D&D General Chris just said why I hate wizard/fighter dynamic

[Maxperson]

That's fair but, regarding the wizard picking all the wrong spells for the day (unlikely as that is), what's the worst case scenario? That, outside of combat, he's about as useful as a fighter for the day?

That would be completely situation dependent. Sometimes the situation the party is in requires a lot of knowledge. The wizard would do well there. Sometimes it takes a lot of climbing, jumping and other physical activities to get through what is happening. The fighter will be more useful there.

 

[Maxperson]

Depends on if you think the game should cater to what people prefer to play to or change their play to what the game demands. I personally think the game cater to shorter adventuring days. Under this lens it is a game design problem that they chose to create a game that doesn't.

Games can't cater to what they aren't designed for. They are almost never designed to be that flexible. D&D 5e just isn't capable of shorter adventuring days. All you can really do is stretch them out the way I do or unbalance the game by not having so many encounters.

I will say that the "adventuring day" is the single worst design choice(in my opinion) that 5e made. I hate it. My players were informed that if I can't make it work right this campaign, I will be going back to running 3e since I can much more easily balance fights around the pacing I want.

 

[Maxperson]

I've seen the teleport example brought up a few times. IMO the single greatest use of teleport is as an 'Oh Crap' button. You can instantly and safely get the party out of a sticky situation. It's a great anti TPK spell.

Yeah. If you try to use it as a travel spell, you're taking a huge gamble in 5e. Even if you're very familiar with your destination, there's a 24% chance you are going to end up who knows where, and quite possibly in a pot of trouble.

 

[Maxperson]

The point is combat isn't the wizard job. The wizard only needs to help.
A wizard can use 75% of their spells out of combat and mainly use combat cantrips and be fine.

In a poorly designed encounter, sure. I run encounters that need the whole party to fight. If the wizard is only really participating in 25% of the fights to any degree higher than cantrips, by the end of 6-8 medium to hard encounters there's a good chance that some character is going to be dead.

It's like a healer in an MMO. Healing is the primary job. Damage is extra gravy.

I disagree. 5e isn't set up with roles like that. All of the PCs need to be carrying their weight in combat.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not really that hard to flee. You don't have to run faster than your enemy, you just have to run faster than the dwarf.

With the new and "improved" changes, the dwarf now runs as fast as everyone else.

 

[Oofta]

With the new and "improved" changes, the dwarf now runs as fast as everyone else.

That's why you should always carry a couple of bags of caltrops.

 

[Krachek]

Honestly what is the point if the party totally scrap the adventuring day prepared by the DM and smash down the final boss?
There will be a harder adventure ahead and so on until ever after.

 

[Maxperson]

My point isn't that the fighter isn't strong enough in combat.

Let's say the Combat/Exploration/Social/Shenanigans. The Fighter is 8/1/1/0 at base and subclass add 1 to Combat and 1 to somewhere else.

This means the Fighter caps out at something like 9/2/1/0. 9 is the best Combat score in the game and the Fighter has it.

The Wizard has an 10 in Shenanigans and can get to 11 with subclass. And their scores are somewhere between 1-7.

The Wizard has an 11. The Fighter doesn't have any 11s and can't get an 11 without adding options that let a Wizard get to a 12 or 13.

"Well the Fighter has the best score in Combat!"

1. Is having that the best score in combat worth capping out at 2 in anything else?
2. Why are the Fighter's other scores so low if other classes can be good at multiple things?
3. Shouldn't the best score in combat be an 11?

You're all over the map, man. Your ideas that I've seen have primarily been giving the fighter more combat damage. That breaks combat. If not having the best score in combat doesn't compensate for combat, why are you so focused on improving his combat score?

Repeatedly I've said the the fighter needs some(not a lot, but some) help in the other two pillars. I also don't agree with your numbers. The fighter is at a 10 or 11(if you think that the scale goes to 11) in combat. He needs nothing more there.

 

[Oofta]

Honestly what is the point if the party totally scrap the adventuring day prepared by the DM and smash down the final boss?
There will be a harder adventure ahead and so on until ever after.

I don't understand why it's a big issue if the party can bypass an encounter. In my games there are often multiple ways to bypass an encounter, some using magic others not. Avoiding unnecessary combat is just good planning, if it uses magic to do it then it's still using resources.

 

[Fanaelialae]

That would be completely situation dependent. Sometimes the situation the party is in requires a lot of knowledge. The wizard would do well there. Sometimes it takes a lot of climbing, jumping and other physical activities to get through what is happening. The fighter will be more useful there.

Which was basically my point.

Yeah. If you try to use it as a travel spell, you're taking a huge gamble in 5e. Even if you're very familiar with your destination, there's a 24% chance you are going to end up who knows where, and quite possibly in a pot of trouble.

If you have an associated object there's no chance of failure. It's not exactly difficult to get an associated object from a location you've been to. As long as you remember to teleport back before 6 months is up, you can easily just get another object to replace an "old" one during downtime.