D&D (2024) Martial/Caster fix.

[CreamCloud0]

something i would like to see on martials is more action economy and a more efficient action economy, if fighter, rogue, monk and barb all had an extra Action and/or Bonus Action and stuff like cunning action or BA dash was spread around more, it'd need to be tweaked how it's specifically designed/worded so that it's not exploitable from getting poached by multiclassing casters, but at the end of the day is no matter how many actions a martial gets are they really going to stack up to what a fullcaster can do.

 

[TwoSix]

At what levels?

IMO, casters are weak from 1-4, it's balanced 5-10, ahead at 11-15, and completely dominate 16+.

Giving them an extra slot at 1, and removing slots at higher level should align them much better.

You know what would work for that? Martials can go to 20, casters to 10.

Whoever posted that earlier is a genius.

 

[mellored]

You know what would work for that? Martials can go to 20, casters to 10.

Whoever posted that earlier is a genius.

That's basically reducing their spell slots.

 

[aiouh]

something i would like to see on martials is more action economy and a more efficient action economy, if fighter, rogue, monk and barb all had an extra Action and/or Bonus Action and stuff like cunning action or BA dash was spread around more, it'd need to be tweaked how it's specifically designed/worded so that it's not exploitable from getting poached by multiclassing casters, but at the end of the day is no matter how many actions a martial gets are they really going to stack up to what a fullcaster can do.

You mean something like this?

 

[mellored]

View attachment 396373

You mean something like this?

Except PF2 has the same issue, because they have the same spell slot progression.

Casters get both bigger and more slots.

 

[TwoSix]

That's basically reducing their spell slots.

Well, you could always get the slots back by multiclassing.

The most important thing it does is truncate their effective spell list to 5th level and below.

That's the thought experiment I'm bouncing around right now. If you changed nothing except that you chopped off the 6th level plus spells from every class's spell list, how balanced would the game be, especially at upper Tier 3 into Tier 4?

 

[Zardnaar]

You know what would work for that? Martials can go to 20, casters to 10.

Whoever posted that earlier is a genius.

Another way would be stretching 1-12 over 20 levels.

It's not damage dealing spells that are a problem. Hell you could bring back 3.5 scaling boom spells.

Biggest problem is lack of scaling defense a'la pre 3.0 and 4E. Even level 1 spells upcast are powerful if they land 75% of the time.

Checked the numbers with 2014. A bearsick like a t-rex saves va magic 75% of the time. It flaunks a wisdom save in 5E 75% of the tine.

High level magic should probably require debiffs if you want to land hold monster reliably.

There's 1 danage dealing spellcaster build I regard as B+ maybe an A outside of CME abuse at higher levels. Even then it's hypothetical. It's a sorcerer built around scorching ray. Chromatic Orb and occasional use of fireball type spells.

 

[ezo]

Another way would be stretching 1-12 over 20 levels.

That's basically what I'm doing (1-13 over 20) upthread:

You can ignore the features column, etc., but the spell progression is there (more or less).

Doing this sort of modification is pretty straightforward.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's basically what I'm doing (1-13 over 20) upthread:
View attachment 396375

You can ignore the features column, etc., but the spell progression is there (more or less).

Doing this sort of modification is pretty straightforward.

If I was in charge of a new edition or a really drastic revamp all defenses would be raised, hp bloat reigned in and the monsters woukd probably be a mix of 3E and 4E. Some stinkers from AD&D would return like 2E MR/SR. Wouldn't be % based but d20 roll vs 6,11 or 16.

Difference between a good and bad save would be 1-3 or 1-4 points not 12.

You could also junk the magic system but I'm thinking commercially viable as well.

 

[Shiroiken]

While I'm not a big believer in the martial/caster divide, I think the two simple things you could do is remove cantrip scaling and use more encounters per long rest. Using either of these will make casters "weaker" without upsetting their overall balance (or fun), while using both should all but negate the divide.

IMO cantrip scaling was a huge mistake. It allows the at will power of casters to stay competitive with martial attacks, while the casters continue to gain spell slots. It first came to me when I realized at at 11th level, you're almost always better off casting a cantrip than a 1st level combat spell. Even at 5th level, a cantrip is still often better against a single target, allowing the spell slot to be used for utility or defense. By making higher level casters use low level spells instead of cantrips, it depletes the number of spell slots available for other things.

Too many DMs use way too few encounters per long rest. The 2014 rules had a rough guideline of 6-8, which was routinely ignored, and the 2024 rules don't even provide that. IME, tier 1 characters can handle about 4-6 medium encounters pretty well, tier 2 characters the assumed 6-8, and tier 3 characters 8-10. I had some experience with epic characters, but it's hard to say how many they could handle. While you could use more hard/deadly encounters, this favors casters who can go nova more readily, so a variety is best. More encounters takes away the advantage that casters have of having more spell slots, so that when reduced to cantrips/low level spells, the martials will do much better by comparison.