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

[Flamestrike]

Your closing line makes it personal. Don’t make it personal.

It wasn't personal at all.

My point was 'white room theory crafting isn't in any way shape or form how the game works in actual play, but if you prefer the results of white room number crunching over the results of actual gameplay as a more accurate representation of how the game plays, and that works you you, good for you.'

Unsure how that's a personal attack?

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Action Surge is per short rest, not per long rest.

 

[NotAYakk]

Except that that's not what action surge does. Action surge lets you take another standard action--and you can only use it once a day (twice at very high level). That's 5th-level spell or above. And yes, I'd say action surge could be argued to match a 5th-level spell, since it is one of the more powerful combat abilities in the game, and some spellcasters do actually dip Fighter just so they can get it (actually, you'd usually start Fighter for the Con save proficiency and heavy armor, then flip to whatever caster class you actually want to play--Bard is a strong choice here since it gets very minimal benefits from its max-level features).

It is per rest, not per day.

Action surge refreshes on short and long rests.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It wasn't personal at all.

My point was 'white room theory crafting isn't in any way shape or form how the game works in actual play, but if you prefer the results of white room number crunching over the results of actual gameplay as a more accurate representation of how the game plays, and that works you you, good for you.'

Unsure how that's a personal attack?

#1) “Don‘t discuss moderation in thread” is a long standing rule on ENWorld. I could ding you for that. I’m not.

#2) You made it personal by using possessives- “your”- and following that with “if it works for you” and your dismissive coda. Find a better way to express the sentiment next time, or don‘t express the sentiment,

 

[Flamestrike]

#1) “Don‘t discuss moderation in thread” is a long standing rule on ENWorld. I could ding you for that. I’m not.

#2) You made it personal by using possessives- “your”- and following that with “if it works for you” and your dismissive coda. Find a better way to express the sentiment next time, or don‘t express the sentiment,

OK, chill man. Noted.

We can discuss it via PM

 

[Shadowedeyes]

If it had no concentration and it lasted for 8 hours I think it would be a good 5th level spell. Usually there are not a lot of saves in one day that you fail, but when you do fail it is usually bad.

We will have to agree to disagree on that. I don't think I'd use one of my more powerful slots for such an effect, especially when I could use it for something like Hold Monster, Wall of Force, Telekinesis or even Cone of Cold. Maybe, at really high levels, I might be willing to drop a 5th level slot for this hypothetical spell. I certainly wouldn't be upcasting it though.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

...that is literally the fundamental benefit of the spell. Area denial. As I specifically said earlier.

I'm staying out of the big back and forth, but I will point out that grease isn't meaningful area denial unless you make the terrain extremely constrained in a weird way specifically to fit the spell. The vast majority of creatures can just jump over a grease effect without needing a roll as long as they can get a 10' move before they get to where it is, and most of the 'slow, lumbering' creatures talked about earlier don't even need the 10' move. If a creature is standing in grease to fight, it doesn't meaningfully affect the creature (if it fails the save, the creature just falls prone then uses half of the movement it wasn't going to use anyway to stand up). It's not really area denial, it's more area 'have to make a declaration of action that automatically succeeds' which is more of a mild annoyance to everyone at the table than a significant combat action.

The amount of back and forth over a spell that can be casually ignored by most creatures unless the DM specifically sets really narrow parameters to the battlefield (prevent jumping, prevent moving 10' before the grease spot, have so much blocking terrain you can't jump to the far side but somehow need to move over it) is a bit excessive. I wouldn't even call it 'white room' analysis, because a 'white room' is usually a featureless, open area. This is a 'very specific shade of blue room' analysis, because you have to make such a specific battlefield to get the result.

 

[Shadowedeyes]

If you are standing in the Grease you make the save to fall down when you end your turn, so you won't be able to stand up until your next turn. You can potentially get up when you enter the area of Grease and fall.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

If you are standing in the Grease you make the save to fall down when you end your turn, so you won't be able to stand up until your next turn. You can potentially get up when you enter the area of Grease and fall.

You're right, I was misremembering it, so it's slightly better than I thought. Still is going to be easy to get around without a contrived battlefield setup, but not as ineffective on someone standing in it.

 

[ECMO3]

(Also, again, my experience with 5e vastly differs from others'. As a player, I have found saves to be extremely binary--either they're trivial, or nearly unpassable. Often the latter. It's part of what makes combat, especially in the earliest levels, incredibly frustrating and demoralizing. I'm reminded of the "ghoul surprise" boondoggle back during the playtest.)

I don't know what Ghouls surprise you are talking about but most CR1 monsters have saves around 10 or 11 and those give you a rougly 50-50 chance at saving with a 10 in the stat. Imp poision - 10, Quasit poision/scare - 10, wyrmling brass dragon breath - 11, ghoul paralyzation -10 .....

Also with proficiency being +2 at low levels, I don't know how a save can go "tivial" to "impossible" the math just does not support that at low levels.

I would, personally, say that that means you're just seeing how niche the spell's effect is. As I very clearly said in a different part of the post you quoted, grease is not a good spell overall. But it's much better than shoving. Much as, for example, sleep is a LOVELY spell...at 1st level, and rapidly declines into "not worth the ink it's written with" territory by 5th level or so.

A sleep spell cast by a 5th level wizard using a 3rd level slot can on average put down a creature with 40.5 hp with no saving throw. By comparison a fireball cast against the same foe using the same 3rd level slot will do an average of 28 points of damage on a failed save or 14 on a passed save.

That is not to say sleep is as good as fireball, but it is hardly useless at higher levels.

It looks like you're correct. I had read the PHB rules--"If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them," emphasis mine--as meaning you could use exactly one attack to shove, no matter how many attacks you might have. Assuming you allow Crawford tweets as official commentary on the rules, he has clarified that it is any number of attacks. But you still have to make multiple attempts at it--and you get at best four chances (for an extremely high-level fighter!) if you have four things adjacent to you. That's definitely not going to be any easier than getting four things in a 10-foot square!

In the vast majority of cases it will be substantially better for several reasons.

1. It is rare there are four enemies in a 10x10 space.

2. If there are four enemies it is even rarer still that you can get to all of them with a melee attacker after they have been greased, meaning this hurts you.

3. you can use the shove on the same turn you make the attacks, meaning initiative order is meaningless, you can shove and then attack the creature you shoved as opposed to a caster who casts grease and then has the enemy stand up before he gets attacked by anyone.

4. Shove works on enemies who are flying, levitating or climbing. Grease only works on those who are standing.

My math has, repeatedly, shown otherwise, so I'm curious how you reach this point.

And actual play will show that there almost never are 4 enemies aligned so as to all be knocked prone by grease and that even if there are you can't take advantage of it.