D&D 5E How to "fix" (or at least help) the fighter/wizard dynamic. (+)

[Yaarel]

There is an appealing way to prevent the "1-minute workday", thereby preventing mages from "going nova".

For most of a typical game, it takes about 15 standard encounters in order to gain enough experience points to advance to the next level.

15 encounters per level.

Meanwhile, the DMs Guide (page 84) expects 6 to 8 encounters per long rest.

In other words:

According to the math of the 5e gaming engine, there should be 2 long rests per level.



This is fantastically useful, with several important benefits.

• All rests are "short rests". 1-hour rests and 8-hour rests are both short rests, and the timing depends on the narrative.

• But 2 times per level, a player can choose to change any short rest into a long rest.

• The long rest can be 1-hour or 8-hours, whichever rest the player needs to use to gain the benefit of a long rest.

• The narrative can have 8 encounters in a single day, or 8 encounters in a year.

• Only the narrative matters when deciding if an encounter makes sense.

• The deep rest − the long rest − can happen in the middle of a busy dungeon.

• The players will avoid wasting their long rest, unless necessary.

• The "1-minute work day" will rarely happen, and mages will rarely go nova.

 

[Fanaelialae]

There’s too much magic in 5E which is why the problem is so apparent. WoTC continues the mistake of making magic more and more powerful, easy, and lacking in consequence and as a result classes based on mundane power are diminished.

Fighter is fine as it is (except for how broken saving throws are) it just needs to have overpowered classes brought back down to their level.

The problem with increasing the ability of the fighter is twofold:

1. it increases the base power of the class and makes it so that it becomes way stronger than it should be at low levels for certain styles of play. It is a valid play style to have 1st level fighters be average mortal/human level power (your average soldier). Beefing up the fighter impacts that play style.

2. adding more to the fighter increases the complexity of the class. As more and more features are added to keep it in parity with the already over-powered wizard, the complexity will increase further.

The simplest and least invasive method of balancing the classes is to bring spellcasting classes back down to match the game baseline balance.

I don't think that most (if any) folks are saying that low level fighters and wizards are seriously imbalanced. I believe its high levels (beyond level 10) that are the focus of the discussion.

As such, it wouldn't increase the base power of the class because the improvements would be aimed at higher levels. And while it could admittedly add some complexity, that complexity would also come at the later levels (when a bit of complexity is expected even for champion fighters, what with all the magic items that are potentially at their disposal).

 

[Yaarel]

Remove all at will cantrips.
Reduce spells per day by one across all levels. 1st level Wizards get 1 spell per day.
Require an Arcana Check to cast a spell - failure means the cast suffers some calamity or detriment
Ritual spells require expenditure in gold or coast hit points/hit dice.
Grant fighters 1/2 Proficiency bonus to all Saves.

And make sure all Fighters have a chance to accidentally stab themselves in the face with their own sword.

 

[Monayuris]

Cantrips aren't where wizards outshine fighters or other classes.

cantrips like mage hand, light, message really impinge on other classes… making rogues less necessary. Why do you need a rogue to handle traps when you can just safely mage hand everything?

You don’t need to scout and report when you just have cellphones. Light makes any kind of resource stress negated.

Low level wizards are not the ones who are the problem.

Then if not reducing spells per day, there should be reduced spell recovery per rest. This may be a function of resting being broken in 5E. The problem is that spellcasters get enough castings per day to basically use all their spells all the time. The adventuring day is supposed to put pressure on wizard spell resources but fails to do so because of the ease of spell recovery. This is exacerbated once wands and staves come into the picture and how wizards get additional unlimited

Requiring rolls for spells like that slows down the game to no real benefit other than making wizards annoyingly random characters to play.

I like the mechanic in DCC. Spells aren’t gummies and there’s always a consequence to casting them. There is also a game called Low Fantasy Gaming that makes the sorcerer wild surge rule default for all spellcasters - which may be a simpler idea .

Doesn't actually solve anything except make more work and/or interpersonal difficulties for the DM.

Ritual spells as is are free with the time. Which means without external pressures can be spammed over and over again. I believe water walk is a ritual with no cost. A wizard can just spam it over and over again to cross lakes and oceans.

The 5e saving throw model is my least favorite part of its design so I have no thoughts on tinkering with it other than I hate the idea of proficiency bonus being anything other than all-or-nothing.

Saving throws are out right broken in 5E. As you get to higher levels it becomes impossible to succeed at a non proficient save. Characters should get better at saves as they level, not worse.

 

[Laurefindel]

No.

The answer to help fighters shouldn't be too gimp casters.

Gimping casters might be part of the solution. But there are many ways of gimping casters, whether if it’s in the access of spells, or components, or the way spell alors are recovered…

cantrips are not the biggest issue however, except perhaps some like mending or light that might trivialize otherwise relatively trivial mundane challenges (except in low-magic settings, in which case any type of casting is problematic anyways).

If linear-fighter/quadratic-wizard is the issue, gimping the wizard at low levels is just frustrating, and making a class annoying to play shouldn’t be a solution to a power discrepancy issue. But slowing the exponential progression might be part of the solution, even if that means «gimping » casters.

 

[Monayuris]

And make sure all Fighters have a chance to accidentally stab themselves in the face with their own sword.

I don’t know where this is coming from. I never made any indication of this being desirable.

you do know that 5E does not have any critical failure rules, nor would I want there to be any.

 

[Yaarel]

Gimping casters might be part of the solution. But there are many ways of gimping casters, whether if it’s in the access of spells, or components, or the way spell alors are recovered…

cantrips are not the biggest issue however, except perhaps some like mending or light that might trivialize otherwise relatively trivial mundane challenges (except in low-magic settings, in which case any type of casting is problematic anyways).

If linear-fighter/quadratic-wizard is the issue, gimping the wizard at low levels is just frustrating, and making a class annoying to play shouldn’t be a solution to a power discrepancy issue. But slowing the exponential progression might be part of the solution, even if that means «gimping » casters.

Players who dislike low-magic settings want effective caster classes.

To gimp the caster classes would harm their enjoyment of the game.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Its a little weird to have a (+) thread, but an option in the poll for people who do want to claim that "These problems don't exist."

I still wanted people to be able to voice their position (via the poll) without necessarily dumping on the thread.

Remove all at will cantrips.
Reduce spells per day by one across all levels. 1st level Wizards get 1 spell per day.
Require an Arcana Check to cast a spell - failure means the cast suffers some calamity or detriment
Ritual spells require expenditure in gold or coast hit points/hit dice.
Grant fighters 1/2 Proficiency bonus to all Saves.

Well, this might be a bit too far, but while possibly helping, won't solve the issue at higher levels.

The answer to help fighters shouldn't be too gimp casters.

Well, maybe just a little bit.

This isn't so much a way to get fighter 'shenanigans' but my premise is to remove the wizard from the fighter's niche on the battlefield as a damage dealer and make them more the actual designated 'shenanigans' class, you don't have to remove all their offensive options but focus more on spells that buff or disable or interact with the environment rather than direct damage or have them use the specialised damage spells like shatter or banishment, and the warlock and sorcerer take the role of primary arcane damage dealers instead.

I discussed this with a group member myself and it has an element of appeal, but there are people who like the wizard big bang spells...

Saving throws are out right broken in 5E. As you get to higher levels it becomes impossible to succeed at a non proficient save. Characters should get better at saves as they level, not worse.

Agreed. As such we do half proficiency to non-proficient saves. It isn't much, but at least show some progress IMO.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Players who dislike low-magic settings want effective caster classes.

To gimp the caster classes would harm their enjoyment of the game.

Well, I think part of that is really more if you want high-magic settings, it makes sense to allow fighters to have magical powers as well (why have a mundane class in a high-magic setting???).

So, the problem is:

1. You want high magic, but fighters don't function as they are in such a setting without tons of magic items.

2. You want low magic, so fighters work fine, but then casters as they are become way too powerful in comparison.

3. And then you have the mid-magic setting, where fighters can be enough with some decent magic items, and powerful casters just push the edge of being too storng.

However, 1 and 3 both rely on magic items or giving fighters superpowers (to some extend or other) and 2 relies on gimping casters.

Having just read @FrozenNorth's post on "simple truths" for a setting, such questions would determine which group you belong to above.

 

[Monayuris]

Then mi

I don't think that most (if any) folks are saying that low level fighters and wizards are seriously imbalanced. I believe its high levels (beyond level 10) that are the focus of the discussion.

As such, it wouldn't increase the base power of the class because the improvements ui would be aimed at higher levels. And while it could admittedly add some complexity, that complexity would also come at the later levels (when a bit of complexity is expected even for champion fighters, what with all the magic items that are potentially at their disposal)

I don't think that most (if any) folks are saying that low level fighters and wizards are seriously imbalanced. I believe its high levels (beyond level 10) that are the focus of the discussion.

As such, it wouldn't increase the base power of the class because the improvements would be aimed at higher levels. And while it could admittedly add some complexity, that complexity would also come at the later levels (when a bit of complexity is expected even for champion fighters, what with all the magic items that are potentially at their disposal).

Then definitely the issue is too many spells per day.

High level wizards get enough spell slots to nova every encounter unless careful attention to adventuring day is made.

But from my experiences it is almost impossible to play the game in compliance with the expected adventuring day.

It is impossible to fit in the expected number of encounters in a typical 3-4 hour session. At higher levels I expect it is hard even for an 8 hour session.

Access to rest in a bubble spells make recoveries easy.

High level spellcasters will also have wands and staves that provide unlimited charges.

The reason wizards are so much more powerful than fighters is because the game grants them practically unlimited access to their resources. Resources that were developed and balanced on the conceit that they be limited.