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

[Tony Vargas]

Pathfinder has a different issue in tow; most of its fans have playing 3.X for 14 years now!

It was a bit unique in essentially being near the 'natural' end of it's run at release. Hasn't seemed to hold Paizo back, though.

Trust me, a Pathfinder 2.0 with "Bloodrager, Skald, Oracle, Shaman, Slayer, Brawler, Cavalier, Inquisitor, Arcanist, Magus, Summoner, and Witch" as the core classes would reek of the BETRAYAL chants that got them to Pathfinder in the first place.

Perhaps. Are those the classes from the survey mentioned a few posts upthread?

Paizo certainly does seem to be displaying a lot more 'agility' in the market than WotC.

 

[Quickleaf]

In keeping with the spirit of this thread, I'd love to hear more anecdotes about this plays out in actual play. Like, when your party is level 5, the wizard has 8-9 spells prepared and can cast, what, two third-level spells? Seems like enough room to prepare some utility but probably not enough slots to use it freely without risking a situation where you can't save the day with fireball because you decided to bypass a spike pit with fly. But I can see that changing at higher levels, maybe?

I thought I'd second this call for actual play experience with 5e. It's clear we are all very smart and can skew data with assumptions to get a desired result that supports our claims. But some real concrete play experience can't be argued away with theory. In particular, I think we need more higher level play examples.

I have playtest experience, but haven't played official 5e yet nor have I received my PHB.

 

[pemerton]

Interestingly enough, in the Conan novels, especially the older ones, Conan was almost helpless against many wizards, even minor hedge wizards.

As with Jack the Lad, this isn't my recollection. He is captured by a wizard in The Scarlet Citadel. Otherwise he tends to cut through them, as [MENTION=6777377]Jack the Lad[/MENTION]'s quotes indicate.

 

[Jack the Lad]

I thought I'd second this call for actual play experience with 5e. It's clear we are all very smart and can skew data with assumptions to get a desired result that supports our claims. But some real concrete play experience can't be argued away with theory. In particular, I think we need more higher level play examples.

I have playtest experience, but haven't played official 5e yet nor have I received my PHB.

I have played at higher levels, up to 20, and posted about my experience both specifically and by reference in my other posts. Is there anything in particular that you'd like to know?

I must say, though, I'm very leery of the amount of 'well at MY table' I've seen in these kinds of arguments - if the Fighter has a 30% chance to save against a dragon's fear aura, but both times you've fought dragons in your game he's made the save, is it still a problem? Of course. Would you, as a player, even know that that problem exists, given that the DM may well not have told you the DC of the save? Probably not.

 

[Warbringer]

If they have such an object. But in my experience, PCs rarely have such an object (from within the last 6 months) of a new place that they have never been to.
.

I see a magical socialnetwork exchanging teleport objects and information

FaceSpellbook
YugolothTube
BlinkedIn

 

[Quickleaf]

I have played at higher levels, up to 20, and posted about my experience both specifically and by reference in my other posts. Is there anything in particular that you'd like to know?

I must say, though, I'm very leery of the amount of 'well at MY table' I've seen in these kinds of arguments - if the Fighter has a 30% chance to save against a dragon's fear aura, but both times you've fought dragons in your game he's made the save, is it still a problem? Of course. Would you, as a player, even know that that problem exists, given that the DM may well not have told you the DC of the save? Probably not.

True enough. However, enough playing time will make vagaries of the dice a moot point, since eventually the true odds come to the surface. I think asking about individual group play experience is useful in this regard because it helps to identify if there is a perceptive disconnect with the numbers/mechanics. In other words, there is more happening at the gaming table than the math, and therefor the math isn't the only predictor/explanation we need to look at.

I have read some of your posts and they strike me as good summaries of general issues that one may encounter during play, but (from what I read) lacked the specifics of actual experience at the table.

For example, what I'm thinking is something like...

BURNING HANDS....AND THEN WHAT?
Disclaimer: My group of players really enjoyed 4e and a few were hesitant about switching to 5e because "it looks like too much of a step backward to 3e." Also, we were using October playtest rules.
Level & Party Composition: 2nd level party of 5 PCs: human fighter (me), dwarf fighter, human wizard, elf ranger, halfling rogue
Observation: Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle. Human wizard cast burning hands saving our hides, making fighter players comment about feeling "second rate." However, subsequent encounters trudging thru the swamp found the wizard out of spells and the fighters carrying the greater burden of combat, at which point the wizard complained about "needing to rest because I don't have enough spells."

 

[Jack the Lad]

True enough. However, enough playing time will make vagaries of the dice a moot point, since eventually the true odds come to the surface. I think asking about individual group play experience is useful in this regard because it helps to identify if there is a perceptive disconnect with the numbers/mechanics. In other words, there is more happening at the gaming table than the math, and therefor the math isn't the only predictor/explanation we need to look at.

I have read some of your posts and they strike me as good summaries of general issues that one may encounter during play, but (from what I read) lacked the specifics of actual experience at the table.

For example, what I'm thinking is something like...

BURNING HANDS....AND THEN WHAT?
Disclaimer: My group of players really enjoyed 4e and a few were hesitant about switching to 5e because "it looks like too much of a step backward to 3e." Also, we were using October playtest rules.
Level & Party Composition: 2nd level party of 5 PCs: human fighter (me), dwarf fighter, human wizard, elf ranger, halfling rogue
Observation: Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle. Human wizard cast burning hands saving our hides, making fighter players comment about feeling "second rate." However, subsequent encounters trudging thru the swamp found the wizard out of spells and the fighters carrying the greater burden of combat, at which point the wizard complained about "needing to rest because I don't have enough spells."

Just a quick one on this before I head out - proper replies to everyone tomorrow - I posted about this specific thing in some detail here (a little way down the post). Basically at low levels you cast 1 Burning Hands per encounter when you can catch 2 or 3 opponents in it and then plink with a longbow, crossbow or cantrip. It feels lame when you're not using Burning Hands, but you're actually statistically on par with or slightly ahead of the Fighter. Low levels go fast and you will soon be summoning skeletons and walls of force.

 

[Quickleaf]

Just a quick one on this before I head out - proper replies to everyone tomorrow - I posted about this specific thing in some detail here (a little way down the post). Basically at low levels you cast 1 Burning Hands per encounter when you can catch 2 or 3 opponents in it and then plink with a longbow, crossbow or cantrip. It feels lame when you're not using Burning Hands, but you're actually statistically on par with or slightly ahead of the Fighter. Low levels go fast and you will soon be summoning skeletons and walls of force.

I think you've got some great points in that thread, but they are limited to describing conclusions we could arrive at with a thorough reading of the rules. They're devoid of context with individual players and the adventure scenario specifics. While I disagree with [MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION] about fighters needing a boost, he raised a good point that analysis (whether of maximum damage, or of wizard vs. fighter efficacy) done in a vacuum is only of limited usefulness. You've got to take into account the particulars of each situation and how the players reacted to it. For example...

Level 1: Faerie Fire contributing more damage over the course of an encounter by giving the entire party Advantage than the Fighter does.
Level 1: Jump allowing even casters with 8 or 10 strength to outjump even a Champion Fighter with Remarkable Athlete.
Level 3: Wizards using Counterspell to shut down enemy casters entirely.
Level 3: Wizards using Levitate to be safe from melee-only opponents.
Level 5: Wizards using Fly to be safe from melee-only opponents and trivialise environmental barriers and challenges.
Level 7: Fabricate obsoleting mundane crafting by instantaneously creating things it would take a Fighter 300 days to create.
Level 7: Wizards using Animate Dead to summon skeletons that do more DPR than the Fighter and that only cost the Wizard a bonus action to command, meaning they can continue to cast alongside those attacks.
Level 9: Fabricate serving as a way to quickly make thousands of gold per day.
Level 9: Wall of Force allowing you to trap enemies under an inescapable barrier through which you can ping them down with cantrips at your leisure.
Level 9: Contagion's Slimy Doom option stunning enemies (including - for instance - CR16 and CR17 dragons with Legendary Saves) for 3 rounds, guaranteed - more than enough time to kill them.
Level 17: True Polymorph obsoleting the Fighter entirely past level 17 by allowing the Wizard to permanently turn into a CR17 Adult Red Dragon designed to be a challenging encounter for an entire party.

Let's start with your Faerie Fire scenario. Were players bothered by the efficacy of faerie fire? This seems to be a good example of teamwork and focus fire paying off.

 

[pemerton]

Human wizard cast burning hands saving our hides, making fighter players comment about feeling "second rate." However, subsequent encounters trudging thru the swamp found the wizard out of spells and the fighters carrying the greater burden of combat, at which point the wizard complained about "needing to rest because I don't have enough spells."

Do you feel that worked as an approach to balance?

 

[KarinsDad]

Basically at low levels you cast 1 Burning Hands per encounter when you can catch 2 or 3 opponents in it and then plink with a longbow, crossbow or cantrip. It feels lame when you're not using Burning Hands, but you're actually statistically on par with or slightly ahead of the Fighter.

Yeah, don't buy this.

If NPCs need to roll a 13 to save against Burning Hands, it does an average of 8.6 damage per foe (less against better foes).

As seen earlier, the low level two weapon or two handed weapon fighter tends to do about twice as much damage as a wizard from round to round.

So with 3 foes in a cone (which should be somewhat rare due to the narrowness of 53 degrees of the cone, hence generous) and a 3 round fight and a wizard using light crossbow with a 16 Dex (also a bit generous):

Wizard: 2 rounds of 4.075 DPR plus 1 round of 25.8 DPR = 11.32 DPR
Fighter: 3 rounds of 8.15 DPR

So, the wizard does an average of 9 additional points of damage. If the wizard only caught 2 foes in the Burning Hands, then they did about equal damage.


Now lets look at a 3 round encounter where the wizard does not using Burning Hands:

Wizard: 3 rounds of 4.075 DPR
Fighter: 3 rounds of 8.15 DPR

The fighter does an average of 12 additional points of damage.


And many players of wizards are probably casting Mage Armor which uses up one of his spells. If not, he is practically toast for anyone attacking him.


At level two, the wizard gets another first level spell. The fighter gets Action Surge. So now for many players, they can get two Burning Hands (after a short rest) whereas the fighter gets two Action Surges (after a short rest).

Granted, at second level, an Evoker can sculpt spells and may be able to get an additional foe into Burning Hands by blasting through the front ranks, but most wizards cannot.


No doubt. Higher level wizard can nova a lot more than this, but at low level, sorry, but fighters rule.