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

[Minigiant]

That's my point. It's not the fault of the Wizard class. The cause of the problem lies elsewhere.

I'd agree that the 6-8 encounter standard is the fault of buffs to the full casters.

 

[Flamestrike]

What about new DMs? Are they well equipped to deal with what you call 'shenanigans'? Should the game support 'shenanigans' at all?

As a general rule, No.

Its one of the leading causes of DM's quitting IME. A PC gets access to a new ability the DM has no experience with and sudden anti-magic fields pop up everywhere, railroads occur and then the DM rage quits.

Its why many games dont get past the mid levels, and as a consequence most DMs have next to no experience dealing with high level PC's and the tricks they can pull.

As to weather the game should support them, that depends on your taste I guess.

I played a level 5-6 Shepperd Druid and grew bored because of how easy it got after a while... I think it's just a problem with the expected encounter structure and the nature of spell casters in DnD.

I blame your DM. It's his/ her job to challenge you, and he/she failed you.

In fact, these sorts of problems are almost always down to the DM.

You could argue the system doesnt make it easy for DM's, but then again, DMing aint an easy job at the best of times.

 

[Flamestrike]

I blame the rest structure.

I actually agree.

It has its strengths (I can shift the spotlight between PCs by simply adding in or subtracting encounters or short rest opportunities between long rests, and it avoids 4E's 'same-e-ness') but it also has its weaknesses (namely its a chore to police as a DM).

 

[Flamestrike]

Martials just plain aren't allowed to do cool things while the wizard gets a literal catalogue of cool things to do.

Other than beat a T-rex or Balor to death with my fists, or literally fall into a volcano or from a 20 storey building and survive.

Those are pretty cool things.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Other than beat a T-rex or Balor to death with my fists, or literally fall into a volcano or from a 20 storey building and survive.

Those are pretty cool things.

"I attack. I attack. I attack."

"I passively subtract some numbers and they don't become 0"

Thrilling.

 

[Flamestrike]

"I attack. I attack. I attack."

"I passively subtract some numbers and they don't become 0"

Thrilling.

It is to a lot of players.

A significant number of people who play this game just want to roll dice and deal big damage and smack things hard. They dont want spells or complexity or resource management of slots and stuff.

I bet you even have one at your table. Most do.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The question is this setup deliberately and purposely crafted to be this way or an accident of the community preferences blowing it up.

I think it is neither.

I think the designer intent is absolutely to deliver a reasonable, balanced, equitable game where everyone contributes meaningfully and no one has an inherent leg up nor needs special DM intervention.

However, I also think that this result is not some totally unforeseeable unfortunate accident that could never have been avoided or dealt with.

Instead, as I've said, I think it's the combination of several factors:
1. Intentionally doing things that sound positive and beneficial in isolation but which link together to produce problems.
2. Preserving, reviving, or enhancing "tradition" without actually examining whether that tradition is beneficial, or whether it has aspects that could be mitigated.
3. Subconscious motives that encourage greater power for spellcasting and no gain (or even sometimes loss) of power for non-spellcasting.
4. Biased thinking, particularly biases built on thinking everyone will play in certain ways or deal with problems in the same fashion.
5. Faulty understanding/application of statistics and mathematics more generally.
6. Failure to account for player psychology in the design.

None of these require "let's make an unbalanced game!" as an intentional motive, and yet all of them are the product of intentional (if sometimes heedless) actions. Which is why I say it is intentional, but not because the intent was to make an inequitable game.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It is to a lot of players.

A significant number of people who play this game just want to roll dice and deal big damage and smack things hard. They dont want spells or complexity or resource management of slots and stuff.

And those who don't don't count?

I bet you even have one at your table. Most do.

Let's see...

We have the pet hoarder
The guy that plays the token evil teammate most of the time and cheeses skill
The optimizer who like building quirky things who is the closest to someone who values Big Damage
And the chaos goblin who likes causing trouble.

Nope, no one just wanting to do the push button thing.

No (okay, minimal) shade to anyone who does, but I don't see why my fun has to be sacrificed to them. Like they can have the existing fighter (as much as I would like to see the Champion explode forever), but can I get a good fighter?

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Use a rest variant.

As much as I know I will regret this. How do you enforce how many short tests can be taken?

Doom clocks, environmental constraints, reactive bad guys.

Occasionally telling off the players for attempting to game the rest mechanic, with a firm but gentle 'No'.

My players know not to try and game the system at my table though so the latter is rare.

Personally if I DM 5e without other house rules, I just go full gamist at this point like 13th age. Long rests are defined as occuring after six enounters and short rests after two. Remove the link to real world hours and days and even the notion of "rest". Sometimes people want a link to the fictional world and we can make one up -- "Wizard spellcaster power is linked to the impossible to perdict star alignment and each individuals magic wellspring DNA -- only when these align can you memorize new spells." And then never think about this again. Not super satisfying but better than having to always set up some scenerio that enforces the 6-8/2.

I'd rather they design the game to better reflect how people actually play rather than every encounter day being like a month of sessions to get through.

Agreed. It is one of the worst design decisions of 5e IMO.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Many that have this problem of 'Wizards are God' have it because they get 5 minute work days, often by DMs that dont know better, prefer single encounter days, or know how to DM high level play.

Im not one of those DM's.

Several people have already granted that if the DM is both (a) enforcing well-known, albeit almost universally disliked, rules of the game, and (b) actively antagonistic to spellcasters, then things will generally not be favorable to spellcasters anymore.

The problem is...both of those things!

When one group of options must be specially nurtured and supported while another must be actively punished, or else things get out of hand, that's some major imbalance. It might or might not be "a problem," but it actively requires constant vigilance. When playing the game as intended results in tedious, frustrating, or otherwise un-fun experiences, people will push away from that...and anything which was balanced around assuming the game played as intended will begin to show cracks. Again, that may or may not be "a problem," but it's an open admission that the system is sensitive and prone to bogging (or breaking) down without continuous active correction.

Most people talk about 5e as it is actually played. Which breaks the 6-8 encounters a day pattern, the intended resting patterns, and item acquisition patterns, and almost all of this pattern breaking is in ways that favor casters.

Instead of insisting, "just play the game as intended!", it seems much more productive to adjust the game so playing it rationally and enjoyably doesn't result in situations that need constant oversight. Which is one of the virtues of a reasonably balanced game.

 

[Minigiant]

I think it is neither.

I think the designer intent is absolutely to deliver a reasonable, balanced, equitable game where everyone contributes meaningfully and no one has an inherent leg up nor needs special DM intervention.

However, I also think that this result is not some totally unforeseeable unfortunate accident that could never have been avoided or dealt with.

Instead, as I've said, I think it's the combination of several factors:
1. Intentionally doing things that sound positive and beneficial in isolation but which link together to produce problems.
2. Preserving, reviving, or enhancing "tradition" without actually examining whether that tradition is beneficial, or whether it has aspects that could be mitigated.
3. Subconscious motives that encourage greater power for spellcasting and no gain (or even sometimes loss) of power for non-spellcasting.
4. Biased thinking, particularly biases built on thinking everyone will play in certain ways or deal with problems in the same fashion.
5. Faulty understanding/application of statistics and mathematics more generally.
6. Failure to account for player psychology in the design.

None of these require "let's make an unbalanced game!" as an intentional motive, and yet all of them are the product of intentional (if sometimes heedless) actions. Which is why I say it is intentional, but not because the intent was to make an inequitable game.

That's why I said both.

The intention was a little purposeful imbalance what would be shrouded by playing the way the designers play.

The mistake was them making too many assumptions based on themselves and accidentally creating imbalance that is barely contained by the limits of the guidelines.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I can literally find you a 25 links to threads in this forum alone where the opposite is argued.

and yet in this thread right now you have been given example after example including warlocks...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yes. So... you should treat their experience with as much respect

That's the reason. The 5MWD, and inexperienced DMs. It's not an inherent feature of the Wizard class.

you must have very little respect for your own DMing experience if this is you giving us as much

 

[DND_Reborn]

Unless DMs forbid feats, which a huge number do, as I have been repeatedly reminded.

I would love to know who is spreading such lies!

On EnWorld, at least, that is certainly not the case. In the poll I did, over 90% of games use feats IIRC. Now, multiclassing was much less, like 50-60% or so.

You in? Or do I win by default?

I'll also play!

Just let me know the level and character creation rules.

Now you just need two more. @FitzTheRuke and @Smythe the Bard both played when I ran the Vecna battle simulations, so they might be willing to join.

I've yet to see any statistical evidence from the 'Wizards are God' camp either. In the 8 years of these threads being posted.

Well, there is this:

D&D 5E - What Level 20 Class Would Win?

So, here's a question. What level 20 class do you think would win a 1 on 1 combat against any other class? There are no magic items allowed, unless you have class abilities that give you them. You get your subclass abilities, and get to choose your spells beforehand knowing that you're going...

www.enworld.org

 

[Micah Sweet]

That works great if you roll for stats, but rolling for stats is only fun if you can build your character in 5 minutes when they inevitably died when the d20 forsakes you.

Standard array or point build means you can always hit the prerequisite you desire so it doesn't matter.

Except that’s not quite what I wanted out of this thread.

We were in that actual thread and ECMO3, rather than deny that OP spellcaster existed said, to paraphrase:

“Of course, the Wizard is the most powerful class! He’s the WIZARD! It makes total sense! Hence why WOTC made it the most powerful class. You can totally tell just from the fluff and the mechanics and the Fighter is the worst class. The game is way more fun when there’s a stronger class.”

And I wanted to know who else shared his opinion, who had the same reading of the PHB.

If they're so unpopular, that seems like a major flaw in the system to me...

It  is a major flaw in the system. This ground has been trod over many times.

 

[Composer99]

I'm going to have to come down to saying that the imbalance is intentional.

I don't know that the Next design team intended to make imbalanced classes as such.

Nevertheless, they intentionally made spellcasting scale from sleep to hypnotic pattern to wall of stone, with a vast array of specified discrete combat and non-combat options, and martial capabilities not really scale apart from more damage, in the "front 10" levels alone (with a few exceptions such as Battle master or hunter ranger tricks), with a trickle of defined non-combat functionality outside of spellcasting (mostly confined to Expertise for bards and rogues, Natural Explorer for rangers, and a few other tricks for rogues), never mind the "back 10" when we get stuff like planar ally or wish versus... your third use of Indomitable in a day or a third die on Brutal Critical! (Whew!)

They made those design decisions, and I don't think they were so dense as to be unable to imagine what the consequences would be. So, yes, intentional.

 

[Parmandur]

Problematic question, because the Classrs are balanced along hit point lines, dage and healing over an Adventure day. Now, is yhe asymmetrical design of the Classes intentional? Absolutely, 100%. And that works because they are balanced.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Now you just need two more. @FitzTheRuke and @Smythe the Bard both played when I ran the Vecna battle simulations, so they might be willing to join.

Not up on this thread, but I'm probably in. What are we doing?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Not up on this thread, but I'm probably in. What are we doing?

@Flamestrike is looking for players to play in an "adventuring day", postulating that wizards are not overly powerful (in a nutshell).

If you're interested and check the last five pages or so you can backtrack the original line of discussion.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

@Flamestrike is looking for players to play in an "adventuring day", postulating that wizards are not overly powerful (in a nutshell).

If you're interested and check the last five pages or so you can backtrack the original line of discussion.

So we'll run through 6-8 encounters with a party of 4-5 with two short rests and see who does the most damage over the course of the day? I wanna play the rogue! I betchya I can win the damage contest, and I'm terrible at optimizing! What level?