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

[Lanefan]

What were the healing rules in AD&D? Was that 1hp per day?

Yes.

Also not the greatest mechanics. There's a sweet spot somewhere between this and 5e's get-it-all-back-overnight paradigm, and that spot will vary from table to table.

 

[Tony Vargas]

no, you can multiclass into Sorceror, the descended from dragons you either already had, or do not gain that way

Quantum uncertainty genetics.

 

[Cadence]

Yes.

Also not the greatest mechanics. There's a sweet spot somewhere between this and 5e's get-it-all-back-overnight paradigm, and that spot will vary from table to table.

I was just checking that a commoner in 1e in a knife fight or fire or anything else like that would heal fully back in just a few days (assuming they hadn't died).

 

[Pedantic]

Are these all the kind of things that would be ok?

They sold their soul to Orcus and beat out 100 others who did the same in a contest of the damned.
They were the spawn of a far realms thing and a succubus.
They spent 500 years studying the ritual in the temple of eternal Darkness.

Taking those in order:

The first is reasonable, just about once, but hardly necessary. Just write a spell/ability that does the thing. That Orcus thing screams for something like a prestige class.

Monsters abilities are sort of their own thing, this hardly causes any problems.

Meh, it might be reasonable once, for a campaign defining effect. You're describing something with a similar function in play to an artifact.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not saying "because (only)dragons". I'm saying because:

• A character can reliably survive extreme falls repeatedly, no chance of death whatsoever. No broken bones. Nothing.
• A walk in lava causes no permanent damage.
• Giants, oozes, all the weird and impossible monsters.
• Some creatures are inherently and non-magically immune to some spells by means of legendary resistance.
• All the magic.
• All the weird playable races with barely no regard for movement speed vs size.

The person I was replying to was asserting that the setting attempts to be realistic. It isn't.

Points one, two, and six on that list point directly to bad rules that need to be changed.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yes, we must assume that in the world the chracter always was descended from the dragons. But the player can make the decision that it "always was so" years after the chracter creation when they multiclass. The exact same thing than with 4e's demigod epic destiny.

Or you could just ... not play Pathfinder or 3.X. The explicit text for the dragon blooded sorcerer in 5e is:

Your innate magic comes from draconic magic that was mingled with your blood or that of your ancestors. Most often, sorcerers with this origin trace their descent back to a mighty sorcerer of ancient times who made a bargain with a dragon or who might even have claimed a dragon parent. Some of these bloodlines are well established in the world, but most are obscure. Any given sorcerer could be the first of a new bloodline, as a result of a pact or some other exceptional circumstance.​

(Emphasis mine - and no the pact doesn't make them a warlock. "I'll do this for you in exchange for a blood transfusion" doesn't give you Eldritch Blast, just magic)

 

[Lanefan]

I mean on the subject of realism I think a bunch of level 20 rogues could kill a diplodocus with just daggers.

Of course they could, though it might take quite some time, as a diplodocus didn't exactly have much effective pushback against small fast things with sharp bits that could reach its underbelly.

 

[Lanefan]

I kinda wish we'd stop talking about magical humans and pursue a much more achievable goal, which is nerfing the holy hell out of casters.

OK, that takes care of Clerics.

Now, about those Wizards...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, always has been, from the lowly Fighting Man of 0e, to the stolid %STR/extra-attack early 1e fighter, to the crazed dual-wielding/double-specialized DPR machine of later AD&D, to the elegant, highly feat-customizable yet still disml-Tier 5 design of 3e, to the balanced, competent defender of 4e, back to the ExtraExtraExtra Attack fighter of 5e. Regardless of whether the fighter was good, bad, balanced or indifferent, it's popularity has never waned. People want to play fighters (and Rogues, Barbarians, Warlords, Archers, Swashbuckling duelist, martial artists, etc), and they have often been unhappy with the choices D&D has offered.


WotC has radically changed the Fighter with each full edition they've published. And with Essentials, which was more of a half-ed.


TBF, that's exactly what precipitated Essentials, and drove Next (5e), to re-entrench(pi) the martial/caster gap. It just wasn't one thread, it was every corner of the internet where D&D came up.

2024 is hardly a full edition (as much as I wish it were).

 

[TwoSix]

Taking those in order:

The first is reasonable, just about once, but hardly necessary. Just write a spell/ability that does the thing. That Orcus thing screams for something like a prestige class.

Monsters abilities are sort of their own thing, this hardly causes any problems.

Meh, it might be reasonable once, for a campaign defining effect. You're describing something with a similar function in play to an artifact.

I mean, in 3.5 terms, you can give your NPCs pretty much a la carte abilities by defining the bulk of them in a "custom template", and then slapping that onto a low level NPC. Give the custom template a high CR and no LA, and the PCs have no actual recourse to use the abilities. I'm familiar with this because this is what I did with the bulk of my 3.5 designs. "How'd the NPC do that??" "Pact with the Demon Lord gave him a custom template."