D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[doctorbadwolf]

Because it makes more money.

Show evidence.

And because 5e is futureproofed like unstable explosives.

The entire problem is the encounter assumptions. The designers never intended for other resource paradigms to work. So it's too late to fix it.

The encounter assumptions are mostly fine, the problem is poor guidance, and the fact that many classes have no use for a type of recovery mechanic that other classes fully rely on to function.

Like give wizards 20% fewer spell slots but get back more slots with Arcane Recovery, and make its subclasses use short rests to recharge subclass mechanics, and the wizard stops arguing when the Warlock wants to short rest.

That isn’t an issue of encounter assumptions or design, it’s just failing to realize how much a group will ignore what a single PC needs to be effective if that PC is basically the only one that needs it.

Yes, there is.

. It simply is not true that the only ways are "uselessly broken because the rules expect you to do things that are frustrating and self-limiting without reason beyond 'it makes the game better, pinky swear'" and "absolutely no choices whatsoever, if you don't play this one very specific way nothing works."

Absolutely. If only the rest of your post didn’t act like everyone who disagrees with you has made every type of argument of anyone who disagrees with you, instead of understanding individuals as individuals.

I find it so funny how when an argument is based on theory, folks are told "white room, white room," get that theory out of here, we gotta talk about REAL games with REAL players.

Not so much, though. A lot of arguments only make sense without anything but a small subset of mathematical inputs taken into account. Those arguments get shut down because they just aren’t compelling. Even then they are often engaged with at face value first, until the person making them insists that they prove soemthing they certainly do not prove.

But when you bring in actual real data? "Those are just rare exceptions. If people would just follow the rules, and almost everyone does, everythig would be perfect."

Most of us respond to real data with an open mind, or are the ones presenting it. Anecdotes aren’t data, however, and when your experience is directly the opposite of my experience, I’m not going to just nod along while you act like your experience proves anything about the game. It proves that your experience exists, and that is all it proves. Just the same as mine.

It's a beautiful "heads I win, tails you lose" argument. Theory is unrealistic and therefore can be dismissed. Actual demonstrations are too specific and can therefore be dismissed. Comments directly from the designers are somehow misinterpreted or misdirected or mistaken or whatever, and can therefore be dismissed.

The position is unassailable because no argument is allowed to be discussed or examined. Theory is dismissed for being evidence-free. Practice is dismissed with evidence-free appeals to a silent majority. Actual data collected and stared by the devs themselves is dismissed because...I'm not even sure why.

It's absolutely infuriating. And folk wonder why I say it is impossible to criticize 5e.

Well no, but I do often see folks get mad as if (general) you’re being “dismissed” and shut down when people disagree with your conclusions, and point out that you are treating subjective conclusions as if they are obvious and objective Truth, while also acting like it’s a contradiction and a gotcha moment when I say something very different from what @Oofta or @Parmandur has been saying, as if we are the same person.

Both of them I frequently argue with about the game, in different contexts, and yet I often find that someone tries to hold me accountable for their statements when I say something that isn’t exactly compatible with them, just because we are sort of generally on the same “side” of an argument.


That is not at all what you’re trying to characterize folks as, here.

 

[Parmandur]

It’s a math guidepost that gives them (and homebrewers) a good starting point to work from when designing monsters, encounters, and PC options.

Sure, and as shown in the amth in the OP when Wizards are outperforming, the game offers tools to fix that (push their resources harder).

 

[Minigiant]

While I do lament the lack of modularity that was left out during NEXT, I'm not sure how exactly you are making this conclusion.

They designed 5e around one base.

That ended up not being the most popular base

The miscalculated who would be main game buyers

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Wait. I’ve been hearing over and over how fighters suck because there’s nothing they can do that every other class can. And now you’re saying people choose fighters because they are the only ones to do certain archetypes?

Which is it?

Don't fall prey to equivocation here. Those two statements say radically different things.

"Fighters suck because 'Fighter,' the class, gives no useful (exploring/social) tools that aren't perfectly identical to what all other characters get."

Vs

"Fighter is the only class which embodies archetypes X, Y, and Z, so if you want to express those things, you don't have any other choice."

These two thoughts are perfectly compatible with one another. It just sounds similar if one uses vague, overly-condensed phrasing. The first sentence is about capability within the rules and processes of the game: the only truly unique thing Fighters can do mechanically is make more attacks than any other character, but there are several things thematically which are, by design (and that much to my chagrin), unique to the Fighter.

And yes, I ascribe to both statements. The Fighter (prior to the most recent playtest version) sucks because it has no unique tools apart from making more attacks and acting twice in a turn sometimes, both of which are combat tools. Yet at the same time, the Fighter is the only class that can carry certain archetypes with any degree of thematic fit, even if its tools for fulfilling those archetypes are feeble.

The playtest has finally, finally begun making motions in the direction of fixing this problem. I have proposed two changes that, IMO, would just barely cross the line into "tolerable" for me, something I could accept as functional even if I would prefer going much further.

In brief: (1) decouple Tactical Mind from Second Wind, there is no reason the Fighter should have to give up essential healing in order to get what is, quite literally, merely a suped-up cantrip, and (2) add (after full testing!) a feature like my Gritty Determination (TL;DR: pool = top ability mod + Fighter lv, spend 1:1 to improve any non-Initiative ability check by a total up to your Prof score, stacks with Prof/Expert, must be spent before rolling).

Oh, and I guess (3) for the love of God don't give any of these tools to anyone else. TM should definitely be Fighter 2 or even 3, and Gritty Determination can be 3-5 depending on when they get TM. Simply too deep for anyone to bother multiclassing just to get those tools (especially since my Gritty Determination feature really depends on getting more Fighter levels to be worthwhile.)

Do those things and the Fighter at last has something. It ain't much, but it's honest work. With TM and GD, the Fighter offers soaring highs, as opposed to the Rogue's consistent performance. In a sense, the two swap in combat vs noncombat. Rogues have Reliable Talent and innate Expertise, making their performance floor extremely high, while this hypothetical Fighter can potentially knock an ability check completely out of the park, but may also fall abysmally short. Conversely, Rogues in combat need special conditions to be able to do Big Damage, but Fighters just plug away, making tons of attacks every round and then giving themselves the ability to do it some more now and then.

That's a reasonably interesting mechanical niche for both classes. Fighters are reliable in combat and swingy outside it. Rogues are swingy in combat and reliable outside it.

 

[overgeeked]

True. Making gritty rests the default would fix most of that though.

So would going all-in on the epic, super-heroic vibe. Give PCs the ability to short rest as a free action no more than twice per long rest. And make long rests 5 minutes. Now you can balance the “adventuring day” around a single encounter. Something like a running set piece fight would do the trick. That’s the equivalent to 3 deadly encounter. Or more. Worked great when I tried it. Likely want to have that be an epic 5 game so it doesn’t get too insane.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I suggest that most people who choose to play fighters (in any edition) do so because fighters as an archetype are cool. It's not because they've made a cost-benefit analysis of the mechanics you get and decided 'this will be an effective and fun packet of abilities with which to engage the game'.

I have made that analysis (superficially) and I still play a fighter because fighters as an archetype are cool. However, now that we are at level 16, the gulf between my fighter and my friend's cleric is becoming unignorable.

I further suggest that a lot of campaigns i) don't really follow the rules super closely and ii) never progress to double digit levels where the issues with fighters become more apparent.

My issue with these posits is that people play fighters repeatedly, including after having played them to higher levels.

I think that the archetype is a strong initial draw, but actual experience having fun playing fighters is the strong sustaining draw.

I also think that there is simply a disconnect between people who feel like a sidekick if they are fighting of a horde or keeping Orcus occupied while the Cleric, Druid, or Wizard, casts some ninth level spell, and people who feel like a badass warrior doing badass warrior things while their companion does badass magic things, and comparing them in a way that could lead to that sidekick feeling just doesn’t occur to quite a large number of people.

To be clear, both are super valid, and the latter group loses nothing if we give some extra (martial, non-supernatural in the D&D sense) sauce with which to be awesome for the sake of the former group. So wotc should do that. 100%. And if they don’t we should do it so that we have 13 classes that rock from the perspective of more or less everyone.

My feedback to wotc since the big phb survey has been along the lines of “go ham with the fighter, make them start out Olympic and surpass that by tier 3, and make high level fighters truly just scary to face.” Often with some specific suggestion because I can’t help myself.

 

[Minigiant]

The encounter assumptions are mostly fine, the problem is poor guidance, and the fact that many classes have no use for a type of recovery mechanic that other classes fully rely on to function.

Like give wizards 20% fewer spell slots but get back more slots with Arcane Recovery, and make its subclasses use short rests to recharge subclass mechanics, and the wizard stops arguing when the Warlock wants to short rest.

That isn’t an issue of encounter assumptions or design, it’s just failing to realize how much a group will ignore what a single PC needs to be effective if that PC is basically the only one that needs it.

That's sounds a lot like the variant rules I said would sell more books

 

[FrogReaver]

There is no way to objectively state whether a class is good or bad. White room analysis is always going to be flawed based on assumptions, what is being measured and variations in actual play. So we can only determine if a class meets it's goal, which in the case of a game like D&D means that we have to base the judgement on completely subjective measurement, do people want to play the class.

IMO. There is - it's just not applicable to 100% of cases. There are many potential classes we could objectively say were bad. The ones in the game currently are mostly close enough that I don't think we can say definitively for levels 1-20 class A in all it's variations is better than class B in all it's.

The answer for fighters? It's the most popular class there is. People choose it over other classes because in their subjective opinion it's the class they want to play. Nobody is being forced to play a fighter. So yes, for this particular scenario popularity is a good measure of does the class meet the goals of class design for the game being played. Is it the best possible version of fighter for everyone? That's not possible, it's a compromise like all other classes.

This is where it gets alot more nuanced. There is an argument being put forth that's essentially '(1) fighters are popular but it's in spite of their poor design, likely because some combination of conceptual space they represent being popular and the low mental load required to play one sufficiently well. So they are popular but poorly designed because of xyz'.

Citing their popularity as evidence of their good design is just talking past almost everyone making some form of the above argument.

P.S. insisting that something is a fallacy does not make it so. If there is a flaw to my logic go ahead. But saying "People don't really want to play" has no basis, saying "Popularity fallacy" is also meaningless on it's own.

Agreed. I think on it's face popularity should initially be treated as evidence of good design. For example, if someone told me Mario was badly designed and I said but it's super popular that might be enough to change their mind - perhaps they reevaluated what they thought was good design. But when they go further and say it's badly designed because xyz and popular for other reasons then citing it's popularity is no longer persuasive. At that point citing popularity repeatedly isn't doing anything.

 

[FrogReaver]

So I have a proposition

Fighter Level 1-6 is very well designed. Agree or disagree?

Level 1 - Fighting Style, 2nd Wind
Level 2 - Action Surge
Level 3 - a bit subclass dependent but there are some great ones out there
Level 4 - everyone gets ASI's
Level 5 - Extra attack is great and scales well with most fighting styles and action surge
Level 6 - ASI/Feat, enables Fighters to access feat combos really early or pump str/dex up to 20.

Another proposition.
Fighter 7-20 is poorly designed. Agree or disagree?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

They designed 5e around one base.

That ended up not being the most popular base

The miscalculated who would be main game buyers

Thank you. This is literally fhe whole of my argument when it comes to 5e balance.

It was designed with the expectation of a particular base with specific beliefs, e.g., that they would go until all resources including HD etc. were fully spent, and that they would ration out spells across a long adventuring day. That was a white room assumption, and it has ended up being proven wrong in practice.

Actual players see a very obvious dominant strategy, and they take it. We can either plug our ears and pretend that that dominant strategy doesn't exist, or we can admit that it does and try to do something about it. WotC has openly stated they are doing the latter, and that that is why we are getting 5.5e.

They have specifically described how the way most people—not outliers, the majority—play 5e results in Warlocks not getting enough spells per day. This was straight up stated, on video, by Crawford himself, based on actual data WotC collected. That's why they've given Warlocks the ability to refresh their slots once per day as if they'd taken a short rest. WotC recognizes that building the game around many combat rounds per day was an unwise assumption which doesn't match how real people typically play, and they are adapting to match that as much as they can within the limits of what can't be changed about 5e.

The designers assumed some stuff while designing, and based the balance of 5e extremely strongly on those assumptions. Some of those critical assumptions were wrong regarding most groups. Some were not. But having any of them be wrong in the majority causes problems. That's why they've committed to changing things.