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

[Vaalingrade]

I've lost who to make this a reply to, but anyway...

I think D&D's biggest source of inspiration now is the preceding nearly 50-years of (checks notes) the world's greatest roleplaying game.

I don't think the HERO system has been around 50 years.

 

[Campbell]

I don't think the HERO system has been around 50 years.

Damn near. 8 years shy. The first edition of Champions was released in 1981.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I don't mind this per se. The attack cantrips help some players jump into the power fantasy of a magic-slinging mage.

IMHO, the issue is that they gained endless attack cantrips with decent damage at the relative loss of absolutely nothing else in terms of their spells. If anything, they gained even more as a result of ritual casting and often some ways to regain spell slots. Opinions may vary, but I think that something somwhere needs to give in the design of full casters (and even half-casters). There should be trade-offs. Pick your poison.

Just riffing off this trade-off idea a bit:

If a spellcaster uses up all spell slots of a certain level, they need to make a DC 10+spell level CON save. Failure = level of exhaustion.

 

[Lanefan]

I feel that engaging in nerfing casts is either an effort to lower the overall power level and fantasy of the game, which is not good,

Lowering the overall power level of the game would be fantastic!

This ain't the MCU.

 

[Quickleaf]

One of the strongest designs, in my opinion, is when features - and especially limitations - reinforce the feel or trope of the character you’re playing.

Thieves Cant is a great simple example.

You can have limits that become bounce-off points for players because they don’t work at the table (eg. stringent behavioral reqs on AD&D paladins often led to this).

You can also have limits that become bounce-off points because they don’t mesh with the character conceptually. As a potential example, “all magic can be interrupted” might not feel right to a player with a certain imagination of what a sorcerer’s spellcasting looks like. Similarly, some wizard players might balk at DCC style roll-to-cast for their spellcasting.

I think it’s a tough needle to thread, but a very worthwhile design challenge if you’re trying to rein in the broad reach of a spellcaster’s powers…yet to do so in a way that works at the table and FEELS like that unique type of caster to players.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Eh? 3.X Fighters lost Weapon Specialization? What's this then?

Something that does +2 damage and that takes two feats and fourth level. Not something that you get at first level, and that does +1 to hit, +2 damage, and gives you 3 attacks/2 rounds. They share a name and +2 damage (with 3.X having seriously inflated hp totals) and that's about it. And that was a terrible feat.

And yes, I didn't say the 3.X Fighter was good. I said it had several things that the 5e Fighter lacks. As to why a 3.X caster would support a Fighter, that's because it's more efficient.

Only if someone turns up as the resource-sucker that is the fighter.

I mean seriously, for all the talk about "CoDzilla", it takes a lot of action economy to layer buffs on yourself to become all powerful.

But it doesn't take action economy to be a bear with a bear companion thanks to the duration. And with the wild spell feat you're still a strong caster.

Many buffs that could be put on the Fighter who could immediately use them! That there were good self-buffs at the time certainly helped cause the problem (and the misuse of Divine Metamagic), but the last 3.5 character I played was a Cleric who used DMM+Persist...to lay down buffs for the entire team. This left me basically using Reserve Feats for the rest of the day, but we were far more effective as a group than a single CoDzilla could be, and there was no need for any prep time

Well, yes. You should be more powerful as a party than as one. But the fact in this sort of comparison is that the fighter is just a resource black hole. Meanwhile if you had a druid with a bear (thus gaining two sets of buffs) bard (you'd be surprised what you can do with Inspire Courage when you try) or heaven help us an Artificer in place of the resource-sink the party would have been a whole lot stronger still.

But hey, I don't feel the need to argue that point- and I won't, since it's not relevant to the greater point I'm making here. Fighters have less than they once did.

Yes - they lack iterative attacks losing BAB, they lack Armour Check Penalties, and far far more. Losing these things is good. And yes they are no longer selfish resource-sinks.

The Fighter got a lot less in the transition. There is no longer any real dedicated design space to making them the master of a weapon.

They lost that in the transition from 2e. +1 to hit is a poor use of a feat, so is +2 damage.

Everyone can use the same weapons the Fighter does (and if they can't, getting the ability is trivial).

Welcome to 3.0

The same for armor.

If anything heavy armour proficiency has become rarer as it's no longer on clerics by default as it was before 4e. That said 5e armour might as well be tissue paper.

Everyone attacks the same as the Fighter.

Paladin and Ranger? Welcome to D&D. Barbarian? Welcome to 3.0 as that's where they turned up. Anyone else? Welcome to levels 1-4 only.

The Fighter gets 2 bonus ASI's, has a lot less Feats to work with (if he or she even has Feats to work with), a badly scaling self heal,

And those feats were replaced by Action Surge, Fighting Style (Duelist > Weapon Specialisation), a self heal, save rerolls, having a subclass without taking up all their feats, and more.

an extra attack routine (which again, is really just a patch for not being able to get Haste),

Not even close. That fighters were supposed to go cap in hand to their team mates begging for buffs and not carrying their share was not good design.

and a laughable reroll of a failed save as a high level feature. Sure, you get 2 more attacks, starting at level 11, and that's not nothing, but it's not something they gained. For everything Fighters gained in 5e, they lost something, even if that thing wasn't strictly bolted onto their class chassis.

For everything they gained compared to 3.X they lost something - but a big part of what they lost was (a) faff and (b) being completely incompetent and weighed down by their armour when out of combat. 4 proficient skills out of 17 >> 2+Int (so frequently 1) out of 33.

But what about Weapon Masteries? Big deal, that's not a Fighter buff. That's a buff for anyone who happens to be a weapon using class.

Nope. It's a buff for fighters and fighter-likes. Strength clerics are weapon using and I don't believe they or bladesingers get weapon masteries at last count.

In conclusion, caster's didn't really gain very much of note, if you really get down to it. But they gained more than they lost, and you can't say the same for all the non-magic classes.

Sure. If we're counting losing incompetence and losing "being the team resource suck who can't do what they claim their job is without help" to be lost.

 

[Lanefan]

What is wrong with actually using the tier system? Tier 1: Average athlete. Tier 2: Olympian. Tier 3: Batman/Captain America. Tier 4: Mythological Demigod/excessive super?

What's wrong with it is that it kinda soft-caps the game at around 10th level for those who don't want supers in their fantasy, or their games' PCs to become, in effect, playable demigods.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Just riffing off this trade-off idea a bit:

If a spellcaster uses up all spell slots of a certain level, they need to make a DC 10+spell level CON save. Failure = level of exhaustion.

This would create some interesting incentives in play for when to use those big 1 spell/level spells and has some nice narrative flavor to it.

Standard 5e exhaustion typically doesn't hit a casters as hard as a martials, but stacking the effects can get bad, and this would put casters in a position where they might get a bunch very quickly.

Wonder if you could also take out the save and make it automatic, but make it such that if you regain a spell slot at a level you'd exhausted, you could relieve a level of exhaustion. Or make it a save going both directions.

 

[Neonchameleon]

What's wrong with it is that it kinda soft-caps the game at around 10th level for those who don't want supers in their fantasy, or their games' PCs to become, in effect, playable demigods.

As was done by Gygax. Who of course literally called PCs superheroes. (Level 8 fighting man IIRC)

And this is an argument "I should get everything and you should get nothing at all".

 

[Vaalingrade]

This ain't the MCU.

It should be more fantastic then the MCU, what with all the dragons and impossible underground complexes rolling around.