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

[Oofta]

Well it’s more than that. Are encounters varied? We have a very skilled player who found a red dragon and fire giant are not too worried about fireballs, scorching ray etc.

Now that was an unforced error perhaps. But if folks are not pretty experienced, this will happen in various ways of the DM is throwing variety.

My friend was vexed in another session: “I can only prepare so much! This has been frustrating!”

Yeas wizards are powerful but more and varied encounters are the DMs province. I was eldritch smiting left and right and kept my fireball in my pocket.

Wizards are a bigger problem at higher levels in the hands of people who know how to shape the game.

At lower levels and with less experienced players the problem is minimized. I suspect that they did not try to counter this level of player of higher skill levels at higher levels and also think they may not have 100% realized it.

Even with experienced players it happens. Whether it was the best tactic or not, one of the players in my wife's campaign decided to focus on fire based spells. Fights against anything with resistance (until he took the feat) meant they contributed little. When we hit immunity, they were just SOL. The high level wizard (we played to 20th) was basically down to cantrips outside of 1 or 2 spells.

But more to the point, if you get more than 2-3 encounters per long rest against a wide variety of opponents and tactics and in my experience is that wizards are not all that. But we already have a thread for that.

 

[CleverNickName]

BUT is it you ignore or modfy the rules, or that we do? since we DON'T run into this with every system it shows the system matters

I was assuming that neither of us ignore or modify rules. But either way, we're proving my point...those omissions/modifications are being done by the humans at the table.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So, back on topic, was this intentional design or accidental?

I just can't imagine the designers are so bad at design that this was an accident... but people keep telling me they are

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I was assuming that neither of us ignore or modify rules. Because if we do, we're proving my point...those omissions/modifications are being done by the humans at the table.

then, it is equally likely YOUR the one that is the outliers

 

[CleverNickName]

then, it is equally likely YOUR the one that is the outliers

The humans at the table, yes. Which is what I am trying to say.

 

[Art Waring]

I weighed in on this before, but I think it's a bit of both. The wizard has certain traditions, if you will, carried from previous editions, which I think reinforce the need to keep the wizard a top tier class.

In the 3.X days, before dnd applied tiers to levels of play, the 3.X community had a very useful tier rating system for classes, with tier 1 being the highest, and tier 5 being the lowest.

Tier 1 classes can contribute effectively across every one of the three pillars of play, and have incredible utility. They also have the ability to directly affect narrative outcomes, which vanilla fighters simply cannot do.

Wizards have always been tier 1 classes, and knowing that you can look at how they design other classes in respect to the wizard. Some classes are surely designed to be in lower tiers.

I think the solution is to give the fighters and martials a little bit more utility in the other two pillars, social and exploration, and maybe giving them a little bit of narrative control in some form, not the same as spellcasters, but enough to let martial players feel like they are contributing to every aspect of play.

 

[LordEntrails]

Now that we have a working definition of "Balance", I think any balance was intentional. It might not (and probably wasn't) a design goal, but rather an outcome or consequence of the design goals.

i.e. That in general understanding that "balance" is amorphous and highly variable, the system developed was quick, easy and adaptable with a general sense that any class can be helpful and contribute to a party's success and have fun together. And any resulting imbalance left was not particularly important and acceptable to the designers.

 

[Oofta]

I was assuming that neither of us ignore or modify rules. Because if we do, we're proving my point...those omissions/modifications are being done by the humans at the table.

I've never seen the huge gap in games I play whether I'm DM or not. I have very few house rules, the ones I do have wouldn't have much impact. Yes, occasionally the casters do something cools and everybody cheers. Meanwhile the fighters are playing a different role while doing a **** load of damage and making sure the casters survive long enough to do those cool things.

But some people are convinced that because it's a problem in their games/white room analysis it's a problem for everyone. The scenarios given as examples always seem to make every assumption possible to increase wizard's effectiveness.

It was a major issue in 3.x and older editions. I don't think it's a huge issue any more.

 

[Haplo781]

D&D never has and never will have "balance".

Laughs in 4e

 

[Krachek]

So we got casters who can choose to spend their ressources on combat, social and exploration.
While some other classes haven’t that choice because they are mainly combat oriented.
That is on purpose.

Social and exploration encounters are handled in a wide variety by tables. Their importance, the satisfaction players find, their role in the story, are related to play style.
To let the table free to choose is made on purpose.

The mix of the two can create imbalance, and if there was an universal play style, the imbalance could be view as made on purpose. but play style vary greatly and are encourage to vary. So imbalanced feel is more accidental than on purpose.