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

[HammerMan]

There have been very few suggestions other than things like giving fighters an at-will jump spell along with people saying that fighters should be better than world-record setting modern athletes.

what about the solution suggested of making new classes so that the people happy with fighter can play fighter and the people who want more options can play "paragon/marshal/swordsage/warblade/warlord" instead give them half of what casters have, 5 levels of abilities that scale and can be picked. I even suggested making it a d8 HD class (even though a d12 would not break the game)

 

[TwoSix]

There can be no general solution to this problem because there are too many people who like the disparity and think it's a feature not a bug. You can't fix something that people think is an intrinsic feature of the game and don't want to get rid of.

Exactly this. Like to my mind, the obvious solution is to depower magic spell shenanigans and move shenanigans to magic items, where they can be controlled by the DM and handed out equitably.

But for many people, getting to choose reality-bending shenanigans is definitional of the wizard, and any changes to concepts like wish or shapechange or teleport or magic jar would hinder their conception of what D&D is supposed to be.

Likewise, many people are still strongly attached to the AD&D paradigm of wizards going from zeroes to demigods, while fighting classes go from a five to a six and a half.

Which is fine! But it's simply impossible to reconcile those opposed preferences into one version of D&D. 5e split the difference as best it could, I feel; it doesn't have the complete brokenness of 3.5/PF1 era casters but doesn't have the equity of 4e classes, either, for those who feel class equity is a bug.

 

[FrogReaver]

what about the solution suggested of making new classes so that the people happy with fighter can play fighter and the people who want more options can play "paragon/marshal/swordsage/warblade/warlord" instead give them half of what casters have, 5 levels of abilities that scale and can be picked. I even suggested making it a d8 HD class (even though a d12 would not break the game)

In terms of acceptance - If it’s a straight up increase to power it won’t go over well - which is what you want - so I don’t see how it’s a solution.

 

[Micah Sweet]

so when Becky plays a champion fighter level 14 and Kurt plays a diviner wizard level 14 you don't see kurt has atleast 20 (if not 100) MORE choices he can make fun/unfun then becky?

my argument is that new blood would be MORE likely to want a class (call it what you will) that is as complex as a moderatly complex caster but with martial non caster fluff

A lot of new blood don't even read the rules or own a rulebook, requiring the DM to help them out. They're there to have fun with their friends and fight monsters. Fighter continues to be the most popular class according to all the data we have. WotC simply doesn't have the motivation to make the changes you want, and there's no indication that they ever will. The changes they are making are in the name of making the game less complex, not more. You need to turn to 3rd parties or your own homebrew for this stuff.

 

[HammerMan]

In terms of acceptance - If it’s a straight up increase to power it won’t go over well - which is what you want - so I don’t see how it’s a solution.

it would be LESS powerful then a melee cleric but MORE options then a trick out fighter. It would just be a new class on the scale of the PHB classes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

it didn't.... only after it was the only edition (second best selling of all time) that had a split with it's own previus staying in print did it loose any steam... and it only started to falter as the edition was stopping to be supported...

A WotC spokesperson has informed ICv2 that Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition has already gone back to press more than a week before its scheduled street date next Friday, June 6th. Sell-in of 4th Edition has “far exceeded expectations” and even though the initial print run for 4th Edition was 50% higher than the order for the previous D&D 3.5 Edition, WotC has now realized that it is necessary to go back to press to meet anticipated reorder demand.

Earlier this week reports indicated that Buy.com was breaking the street date and shipping copies of 4th Edition (and that 4th Edition elements were available as Bit Torrent downloads, see “D&D 4E Out Early”), clear evidence of the highly anticipated nature of D&D 4th Edition.

Sell-in for 4th Edition turned out to be considerably higher than for 3.5 and the number of pre-orders keeps rising. The D&D 4E Core Rulebook Gift Set made it up to #5 on Amazon.com’s rankings today (Amazon appears to be observing the June 6th street date).

Plenty of movies have great opening weekends then drop off dramatically once people have a chance to actually see it. Many of those eager anticipators (myself included) were not happy with the product they actually got once they had the chance to see and play it for a bit.

 

[Lyxen]

D&D dropped when it had only 1 new product left... long after the edition was called due to memes\

And why did it have only one product left ? Because it was so unpopular...

I am so sick of having to write this out
5.5/6/anniversary edition

And there is no such thing as 5.5/6, only anniversary edition, which will be extremely 5e based, so much so that it's anyone's guess as to whether it can even be called 5.5. And we are sick to have to point this out to you. And as for hoping that you will find more 4e in there, it's extremely unlikely, you can always make suggestions, but it has nothing to do with the alleged greatness of 4e, and based on weird and biased numbers.

and according to wikipiedia 4e ended in 2011
View attachment 151307

so pathfinder pulled ahead when WOTC stopped putting out books...

And essentials were just out, so the intent was NOT for 4e to wind down when these were announced, but the sales of those (who by the way took me completely by surprise to the extent that I did not even know what it was about) were so catatrophic that 5e was the only way out.

edit: can we go back to caster/noncaster now? or is the edition war the only way to stop people from talking about making the game mor efun?

You started this, man, so please stop firing shots and we'll let you go by to the other topic. So, you first.

 

[Oofta]

I also suggested long ago that we change how wizards recover spell slots. Instead of getting them all back after a long rest they only get a limited number back, similar to how Arcane Recovery works now applied to long rests as well. That way you have to have a significant amount of downtime to get back to full power.

Doesn't matter to my games because I use the alternate rest rules, but I think it could help with the perceived imbalance.

 

[HammerMan]

Plenty of movies have great opening weekends then drop off dramatically once people have a chance to actually see it.

yes and what a flop those hundreds of millions and billion dollar movies are... I am so sure not only would every single person in this thread BEG BORROW OR KILL for that level of failure, WotC most likely would too.

Many of those eager anticipators (myself included) were not happy with the product they actually got once they had the chance to see and play it for a bit.

so can we go back to caster/non caster now?

 

[Willie the Duck]

So, is anyone actually interesting in trying to find a solution for the people who have an issue with the shenanigan disparity or is it time to stop watching the thread?

Call me eternally optimistic, but I am always hoping people will actually want to work to build something to make the game better for everyone, but alas it never seems to happen.

I would be interested, but honestly I think it should be a separate thread. Besides being almost 1000 posts long, this thread started as a complaint thread and people are still responding to that. Focusing on solving things probably needs to come from a different angle.

FWIW, my initial suggestion would be 'create different versions of the game, one where fighters stay quite mundane and casters have more constraints, and another where fighters are Thor or Fionn mac Cumhaill and wizards can cast Wish.'