The specific 'CoD' piece in both is saying that specific spellcasters > > > other spellcasters and martials.
Sure, but the hierarchy works iteratively here.
Paladin > Fighter (not WORLDS better, but still better) because it has spells. Those spells
can be used for offense, just like (say) a Battle Master's maneuvers. But the Paladin can
also use those spells for other forms of combat benefit, or for non-combat utility. Further, the Paladin actually gets non-combat class features, while the Fighter did not in 5.0 and only barely does so (
with needing to sacrifice extremely important combat resources!!!) in 5.5e.
The only "weak" full-casters in 5e are Warlocks (whom the game has taken most available opportunities to poop on), in part because they're only technically "full-casters" in the first place.
Simply put, Fighters have been crammed just as hard into their "Big Stupid Fighter" niche in 5e as they were in 3e. Arguably more, in some ways, since feats are so goddamn scarce.
In our 3e game the Cleric PC was the most powerful for a long time (because no-one played a Druid), then later when that Cleric's player left someone brought in a Druid and it immediately became the most powerful PC....helped by its player (not me!) being a bit of a powergamer at heart.
Yes...exactly. But even if they weren't a powergamer, as the first player was not (or I imagine you'd have mentioned it), would you agree that simply by
choosing to play a Cleric or Druid, their characters would have an
inherent leg up over essentially anyone else? They'd just be...better at succeeding than someone who didn't pick one of those things. Do you agree?
Because if you do, then you and I already agree on the fundamental point of balance: that there should not
be classes that are simply, objectively better than other choices, nor should there be options which are most of the time strictly better, but which might be equivalent or ever-so-slightly-worse in specific, narrow/niche situations.
There's been some threads in D&D Older Editions recently where 1e (post-UA) Fighters as-written have been lauded by some as the best class in the game at the time in terms of power, damage dealing, survivability, and so forth; and IMO those claims may well be correct particularly at low-mid levels (i.e up to about 9th-ish, which was roughly where most 1e games tapped out anyway).
I believe that it may be the most
fun class to play.
It is, objectively, not the most
effective class to play. Because magic, especially in TSR editions, is overwhelmingly more powerful than anything else you could try (except possibly psionics, but that's just a parallel track of supernatural power).
Casters of all kinds in 1e had to deal with much harsher rules around interruption, which if nothing else made them way less reliable than martials in any sort of fog-of-war situation. They were also much squishier than their more recent counterparts, meaning some of their spells (assuming some player and-or character wisdom) would want to go toward self-defense rather than all to offense or utility. And Cleric types were expected to save most of their spells for healing.
Sure. Here's the problem: Those fixes do achieve the goal of limiting the otherwise incredibly stupid power levels of casters. They do so by being extremely frustrating and un-fun, at least for most players.
"You can have phenomenal cosmic power, but we'll constantly make you hate your life for trying to get it" is not good game design. It just...isn't. "Have a bad time in order to be SUPER SUPER SUPER POWERFUL" is
bad design. I'm sorry. There's just no other way to put it. Making the most effective tools
feel bad to use is just...why would you do that? Why would you put something into your game that rewards using it by being
the most powerful thing anyone can do, only to then say "BUUUUUT if you DO try to use it, you're going to be extremely bored and frustrated
most of the time." That's bad! That's...that's literally not what games are designed
for.
Games should, to at least some extent, be actually fun to play in the ways that the rules reward. That doesn't mean they need to make the player maximally, perfectly blissed-out happy every nanosecond of every session forever. But it means that designing a system with "phenomenal power"
only held back by "the GM can nerf things if they feel like it" and "it's really dull and un-fun to USE that phenomenal power" is bad design. It's a game that is dull and frustrating to play in the way it's actually written, and only exciting and fun when someone goes through and literally rewrites it
dynamically behind the scenes, meaning the players aren't even playing a "game"
at all, they're playing "who gets to be the GM's favorite today".
Agreed, the WotC era has somewhat hammered martials. 3e also reined in arcane casters a bit (relative to what they could have been!) but forgot to rein in Clerics and - mostly by removing restrictions - gave both types a bunch of advantages they didn't have in the TSR era. In reaction to this, 4e tried to bring everyone closer to the same and - typical for WotC design - completely overdid it. 5e tried for a middle ground with results that might best be termed hit and miss: they fixed some things while breaking others.
3e absolutely did not "rein in" arcane casters. Like...at all. The Wizard does
just fine, and the Sorcerer is only less-fine because it has fewer spells and fewer slots for no good reason but "we wanted to punish spontaneous casting" I guess.
Of course, you know that my opinion of 4e is different from yours. All I'll say is, they may have gone overboard in SOME ways, but not nearly as many as folks accuse them of. Which is pretty typical, because most people who poo-poo 4e either don't know or don't care what 4e actually
did, they only care about blasting it as hard, as often, and as thoroughly as possible.
WotC now are also having to design around a slow but steady change in player attitudes* that they (WotC) themselves are to blame for: they spent too much time catering to player complaints rather than holding firm, and not enough time listening to DMs.
Oh, how horrible, trying to make sure your players actually have FUN playing your games.
For serious, I don't understand why you think this is a bad thing. GMs literally have
infinite power. They can already do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want, for as long as they want. They have always been able to do that.
Helping the GM have fun, in my experience, is 99.9% "do EVERYTHING you can to actually make the GM's life easier", meaning, you make it so the system sings on its own. You make it so they don't have to babysit. They don't have to CONSTANTLY fight the system just to wrestle it into a shape that vaguely kinda-sorta resembles what they were hoping for. They don't have to watch every player character's mechanics like a hawk, just in case someone happens to pick a stupidly broken thing (whether broken good or broken bad). They don't have to stress out about fudging, because the system will take care of itself; they can instead focus on the thing that
actually requires a human being behind the wheel: developing cool locations, situations, challenges, and experiences.
* - an easy example here is that hitting in combat used to be seen as good and missing seen as acceptable while hitting is now seen as normal and missing is seen as unacceptable.
Frankly, I've never actually seen this. Like ever. I hear it
complained about all the time from the "PlAyEr EnTiTlEmEnT" crowd, which gets so incredibly irritating. But I have literally never
seen it, and when I ask people who complain about it, they have to defer because they haven't actually seen it either, they just (allegedly)
hear about it.
Missing
too much, however, should be unacceptable. Because if you miss most of the time,
that sucks. It's boring, and not in the constructive "you're building toward a cool thing" way, it's just "and now you
continue to be Absolute Garbage at the thing you're
supposed to do Fairly Well". I mean, for God's sake, we have a class called "Fighter". You would think such a person would be, I dunno,
exceptionally good at FIGHTING.
As with most game design things, it's a question of balance. Balancing the appropriate proportion of misses, so that you can
see and
feel that this is a difficult task, with the appropriate proportion of hits, so that you can see and feel
progress. And I used the phrase "appropriate proportion" for a reason. It's not a singular specific proportion. It will change based on context. But, as a general rule, unless the party is--and I must stress this--
knowingly and intentionally going after enemies way above their proverbial pay grade, they should have a
reasonable chance to hit. "Reasonable" is generally going to be in the 45%-65% range--but, again,
generally, not absolutely always 100000000% of the time.
