D&D General Martial/Caster balance and the Grease spell

[Dessert Nomad]

3) Blocking Terrain or a PC (5ft +) on the other side of Grease can’t be jumped over in a horizontal jump.

4) You can’t land in a square of Blocking Terrain.

I'm just going to focus on this part, because you keep missing the point. I haven't disagreed with either 3 or 4. What I've pointed out is that IN ADDITION TO THAT, blocking terrain or an enemy on the other side of grease can't be walked into. So if the grease can't be jumped across, it ALSO can't be walked across, so there's no reason for the 'giants' to try to walk past it. Saying 'ah-ha, you can't jump over this obstacle because there's solid walls on the other side, you'll have to walk through it' begs the question of why you'd want to walk through it if there's solid walls on the other side.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

If I understand correctly, the setup was this one :

....................WALLS WALLS
Line GREASE
of GREASE INCOMINGFIREGIANTS
PC GREASE
................ WALLS WALLS WALLS

The grease was cast underneath the lead fire giant (who covered in fact, being a 2x2 creature, all of the greasy area) and was prone.

If this is the correct setup then:

1. By RAW, even without grease, the Giants would not have been able to push through the PCs. In this setup the big tactical advantage was the presence of walls, so the PCs would face the giants one after the other. The first of them being prone is a mild situation benefit compared to the hug benefit of having to fight a string of CR9 creature at level 17 instead of a group of CR9 creatures.

2. The prone giant #1 covering the greasy area couldn't be leaped over, not because he was there (allies don't count as obstruction, as pointed out already) but because of the PCs standing just behind him. Grease didn't increase the chokepoint's value here. If there was a space between the Greasy, giant-occupied area and the PCs, they other giants could have jumped over their comrade-in-arms, negating the threat of grease. Edit (since the ability to jump over the Grease area was questioned after this post): a STR 25 fire giant can do long jump of 25 feet per the rules. With a DC 10 Athletic checks (and with +11, it would be easy), he can clear an obstacle a quarter the length of the jump, so 6-7 ft. A prone large creature is certainly less than 2m high...)

3. Regularly intelligent, trained soldiers would certainly retreat and take the fight to a more favorable position instead of dying one after the other at a very disadvantageous bottleneck, wouldn't they?

4. To save the fight's epicness, they giants might have just shot at the wall with their 4d10+7 pew pew gun. A single attack could very well destroy a 10x10 section of it (based on the stats of the wall of stone in the wall of stone spells) to make a larger opening and remove the bottleneck. You probably envisioned something more like a steel wall, but then since they are reskinned as giant robot of doom, giving the rock attack the Siege Weapon quality could have been done on the fly to improve the game experience.

5. The ony actual benefit of grease seems to be that first fire lemming was prone instead of standing. Which is nice but hardly game changing (if they are ready to use a bad portent roll, the fighter could have shoved the giant on the first attack and made two subsequent attacks over the same action).

 

[pemerton]

It's not even close to being as broken as in 3.X because prone is so different.

Sure. I think I said something along these lines in my OP, and also noted the change in the "save" mechanic.

Martials can knock prone without even needing a resource. It just costs them a single attack (not attack action) on a turn to attempt it. Does that make martials more broken than grease?

Seriously though pemerton, this is probably some of the worst analysis I've seen you do - and all in service of trying to make a negative point about a game you don't even like. Makes it feel more like a hit piece than anything.

I'm not the OP, but I'm pretty sure you're missing the point.

The Wizard can spend a single action to AoE prone people at range. In theory, this is between 1-3 times a day.

The Fighter spends an attack to prone a single creature within reach that is no more than 1 size larger than you using a skill check instead of your primary attack mode where the target has a choice of two better defenses. In theory this is at will.

In addition to what Vaalingrade has said, there is the following:

Either, (1) Grease and other first-level debuffs are not very useful especially in limited numbers, in which case low-level wizards are underpowered.

Or else, (2) Grease and other first-level debuffs are useful, in which case higher levels wizards have this thing which was useful even in limited numbers essentially on-tap. Hence higher level wizards are overpowered.

This doesn't occur with damaging effects, because hit points scale with level and hence damaging effects decrease in utility with level. The issue pertains to debuffs whose effectiveness doesn't scale down even as the resource cost of deployment decreases to (effectively) zero.

In AD&D OA, warriors (7th level kensai, 6th level samurai) had an ability to cause 1 HD or fewer foes to flee or surrender in fear. The HD limit is fairly harsh (although less so in AD&D than in more recent versions of the game, because of conceits in early D&D around the role of guards, soldiers, bandits etc and how they are to be statted up), but this shows how high level warriors can be given AoE debuffs that are genre-appropriate.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If I understand correctly, the setup was this one :

....................WALLS WALLS
Line GREASE
of GREASE INCOMINGFIREGIANTS
PC GREASE
................ WALLS WALLS WALLS

The grease was cast underneath the lead fire giant (who covered in fact, being a 2x2 creature, all of the greasy area) and was prone.

<snip>

Nope, Turns out the fire giant is Jeane Claude VanDamme and doe the perfect splits, effectively standing on the walls.

Which is as valid in the rules as having them step over it with impunity.

 

[Campbell]

in my experience playing up to 15th level so far a lot of low level debuffs actually grow more powerful as levels rise. A lot of which has to do with the busted saving throw math and the unfortunate decision to move to neovancian spell casting allowing what I view as too much flexibility with those low level slots. At our level tossing out a slow spell against a group of big bruisers is extremely potent and extremely cheap. When those slots were more precious for damage output it was much less of a potent use compared to enemy saves.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm just going to focus on this part, because you keep missing the point. I haven't disagreed with either 3 or 4. What I've pointed out is that IN ADDITION TO THAT, blocking terrain or an enemy on the other side of grease can't be walked into. So if the grease can't be jumped across, it ALSO can't be walked across, so there's no reason for the 'giants' to try to walk past it. Saying 'ah-ha, you can't jump over this obstacle because there's solid walls on the other side, you'll have to walk through it' begs the question of why you'd want to walk through it if there's solid walls on the other side.

To start. Here is my contention after GMing a Swashbuckler + Champion + Diviner for probably 150 hours intermittently from levels 4-7 then a ton from 11-20 (various intervals...again, I was filling in for a GM to make sure a group of teenagers' game got played) back in 2016-2017.

Grease is fine at low level.

Curiously, the problem comes in at high level because (a) of spell proliferation making the opportunity cost of loading it out miniscule (and therefore having a huge answer for a specific encounter situation - chokepoint management + kiting enabler via amplifying a terrain configuration vs low Dex Brutes) + (b) the spell DC is so high + (c) having answers to all encounter types in your enormous suite of answers (+Signature) + your enormous gastank (massive # of spells, huge gastank with spell slots + Recovery + Mastery + Rituals) is what makes high level spellcasters overpowered. Portent is just the icing on the top for Diviners.

Now, onto what is being missed here:

* Your optimal path of movement to a high mobility + kite-capable target is (say) 6 squares (within your move).

* A spell that plops down a 4 SQ control zone which connects other pieces of continuous terrain punishment then turns your 6 squares of movement into 8 or 9 (as you have to reroute from the prior optimal path)...now you're screwing with action economy sufficient to equal action denial of melee multiattack by proxy. Your left with a catch 22 of spending action economy to Dash and hope you can close to melee to deploy multiattack...except the Swashbackler can just dance away without OA and the Wizard has Misty Step at-will (so both have AoE avoiding Dash at-will). So you're in a position of pretty much being locked out of multiattack...so your potential damage output is wrecked.

* This terrain-abuse (lets call it) makes you hugely kiteable (which crushes your potential dps output).


Finally, no you can't just horizontal jump over anything that is prone. The alien ATST proned in the hall because of a readied Grease is the obstacle. How are a bunch of ATSTs leaping over a prone ATST in a 10*10*15 corridor? That is some beyond Matrix level wire-fu there. The PHB says you can attempt to clear a "low obstacle" and puts the clearance max for the low obstacle to a horizontal long jump at 1/4 the jump; otherwise you hit it. There is no way a Large or Huge creature proned in a hallway on Grease is a "low obstacle". This basically means that somewhere around 5-7 ft is pretty much going to be the absolute max a reasonable creature can clear in a horizontal long jumps (basically the world record longjump in our world...which is what DC exactly in 5e?...when it doesn't have a ceiling for a 12 ft ATST to contend with?) and you're putting a huge DC on the Athletics check (or they hit it) or you're outright ruling you can't jump it (because its not a "low obstacle"). These tanks would weigh an absolute F-ton and their girth would be huge even if prone. Clearing that looks to be outside of what should be reasonable or at least a significant Athletics DC if you can even try it. Couple with the corridor for the ceiling? If you're a GM who is allowing that outright or putting a low/medium/or even high DC on that I_never_ever_ever want to hear about punishing DCs for Fighters or Rogues when they're trying to do epic level athletic/acrobatics maneuvers (their power : weight ratio compared to these tanks is PROFOUNDLY in the favor of the Epic Fighter/Rogue....yet, these ATSTs are supposed to just pull off a simple leap move here?).

If they can't jump it and you're ruling that they can indeed treat it as "difficult terrain", then they're saving against Grease (which, personally, I think that is a hugely contentious ruling...out in the open, not in a corridor, not a creature who takes up nearly all the space of a corridor, w/o a terrain hazard like Grease...sure...when everything is pointing the opposite direction...questionable ruling in my opinion). Either way, its a train-wreck of action denial by the Tanks. That is how Grease can create a huge chokepoint and debilitate the action economy of reinforcing large creatures w/ bad dex in a dungeon corridor.

And linking terrain features by way of a strategically placed 4 SQ zone which complicates your path to your potential melee multiattack targets by even +15 ft (or 3 SQ) can create action denial and turn melee multiattackers into single target ranged attackers as they're forced to deal with terrain + movement enabled kiting.


+++++++++++++++++

Again, the problem isn't low level Wizards with Grease. Its high level Wizards with Grease (because it gives them a hugely effective, nil-cost, tool in the toolbox to seriously damage encounter archetype (which is exactly what you're looking for as a high level Wizard...Rock for when Scissors is thrown at you, Paper for when Rock is thrown at you, Scissors for when Paper is thrown at you, the ability to surveil so you know enemy weaknesses/what problems you're going to face, the ability to dictate Long Rest Recharge, and tactical Nukes when you feel like it).

 

[Teemu]

I haven’t found higher level wizards or other spellcasters to dominate fights in 5e simply because classes like fighter and rogue can deal a lot of damage, particularly to those important boss-type targets. Yeah, wizards have much better area control and really strong debuffs, but they typically can’t deal as much damage. You often also have to deal with elemental resistances and immunities, magic resistance, and of course the dreaded legendary resistance.

Now, out of combat, higher level spellcasters absolutely do steal the spotlight.

 

[Don Durito]

Wizards don't need to maintain their 1st level spell slots. The low level slots need to disappear as they level up, so they are spending higher level spells if they wish to have this effect.

(Or if that seems counter-intuitive it's not that they lose slots, it's that their slots upgrade - like Warlocks. See the 13th Age progression for Wizards as an example. They cap out at 12 slots total).

Of course, this should really go along with reducing the numer of encounters expected per long rest.

 

[MarkB]

If I understand correctly, the setup was this one :

....................WALLS WALLS
Line GREASE
of GREASE INCOMINGFIREGIANTS
PC GREASE
................ WALLS WALLS WALLS

The grease was cast underneath the lead fire giant (who covered in fact, being a 2x2 creature, all of the greasy area) and was prone.

If this is the correct setup then:

1. By RAW, even without grease, the Giants would not have been able to push through the PCs. In this setup the big tactical advantage was the presence of walls, so the PCs would face the giants one after the other. The first of them being prone is a mild situation benefit compared to the hug benefit of having to fight a string of CR9 creature at level 17 instead of a group of CR9 creatures.

2. The prone giant #1 covering the greasy area couldn't be leaped over, not because he was there (allies don't count as obstruction, as pointed out already) but because of the PCs standing just behind him. Grease didn't increase the chokepoint's value here. If there was a space between the Greasy, giant-occupied area and the PCs, they other giants could have jumped over their comrade-in-arms, negating the threat of grease. Edit (since the ability to jump over the Grease area was questioned after this post): a STR 25 fire giant can do long jump of 25 feet per the rules. With a DC 10 Athletic checks (and with +11, it would be easy), he can clear an obstacle a quarter the length of the jump, so 6-7 ft. A prone large creature is certainly less than 2m high...)

3. Regularly intelligent, trained soldiers would certainly retreat and take the fight to a more favorable position instead of dying one after the other at a very disadvantageous bottleneck, wouldn't they?

4. To save the fight's epicness, they giants might have just shot at the wall with their 4d10+7 pew pew gun. A single attack could very well destroy a 10x10 section of it (based on the stats of the wall of stone in the wall of stone spells) to make a larger opening and remove the bottleneck. You probably envisioned something more like a steel wall, but then since they are reskinned as giant robot of doom, giving the rock attack the Siege Weapon quality could have been done on the fly to improve the game experience.

5. The ony actual benefit of grease seems to be that first fire lemming was prone instead of standing. Which is nice but hardly game changing (if they are ready to use a bad portent roll, the fighter could have shoved the giant on the first attack and made two subsequent attacks over the same action).

Just to point out, a creature can move through enemies' spaces if it is at least two size categories different than them. So a huge fire giant with strength 25 and a running start could clear not only a grease patch but also the line of medium creatures standing beyond it in a long jump. It might need to double-move to make that jump, but if that leaves the PCs between it and its ally that's following along behind, that seems like a reasonable trade-off.

 

[Immoralkickass]

I'm just scratching my head when OP came to the conclusion that Grease is too strong because martials don't have anything similar. What the what?