D&D 5E In your experience, are some classes overshadowed by others consistently?

[Sacrosanct]

Please answer this question based on your actual game play experience, and not white room analysis. I'm looking for actual game table experiences here. For example, that means that if you haven't played end game level content, you wouldn't be able to give feedback on how balanced the classes are at level 20, because that would just be a guess.

In these actual play experiences, in the context of 5e, have you noticed a consistent overshadowing of one class or type of class over another in combat tiers. Not an occasional thing, or where a player might have particular skill in optimizing or using loopholes (that's the player and not the class that is causing the disparity), but the class/class type as a whole?

The poll is multiple choice, so choose as many as you want.

 

[loverdrive]

That's super narrow, but playing a lvl 1 paladin feels like playing poor man's fighter. It gets fixed quickly, though.

Also I've played 20 levels of sorcadin and starting at lvl 10 or so he started to be pretty much universal. Nova damage? Lol. Consistent damage? Sure. Healing? Oh, I've got a metric ton of it (but that was mostly because GM handed me an amulet that allowed me to cast Healing Word). It wasn't like he could do everything better than everyone else, but I'm pretty sure he was the only character in our party who could be useful in any situation.

Prior to that he sucked and sucked hard, though.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Members of a cohesive, co-operative group should be happy when another PC gets to shine. It is imperative that the DM does their best to share the spotlight during any particular session and also across multiple sessions. It is also imperative that each player in the group share the spotlight within and between sessions. Some PCs will shine more brightly in certain scenarios than in others.

That said, my only experience with a particular PC consistently “outshining” others was in the hands of an uncooperative player who also happened to be fudging rolls and resource tracking. The issue went away when they did.

 

[Sacrosanct]

My experience: almost all of my 5e gameplay is between levels 1-12. One campaign went to 15, but the vast majority caps out at level 12 or so.


What I've seen at my tables, is that in the combat tier, it's the martials who seem to dominate most of the time. A lot depends on scenario (the more encounters you have per adventuring the day, the more martials appear to have the advantage, while short encounter days the casters do well).

I fully admit that in our games, coming from an old school background, rests are harder to come by. Once monsters are alerted, they will act accordingly. That means they leave their encounter areas to go look for who just invaded their dungeon/castle/fort. These leads to several encounters per adventuring day, and thus helps the martials.

Ironically, almost all of the PCs I have played have been casters. The two highest were (level 15 tempest cleric and level 12 shadow sorcerer). Casters can dominate, but so much of it depends on pure luck. Did I happen to have the right spells prepared? How were the dice gods to me? Spells are very limited in resource, so if I blow my one 5th level spell and they make their save...

It was my cleric, not my sorcerer, who was the best in combat (spiritual weapon + spirit guardians + heavy armor) on a consistent basis. My sorcerer was either good, or bad, depending on the aforementioned luck.

The other casters in the various campaigns have had similar experiences.

Martials on the other hand, especially rogues (like the swashbucker or assassin) and rangers (even if they don't use their spells, like the gloomstalker with SS feat) are dishing out tons of damage nearly every round. The campaign we're close to wrapping up now (they are level 9), the swashbuckler is by far the biggest damage dealer. Barbarians never go down. Ever. While their damage is respectable (especially with GWM), it's their high HP and damage reduction that makes them dominate in combat because they just keep going and lock down opponents who don't want an AoO on them...

So in my experience, at levels 1-12ish, it's the martials who consistently shine in combat.

 

[Mort]

Martials on the other hand, especially rogues (like the swashbucker or assassin) and rangers (even if they don't use their spells, like the gloomstalker with SS feat) are dishing out tons of damage nearly every round. The campaign we're close to wrapping up now (they are level 9), the swashbuckler is by far the biggest damage dealer. Barbarians never go down. Ever. While their damage is respectable (especially with GWM), it's their high HP and damage reduction that makes them dominate in combat because they just keep going and lock down opponents who don't want an AoO on them...

So in my experience, at levels 1-12ish, it's the martials who consistently shine in combat.

My 5 experience is in the same range as yours maxes out at 12th or so.

From what I've seen, casters certainly can't compare in damage output - unless they get very lucky AND exhaust too many resources.

But that's not even close to the whole story.

Casters can drastically affect how difficult the "serious" fights are. A well placed, sleep, faerie fire, web, hypnotic pattern, haste etc. Can make massively impact how much damage the martials are pulling off AND further limit the damage the martials are taking. When the relationship is synergistic - that's when parties really tend to shine.

A caster that tries to dominate (in 5e, 3e was a whole different animal) may be able to for a fight or so - but will quickly wear himself out. But the true strength of most casters is to provide massive aid throughout the adventuring day that makes the martials exponentially more effective at what they do.

 

[Sacrosanct]

My 5 experience is in the same range as yours maxes out at 12th or so.

From what I've seen, casters certainly can't compare in damage output - unless they get very lucky AND exhaust too many resources.

But that's not even close to the whole story.

Casters can drastically affect how difficult the "serious" fights are. A well placed, sleep, faerie fire, web, hypnotic pattern, haste etc. Can make massively impact how much damage the martials are pulling off AND further limit the damage the martials are taking. When the relationship is synergistic - that's when parties really tend to shine.

A caster that tries to dominate (in 5e, 3e was a whole different animal) may be able to for a fight or so - but will quickly wear himself out. But the true strength of most casters is to provide massive aid throughout the adventuring day that makes the martials exponentially more effective at what they do.

My sorcerer's best effectiveness was trying to limit how many mobs were engaging the party, so the martials could effectively manage them. Damage output, shutting down fights, nova damage, etc wasn't my thing. It was things like hound of ill omen + levitate to lock a bad guy in place, and hope they didn't make their save or had legendary resistance.

 

[prabe]

A caster that tries to dominate (in 5e, 3e was a whole different animal) may be able to for a fight or so - but will quickly wear himself out. But the true strength of most casters is to provide massive aid throughout the adventuring day that makes the martials exponentially more effective at what they do.

My sorcerer's best effectiveness was trying to limit how many mobs were engaging the party, so the martials could effectively manage them. Damage output, shutting down fights, nova damage, etc wasn't my thing. It was things like hound of ill omen + levitate to lock a bad guy in place, and hope they didn't make their save or had legendary resistance.

I've played a cleric to 8th, and I'm DMing two campaigns--one's at 15th and the other is at 8th (I think).

The big advantage to magic that I've noticed is that it can untangle tactical knots. The casters who set out to do damage don't hurt the party, but the ones who control the battlefield and/or shut down opponents are the ones who end up being really scary.

 

[Shiroiken]

Every class has strengths and weaknesses, although they're not perfectly equal. The paladin may seem like the overall best, but it often struggles with ranged combat and mobs. The ranger is considered the overall weakest, but it's still advantageous in specific situations, such as in their favored terrain or against a favored foe.

As for martials vs casters, it really depends on the build. Our earth genasi ancestiral barbarian is an utter beast at 14th level, having ridiculous levels of damage reduction and battlefield control. If you take out my hill dwarf cleric (with 18 Con), she has almost as many HP as the rest of the party combined. Recently our bard has started casting Haste on her, making her even more powerful. Thus the bard is fulfilling his support role extremely well by buffing PC and debuffing enemies, which may not be flashy, but he's still pretty awesome at this job. Neither overshadows the other, but rather enhances both.

 

[el-remmen]

In my experience, player ability and approach has a lot more do with potential "outshining" than any class-based abilities.

 

[Charlaquin]

I wouldn’t say any class consistently outshines any other, because it’s dependent on so many factors. Some classes may consistently underperform or overperform in a particular campaign because of some combination of how the DM tends to run the game, how the players tend to play their characters, how the scenario is set up, etc. But at another table or in another campaign those roles may flip.

Now, casters do consistently have more non-combat utility than non-casters. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to outshining them. It can, but it doesn’t always. Again, depends very much on the DM, the players, the scenario, and a bunch of other factors.