D&D 5E (2024) A critical analysis of 2024's revised classes

[Belen]

Yeah, but that's not the "Wizard fans" who are doing this... it's the two sides of Fighter fans arguing amongst themselves.

"Wizard fans" are just using what the game has always given out. Which, granted, is a lot-- the original AD&D gave Wizards the 'Wish' spell for crying out loud. But I don't hear any of them complaining when other casters get really powerful abilities, nor when there's the suggestion that Martial characters should be exceedingly powerful too. That's the "Mundane Fighter" fans who want the high-level Fighter to be equally as powerful as the Wizard without getting any magical abilities and remaining mundane... while all the other Fighter fans of "verisimilitude" telling them that makes zero sense and that a Fighter equally as powerful as a Wizard needs to be magically boosted. Otherwise it's just dumb.

But from what I've seen... the "Wizard fans" couldn't care less about any part of that argument because it doesn't involve them nor the Wizard class itself.

To be fair, they did remove the main controls on the spells that forced players to use them sparingly. Caster fans use to moan about how it was not fun if a spell failed or if they aged 10 years or if they could not be cool every round.

I still mostly agree with you though.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This conversation goes very differently if the level cap is 10 or if level 6 spells take a month to cast or something.

Absolutely. Which is why whenever the argument occurs here on these boards about how high-level Fighter abilities should be fluffed (either entirely as mundane, or as the Fighter slowly creeping into the super / preternatural realm to explain their abilities)... the answer should always be the same:

The player who wants their martial characters to never be magical and only do the stuff a "highly-trained but regular person" can do... they really should just end their campaigns at like Level 10. Not because the game can't legitimately have high-level abilities for those types of classes... but because to have those martial characters be balanced against high-level spellcasters, those characters will need to do things at a power level that most other people would probably not define as mundane, but rather as magical.

So in order to avoid the argument altogether... one just needs to end their campaigns at level 10 because Fighters and Rogues at that level that are still mechanically balanced against Level 10 Clerics, Druids, and Wizards... can usually still be looked at by most people as a "highly-trained but regular person".

 

[I'm A Banana]

Granted, but even in a campaign where this sort of domain management game is relevant, it’s still functionally resolved through negotiation with the DM, whereas the casters’ high level narrative power interfaces directly with the rules. They get little packages of effects that they can say they invoke, and those effects take place as described. Sometimes a die roll is required, but it’s always hard-coded. Select spell A, get effect B, reliably and as described in the text of the spell. Martials just don’t really get anything like that outside of combat.

When the domain management was big, the effects of spells like Teleport and Wish were much more subject to DM whim. These spells becoming more quantified went in process with high level D&D losing this kind of "impact the campaign" kind of play.

I think I'd like a version of D&D that capped out at 10th level and had a sort of "high level" module where you could add things like domain play and more "chaotic" magic with a bigger campaign-defining qualities on an opt-in basis. Story-defining spells, domain management, resurrection of ancient beings, god-slaying, etc. A sort of "we are mostly going to design content for these first levels of play, but here's some ways to have fun with bigger and more impactful effects if you want" kind of philosophy would go a long way to mitigating the complaints. Maybe not eliminating them -- there's a kind of poisoned well here where nothing beyond nerfing high-level magic beyond usability will count as "good enough." But in terms of getting D&D on a more narrowly defined genre, I think making high-level stuff opt-in and more systematic and less about feeding into the "monster slaying game" loop, there's at least a conversation to be had.

 

[DEFCON 1]

To be fair, they did remove the main controls on the spells that forced players to use them sparingly. Caster fans use to moan about how it was not fun if a spell failed or if they aged 10 years or if they could not be cool every round.

I still mostly agree with you though.

WotC did that by just de-powering the Wish spell though. So rather than aging the wizard 5 or 10 years when they cast it, WotC just removed the aging and then balanced it by making Wish less powerful. But that kind of complaint is much different than what some of the folks in this thread are talking about when they say that "wizard fans" won't allow the class to be less powerful and will scream and yell if it happens... and that WotC bends over backwards to placate them. I just don't see that actually ever happening.

But you know... maybe I'm just not looking in the right place.

 

[Pedantic]

That would be a big help, yes. One the core reasons for the caster/noncaster discrepancy is that D&D spells have always been written as explicit permission to assert a change into the narrative without asking the GM permission (other than corner case adjudication); other methods of resolution are heavily dependent on GM adjudication.

I'd love to see RPGs in general and D&D in particular turn away from negotiation as the basic interaction mechanic, but we haven't had a fully fleshed out skill system for nearly 20 years. I think the player muscle for leveraging rules that way is just gone; players who came into the game with a core of negotiated checks might well struggle to see how a game with specified interaction rules is an RPG.

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah, but that's not the "Wizard fans" who are doing this... it's the two sides of Fighter fans arguing amongst themselves

There there is no section of "fighter" fans openly calling for the nursing and limitation of the fighter class.

The people demanding fighters beginner friendly, limited in scope, and have a restricted number of described permissive features were not folk who had Fighter as they top 3 classes.

Because they were concerned what Fighters couldn't do not what they could not. This why fighters stopped getting new features before tier 3. Defining what a tier 3 or 4 fighter would upset these false fighter fans.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I really think both casters and non casters should be able to interface with the rules in both ways. Have access to a menu of hard-coded effects they can choose from “push-button” style like spells, and also have the ability to attempt something beyond the scope of these hard-coded options that the DM uses their human brain to adjudicate. Currently, only casters can really do both, and their magic is always resolved by the former method, never the latter. Likewise, with some specific exceptions limited to the combat minigame, non-magical actions are always resolved by the latter method, never the former. I think it would be best if we could break down that wall; allow magic users to improvise magical effects not covered by their spells, and give martials out-of-combat maneuvers that have predictable, hard-coded effects. Let everyone play in both styles if they like.

not to mention, when resolving improvised spell uses magic tends to be given far more rope on what it can be used to achieve by GMs purely because 'it's magic' and magic can do anything because it's magic (circular reasoning goes brrrrrr) whereas martial improvised actions are burdened by the yoke of real world comparisons.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The player who wants their martial characters to never be magical and only do the stuff a "highly-trained but regular person" can do... they really should just end their campaigns at like Level 10. Not because the game can't legitimately have high-level abilities for those types of classes... but because to have those martial characters be balanced against high-level spellcasters, those characters will need to do things at a power level that most other people would probably not define as mundane, but rather as magical.

I think that it's interesting that in the realm of monster-fighting, a high-level martial character can already do things well beyond what a highly trained normal person can do. In that area, this includes things like tanking a dozen or so direct hits with a greatsword, or surviving deadly poisons, or wrestling giants, or being able to backstab a god, or slaying a dragon, or other such fantasy fare. This even emerges well before LV 10, and D&D has been explicit for the last 20 years that the PC's you play are NOT "normal people."

And still, if you make fighters more explicitly magical (give them magic items as a class feature, forex), you're somehow ruining the "martial" vibe.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'd love to see RPGs in general and D&D in particular turn away from negotiation as the basic interaction mechanic, but we haven't had a fully fleshed out skill system for nearly 20 years. I think the player muscle for leveraging rules that way is just gone; players who came into the game with a core of negotiated checks might well struggle to see how a game with specified interaction rules is an RPG.

Are you talking about adding say a "mechanical system" to social interactions (beyond just standard skill checks?) So RPGs should remove the conceptual idea of a player coming up with something to say or do in their head and then improvising their expression of those ideas to the DM... and instead just make all of it into a codified "game system"?

My first reaction to something like that would be "Heck, no, why remove the best and most important part of what a roleplaying game is and replacing it with dice rolling and charts?"... but it is quite possible that I am misunderstanding what it is you are talking about. But if I am indeed understanding what you meant correctly, then I'd say "Heck, no, why remove the best and most important part of what a roleplaying game is and replacing it with dice rolling and charts?"

 

[Minigiant]

I'd love to see RPGs in general and D&D in particular turn away from negotiation as the basic interaction mechanic, but we haven't had a fully fleshed out skill system for nearly 20 years. I think the player muscle for leveraging rules that way is just gone; players who came into the game with a core of negotiated checks might well struggle to see how a game with specified interaction rules is an RPG.

It won't because negotiation games are cheaper and easier to make.

You don't have to design as many elements and can hide behind table failure for poor implementation.