & initiative, anyway....

 

[James Gasik]

I'm not actually sure I like casters having endless attack cantrips. Constantly pew-pewing with magic lasers seems a tad video-gamey to me.
I kinda liked them having to conserve their attack spells or ending up shooting a crossbow badly like a peasant.

Crossbow?! Blasphemy, letting Wizards use crossbows was pointless power creep! They should be throwing darts! Or oil! And what's with this light being a cantrip usable at will? They have a free hand, they should be holding a torch!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Crossbow?! Blasphemy, letting Wizards use crossbows was pointless power creep! They should be throwing darts! Or oil! And what's with this light being a cantrip usable at will? They have a free hand, they should be holding a torch!

Hey, darts had an RoF of 3, that's nothing to sneeze at.
(said RoF being the same as the number of darts in a set of pub darts, was a complete coincidence....)

 

[Cadence]

Crossbow?! Blasphemy, letting Wizards use crossbows was pointless power creep! They should be throwing darts! Or oil! And what's with this light being a cantrip usable at will? They have a free hand, they should be holding a torch!

I guess the only solution here is to randomly choose a bunch of members of the National Academy of Sciences and enter them in some combat version of survivor and see what they are capable of using in terms of combat... (could they throw darts or oil accurately? how in terms of academic accomplishments do the more physically capable ones compare to the others?).

What level of competent martial fighter should the high level specialist in arcane things be roughly equivalent to (melee DPR, hit points, whatnot)?

 

[James Gasik]

I guess the only solution here is to randomly choose a bunch of members of the National Academy of Sciences and enter them in some combat version of survivor and see what they are capable of using in terms of combat... (could they throw darts or oil accurately? how in terms of academic accomplishments do the more physically capable ones compare to the others?).

What level of competent martial fighter should the high level specialist in arcane things be roughly equivalent to (melee DPR, hit points, whatnot)?

First we need to figure out how competent a high level Fighter should be compared to a guy at the gym...

 

[Cadence]

First we need to figure out how competent a high level Fighter should be compared to a guy at the gym...

I would also take - what percent of their time do adventuring wizards spend combat training (is the equivalent of Cap in the Avengers forcing them to train; are they like the X-men having to work out in the Danger room)?

Would a wizard who didn't spend that time training be really lame in combat but better at Magic? How high of spell level and how many of the high level ones could they work up to with that extra time devoted to just spell using (assuming they lived)?