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

[Oofta]

where are you getting this from? All characters caster or not can use tricks lies and misdirection... casters just have an easier time and can do it more often.

if the means is get from A to B and 1 person can walk/ride for days then get on a boat travel for 3 months, then walk/ride for days and person 2 can say "I use my action to get there" that isn't the same.

if the goal is stop a charm/dominated/controlled barbarian friend from killing you and 1 person can fight trying to subdue then tie up until it wears off and the other can hold person (or what every save you need to target with a SoS non damage causeing spell) then dispel the charm/dominate/control that isn't the same.

if the goal is fortify a position in a mountain pass I would think the fighter (soldier) being the military guy and the multi class ranger/rouge being the skill expert this would be there moment to shine... you know whats coming right... until the wizard with mold earth starts making 5ft by 5ft pits 5ft deep as an action with his cantrip, or uses a wall spell, or ritual casts tiny pill box...I mean tiny hut so the archers can fire out but no one can see in or fire back in...
I know explosive ruins got mixed with another spell but that trap is WAY better then anything the rogue/ranger is cooking up...and agian goes up faster.

I agree that wizards are different. The different classes have different strengths and weaknesses. In some situations one will be more optimal than another. But in the cases where the bad guys can target the wizards directly without interference from the fighters in the group, the wizards go down far faster than the fighters ever would in my experience. Does that make wizards irrelevant? No, it just means they serve different roles.

The same way with teleport. I assume that if you had no one with teleport in the party and no access to it, the DM would still come up with a campaign, correct? Where the conflicts happen my change, how you get there will likely change. But the story would go on. Teleportation is a superficial crutch that can be used to tell different stories if that's the kind of story you want to tell. Same with spells like plane shift. My group is currently stuck on a different plane and are fighting to get back because they can't simply cast a spell. I think it's more interesting that way. Plane shift back home would be boring and not give me the option to tell people more about the plane they're on.

The encounters the party face will still be just as dangerous as the DM decides. The stories just as interesting. How you, or your enemy, achieves their goal will change. The game is not fundamentally changed. The wizard shines sometimes. Cool. But in my games while the wizard does awesome things now and then, the fighter does cool things all the time. If all you care about is bright and shiny, there are plenty of options. Some of us like having an alternative.

 

[FrogReaver]

But all any of that means that you are designing the campaign around a spell or two. If teleport wasn't an option, the stories and campaigns change slightly, that's all. It changes the set dressing and scenery, it doesn't change the nature of the game.

I tend to agree, except when it comes to escape or potentially bypassing an encounter (*notably these are very strong uses). I think teleport works great in those instances. In terms of being game changing - it can change the overall narrative but it's not likely to lead to success or failure on its own because as you note above, that just means a different adventure is happening - which in practice is usually what occurs.

 

[FrogReaver]

I agree that wizards are different. The different classes have different strengths and weaknesses. In some situations one will be more optimal than another. But in the cases where the bad guys can target the wizards directly without interference from the fighters in the group, the wizards go down far faster than the fighters ever would in my experience. Does that make wizards irrelevant? No, it just means they serve different roles.

If one assumes the Fighter and Wizard are being attacked just as often then the wizard does fall behind. But the wizard wants to stay at range and because of that likely can use positioning to prevent some attacks. Add on the low level defensive and mobility spells and the wizard fares pretty well in my experience, and then at level 5 he can throw out a summon spell to fill the role of the fighter as needed.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yea, it also let's you compare healing to control to damage. Essentially it creates a common currency to compare with.

yeah. One day I would love to see someone with really good analytical/math/statistics do a real comperason of all of it... that could be me but it most likely wont be.

If your point is that against certain specific enemies with very low wisdom saves that control is much better then sure, I agree.

if they were all wisdom saves sure... (and it sin't like 3.5 where there were 10 options per save that were SoS/SoD) but by 9th level casters can spread the love on preped spells to different saves.

and by no means do I mean casters auto win every encounter.

But that doesn't seem to be more than tangentially relevant to the discussion I thought we were having - which was about how such low level control spells 'typically' compare to the damage the Fighter is doing.

the problem isn't "Hey 1 in a million shot of it working" we are talking about some encounters in a WAY more then a 1% chance.

Single Target Control spells completely fail orders of magnitude more often than a multi attack character fails to connect with any attacks. Making the point that attack actions can fail too completely misses that nuance.

okay, what do you think the odds are of a wizard landing 1 good SoS/SoD spell per day? how many rounds do you think the fighter hits with both attacks 1 attack or no attacks in a given day?

now I will go out on a limb and say neither of us know the answer becuse there are WAY too many variables.

No. Spells are situationally strong or weak. One of the balancing factors to spell casting is that spells won't necessarily always work. That's part of why versatility and increasing spells known is also a path toward more combat power.

yes, and that is a versatiluty and power that the class the is supposed to excel at combat can't do..

If you leave off everything else that increases the fighters damage then I fully agree. I just don't think it's fair to leave off those other things.

what did I leave off? 1d8+4 can be a +1 sword with a 16 str or a magic non plus weapon with an 18str... both seemed resonable for a 11th level fighter. I mean at max he would have str 20 and a +3 sword right... so +8?

There are fewer of those things for the wizard that increase cantrip damage. And the ones that do don't increase them in magnitude as much as those things increase the fighters.

the main + to fighters is +1/2/3 weapon and the main way to increase cantrips is +1/2/3 focus... fighters can add stat bonus (but again we skip that so can warlocks)

Indeed it was skipped as Warlocks are irrelevant when talking fighter damage vs wizard cantrip damage?

since the conversation is caster vs non caster this seems a strange line to draw

You seem to be making points as if they fully support your conclusion. I agree with most of the points, but not what they mean in relation to your conclusion.

In practice, Hideous Laughter and Hold Person either take enemies out of combat very little on average OR they are used infrequently due to the circumstances where they could take enemies out many rounds coming up very rarely. In either event, their impact on the Fighter vs Wizard dynamic is extremely minor.

I question what makes you think that save or suck spells are a) infrequently land and b) rarely used?

defualt basic caster starts with a 15 stat, increse it at 4th and 8th and at 9th level has a 19 (+4) at 9th level prof is +4 if you have nothing else increasing the DC of your spells that makes the DC 16. there are 6 saves. How many enemies will have even half of them (3) at +6 or higher for it to be 50/50?

defualt basic melee combat class (so this can still be a warlock, bard or cleric that still has those 5th level spell slots) that starts with a 16 attack stat and lands at 20 by 9th level has +9 to hit and +5 to damage. most (I think almost all... including warlock bard and cleric that still have 5th level spell slots) can make 2 attacks.

What's most probable is that the wizard avoids using those level 1-2 spells as they take up his concentraion slot and almost any level 3+ spell is better for his concentration. We are talking high level wizards here right?

yes, but these are things they can do that DON'T use up those high level slots... I can't believe that anyone is going to seriusly tell me that even a 20th level fighter or 20th level rogue can put out as effective a round as a 5th level spell. heck most non optimized 20th level fighters if given 3 rounds (and remember that includes 2 action surges so 12 attacks) can give most 6th level spells a run for there moeny.

the problem is that at the end of the day the argument that "wizards (or cleric or bard or warlock that can keep up im melee at least close all day anyway) shine 1 or 2 times with high level spells then suck" went out the window with 2e.

Casters fluxuate. They have omg game changing rounds, they have great rounds, they have good rounds and they have slightly below average rounds. Martial classes have average to good rounds with a lucky great round thrown in here or there.

I don't disagree with this. I think control is damn good. I just think you are overselling it a bit compared to damage.

over all damage is great... but the ability to CHOOSE round by round "Do I cast a control spell here, or do I cast a high damage save for half spell, or do I cast a cantrip and do slightly below average damage" is being compared to "Do I nova for a ton of potential damage, or do I just truck along for good damage"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

@GMforPowergamers

Control Spell - Average Rounds Lost

This thread from a few years ago may be of interest to you.

A few takeaways.

Bane for action denial is objectively bad.
Hypnotic Pattern is amazing both single target and multi target.

Command isn't very far behind the repeated save spells like Tasha's.

Fear is nearly as strong as hypnotic pattern
Suggestion and levitate are surprisingly effective

Bestow Curse isn't as effective as I'd always imagined.
Spells that can target multiple creatures can really stack up the rounds lost.

yeah, and this is your first takeawya (I will read more it is interesting and thank you for doing the math and for showing me it)

the fact that the 4th level spell shows to be weaker then some 2nd and 3rd show me someone at WotC needs to stop using legacy levels...

how ever it still seems to lead me to the same conclusion that casters have WAY too many options compared to non casters...

 

[Yaarel]

If one assumes the Fighter and Wizard are being attacked just as often then the wizard does fall behind. But the wizard wants to stay at range and because of that likely can use positioning to prevent some attacks. Add on the low level defensive and mobility spells and the wizard fares pretty well in my experience, and then at level 5 he can throw out a summon spell to fill the role of the fighter as needed.

There is an opportunity cost.

The Wizard who spends the higher slot to Summon, to keep one or two foes busy, now can do nothing else with that slot. Those summonees wont last long, the Wizard deals even less damage, and the Wizard is in imminent danger. This is how all-Wizard parties TPK. Even if the Wizard survives this one encounter, there is likely an other one soon after, when there are even fewer slots available.

We are no longer playing 3e. The 5e spells fail to "replace" a Fighter.

 

[Oofta]

I tend to agree, except when it comes to escape or potentially bypassing an encounter (*notably these are very strong uses). I think teleport works great in those instances. In terms of being game changing - it can change the overall narrative but it's not likely to lead to success or failure on its own because as you note above, that just means a different adventure is happening - which in practice is usually what occurs.

I agree that escaping is probably one of the best uses of teleport. However, I can only remember 1 time it was used that way and it was my PC who wanted to abscond with an artifact and leave the party behind*. In general most DMs will give people an "out", a way to escape after achieving their goal. Kill the BBEG and their henchmen all disperse. I'm sure the eagles fly rescue the hobbits the group is saved by teleportation in other campaigns. Just that if it weren't for teleport, there would probably be some alternative.

*Yes, my PC was effectively retired after that. On the other hand he was an atheist and wanted a way to live a long, long time and believed people just created copies of themselves but still died if they became a lich.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If one assumes the Fighter and Wizard are being attacked just as often then the wizard does fall behind. But the wizard wants to stay at range and because of that likely can use positioning to prevent some attacks. Add on the low level defensive and mobility spells and the wizard fares pretty well in my experience, and then at level 5 he can throw out a summon spell to fill the role of the fighter as needed.

I agree with all of this.

and the idea that "Well the wizard can't take a hit" is old school d4 thinking. Wizards and fighters (and clerics, and bards...ect) can all pretty reliably put there 2nd highest stat in con. (I would think only a barbarian and/or a niche concept would put the highest there) so the diffrence between d10 class d8 class and d6 class is 1 or 2 hp per level...

at level 1 the fighter has 2 hp more then the wizard.
at level 5 this increase to 10hp different
at level 11 this is 22hp different.

now fighters at level 1 most likely has 2-3pts of AC over the wizard... but as they level that is far from guaranteed.

other casters like the cleric with a melee domain or bard with a combat subclass at level 10 or lower will have only 1 average hp per level less most likely similar (and as likely 1 or 2 higher or lower) and still has equal number of attacks AND those spells.

at level 11 the cleric will get extra damage per hit and the fighter will get his 3rd attack... the bard falls behind.

 

[FrogReaver]

I agree with all of this.

and the idea that "Well the wizard can't take a hit" is old school d4 thinking. Wizards and fighters (and clerics, and bards...ect) can all pretty reliably put there 2nd highest stat in con. (I would think only a barbarian and/or a niche concept would put the highest there) so the diffrence between d10 class d8 class and d6 class is 1 or 2 hp per level...

at level 1 the fighter has 2 hp more then the wizard.
at level 5 this increase to 10hp different
at level 11 this is 22hp different.

now fighters at level 1 most likely has 2-3pts of AC over the wizard... but as they level that is far from guaranteed.

other casters like the cleric with a melee domain or bard with a combat subclass at level 10 or lower will have only 1 average hp per level less most likely similar (and as likely 1 or 2 higher or lower) and still has equal number of attacks AND those spells.

at level 11 the cleric will get extra damage per hit and the fighter will get his 3rd attack... the bard falls behind.

Yea. For me crits are the big thing for the wizard. The Fighter is alot more protected from a crit due to having 'enough' hp and 2nd wind to recover after the fact. A wizard is much more likely to be 1 shot from a crit. Less of a concern as the game progresses but it's still a concern even in tier 2 - especially if the wizard isn't at 100% hp at the start of every encounter.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

The game incentivizes building around and specializing in your better stats, which is why your Charisma-based classes will often fill the role of the party face and your Intelligence-based classes will fill the role of the party encyclopedia. People are not bad to build their characters in that way and people can also build their characters in ways that break that mold, but the game incentives are nevertheless there to specialize around your strengths when it comes to skills, though the necessity of Perception also tends to buck that trend.

There is only one Strength skill. A fighter is going to have to run at least one, but probably more of their skills off secondary/tertiary abilities. A caster can run all four base skills off their highest ability score, leading to being overall better at using skills.