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

[Tony Vargas]

And, oddly enough, 3e and 1e also kinda collapse around the same level (12th-ish), for different reasons; assuming one plays 1e beyond name level.

Someone else can confirm or deny whether the same is true of 2e and-or 4e.

2e had more generous level limits for non/demi-human multiclassed characters, so it presumably collapsed a little differently. By the time my AD&D campaign, which spanned 1e/2e, hit those levels (PCs ranging from 9th to 14th), it was so heavily modified it just wasn't the same game.
4e's notorious class and encounter balance held up through Epic. Tho, the kind of extra support Paragon Tier got in DMG2 never materialized for Epic, because of the shift to Essentials. After a brutal RL interruption around 2018/19, my 4e campaign progressed through the whole Epic Tier, and has, actually continued, at 30th, for far longer than I had expected.

One irony of high level play in all editions is that the characters get very resource-rich (spells/day, wealth, status, magic items, etc), able to handle much more grueling "days," but the caliber of foe it takes to challenge them gets ever fewer and, logically, further between.

 

[James Gasik]

Not in 4e. I can tell you that. 4e runs into HP bloat in the mid teens but isn't breaking down but a quick official math fix.

You know I loved playing 4e, but I have to admit, in our Scales of War game, things stopped being fun for the DM once we hit level 21. I remember being level 19, suddenly facing enemies of CR 20 and up, and feeling really behind the 8-ball, those were some of the toughest encounters in the adventure path.

Then suddenly our Epic Destinies came online, we got a stat boost, started getting access to the Epic gear, and we turned into juggernauts. The last session we played, we ended up three players short, fighting a Solo and an Elite in a big boss fight. The fight was supposed to be really tough, but we had skill challenges involving memories of the boss that, on completion, would weaken it. But failing them would cause us to take damage and get debuffed.

Unfortunately, our three characters (Ranger, Fighter, Cleric) lacked some important skills. So we failed each skill challenge. The battle was a huge slog, and we had to use just about every trick we had access to.

And we won. The DM sighed, shook his head, and said "I don't think I can challenge you guys anymore. I figured you'd lose, and next session there'd be a short skill challenge for the other guys to free you from being trapped, and then you'd do the fight again, but this time you'd know what was going to happen, because I really thought it was that super tough.

Instead, you took it out with half the party! I'm going to have to take some time to think about this."

 

[Zardnaar]

And, oddly enough, 3e and 1e also kinda collapse around the same level (12th-ish), for different reasons; assuming one plays 1e beyond name level.

Someone else can confirm or deny whether the same is true of 2e and-or 4e.

We found 4E to grind badly by level 8 so we stopped playing.

2E you gain a level or 3 over 1E, B/X a 14th level character is more similar to an AD&D 10th level character.

B/X and 2E are the best D&Ds around level 8-14ish imho. B/X also changes the paradigm domains vs combat.

Playing OSR tomorrow first time since 2014.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Unfortunately, our three characters (Ranger, Fighter, Cleric) lacked some important skills. So we failed each skill challenge. The battle was a huge slog, and we had to use just about every trick we had access to.

And we won.

I mean the slog part isn't good, but using every trick to win doesn't sound too bad. DM challenging was a little harder at higher levels since there was a lot of ways PCs could find synergy both individually and as a team, but the math was pretty good so you could always raise the numbers and it would be challenging. Despite all the synergies you always had to play within the resolution system box though (for better and worse) so I didn't find DMing hard.

But there was a little something about too many abilities to juggle at higher levels that perhaps made it less fun than mid levels. I think they wanted an even 10 levels per tier but I wouldn't have minded a 20 level version.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Of course, we can't ever admit any inspiration from videogame lest the fandom get up in arms over mentioning D&D's ex-girlfriend that it still drunk dials on the regular.

God, have you seen the reviews for the VTT? There's barely any talk about whether the thing is good or not for all the complaining about how its 'like a videogame' and we hate videogames, amirite, fellow kids?

No, I like videogames just fine. And if I want to play a videogame, I play a videogame. But I don't need my RPGs to try to awkwardly emulate them.

 

[bloodtide]

So the question is: what specifically can D&D 5E do to fix this problem?

The two obvious broad solutions are varying degrees of nerf the casters and buff the non-casters.

Cool. But how?

The Three big things that have worked for me are: A Fantasy world, a Powerful world and a High Magic world.

As the 'default' D&D world is a Earth like, weak, low magic world....well, you can see the problem. The default D&D is the world of "just like Earth before 1500 or so" and examples in fiction like Conan or Lord of the Rings : and that is a bunch of commoners just struggling to get by. A single orc with a magic flaming sword is a demi god when everyone within 100 miles is a zero level nobody with no magic.

Moving the game away from "just like Europe before 1400 or so" can also be a big step. Much of the spellcasters power comes from this. Just think what a D&D default setting of "just like America ish before 1400 or so." The spell knock would be near useless..as there would be few doors. With few written words, and not much of a document based society all 'writing spells' don't do much. And without the 'Europe' concept of money and value...a lot of magic spells are effected.

Though the big step is to crank up the fantasy and magic to 11. So you don't have an Old Earth stone tower......you have a tower made out of many living tree trunks. You might notice that again the spell 'knock' is useless as the tree tower has no door. Or the tower is made out of lost dreams. Or frozen time. Or love. And yes, a tower of frozen time would be 'hard' for a mundane to get into....but then it's 'hard' for them to get into a Old Earth stone tower anyway.

BECMI D&D is the only setting to come close to this idea. The whole 'default' universe increased in fantasy/power/magic every "set" of levels. Also BECMI is a big unique in that high level adventures have more role playing. Basic is local and Expert is regional....but then the next bump up, Companion is continent wise. A Companion level group is going on adventures that have political and social effects for large areas of land. And there is not much a single character with abilities or spells can do to effect things continent wide with just a single action. The Test of the Warlords module has the PCs establish new dominions to rule over and fight to keep them. Where Chaos Reigns is a module where the PCs have to time travel to save reality. And so on.

 

[Minigiant]

You know I loved playing 4e, but I have to admit, in our Scales of War game, things stopped being fun for the DM once we hit level 21. I remember being level 19, suddenly facing enemies of CR 20 and up, and feeling really behind the 8-ball, those were some of the toughest encounters in the adventure path.

Then suddenly our Epic Destinies came online, we got a stat boost, started getting access to the Epic gear, and we turned into juggernauts. The last session we played, we ended up three players short, fighting a Solo and an Elite in a big boss fight. The fight was supposed to be really tough, but we had skill challenges involving memories of the boss that, on completion, would weaken it. But failing them would cause us to take damage and get debuffed.

Unfortunately, our three characters (Ranger, Fighter, Cleric) lacked some important skills. So we failed each skill challenge. The battle was a huge slog, and we had to use just about every trick we had access to.

And we won. The DM sighed, shook his head, and said "I don't think I can challenge you guys anymore. I figured you'd lose, and next session there'd be a short skill challenge for the other guys to free you from being trapped, and then you'd do the fight again, but this time you'd know what was going to happen, because I really thought it was that super tough.

Instead, you took it out with half the party! I'm going to have to take some time to think about this."

4e assumed a lot of health at epic levels.

1. Each PC has full HP
   1. 4 Healing Surges for your Controller
   2. 4 Healing Surges for your Defender
   3. 4 Healing Surges for your Striker
   4. 4 Healing Surges for your Leader
2. Each PC can Second Wind
3. Your Leader has 3 core Heals
4. Your Leader could have 1-5 healing powers
5. Your Defender has 1-5 powers that self heal

A DM has to deal 16-33 Healing Surges of damage to TPK them.

Not impossible. Not hard. But it's a lot.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Past mid Epic, most of the PCs will have some come-back-from 0 (if not literal death) daily ability, too.

 

[Tonguez]

I would argue that isekai is a very particular subgenre of portal fantasy. John Carter definitely is not an isekai character. Isekai is exclusively Japanese otaku protagonists from the modern day that are sucked into a secondary fantasy world where their nerdiness is effectively a superpower, they are wildly OP compared to the native population, and they almost always form a harem. Only one of those points (wildly OP) even remotely applies to John Carter.

so Gor?

but come on, I’m not sure that a Harem is actually a necessary trait of isekai. Afterall both Digimon and Paul's Miraculous Adventure are isekai. Alice in Wonderland is considered original isekai (unless you count myths like Persephone)

 

[M_Natas]

I think I was one of five people who was actually excited for the half-caster Warlock with Invocation options for higher level spell slots.

The problem with the Warlock for me, that he is three classes in one thematically, that would actually be subclasses of either a wizard, sorcerer or a cleric.

In 5e RAW lore Warlocks get their magic trough two ways:

- first by orrowing power from another being like clerics do - so that power can also be taken away, because it is not theirs, when they break the pact. that makes them thenatically basically clerics of Demons/Fey/...

Or

- second they get their power by bargenaing for knowledge to gain power. That power is their own and it can't be taken away. It's the equivalent of a backalley wizard who goes to back alles Shops to buy forbidden knowledge.They don't care about the theoretical foundations, they just want to work this magic.

- or 3 their body/magic gets changed so they can do stuff like unlimited disguise self / alter self / mage armor / better darkvision / Eldritch Blast that is stronger than cantrips that can be learned. In essence an Eldritch sorcerer.

And they try to squeeze these three different magical concepts into one mechanical Warlock class.

So, if I would redo the Warlock, I either would make it into three subclasses (a back alley wizard/hedge witch; an demon/devil/fey cleric; an Eldritch sorcerer who gets their innate magic trough a pact)

Or

I would build a feat based Warlock class. Because a Warlock is rooted in its thirst for (easy) power, so I why would he only limited himself to one way (borrowing it like a cleric, learning like a wizard or mutate like a sorcerer).
So, rename invocations and turn them into feat chains/categories. One for wizard spells/abilities, one for cleric spells/abilities, one for sorcerer spells/abilities. So the Warlock needs to find the knowledge for the wizard abilities either by black market means or deals with higher powers, he needs to become a servant of a demon or fey for access to cleric spells/abilities and he needs to find ways to alter his body/magic to get sorcerer like magic. I would also put higher feats behind skill/atrribute requisites. So high-level wizard stuff needs a minimum arcana proficiency, sorcerer abilities need high enough constitution. Cleric stuff doesn't need anything, but it can be taken away if the Warlock angers his patron.
Now with the feat based Warlock Class players can choose trough the game mechanics throughout the play, where their Warlock gets their power from and not only from what they pick at level 1.

Putting certain abilities behind skill/attribute requirements is something I would incorporate for all classes. But I would also redo the while skill system ...