D&D 5E Class Analysis: Fighter and Bard

[Ruin Explorer]

What I meant when I said niche protection is that a lot of people are not only OK with, but prefer a style of gaming where each class can do their own things really well, which was in contrast to the statement I quoted which said that if one class can do something cool, all classes should be able to. To me, all that is, is making every class pretty much the same with the same abilities, just with the serial numbers filed off and named something else. And I find that boring.

To you, huh? Yeah, because that's not what he was implying, nor anyone else. So maybe question rather than assume the worst on zero evidence?

 

[Andor]

I wouldn't say I'm surprised. I'm a bit disappointed, though.

The two things that stand out for me in the final design of the fighter is remarkable athlete - which seems to utterly fail to live up to its name - and the nerfing of indomitable. Pre-nerf, indomitable looked like a way to return fighters to their classic status of having the best saves at mid-to-high levels, within the stat-based save paradigm of post AD&D-editions.

Well, I'll admit indomitable is underwhelming. Remarkable athlete is not a fighter feature thought, it's a champion feature. And again, Champion is the choice of the options/complexity averse player. Now I know that making no options "balanced" with options was an explicit design goal, but it's an impossible one. This is due to the fact that the guy with more options (strategy dice, spells, ki powers) has control over when to apply them. Therefore when well applied the more complex character will always be more effective/ efficient then the simple character, if only because he isn't wasting his crit on a mook. The only way to avoid that is to rig the game so that at best the complex character can only hope to equal the simple character. Sound like fun? The correct design goal is to try to make sure that the player of the simple character is as satisfied by his play experience as the more complex player. This is why so many of the more complex options are geared towards boosting the simpler character. That advantage the Bards faerie fire provides doubles the Champions chance to crit. So yes Faerie fire is a damned effective spell, but it is so because it helps the guys this analysis frames as the competition.

When did you ever hear a 3e fighter complain that he only dropped the Dragon because of the Bards damage boost, and therefore he felt like a 3rd wheel?

Could Remarkable Athlete be better? Yep. And if you feel it needs to be better, house rule it. Maybe make it grant advantage to proficient physical skill checks?

 

[Capricia]

This kind of analysis requires too many assumptions to be more than a very rough guidepost. Players and Dms have to balance the game at their kwn table. RPGs have always been this way. The fighter dominates combat. The bard is the most versatile class in the game. As intended. Play the one you prefer and work with yr table to keep everyone happy, bec if too many folks are unhappy you wont have a table at all.

Yes, it requires assumptions. I was very upfront with the assumptions I made, and I purposefully biased those assumptions in favor of the fighter. Even with those assumptions, even with the bard forced to run out of spells every day and run on fumes instead of being able to nova and rest after five minutes, the bard was still well ahead.

I'm not really sure I see the full problem here, either. 9th level spells break the game: yes. But how many games even get to 17th level? And at 20th level nearly every class is insane somehow. Druids pretty much cannot die from HP loss at that point; that's a fun one to compare.

For the sweet spot of >90% of games - levels ~3-6 - the two classes seem pretty even. Well, actually the bard seems like it couldn't quite keep up with the fighter if all it wanted to do was be a fighter. But it CAN be very effective in making the entire party better. So that seems good.

Will casters start to dominate at high levels? Yup. Is that a playstyle that a lot of people want anyway? I think so. Is that a level range very, very few people ever see? Pretty sure.

I am curious what this Indomitable feature that got nerfed was and is: can anyone paraphrase what it is now and also say what it was before?

Every class breaking the game in some way sounds awesome. Only the fullcasters breaking the game while other classes get more feats and +1 bonuses? Not so awesome. As for the sweet spot being levels 3-6...that's an assumption from 3e, and I see it as a general failure of the game that 80% of the content is inferior. 5e is not the second edition of third edition, no matter how much people might want to be, including its own designers. The game having a four level sweetspot is not something you should assume.

As for what the fighter used to have...Indomitable used to be "you have advantage on every single save". It was simple and it was powerful. They also had Defy Death, which let them resist dropping past 1 hp by passing a con save, which they had proficiency and advantage on. Both abilities were powerful, both scaled with level, and both fit the flavor of the fighter while still being mechanically effective and fun. And wotc got rid of them. Then buffed the wizards.

What I meant when I said niche protection is that a lot of people are not only OK with, but prefer a style of gaming where each class can do their own things really well, which was in contrast to the statement I quoted which said that if one class can do something cool, all classes should be able to. To me, all that is, is making every class pretty much the same with the same abilities, just with the serial numbers filed off and named something else. And I find that boring.

And often, when those types of arguments are made (the wizard can cast a spell to get past challenge X automatically, so everyone else should too), it almost always dependent on a white room scenario. I don't need to explain the numerous ways using a white room scenario is flawed to use as analysis in that way.

There are ways to make each class extremely unique and still powerful. If you think that "fighter as powerful as a wizard" is incapable of being anything but "fighter that is actually a wizard" though, I don't think there's anything that anyone could say to change your mind.

 

[Cybit]

[MENTION=6777135]Capricia[/MENTION]

Two comments

1) I'm not sure going till 9th level spells is necessarily the best assumption. There has been a lot of work done about how long games go, and I think they said something like less than 1% of games even get to level 16. So I'd personally cap the levels at 16, as I think that's where the Tiamat storyline ends up (The first one is 1-8, so guessing second one is 9-16).

2) Concentration, concentration, concentration. Of those spells you have taken, how many can be used at the same time, or for more than one round? (Lent out my PHB to friends, so I am alas without it) The thing about playing a spellcaster that is different in 5E than in 3.5E is that concentration ends up meaning casters don't get to use all of their spells in a given day. Because many of the spells that work well for utility and duration are either used for a single round and used in a very inefficient way, or casters keep concentrating and are unable to use all of their spells in a given day.

That would be my perspective; while on paper spells can be used in an optimal way, in practice, the unpredictability of a given day as well as the limitations of the spell slots and concentration rules hamper casters rather dramatically.

 

[Sacrosanct]

To you, huh? Yeah, because that's not what he was implying, nor anyone else. So maybe question rather than assume the worst on zero evidence?

When someone says that "if one class can do X, everyone should be able to do X", it's not unreasonable to interpret that as doing the same thing from a mechanical perspective. That's not assuming the worst, that's replying to what was actually said.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There are ways to make each class extremely unique and still powerful. If you think that "fighter as powerful as a wizard" is incapable of being anything but "fighter that is actually a wizard" though, I don't think there's anything that anyone could say to change your mind.

This is a strawman. I don't think I ever implied that "fighter as powerful as wizard" = "fighter is actually wizard." The closest I came was the reference to the serial numbers thing. For example, if a wizard can cast a spell that bypasses AC to deal direct damage and a fighter has a maneuver that bypass AC to deal direct damage, the only real difference is the name of the spell/maneuver and fluff. To me that's boring because there's no difference between the two other than fluff. And to go back to my niche protection comment, I don't like a game where every character type is just as effective as every other one in combat, at skill challenges, etc. Again, to me that feels like the same car with just a different name and paint job. I like characters to have that diversity, where they are better than any other class at a specialty, but might not be as good as others in another field. And I'm positive I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Additionally, you're doing the exact thing I was cautioning at earlier. I.e. it seems you're looking at classes through a lens of how powerful they are as if "power" is some universally agreed upon metric, and possibly only considering white room scenarios. What is "powerful"? DPR measurement? Instant win abilities? Does it factor in things like environment? You might consider a spell like fireball to be really powerful, but if it can only be cast a very limited amount of times, it's really not in the context of the entire game.

 

[Uskglass]

I don't like a game where every character type is just as effective as every other one in combat, at skill challenges, etc.

Me neither. But obviously that's not what we are talking about here. Being better in a field is something, being able to ignore restriction and challenge factors in a field is something else.
The OP analysis shows how, beyond low level, the spellcaster class progressively outmatches the martial class in pretty much every area. And that's without even trying hard: there is no attempt towards optimisation in the examples used, just sensible choices along progression. So much for the 'balance across pillars' intent (which I also find debatable, but we are not even getting that one here).
Now, we can say we don't care about the problem, that 90% of the players are going to play low level only anyway, that this is actually 'fun' or 'classic' or both. Still the issue exists, and it will be bothering for a number of players till some alternatives will be made available to them (if ever).

 

[Sacrosanct]

Me neither. But obviously that's not what we are talking about here. Being better in a field is something, being able to ignore restriction and challenge factors in a field is something else.
The OP analysis shows how, beyond low level, the spellcaster class progressively outmatches the martial class in pretty much every area. And that's without even trying hard: there is no attempt towards optimisation in the examples used, just sensible choices along progression. So much for the 'balance across pillars' intent (which I also find debatable, but we are not even getting that one here).
Now, we can say we don't care about the problem, that 90% of the players are going to play low level only anyway, that this is actually 'fun' or 'classic' or both. Still the issue exists, and it will be bothering for a number of players till some alternatives will be made available to them (if ever).

Which prompts me to repeat my earlier question: Is this just in a white room scenario? Actual game play hardly ever (I would say never but I can't speak for everyone) occurs in a white room. Using white room analysis to compare "power levels" between classes is extremely flawed for obvious reasons.

 

[Uskglass]

Which prompts me to repeat my earlier question: Is this just in a white room scenario? Actual game play hardly ever (I would say never but I can't speak for everyone) occurs in a white room. Using white room analysis to compare "power levels" between classes is extremely flawed for obvious reasons.

That's a good question. I can only give my opinion on that, which is I don't think so. Actually in my experience in 'real play' things tend to get worse, as the weaknesses of the system become magnified. The white room scenario actually works in favour of the martial class, which operates pretty much the same regardless of the context, not having much of an option to adapt and cope otherwise.

 

[ThirdWizard]

[MENTION=6777135]Capricia[/MENTION] Would you remove formatting on your post? It looks like this to anyone using the dark background.