D&D 5E Is the imbalance between classes in 5e accidental or by design?

[Undrave]

So, in the recent thread "Are Wizards really all that?", fellow user @ECMO3 claims that:

• Yes, the Wizard is 'all that', it's the most powerful class in the game
• It was designed that way
• The game is better like that

Putting aside the first and third statement, we got into a major argument over the second one.

I argued that any imbalance was accidental, that there is nothing in the books to indicate that one class is more powerful than the other, especially not to someone who just picks up the book as a newbie and that if the classes WERE designed to be stronger or weaker than each other, the lack of conveyance is a bad design, and that the CR encounter building system would include adjustments per-class (and that WOTC wouldn't have tried to fix the Ranger multiple time if it was fine that it was weaker). ECMO3 argues that the fluff clearly puts the Wizard above the others (Supreme magic user and all that guff) and, furthermore, anyone can tell from the mechanics, and also that there is no indication in the book that all classes should be considered equal.

It got me curious how the rest of the board falls on this issue, because I've never seen anybody else with the same view as ECMO3

 

[Larnievc]

It’s probably a bit of both with some other factors influencing it, too.

 

[Stormonu]

The only thing that generally holds the spellcaster back is not having 100% clarity of what challenges are coming next. The ability of spellcasters to have a solution for so many in-game problems can be unbalancing, trivializing things that others might struggle to overcome. Really, how well a spellcaster can predict what upcoming challenges ahead can be a major factor in how well the group does.

While WotC's done decently in balancing effectiveness in combat at a single moment in time, when combining all three pillars spellcasters are off the chart.

 

[delericho]

Some of it is intentional, some of it is accidental. Some of it is also situational - if you strictly apply all of the limiting factors of Wizards then that goes some way to reining them in... but some of those are a major PITA to use, and liable to lead to some very unhappy players.

But it really can't have gone unnoticed at WotC that the closer a class is to a pure spellcaster the more powerful it becomes, nor that the Wizard is the most powerful of all. At some point, they chose to accept that.

 

[Undrave]

It’s probably a bit of both with some other factors influencing it, too.

I know there is a Wizard bias, but can you elaborate?

The only thing that generally holds the spellcaster back is not having 100% clarity of what challenges are coming next. The ability of spellcasters to have a solution for so many in-game problems can be unbalancing, trivializing things that others might struggle to overcome. Really, how well a spellcaster can predict what upcoming challenges ahead can be a major factor in how well the group does.

While WotC's done decently in balancing effectiveness in combat at a single moment in time, when combining all three pillars spellcasters are off the chart.

Well, the question here is not ‘is the Wizard unbalanced’, but rather ‘did WOTC try to make it balanced or did they try to make it stronger’. I'm questioning the design intent and how well it is communicated in the book.

 

[beancounter]

The paladin and to a lesser extent the rogue are imbalanced as well.

 

[Undrave]

The paladin and to the lesser extent the rogue are imbalanced as well.

Again, not the question.

 

[Ancalagon]

I know there is a Wizard bias, but can you elaborate?

Well, the question here is not ‘is the Wizard unbalanced’, but rather ‘did WOTC try to make it balanced or did they try to make it stronger’. I'm questioning the design intent and how well it is communicated in the book.

Perhaps I misunderstood you, but they certainly did not try to make it stronger than in previous editions. The casters in 3.X had tremendeously power, 5e is clearly trying to reign them in.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I can't see how it's not intentional. The Playtest ended up heavily tipping toward casters and they've expressly said things like how Fireball is purposefully unbalanced 'for tradition'. Which makes me wonder if Ford should sell a Legacy car with a crank starter.

 

[Undrave]

Perhaps I misunderstood you, but they certainly did not try to make it stronger than in previous editions. The casters in 3.X had tremendeously power, 5e is clearly trying to reign them in.

Stronger than other classes in 5e, not stronger than 3.X

 

[Undrave]

I can't see how it's not intentional. The Playtest ended up heavily tipping toward casters and they've expressly said things like how Fireball is purposefully unbalanced 'for tradition'. Which makes me wonder if Ford should sell a Legacy car with a crank starter.

So would you say WotC tried to make a balanced caster, but the Wizard fans in the play test influenced the result?

Do you agree with me that, if one class was meant to be stronger, it's not really conveyed in the books?

 

[Larnievc]

I know there is a Wizard bias, but can you elaborate?

Well they obviously had a stab at it when compared with 3.5 but shied away from the one size fits all of 4E. The actual internal drivers of what made them settle on 5E are probably multi factorial.

They reined in pure spell casters and boosted the relative power levels of martials to some extent but quite probably the reason they settled in what we have was time constraints in both testing and product delivery.

 

[Retreater]

They purposefully didn't care about catching accidents.
And they didn't playtest past level 9.

 

[Ancalagon]

I can't see how it's not intentional. The Playtest ended up heavily tipping toward casters and they've expressly said things like how Fireball is purposefully unbalanced 'for tradition'. Which makes me wonder if Ford should sell a Legacy car with a crank starter.

And yet... fireball is much weaker than in used to be. A fireball used to have a sliding damage based on level (5-10 d6 was the range) which makes comparison a bit difficult, but since 8d6 is in the middle of that range, we still can compare.

A 2n e ogre had an average hp of 19. A fireball would drop an ogre reliably if it failed it save. Now it takes three fireballs to bring down an ogre (if it fails all its saves) reliably...

In the old days, the wizard was explicitly balanced to be weaker at low levels, stronger at high levels. In 5e it is very clear efforts have been made to balance it with the other classes. While it is questionable if balance has actually been achieved, I highly doubt that the goal was to make the wizard stronger than the others.

 

[Ancalagon]

They purposefully didn't care about catching accidents.
And they didn't playtest past level 9.

... what is a catching accident?

 

[Vaalingrade]

So would you say WotC tried to make a balanced caster, but the Wizard fans in the play test influenced the result?

I don't actually see any evidence of a balanced caster. Everything else just got pushed down to make them the proud nail.

Do you agree with me that, if one class was meant to be stronger, it's not really conveyed in the books?

I agree with the statement, but D&D has ~traditionally~ had a lot of opaque design for no good reason.

 

[beancounter]

Again, not the question.

The paladin was intentional. Not sure about the rogue

 

[billd91]

And yet... fireball is much weaker than in used to be. A fireball used to have a sliding damage based on level (5-10 d6 was the range) which makes comparison a bit difficult, but since 8d6 is in the middle of that range, we still can compare.

And that 5-10d6 range was imposed with 2e. In 1e, there was no upper limit on the fireball dice.

 

[Stormonu]

I know there is a Wizard bias, but can you elaborate?

Well, the question here is not ‘is the Wizard unbalanced’, but rather ‘did WOTC try to make it balanced or did they try to make it stronger’. I'm questioning the design intent and how well it is communicated in the book.

They created a veneer of being balanced, but could not actually make it balanced due to outcry by the player community. I think they hoped that if they didn't point out the imbalance, only those who were already knee-deep in the game would notice.

So it was intentional imbalance, but an attempt was made to conceal it. Substitute Bruno with spellcasters.

 

[Retreater]

... what is a catching accident?

In baseball terms, an error: like missing a pop fly.
In the terms of this conversation, they made accidents in the design and didn't care about catching them.