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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7246672" data-attributes="member: 71699">Yes, we must never lose sight of the balance between casters and martials overall. On the other hand, if Fighter viability hinges on choosing GWM or SS/CEx, then that is exactly the sort of narrowing of strategies that we don't want to see. I believe the next step in this process, is to make a similar assessment of casters. My sense is that D&D's balance rests (or should rest) on the following pillarsthe primary pillars are <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> explore</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> fight</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> talk</li> </ul>presumably not always in that order <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />secondary pillars include<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> melee weapons are best in melee</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> sneak attacks and two-handed melee weapons do the most single-target damage</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> single-attack classes scale as strongly as multi-attack classes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> range has a value and comes at a price: about a third less damage</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> casters do the most AoE damage</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> skill classes - Rogue and Bard (and maybe Ranger) - are best at skills and tools</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> caster utility is powerful, but strictly finite</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> the highest AC defense is the heavily armoured, defensive martial with shield</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> one handed melee weapons are best for defense, good for crowd control, and sustain mixed fighting styles (e.g. sword and hand crossbow)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> caster crowd control is powerful, but strictly finite</li> </ul>As fighters have come to rely more and more on finite resources (action surge, superiority dice) they've come closer to parity with spells. Formerly, I think the assumption that the fighter could fight all day, and would balance out more powerful spells, turned out to be a false hope. Hence I think we can now look at spells over 30 rounds and come to some better conclusions.</blockquote>

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