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

[KarinsDad]

If it's a new place but they have an associated object they'll still teleport there, won't they?

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.

Typically, teleport won't be used except to jaunt back and forth from teleport circles period. A few cities, the PC's headquarters, maybe an emergency place to hole up. An occasional associated object, maybe. But, those objects expire.

The concept of PCs teleporting across the globe (as per the concept earlier in this thread) would tend to be rare or non-existent in most games. One cannot go to Kara-Tur without risk if one does not have an associated object from Kara-Tur. And even with an associated object, teleporting into somebody's home or palace unannounced might not be well received.

I think teleport is a major resource to use to regulate the length of the "adventuring day", as well as solve a range of transport-related problems.

I don't see it as the former. Adventuring day, to me, is regulated by how much healing and spells the PCs have remaining, or sometimes they just plain run out of hours (rare).

As for transport-related problems, I view teleport like a subway. It'll take you to a few stops, but it typically won't take you directly to your final destination. Over time, the PCs add a few more stops.

It's a way to get the PCs near the adventure (regardless of which pillar), but not necessarily to the adventure. The exploration pillar still needs to be handled to get to the final destination.

 

[KarinsDad]

As an aside, if Fighters have fortresses and Rogue's have guilds (per a prospective DM module), they will hopefully be provided with thematic, logistical trump card abilities (My Legions Know No Bounds or Heavy Artillery or I Know a Guy Who Knows a Guy or Call in a Favor) to that help the situation. If Wizards then have towers and Clerics have temples that do the same?...then we've gained nothing with respect to balancing utility and noncombat fiat ability.

Regardless of the lack of gain for non-spellcasters, this is one of the reasons why Background Traits had me initially intrigued by 5e's potential, final iteration. They provide some manner of mundane, thematic trump card/fiat ability to all characters, not just spellcasters. No one seemed to get their panties in too much of a twist over them. I wonder then why sprinkling such abilities throughout the mundane classes would (inevitably) make people lose their minds.

Actually, I wonder why people see the necessity to sprinkle such abilities through the mundane classes and have these mega-discussions about spellcasters being so versatile/powerful and martial characters being so limited.

It's a shared game experience with cooperative players. Yes, the player of the wizard gets to decide who teleports and to where once he reaches level 9, but still, its not like the wizard can go off and adventure by himself. When he teleports, its often with a party goal in mind and often with the rest of the party. Its not like the fighter isn't usually teleporting with him.

People lose their minds over this "lack of balance" and search for ways to beef up the martial types. Gotta a little clue for those people. The martial types are already balanced. They are better at some things, spellcasters are better at other things. Not too dissimilar to women and men. Different types of power, different types of versatility, different capabilities, different ways to achieve goals.

But in an FRPG, it tends to be a cooperative goal, so both groups end up supporting the other group, and filling in the gaps. Just like men and women.

Even out of combat. This talk of out of combat utility is a bit nonsensical. Rarely does the wizard charm the shopkeeping, the paladin sweet talks him. Rarely does the sorcerer fly the party across the gorge, the party tends to use ropes, possibly with the sorcerer flying the first rope across.

If D&D were so unbalanced, the game would not have survived for 4 decades. There are hundreds of games that have been introduced in that time frame, some of them RPGs, that have fallen by the wayside. Sure, high level play can get a bit out of hand, but some of us have played at high level and the game still works. It's still a shared cooperative player experience.

 

[Morty]

The he next issue is that martial PCs are limited to below reality.

That's an important part of this. Plenty has been said about non-magical characters being forced to conform to realism, but they're actually frequently staggeringly inept by any realistic measure - especially in combat. No trained fighter in real life has ever spent a battle attacking in the same fashion over and over again. If you're a wimpy scholar clad in a robe and a trained murderer wielding a murder weapon gets close to you, you're not going to get enough time to get a spell off. And so on.

 

[Crothian]

I don't think it's fair to hold DMs to a higher standards than the designers, considering the designers are professionals paid for their work.

Well, I never mentioned designers but since you brought that up we hold them not to higher standards but different standards. At my gaming table I don't expect the designers to listen to me. They are concerned with what is going on at a thousand gaming table and they have to answer to their bosses. My DM though is only concerned with what happens at our table. It is easier for the DM to change things to fit our group then it is for the designers.

 

[KarinsDad]

That's an important part of this. Plenty has been said about non-magical characters being forced to conform to realism, but they're actually frequently staggeringly inept by any realistic measure - especially in combat. No trained fighter in real life has ever spent a battle attacking in the same fashion over and over again. If you're a wimpy scholar clad in a robe and a trained murderer wielding a murder weapon gets close to you, you're not going to get enough time to get a spell off. And so on.

How long does it take to cast a spell in real life? Seriously?

And the fighter is not attacking in the same fashion over and over again. He's making different moves, but he's still limited to how powerful of a blow he can get in based on weapon type and his strength, hence, the damage is similar. Some players consider combat to be a fluid thing. Other players consider little plastic miniatures to be sitting on a grid, swinging their plastic swords the same way over and over again.


Let me get this straight. A D&D fighter with a starting Str of 16 can carry 240 pounds all day long without getting fatigued (shy of DM intervention, but certainly for the time it takes to explore a dungeon), but the mundane classes are incapable of doing things beyond the real world? Even with the variant encumbrance rules, that same PC can carry 80 pounds non-encumbered, and 160 pounds lightly encumbered.

Note: Real soldiers tend to have 80 to 90 pounds of gear, 130 in extreme circumstances, not 160 or 240.

A PC might take 3+ rounds (20 seconds) to Dash/Move 100 yards, but he can keep it up for as long as the DM allows. He can do a mile (with gear on) in less than 6 minutes. He can swim a 100 meters in just over 7 rounds (beating the Olympic record by about 14 seconds).


The main thing that D&D 5E PCs are limited in is movement in a single round which has historically been because they are not just moving, but observing their surroundings, avoiding enemies, etc. But, this is not a factor of class.

 

[Quickleaf]

People lose their minds over this "lack of balance" and search for ways to beef up the martial types. Gotta a little clue for those people. The martial types are already balanced. They are better at some things, spellcasters are better at other things. Not too dissimilar to women and men. Different types of power, different types of versatility, different capabilities, different ways to achieve goals.

You raise a good point that balance must be examined at the party level.

Maybe a better way to describe the issue is that wizards have greater versatility of class options than fighters. So, a wizard can be built toward combat, exploration, roleplaying, or some balance of those things; indeed, a 5e wizard can choose which area they'll be strongest in on the fly! A warrior, OTOH, is squarely focused on combat (and has few options for expanding into other dimensions of play). Now I've had the pleasure of playing with some really great players of warrior PCs who brought a lot to the table outside of combat, but that was always by virtue of their own roleplaying skill in spite of the rules.

What I believe the argument for more versatile fighters is about is taking some of the more nebulous aspects of fighter that succeed or fail at the DM's whim (which can be good or bad, depending on the DM), and giving those expression in the rules. Doing so also could be seen as an imagination tool to inspire fighter players...just as spell descriptions can inspire wizard players.

You might not agree, but what I've just described is an entirely legitimate position.

It's not saying D&D 5e is broken unbalanced, it's just saying there's room for improvement. Much in the way that Inspiration has been well received as codifying in the rules something that was happening at many tables anyhow.

I think there's a similar shift happening at some gaming tables in regards to players' perception of classes. In the past, players expected that if they were beginners they wouldn't start with a faster class because those were more complex than warrior classes. Likewise, players who wanted more agency would play casters for the reasons [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] describes. Today I think more players are interested in divorcing (a) complexity and (b) agency from classes. So a caster could be simple or complex, provide limited or expansive agency. Likewise a warrior could be simple or complex, provide limited or expansive agency.

But maybe I'm wrong?

 

[Morty]

How long does it take to cast a spell in real life? Seriously?

We know how long it takes in a given edition of D&D. So we can imagine how doing something similar would go in real life if someone was actively trying to kill you. And my imagination tells me: it wouldn't go well.

And the fighter is not attacking in the same fashion over and over again. He's making different moves, but he's still limited to how powerful of a blow he can get in based on weapon type and his strength, hence, the damage is similar. Some players consider combat to be a fluid thing. Other players consider little plastic miniatures to be sitting on a grid, swinging their plastic swords the same way over and over again.

And the rules completely fail to present combat as fluid. You can dress it up however you like, but you're still rolling the exact same thing over and over again. Doing anything other than just attack needs on-the-fly improvisation. And that's the entire point.

Let me get this straight. A D&D fighter with a starting Str of 16 can carry 240 pounds all day long without getting fatigued (shy of DM intervention, but certainly for the time it takes to explore a dungeon), but the mundane classes are incapable of doing things beyond the real world? Even with the variant encumbrance rules, that same PC can carry 80 pounds non-encumbered, and 160 pounds lightly encumbered.

Note: Real soldiers tend to have 80 to 90 pounds of gear, 130 in extreme circumstances, not 160 or 240.

A PC might take 3+ rounds (20 seconds) to Dash/Move 100 yards, but he can keep it up for as long as the DM allows. He can do a mile (with gear on) in less than 6 minutes. He can swim a 100 meters in just over 7 rounds (beating the Olympic record by about 14 seconds).

*sigh* I did say "frequently", didn't I? Yes, in some cases, a non-magical character will do blatantly impossible things. Those impossibilities, I might add, tend to take the form of dull numbers. Or things people tend to ignore, like encumbrance.

 

[KarinsDad]

You raise a good point that balance must be examined at the party level.

Maybe a better way to describe the issue is that wizards have greater versatility of class options than fighters. So, a wizard can be built toward combat, exploration, roleplaying, or some balance of those things. A warrior, OTOH, is squarely focused on combat (and has few options for expanding into other dimensions of play). Now I've had the pleasure of playing with some really great players of warrior PCs who brought a lot to the table outside of combat, but that was always by virtue of their own roleplaying skill in spite of the rules.

What I believe the argument for more versatile fighters is about is taking some of the more nebulous aspects of fighter that succeed or fail at the DM's whim (which can be good or bad, depending on the DM), and giving those expression in the rules. Doing so also could be seen as an imagination tool to inspire fighter players...just as spell descriptions can inspire wizard players.

You might not agree, but what I've just described is an entirely legitimate position.

It's not saying D&D 5e is broken unbalanced, it's just saying there's room for improvement. Much in the way that Inspiration has been well received as codifying in the rules something that was happening at many tables anyhow.

I think that WotC has already added in that improvement. The more versatile fighters are already here.

A player wants to be a melee PC and cast spells? Then take Eldritch Knight, or Arcane Trickster, or multiclass into any type of spellcaster, or take Paladin, or Ranger, or Bard. A player can still get in 4 attacks per round and still cast spells.


The options are already there. I do think that some players want to have their cake and eat it too. Or they want to "stay away from magic", but still do magical type things.


Yes, wizards have greater versatility of class options than fighters, especially at higher levels, but then again, fighters now have many of those same versatility of class options, but at much lower levels.

In 5E, it's up to the player to decide if he wants to play a fighter with those options, or if he wants to focus more on melee combat.

Still not seeing an issue here.


And I also do not see a need to make high level supernatural fighters that can jump from mountain top to mountain top without using spells, cleave a boulder with their bare hands without using spells, or stem the tide of a raging river without using spells. That tends to be the exception in fantasy fiction instead of the rule, regardless of players wanting their fighters to be able to do these types of things.

I get it that some players want fighters to do supernatural things, I'm just not one of those people. I think that PCs have roles and niches in parties and the designers should not go out of their way too much to blur them. The designers should put the brakes on some of these more fantastical martial notions. IMO. This blurring is not needed because the party does not need that. The party needs skill monkeys for non-combat situations, and spell casters, and ranged combatants, and melee combatants. Yes, the spell casters can cover many of those roles, but that's THEIR niche. WotC is already giving a goodly portion of the spellcasters niche to the martial types, yet some people clamor for more.

 

[KarinsDad]

We know how long it takes in a given edition of D&D. So we can imagine how doing something similar would go in real life if someone was actively trying to kill you. And my imagination tells me: it wouldn't go well.

My imagination tells me that I would say a single word and be 500 feet away, or that guy would be unconscious on the ground.

Think of spells like guns. It doesn't take much to pull a trigger and the meanest baddest guy can be taken out in a split second.

And the rules completely fail to present combat as fluid. You can dress it up however you like, but you're still rolling the exact same thing over and over again. Doing anything other than just attack needs on-the-fly improvisation. And that's the entire point.

Err, so? Would you prefer to have a 15 page thick chapter on how to handle every tiny special corner case like 3E? OMG but there was so much confusion and DMs/players stopping the game to drill into rules over grappling and tripping and disarming. Please save us from that monstrosity again.


And btw, that's why there are DMs. To adjudicate outside the norm actions and situations. Talk to your DM, tell him you want to try to disarm your foe. He might surprise you by coming up with an on the fly or house rule system.

But it sounds to me like D&D is not your cup of tea. Either that, or you do not trust your DM.

 

[Morty]

Think of spells like guns. It doesn't take much to pull a trigger and the meanest baddest guy can be taken out in a split second.

Do they need to be this way?

Err, so? Would you prefer to have a 15 page thick chapter on how to handle every tiny special corner case like 3E? OMG but there was so much confusion and DMs/players stopping the game to drill into rules over grappling and tripping and disarming. Please save us from that monstrosity again.

Pardon me, but what on Earth are you talking about? 3e had a handful of half-assed maneuvers, of which tripping was the only one worth noting. Apart from that it was just to-hit and damage over and over again. Have you ever seen a system with an in-depth combat model?

And btw, that's why there are DMs. To adjudicate outside the norm actions and situations. Talk to your DM, tell him you want to try to disarm your foe. He might surprise you by coming up with an on the fly or house rule system.

But it sounds to me like D&D is not your cup of tea. Either that, or you do not trust your DM.

Sounds to me like you're misrepresenting people's arguments.