How fast can you run, jump, climb carrying a large rug? Or your incapacitated buddy? Where does it spell out exactly how leap on the table and then leap onto the orc trying to bear him to the ground? There are hundreds of scenarios that can occur that aren't spelled out exactly in the books that can, and do, occur in actual game play. They don't need to be spelled out exactly. And you're wrong, there is a framework for these. It's called the DC system, and is pretty clear on how to come up with your own rulings.
You can run/jump/climb at the usual speed regardless of what you're carrying unless you're using the variant encumbrance rules. Leaping onto a table and bearing an orc to the ground is moving into difficult terrain and making a trip attempt. Meanwhile, a Wizard can mind control the orc to fight on his side, banish it to another plane of existence, blind it, send it to sleep, read its mind, paralyse it, terrify it, summon tentacles to grapple it, summon elementals/skeletons/ghouls/zombies/mummies/etc to fight it, confuse it, turn it into a frog, trap it inside a gem, make it (and everything else in a large radius) fall upwards 100 feet into the sky and take fall damage when they come back down and much, much more.
Even if the Fighter paints an amazing picture in the mind of the DM, there's no way he can justify that kind of narrative control.
What part of "here's a list of reasons why the caster might not have access to cast that spell" is not sinking in? No one is saying the caster won't cast their spells, I am saying they can't cast the perfect spell for every scenario all the time, which is a key base assumption in these types of comparison.
It's not an assumption at all. What's a situation where you need one perfect spell that you would not otherwise have prepared? If we use my Stone Golem example, Fly/Levitate/Wall of Force are extremely powerful and versatile spells. I would always prepare them.
I'm not talking about just combat. Once again, this "he fact that the wizard is also competitive with the fighter in combat..." is dependent on a white room scenario. If your wizard preps spells focused on the out of combat scenarios, you can't also say he's as good as the fighter if he doesn't have any combat spells prepped. And vice versa. You can't have it both ways.
But you can. You get to prep a lot of spells in 5e. At level 10 I might have prepped: Mage Armour, Silent Image, Detect Magic, Protection from Evil and Good, Hold Person, Misty Step, Levitate, Animate Dead, Fly, Haste, Greater Invisibility, Polymorph, Evard's Black Tentacles, Hold Monster and Wall of Force.
IF the wizard has that spell available. Seriously, this isn't that hard. Maybe the wizard never learned that spell. Maybe they did prep it because they prepp'd another spell. Maybe they already cast that level slot and don't have any available. Maybe the wizard doesn't want to put his squishy self on the front line of combat to make that spell effective. All of these are factors that completely tear down your argument.
Like what? What's an actual example of this. You keep on saying "but what if you don't have the spell you need" and it's just meaningless noise unless you can present a scenario in which it's relevant.
If you have two ways that mechanically achieve the same thing (bypass hp completely), then the fluff doesn't really matter. The end result is the same. And I don't think that just because one class might have a way of doing something it means every other class should. That's like saying, "if one class can cast healing magic, every class should." Again, niche protection isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Bypassing HP is a very broad and extremely powerful ability to have. It is not a niche. It is not comparable to healing magic. It's part of what makes casters overpowered - one of the ways in which they can ignore the rules that non-casters operate by - and giving other classes equivalent options is a sensible step towards achieving something approaching class balance.
@
Jack the Lad :
Sacrosanct pretty much summed up what I was going to reply (thanks Sacrosanct!).
That said... I've been playing RPG's since late '79, mostly as a DM. My highest level character is a 20th level 1e AD&D Magic-User named Denakhan. I've written about 3 'full' RPG's (never published; just for fun). I've written two campaign settings (1 for 1e AD&D/Hackmaster, and 1 for Powers & Perils). I've only played two sessions of 5e, as a DM both times, for a total play time of about 5.5 hours.
**snip**
Y'know, I've tried to write a reply three times now (this will be #4). I now realize that there is no way for me (or other long-term DM's like KarinsDad and Sacrosanct) to "prove" our experience is true as per rules. Why? All the 'proof' I could think of was basically anecdotal. I'm not going to write a 60 page novella detailing the experiences of a party of adventurers (with rules footnotes, of course), because it would be fruitless. I can say "A fighter can fight all day long", and I can get a reply that says "But fighters have HP limits, so they can't". I can reply "Yes, but they can drink potions of healing, or get clerical healing, or use a short rest/second wind", which would net a reply of "But so can the wizard". Etc, etc, etc. I can't 'prove' that game play experience will balance out all the sparkely-whizz-bang things a caster can do simply because there are not "game play experience" rules in the system.
All I can say is this: If casters are so overpowered, why don't we see parties consisting of wizard, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard? If the game was so bias in favor of casters, I don't think we'd see more than a handful of other classes represented in "the wild" (re: forums, game conventions, online play, personal campaign web sites, etc). But we do. We see a LOT of other classes. All over the place. Just go to Obsidian Portal and check out some personal campaigns of folks...lots of other classes represented. Lots.
This is the biggest and most staggeringly lazy dodge I've ever seen.
I haven't asked you to prove that your experiences are true. There would be no point in doing so, as
you've admitted that you haven't played 5e, and that you haven't even had more than one or two 'quick glances' at the rules we are discussing.
I'll ask the question I asked at the end of my post again, because I feel it's an important one:
why do you feel qualified to dismiss the concerns of people who have played 5e when you haven't even read the rules?
You said that I shouldn't just compare damage/combat ability, and that if I wanted to get a good feeling for class balance, I needed to look at it in terms of all three pillars.
I did so, demonstrating and explaining comprehensively the fact that Fighters are extremely lacking in the non-combat pillars.
You said that a caster who uses up half their spells in one fight will struggle in the next five.
I pointed out that in my experience casters only need 1 or 2 spells to beat an encounter, and that encounters are very short in 5e. Again, you have no actual play experience to draw on here.
You said that NPCs will mix up their tactics in response to PC actions.
I pointed out that casters have far, far more room to mix up their own tactics in response while Fighters are stuck doing the same things from level 3 to 20.
You said something vague about PCs having so much going on in their lives at levels 8 to 10 that there's no point looking at numbers, and that you've never seen a caster be overpowered compared to other PCs.
I gave a quick rundown of some of the extremely powerful things casters are capable of at levels 8-10, including out of combat utility options, and pointed out that Fighters, again, get nothing.
You said that the 5e system focuses on on broad strokes to paint a general picture and relies on the players and DM to give it the details.
I pointed out that there are 90+ pags of specific, concrete effects that casters have access to.
You gave an example of the sort of 'quick, easy, fun, fair' ruling that 5e enables; a player taking Disadvantage on an attack to gain Advantage next turn.
I pointed out that this is always a bad bet for the PC, and an excellent example of why the 'but Fighters can do anything if they use their imagination' argument is so laughable.
You said that I should compare a Fighter's Fighting Style or Maneuvers to a caster's 'Cast Spell'.
I pointed out that +1 AC or +2 to hit with bows are meaningless in the face of spellcasting.
You mentioned restrictions on casters' ability to cast, including being interrupted while casting.
I pointed out that there is no such rule in 5e.
You said that the assumed relative scarcity of magic items in 5e constitutes a nerf to casters.
I pointed out that Fighters suffer more, and that we have seen many monsters with resistance or immunity to non-magical weapons.
You drew a comparison between Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion and Survivor. I pointed out that a Fighter gains Survivor at level 18 and that it regenerates - some of the time - 5 + Con HP per turn, whereas casters get level 9 spells at level 17, allowing them to permanently turn into dragons and other extremely powerful enemies that are designed to be a challenge for the entire party.
To summarise, you've said yourself that you haven't played the game and haven't read the rules beyond a quick glance. I don't know why you were trying to have this argument in the first place.
Note that a lot of the spells referenced (Speak With Dead, Shatter, etc), are all far far weaker in 5E than they were in earlier editions; please make sure you are using the right version of the spell. Also, most of the spells referenced can only be used one at a time, and heaven help you if you get stunned or dazed or hit with a incapacitate of any kind. (or charmed, etc).
Note that the Fighter is equally vulnerable to status effects - or in several cases moreso. A Dragon's fear aura, for instance (disadvantage on attack rolls, can't willingly move closer to the dragon) has no effect whatsoever on a caster's ability to defeat it.