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

[CreamCloud0]

i don't have anything to add on the topic myself but i think this is really interesting to see get discussed.

 

[tetrasodium]

But not all adventures have dungeons.


Yea, this is probably the root of our disagreement; I strongly disagree with the above statement. Outside of OSR type games, my experience is that the group is paced around the casters; if they're low on spells after 2 fights, we stop and rest.

That aligns wym experience as well but I'd change "around casters" to "around warlocks who uplift monk to nova along with them". Sometimes it's the monk who drags the warlock player to the nova platform, but there really isn't much room for the GM to resist 5e's resting and recovery short of fiat once the players decide resting every couple fights is the thing to demand. The bar was lowered too far when witch made classes designed to expect unlimited 5mwd loops

 

[Zardnaar]

I never said blind dungeon. I never even said “dungeon”. I said adventure.

And even if the adventure is a dungeon crawl, nothing stopping the wizard from using arcane eye to scout the first few rooms.



I mean, I do, since my whole point is that versatility trumps specialization, and number of prepared spells is a measure of versatility.

And they don’t have 15 spell slots; there’s 4 casters, so there’s 60. Plus recharge class abilities.

A dungeon like the one above would probably take 4-5 long rests to clear, so that’s 240-300.

Dungeon like that's probably 3 or 4 long rests. We often don't have a Rogue but someone's usually trained with Thieves tools and can buff the check.

 

[Zardnaar]

i don't have anything to add on the topic myself but i think this is really interesting to see get discussed.

Well I'm not seeing it so far.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If one class can do X, and the other class can do X and Y and Z, then the second class is obviously better. That still holds true if the first class's X is really 1.5X.

If their X is actually 4X or 5X, such that the second's class X is barely relevant, than we can have discussion.

Back during the D&D Next playtest, the way they expressed the balance of classes was that Fighters would be 100% combat, while Wizards would maybe be 50% combat and 50% other things.

What's actually ended up happening is, Fighters are 90% combat, 10% other things, while Wizards are 70% combat, 70% other things. And yes, that percentage doesn't add up to 100--that's the point.

The Wizard can inefficiently sacrifice most of that "70% other things" to get 15% to 20% combat...thus allowing them to perform fully or almost fully in a Fighter's place if they choose to. And if they don't? They have all those other things to play with, that the Fighter does not.

 

[Zardnaar]

Back during the D&D Next playtest, the way they expressed the balance of classes was that Fighters would be 100% combat, while Wizards would maybe be 50% combat and 50% other things.

What's actually ended up happening is, Fighters are 90% combat, 10% other things, while Wizards are 70% combat, 70% other things. And yes, that percentage doesn't add up to 100--that's the point.

The Wizard can inefficiently sacrifice most of that "70% other things" to get 15% to 20% combat...thus allowing them to perform fully or almost fully in a Fighter's place if they choose to. And if they don't? They have all those other things to play with, that the Fighter does not.

Well point of thus thread is can a wizard do that? Haven't seen any builds yet where a wizard can. At least at levels that matter.

They can set up a situation where the fighter kills stuff faster surr. Teamwork wizard damage isn't high enough.
Hex+Scorching ray and situational boom spells is how to do that. Feel free to post more damage than that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well I'm not seeing it so far.

Mod Note:

That kind of snark isn’t really helpful. Do better, please.

 

[FrogReaver]

Mostly but if someone came up with a wizard 7 or 9 CME it's worth a look maybe. Some multi class character 12or 13 could probably do it buy be unplayable/weak eg fighter 2/Valor bard 10,/warlock1.

The high level builds always boil down to CME so there's not really much point and it's white room atm.

If anyone can beat a scorching ray+hex with potentially more on tactical use of fireball and Chromatic Orb put up a build. I'm not that set on it if I'm wrongleaning heavily on treantmonk tbh).

Got ya. I think moon Druid is likely going to be best at CME stuff at level 7 and 9. But level 7 has a limited 4+ level slots problem, meaning it’s a bit inconsistent. I’d say level 9 probably is needed for the consistency factor. I’ve not mined the monster manual for beast forms yet but 3 attacks and maybe lack tactics seems possible.

 

[Zardnaar]

Got ya. I think moon Druid is likely going to be best at CME stuff at level 7 and 9. But level 7 has a limited 4+ level slots problem, meaning it’s a bit inconsistent. I’d say level 9 probably is needed for the consistency factor. I’ve not mined the monster manual for beast forms yet but 3 attacks and maybe lack tactics seems possible.

I haven't mined it yet either. Video I watched indicated the moon Druid might be balanced with CME. They can't use it at range as well and I don't think the best forms have more than two attacks.

Land Druid doesn't get scorching ray.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well point of thus thread is can a wizard do that? Haven't seen any builds yet where a wizard can. At least at levels that matter.

I mean, I literally just showed a build of Wizard that is at least as tanky as the tankiest "martial" in the game (Wild Heart Barbarian choosing Bear rage).

As part of that, I did not examine the DPR at all, just the defense spells. Using melee cantrips until 6, and then mixing regular attacks and cantrips for Big DPS, seems to be the thing to do, since that gives you cantrip-scaling damage plus a regular melee attack. Or if all you need to do is tank, one melee attack + Blade Ward for effectively +1d4 AC against all attacks (not just melee, nor weapon! "Whenever a creature makes an attack roll against you"), meaning if you go pure defensive, you at minimum match or exceed someone with full plate + shield (13 mage armor + 3 dex + 3 int + 1 minimum roll for Blade Ward = 20 AC).

They can set up a situation where the fighter kills stuff faster surr. Teamwork wizard damage isn't high enough.
Hex+Scorching ray and situational boom spells is how to do that. Feel free to post more damage than that.

There is an important distinction to make here.

I'm not saying a Wizard (or other caster) can't get benefit from doing this. They can.

I'm not saying a Wizard (or other caster) can't optimize for teamwork effect. They can.

What I'm saying is, it is more efficient to use the action economy to directly end things rather than to set things up to be ended. On average, your performance will be better if you are directly ending fights (or functionally doing so, "Save or Suck" kind of thing), rather than indirectly helping someone else do a little bit better at pushing things closer to the end.