D&D 5E 5th Edition -- Caster Rule, Martials Drool?

[Keldryn]

As I see it, caster vs non-caster balance will not be meaningfully adressed until the rules take control over how long an adventuring day is.

Meaning, as long as the characters get to decide when to sleep, the tendency will be for casters to insist on going to bed before they reach the balance point.

The solution is break the tyranny of the daily rest to say something like "you get the benefits of a long rest every 4 (or 8) encounters, regardless of in-game time passed".

There is that option, but it then makes a long rest no longer represent any action the PCs take within the game world. It also means that you have to very strictly define what constitutes an encounter and what does not.

I think that a better approach may be to change the definition of a long rest in order to suit your campaign.

To get the full benefits of a long rest, the PCs could have to return to a secure base of operations where they can replenish their provisions and supplies and where they aren't constantly worried about getting jumped in the middle of the night. Maybe the PCs need to spend 2-3 days recovering from their adventure to get the full benefits. Or maybe even a week. Perhaps it takes 2 days if resting in town, but twice that long if resting while camped in the wilderness.

You can see it as more than just PCs needing to rest. Wizards need to replenish their spell components. Perhaps clerics need to pray for their spells at their deity's place of worship. Everyone needs to eat a nutritious meal, not just more dry rations. Weapons and armor need to be repaired (the reduced combat effectiveness represented by not being at full HP). Everyone is feeling claustrophobic and on edge after being in a hostile dungeon and need a few days to feel sane again.

None of that needs to be played out; it's just an abstraction. Your adventure isn't over until you get back home, safe and sound. Until then, you have to manage your resources carefully and don't get in over your head because you can "just rest for the night and be back to full capacity."

This of course would make expeditions to remote locations very dangerous. Not necessarily a bad thing.

There's also the approach of having the inhabitants of the world respond in a believable way to the PCs resting for the night and coming back, but that's about DMing style and scenario design.

 

[Ashkelon]

I think the issue is twofold.

For one, the wizard and other spellcasters are just as capable as the martial PCs in combat, but complet key overshadow them outside of combat. Yes a fighter or Barbarian can deal better single target damage, but the wizard can deal much better damage overall by hitting just 2 enemies with a fireball. The wizard can also control and shape the battlefield with spells like hold person, dominate, polymorph, wall of stone, forcecage, referes gravity, etc. Even devoting the majority of their spells to combat still leaves the wizard with great utility spells like charm person, levitate, illusions, conjurations, divinations, knock, rituals, etc. no non spellcaster can ever hope to match that kind of utility. Many spells simply bypass the skill mechanic, meaning even skill monkey classes can be overshadowed.

The he next issue is that martial PCs are limited to below reality. They cannot lift as much, jump as high, or otherwise perform feats of physical prowess capable of athletes today (much less the athletes of myth and legend). While a level 1 wizard can send the tarrasque spiraling backwards with a successful thunderwave, the lowly fighter can never dream of knocking the tarrasque back. The wizard can jump farther than the fighter (jump spell), lift more than the fighter (tensers disk, levitate, telekinesis, etc), knock down physical barrier better (passwall), break objects better (shatter), and otherwise replicate any physical feat the fighter can do, but better because magic. How are we supposed to belive that a high level fighter can go toe to toe with a 5 story tall gargantuan monster, but can't lift more than 300 lbs or jump more than 10 ft. The fighters physical capabilities do not scale to match the epicness of the threats he faces. He is stuck in a land of the mundane when magic is allowed to go beyond the power of most comic book superheroes.

 

[Crothian]

What if you aren't a DM, but a player? Not so simple anymore. In 3E, I've felt the caster vs. non-caster imbalance much more keenly as a player than a DM.

Actually, it is still really simple. Talk to the group about it. If a DM is not going to listen to the concerns of one of his players then he isn't worth your time as a DM.

 

[Quickleaf]

You missed

• Somewhat, LFQW has been turned sideways. Warriors and skill users are vastly better in combat and stealth than casters but casters do everything else better exponentially.

I'm not sure I follow. By "turned sideways" do you mean the issue cuts both ways?

 

[Tony Vargas]

As I see it, caster vs non-caster balance will not be meaningfully adressed until the rules take control over how long an adventuring day is.

The solution is break the tyranny of the daily rest to say something like "you get the benefits of a long rest every 4 (or 8) encounters, regardless of in-game time passed".

That's what 13A did, and it does work - but it is a bit arbitrary. Another alternative is to give both casters and non-casters comparable quantity/power of daily resources. That's what 4e did, and it also worked - for class balance, it left encounter balance a potential issue.

I think that a better approach may be to change the definition of a long rest in order to suit your campaign.

Also a good idea. By adjusting the length and requirements of a long rest, the DM can make it match the overall pacing he wants for his campaign. It can still come off as arbitrary - or lose effectiveness, though, if the players find ways to force a different pace (or find they are invariably frustrated in attempts to do so).

 

[Minigiant]

I'm not sure I follow. By "turned sideways" do you mean the issue cuts both ways?

I mean

For Combat it's QFLW
For Stealth it's QFLW
For everything else, it's LFQW

Meaning LFQW still exist but only in on combat, nonstealth situation. Instead of removing LFQW, 5e went the crazy route and made magic just suck at combat and sneaking compared to nonmagic unless you devote all your resources to it. So LFQW is handled or not handled depending on what you are doing.

 

[Quickleaf]

The next issue is that martial PCs are limited to below reality. They cannot lift as much, jump as high, or otherwise perform feats of physical prowess capable of athletes today (much less the athletes of myth and legend). While a level 1 wizard can send the tarrasque spiraling backwards with a successful thunderwave, the lowly fighter can never dream of knocking the tarrasque back. The wizard can jump farther than the fighter (jump spell), lift more than the fighter (tensers disk, levitate, telekinesis, etc), knock down physical barrier better (passwall), break objects better (shatter), and otherwise replicate any physical feat the fighter can do, but better because magic. How are we supposed to belive that a high level fighter can go toe to toe with a 5 story tall gargantuan monster, but can't lift more than 300 lbs or jump more than 10 ft. The fighters physical capabilities do not scale to match the epicness of the threats he faces. He is stuck in a land of the mundane when magic is allowed to go beyond the power of most comic book superheroes.

In general my sympathies are with warrior types in D&D, so I think it would be easy to accept a lot of your assertions at face value. However, as I was curious what the rules REALLY say, I have tested each of your assertions and found some interesting things...

Thunderwave vs. Shove
Thunderwave can work on any size of creature, while Shove only works on creatures within one size category of the warrior. 

Casters are better than warriors here. Fix needed.

[sblock=Proposed Fixes]]Proposed Fix (Shove): Shove could work against a creature size up to a number of sizes above the shoving character equal to the shoving character's Strength modifier. For example, assuming a human character: At Strength 11 and less they can only shove Medium creatures. At Strength 12-13, they can shove Large creatures. At 14-15, Huge creatures. At 16-17, Gargantuan. At 18+, Colossal.

Proposed Fix (Warriors): Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues could have class or sub-class features which allow them to shove any creature regardless of size with a combination of timing, seeking out weak points, brawn, and skill.
[/sblock]

Levitate vs. Lifting
Levitate works on up to 500 lbs, but requires concentration. Lifting works on a weight (in pounds) equal to 30 x your Strength score, but limits your speed to 5 feet. A warrior with 17 Strength can thus lift 510 lbs, while a warrior with 20 Strength can lift 600 lbs. This is comparable to the Iranian Olympic lifter Hossein Rezazadeh lifting 263 kg (579 lbs) with a clean & jerk, which is a decent measure of functional strength. We all know lifters can lift more than that in ideal conditions for quick bursts, but a warrior in 5e can lift that amount, keep it above his head, and walk around slowly with it. That's pretty impressive.

Casters and warriors are comparable.

Jump Spell vs. Jumping
I don't have the PHB yet so I don't know what the Jump spell does exactly. However, we do know that you can long jump a distance equal to your strength score in feet (up to 20 feet) with a running start. Furthermore, characters with the Remarkable Athlete sub-class feature add their Strength modifier in feet (for a total of up to 25 feet). That's approaching world record range...wearing armor and carrying a backpack no less!

Depending on what the Jump spell does, it may be that casters overshadow warriors here. I don't know yet.

Shatter vs. Break Objects
Shatter deals 3d8 to creatures and objects. In terms of damage output at lower levels, yes this beats a warrior trying to smash a statue fast. However, there are three things working against the Shatter spell. First, a DM can allow a Strength check to break an object (bypassing damage altogether). Second, a DM can declare certain objects vulnerable, resistant, or immune to certain types of damage (e.g. Shatter might fail against hemp rope altogether). Third, Shatter makes a very loud sound; though the text doesn't say how far this sound is heard, a DM could reasonably rule it was similar to the Knock spell (300') since it *is* thunder damage.

Casters and warriors seem comparable in this regard.

Passwall vs. Knock Down Physical Barriers
To a certain extent, this issue is similar to the one above. Passwall is awesome, and lets you create a passage thru 20' thick stone! It is also a 5th level spell that lasts for 1 hour, meaning that once you get into wherever you want to be, deal with the challenges there, get what you came for, you only have an hour to get out (or you must save a 5th level spell slot, or find some way to rest in what is very likely hostile territory). A warrior breaking down a door doesn't have to deal with this time limit (or the expenditure of resources). Because of the spell's level it will probably not be used with any old door but will be reserved for the special stuff. That said, traditionally in D&D there have been magic building materials (gorgon's blood) which prevented Passwall.

This is a hard one to judge, because what is to say that a warrior couldn't muster some hirelings in town to man a battering ram to the same effect? It may need a fix, if only because mustering hirelings is (a) costly, and (b) something within the DM's purview that theoretically any character can do.

[sblock=Proposed Fixes]Proposed Fix (Warrior Hirelings): Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues could get a class feature which lets them call on a certain number of hirelings "for free." Alternately, this could be abstracted to a class feature called simply Hirelings, and then listing examples of what the hirelings for that class can be called on to do.

Proposed Fix (Passwall): Make Passwall have higher casting costs, both in terms of casting time taking longer and having components with a gold piece value.
[/sblock]

 

[Quickleaf]

I mean

For Combat it's QFLW
For Stealth it's QFLW
For everything else, it's LFQW

Meaning LFQW still exist but only in on combat, nonstealth situation. Instead of removing LFQW, 5e went the crazy route and made magic just suck at combat and sneaking compared to nonmagic unless you devote all your resources to it. So LFQW is handled or not handled depending on what you are doing.

Why do you think casters suck at combat? My experiences with the playtest from levels 1 to 9 found them very effective, and game changing once they started to get more powerful spells.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Levitate vs. Lifting
Levitate works on up to 500 lbs, but requires concentration. Lifting works on a weight (in pounds) equal to 30 x your Strength score, but limits your speed to 5 feet. A warrior with 17 Strength can thus lift 510 lbs, while a warrior with 20 Strength can lift 600 lbs.

The warrior can't lift the object 20 feet into the air, nor can the object lifted be /himself/.

 

[Minigiant]

Why do you think casters suck at combat? My experiences with the playtest from levels 1 to 9 found them very effective, and game changing once they started to get more powerful spells.

Casters don't suck. The thing is that casters have to devote all their spells to combat to match noncaster's in combat or constantly catch enemies in AOE. This means a caster is well behind a warrior if the party fights a solo or pair of monsters to often. Noncasters make little sacrifice because they can't do much but fight and sneak.

If the caster devotes all their spells to damage then they can match a noncaster but then they lose all their utility and get outshined by noncasters.

Every Jump is 3d6 less fire damage.
Every Knock is 6d4 less acid damage.
Every Fly is 8d6 less fire damage.
And there is no sack of scrolls for "in case spells" and tons of wands in this edition.

LFQW relied on the casters having enough firepower that they can go offensive and still have the control/healing/utility. In 5e, they nerfed the slots of the casters. If a caster wants to match a noncaster, they burn all their good slots and have none for utility, control, and healing. And if you use one of your highest slots for utility, control, or healing as a caster, your offense and defense really suffers.