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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9587492" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Conditions under which martial characters can overtake non-martial characters for DPR/net daily damage:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Combats are unusually long (6+ rounds on average) where the martial characters are always able to land attacks, e.g. they never have to wait out a round damage-wise because they don't have the range to attack something</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Combats are mostly against just one or two large targets with good "main" saves but no better than decent AC</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Most, if not all, combats do not involve large numbers of weak targets, unless those targets are so weak they're comparable to 4e minions (that is, you hit them once, they die), so martial characters can cleave through several per round</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The party actually goes beyond the expected 6-8 encounters per day, closer to 8-10 encounters per day</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The party takes far, far more short rests than is typical for 5e groups (that is, most groups average just 1 SR/LR, we're talking 4+ SR/LR), especially if the martial characters get resources back from short rests</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The casters in the group specifically aim to not be very good at doing damage, thus by default making the martial characters better</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The DM is actively putting her thumb on the scale to favor martial characters over caster characters (e.g. spells and foci never appear in loot, nor can they be bought in shops, but highly desirable martial magic items consistently do appear; creatures immune to conditions or elements the casters use are frequent, but little to nothing has resistance to weapon damage types; creatures have great saving throws in the categories the casters target e.g. Dex/Wis/Con, but crappy ones in Str, which martials typically target; etc.)</li> </ol>The more of the above you have, the higher the likelihood that this sort of result happens. Unfortunately, most of these things are not something groups typically do, and several of them are not what 5e was designed to do. Unusually long combats are generally disliked because they're often a boring slog (the lackluster design of many/most official 5e monsters really really doesn't help here). Even hitting the expected 6-8 daily encounters is often seen as a painfully over-extended thing, something that rarely if ever happens for most groups. With fewer daily encounters, you get more spells usable per encounter each day, and less need to take short rests, meaning, many martial characters aren't restoring their resources as fast (nor is the Warlock, the only short-rest caster, something Crawford explicitly noted in the months leading up to the "One D&D" playtest announcement.) And, as we've been told time and time and time again, the whole point of 5e "stretching out" the levels at which monsters are appropriate foes was specifically to make it so that you'd be fielding large numbers of weak-but-still-dangerous enemies at the PCs, which caters to classes that can do AoE damage...and that's almost exclusively the domain of spellcasters, not martial characters.So....yeah. There are, objectively, conditions under which pure-martial characters can overtake mostly- or primarily-spellcaster characters on damage. But most of the conditions which would invite this are either working against how people prefer to play 5e, or against the fundamental design of the system, or against the monster design of the system, or doing things that are often less interesting than doing the opposite. Which...basically means that we're left with "spellcasters deciding to let the martial characters be the stars" or "DM deciding to nerf casters and buff martials in this game."Which, you may note, that former thing is exactly how Treantmonk expressed his "God wizard" archetype from 3.x. You're much too busy rewriting reality to muck about with crass things like defeating bosses. That's something you leave for the BSF ("Big Stupid Fighter") to deal with. That way, you convince them that they're actually contributing, all the while you are the one actually deciding whether any of their contributions really matter or not. It's your game, you just deign to let them play in it.That this hasn't changed from 3.x should be pretty indicative.</blockquote>

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