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D&D (2024) Can A Spell Caster Out Damage a Martial Consistently?

The thing about fireball, and spells in general, is that unlike martials, which generally have to be built to do a specific thing well, if a situation is not optimal for casting fireball, you can cast something else instead. With a reasonable selection of spells, you can tailor your use of your slots to fit the situation and opponents.

I'm seeing a lot of use from up-cast Chromatic Orb, particularly from Sorcerors. Ricocheting around is reasonably reliable in rage mode and allows decent damage to multiple targets without risking friendly fire, particularly if you don't have steel wind strike.

If a blaster I'm thinking ignore fireball or acid sorcerer and transmute.
We are using chromatic orb a lot for blasting.
 

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Hey again @EzekielRaiden!

You might hate me for this but we just finished up a 1-16 campaign (just over a year) where the average number of encounters per LONG rest was probably... less than 2.

"Why?!" "Blasphemy!!" All fair points. And truthfully: I did it because fights take too long and they aren't usually narratively interesting. For me, personally, if a dungeon takes four battles I'm done. I don't care if we found the macguffin or not, I am finished. Next song.

I know there are a lot of assumptions and math about balance and pacing and all, but over 16 levels, this never felt unfair. If anything: at high levels when we switched to 5.5 the martials still felt too strong. (Druid, cleric, monk, ranger, and at the end another fighter.) There are SO many ways to get your resources back now that just skipping all that and long resting often... didn't change much. In my experience: 2 battles per long rest (sometimes with a short rest between) was fine. YMMV.
 




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I agree with Zard. IMO you see it now.
I don't think it's the same target being discussed. 5.0 was so incredibly far from ithe 2-3/24hr target that any movement towards there will look like it was "kind of" achieved by virtue of being on the same planet as the target.

With 5.5 there are still a lot of design elements standing in the way of making it really work. Many of those are to big for the GM to trivially tweak into line so that the gameplay itself shifts to make the target's repositioning really hit home. A few easy examples are things like the triviality of rest/recovery to erase the risk of death spiral through reckless resource burn. Another easy example would be way cantrips neovancian prep & removal of meaningful SR ate into power budget for spells that are now shared almost more than ever without really doing anything about the now smeared niches different caster classes had.
 

That sounds a lot like some flavor of Oberoni fallacy. If not, can you quote a rule that puts this apparent house rule into place given the spell already mentioned by others to grant one? Even if for discussion we grant the idea that it's somehow impossible for any players ever to take more than two+1 from the spell short rests it's still twelve fifth level spell slots for that tier3 warlock mentioned earlier.
I have 5e in mind, haven't played 5.5 yet. It is the same edition basically, just a little bit modified and moderately more complex (weapon properties slowing battles down). Probably it goes up to 3 in 5.5 because of Prayer of Healing.

I really can't understand why you are asking for a 'rule' that forces a 'house rule', that doesn't make any sense.
 

Realistically speaking, almost no DM runs 6-8 encounters per long rest frequently. In my case, it is 4-6 encounters most of the time but there are cases for fewer too. Depends on the story, it is not all formulaic and shouldn't be. If you want my opinion, players who are obsessed about balance make BAD players, always whining about items other characters got and think that are stronger than theirs, etc. It is not a strategy game, it is an RPG. Every time I am interviewing someone I don't know who wants to join the table, as soon as I hear the word 'balance', he is out.

Yes, everyone has to be useful, else it's boring for the useless character but useful ≠ balanced. There are cases and cases where different characters are more or less useful and it is the DM's duty to employ them. The DM has to work on the campaign, he can't just sit down and expect the rules to run the table. That doesn't work.
 

I have 5e in mind, haven't played 5.5 yet. It is the same edition basically, just a little bit modified and moderately more complex (weapon properties slowing battles down). Probably it goes up to 3 in 5.5 because of Prayer of Healing.

I really can't understand why you are asking for a 'rule' that forces a 'house rule', that doesn't make any sense.
You made the anecdotal claim about GM's you've encountered, the plural of anecdote is not data.

 


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