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

[FrogReaver]

Play doesn't work like that outside of the white room, though. In a game where many or most days the PCs need to conserve resources in order to spread them out over a bunch of encounter, you will see the same conservation on days where they don't need them. Players aren't psychic and aren't going to know until they get to their long rest whether or not they could have gone nova in the encounters they had.

They typically are anyways though. Most of the best spells are concentration. You use maybe one such spell most encounters. The lower level slots are mostly defensive and mobility (which may or may not be needed). There's very few good non-concentration options here. But you get a ton of these slots. While you cannot use them every round of combat, you probably won't need to. And in the worst case while a strong concentration spell is up the caster can just dodge and he's still made effective contributions to the encounter.

The exception is that if it's ever needed the caster can do something like cast a control spell and then proceed to spend the rest of his slots on something like fireball or if a cleric high level commands. It's not so much that you want or expect to be doing this, it's that you can if needed. And if it's needed that badly, not a single person is going to care that you want to long rest afterward - assuming it even took more than 1/3 of your total slots before the combat ended or was effectively over.

 

[FrogReaver]

Fair enough, it is an interesting post because there is alot of room for interpretation. I also opened Pandora's box with "rest and survivability". I just sortof latched onto that "consistency" bit. To me, the all-or-nothing nature of most full casters (one big attack, expended reactions, etc..) knocks them down a peg when it comes to consistency on the long adventure day. But, my playgroup has adjusted to frenetic pacing without many towns or shops available, they are well-aware that I push a chapter until expendables start running low.. so there are some unique builds in that setting, and I often get to see the results of consistency under thin resources. The "stank" ranger is usually doing well. But, the martial made the "suboptimal" choice of polearm mastery, 🛡 mastery, then great weapon master. Dueling and protection fighting styles. It seems like some nonbo choices but it makes for a very multimodal fighter that will start on defensive mode while having +2 1 hand dmg and bonus attack, if enemies get rounded up or a boss makes high AC negligible, he will drop the 🛡 and go ham with a halbard and cleave + bonus attacks with HWM damage output. He often will do this locknstep with his paladin brother who also has the protection style... so disadvantage is incredibly common against both. It really is neat to see, there are very few encounters where those 2 are worried about their HP. They are more worried about keeping the support alive.

Right. I think I'm a bigger fan of save for half damage spells than most here. And when it comes to control I'm looking more for either abilities that guarantee something (like difficult terrain), or for the party to have redundancy there (so if my spell fails) the next pc can easily try something similar.

I like the guarantees, because I've experienced what happens when spells go cold.

Doesn't it still take an action to take off a shield or am I mistaken there? Otherwise I really like the idea of swapping from shield and 2 hander.

 

[Weiley31]

According to everybody and their aunt, uncle, and mother in various posts and threads.....yes

 

[ECMO3]

You are ignoring the point.

When you level up every session or yso sometimes more than one level it's going to play out with an experience closer to how a normal group showing up to play a one shot of a particular dungeon than it would if that group was playing through with normal progression.

No you are ignoring what I am telling you about the games I am actually playing in. You are not playing in those games and to be clear that is only 3 games out of 5 I am playing in right now that we level up that fast and we are playing 4 hour sessions.

The games I am playing in are not "more like MMOs"" and as a matter of fact I would argue those who talk about casters consistently being higher damage dealers are the ones playing games "more like MMOs" as that does not happen in typical play.

If you look at published adventures you level VERY fast in those if you use milestone leveling. In LMOPI think it is one single fight that gets you from first to 2nd level. In SODQ you don't even have to do a fight at all to level. That is like 15 minutes of play with an experienced group and yes I think A LOT of people play those adventures as written. There was a thread a couple months ago complaining about this.

What makes our sessions fast is not that we somehow play different, it is that we do combat fast compared to many groups. In combat we have strict limits on table talk and "planning" during combat, we also don't look up rules during combat at all. Second that we don't do housekeeping at the table. When we level up we have the changes ready. It is 5 minutes to level up, at other tables I've played on it talkes an hour for players to level. THAT IS WHAT IS DIFFERENT in the fast games I play. What really bothers me is I posted this many times when questioned about the speed those groups play and you seem to be ignoring what I am telling you about how we play the games I am playing in and instead coming up with your own theory about how I play and insisting it is true even when I am telling you it is not true.

 

[ECMO3]

When your PCs sale loot do they get full price for it?

It depends, not usually. Sometimes (not often) they get more though. The point was this is part of level 2 in a published adventure that has over 1000gp in loot plus magic items on top of that.

Those magic items include potions of healing, I am guessing 5 from memory .... for part of your time at level 2.

 

[Zardnaar]

@Zardnaar

Do you think casters can outdamage sword and board characters?

Maybe. I gave a sword and board user a vicious weapon because of the power of the other feats/styles.

I would only do sword and board as a Paladin or EK tbh.

That's using probably the best damage dealer vs weakest martial though.

I didn't crunch out a level 11+ wizard with CME pre errata. It was to much theory crafting I think (15' range, fire based and concentration). And obvious it was gonna get nerfed.

Champion sword and board did quite good yesterday though. Topple and rerolls extra dice on crits etc. Sentinel, Piercer, shield master, trident iirc. Knock prone action surge.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

Right. I think I'm a bigger fan of save for half damage spells than most here. And when it comes to control I'm looking more for either abilities that guarantee something (like difficult terrain), or for the party to have redundancy there (so if my spell fails) the next pc can easily try something similar.

I like the guarantees, because I've experienced what happens when spells go cold.

Doesn't it still take an action to take off a shield or am I mistaken there? Otherwise I really like the idea of swapping from shield and 2 hander.

Wah! Looks like RAW is utilize action to don OR doff... So that is a bit painful. I've always just let the player take action to don... but unstrap and drop on the ground rapidly, because that makes sense to me. But RAW is RAW when discussing these things. Dropping a 🛡 is a <6 second task IMO if it means loosening the fast or some don't even have one... but again, that's too bad I try not to bend the rules too much, nice error-catch

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

Right. I think I'm a bigger fan of save for half damage spells than most here. And when it comes to control I'm looking more for either abilities that guarantee something (like difficult terrain), or for the party to have redundancy there (so if my spell fails) the next pc can easily try something similar.

I like the guarantees, because I've experienced what happens when spells go cold.

Doesn't it still take an action to take off a shield or am I mistaken there? Otherwise I really like the idea of swapping from shield and 2 hander.

I honestly thought it took the same amount of action as "dropping an item from in-hand" color me surprised

 

[tetrasodium]

No you are ignoring what I am telling you about the games I am actually playing in. You are not playing in those games and to be clear that is only 3 games out of 5 I am playing in right now that we level up that fast and we are playing 4 hour sessions.

No I am reading it, we disagree on a fundamental issue though. If one were to present a curve showing average games they would find a large number of the ones you describe as fairly typical games well into the upper fraction of that curve's upper fraction. The fact that your group felt the need that limits rings to no more than three per PC when three rings on a single PC is already well beyond the norm shows the expected plotting on that curve

The games I am playing in are not "more like MMOs"" and as a matter of fact I would argue those who talk about casters consistently being higher damage dealers are the ones playing games "more like MMOs" as that does not happen in typical play.

You seem to be taking the phrase as a slight, it's simply descriptive & many of us enjoy both mmos as well. I have never once seen or heard a player at a table I ran sat at or sat near try to buy dozens of healing potions. In MMOs however it's the norm to have players be expected to stock up on consumables like that unless the inventory system makes doing so unrealistic. The pace of those "only 3" games sounds a lot closer to what is often seen in MMO gameplay than d&d where it's not uncommon for me to play in a game that runs for several months to a year or so yet never comes close to level 20, the games I run are even further from that point and regularly run for a year or more of weekly sessions but only have players reaching low to mid teens before calling things on that campaign*

If you look at published adventures you level VERY fast in those if you use milestone leveling. In LMOPI think it is one single fight that gets you from first to 2nd level. In SODQ you don't even have to do a fight at all to level. That is like 15 minutes of play with an experienced group and yes I think A LOT of people play those adventures as written. There was a thread a couple months ago complaining about this.

It wasn't that many hours ago that I admitted to running a lot of AL games in the past, those two (sometimes 3) time a week sessions running AL are run using the various hardcover adventures, I'm quite familiar with the speed of leveling with the experience gained in those adventures & watched multiple groups advance through them even though I feel that it was still too fast. If you are playing with a GM who chooses to ignore the experience progression in order to fast forward through levels (like those 3 games) it's still an unusually fast rate of advancement even when done under the umbrella of "we are using milestone leveling"

What makes our sessions fast is not that we somehow play different, it is that we do combat fast compared to many groups. In combat we have strict limits on table talk and "planning" during combat, we also don't look up rules during combat at all. Second that we don't do housekeeping at the table. When we level up we have the changes ready. It is 5 minutes to level up, at other tables I've played on it talkes an hour for players to level. THAT IS WHAT IS DIFFERENT in the fast games I play. What really bothers me is I posted this many times when questioned about the speed those groups play and you seem to be ignoring what I am telling you about how we play the games I am playing in and instead coming up with your own theory about how I play and insisting it is true even when I am telling you it is not true.

ALL of that is not making your case for those games being well representative of average play. What it does instead is demonstrate just how far those games are outside the fat middle end of the curve. You might play with some groups where the gameplay is closer to an average game, but we never hear about them and you regularly bring up how some extreme outlier game isn't that unusual in a very specific way if you look at x & y but ignore all of the other unusual elements that have their own x & y technicality.

*Yes those campaigns are a statistical outlier & I 100% know that my posting history will show multiple posts outright opening with that sort of admission when bringing up those games to make a point .

 

[ECMO3]

I think you mean 100% by consistently and generalization and I mean typically or more often than not, when using them.

No I mean what I said. When talking about classes and damage I think it is difficult to come up with a generalization that applies "more often than not" in a one-shot and I think it is impossible in a campaign that covers multiple levels.

If you laid down specific assumptions you could perhaps do this effectively, but then it would only apply in those narrow bounds which by their very existence rule out the typical game.

And that PC has given up strong ranged options by using the shield.

Truestrike is pretty darn strong with a pistol as an opener in combat. After that it is assumed you close.

Also A Palding with a Javelin and Divine Smite is pretty strong but an even better option most of the time is Wrathful Smite with a Javelin, although in the Whiteroom it is less DPR.

You've given up alot of damage by using your fighting style for defense and being limited to at most a d8 weapon due to defensive duelist. Just like I claimed would happen. You do 2d8+8 damage = 17 per turn.

At 5th level, not counting Hunter's Mark, not counting Divine smite, not counting Vex, not counting Rage, no counting any subclass ablities .....

Factoring in the typical 60% chance to hit and you are at 10.2 DPR.

No it isn't. Even going with a simple Rapier, factoring in a 60% chance and Vex it is higher than that. How much higher depends on the number of foes, the length of combat and the amount of time attacking one foe. The upper limit with a 60% base chance to hit with no advantage and Vex will approach 15 DPR including crits in combat against a single foe for an unlimited number of rounds. Fighting Goblins, yes it will be capped at less, but that 25 hp fireball the Wizard throws on 7hp Goblins will be capped as well.

If you go strict RAW cheese to maximize damage you would go Vex-Nick-Vex with a Shortsword-Scimitar-shortsword while holding a shield. As an alternative a fighter can go Sap-nick-Vex with Longsword-Scimitar-Shortsword and give the bad guy disadvantage on his first attack to boot, way outshining a caster in terms of defense..

Finally in 2024 you can play any small character as a Sword and Board with a Lance and get GWM and topple, again making many attacks with advantage AND adding GWM damage. You lose defensive duelist doing this, but I've seen this done with a Ranger and medium beast mount and if you get dismounted you go to a back up 1d8 weapon. RAW though you can do berrer as you could just as easily climb on to the back of another PC and keep using your Lance.

I have never seen players play these builds with sword and board nick or sword and sword board lance-GWM from an allies back, but in a whiteroom they are as valid as any other build.

These examples are all RAW at 5th level and do not include things like Rage, hunter's Mark, Divine Smite, subclass abilities etc.

Ultimately the defensive duelist martial PC you describe here is just not going to be very effective.

But if we are speaking in generalities he is going to generally outdamage most full casters in play, whether or not his numbers in the whiteroom are better.

The monk looks alot better for this. Alot more damage, mobility, ranged potential. Good control options. Grappler is an amazing option. The only downside is the base monk will still feel a little squishy because 17 AC and d8 hp isn't great for a melee character, even with a good reaction single hit damage reduction ability. Mercy Monks healing seems like a potential solve for that though. The fighter dip for 2nd wind, sap (spear) mastery and dueling fighting style seems like a particularly great addition.

Deflect attacks usually means the first attack that hits does not damage you at all and the 17AC is less squishy if foes are regularly attacking with disadvantage.

I am also not using a Mercy Monk. I am using a Drunken Master/Scout, currently level 5/7 (was level 5/1 in the example I gave).

Drunken Master is great with the 2024 rules and grappler feat because of the free disengage and +10 move you get with FOB. This allows you to grapple and prone and enemy and drag him out of combat at full speed to where you can murder him. My Rogue subclass is Scout which lets me move off turn any time I have someone grappled and don't use my reaction for something else.

The thing is both of those subclasses (Drunken Master and Scout) are pretty weak but the synergy between the two of them and with the new Monk abilities, Cunning Strike and the new Grappler feat is awesome and that is an example of why you can't really speak in generalities easily, because the generality would be these are weak subclasses.

I am playing that character in part because another player jokingly asked me to play an actual non-caster in the next campaign. I compromised and asked for Magic Initiate, but I had to dig deep to put together all those synergies in a character that fit my play style without any spell slots. When I had to skip part of a session, my DM said the character was "too complex for anyone else to play" and they just had her gone while I was gone. This is even though it is the lowest magic-using character I have played in a long time.