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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Martial/Caster balance and the Grease spell
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<blockquote data-quote="FrogReaver" data-source="post: 8327570" data-attributes="member: 6795602"><p>In most situations it does a poor job of area denial. It's more typical use case is to delay an enemy or two from reaching the party for a single turn.</p><p></p><p></p><p>It doesn't 'just work'. Once an enemy walks around it, through it, under it or over it, grease has no more effect. Contrast with a fighter that can repeatedly prone every single turn and the enemy can't simply get past it once and never have to deal with it again. The point is that there's pros and cons to both methods of proning and focusing only on greases pros and ignoring the cons of it when compared with the fighters method makes poor analysis.</p><p></p><p></p><p>There's much more to it than that. The effects of Wizard spells aren't identical. One often has to choose between using a less accurate spell with a stronger effect and bigger AOE or a more accurate spell with a lesser effect and a smaller AOE. So yes, Wizards can 'improve their accuracy' by targeting weak saves but it's usually with a large enough tradeoff that it isn't worth worrying about. Also, generally speaking Wizards will be concentrating on 1 spell an encounter and after that they have cast that spell they have very limited options for the remaining spells/cantrips they cast in an encounter. So while it makes wizards sound really powerful that they can target the enemies weaker saves and improve their accuracy, in practice concentration and the difference in spell effects from what the best spells in the situation target and the best saves to target generally makes this a moot point.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Then why aren't you agreeing that Fighters basic attacks @ level 5 tend to be the equivalent of a good single target damage 2nd level spell?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The point is that the effects the fighter is capable of producing on his turn would make good spells. Making the point that the wizard is still better because of versatility isn't a counter to this. I'm not trying to debate you about whether Fighters or Wizards are stronger, just whether the effects the fighter can produce would be good spells. Please address that instead of sliding in the Fighter vs Wizard stuff.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Every short rest. General consensus would say 3 (2 short rests).</p><p></p><p></p><p>The effects of using Action Surge + attack actions are what I would consider as making good wizard spells.</p><p></p><p>Also, Fighters get substantial power via subclass features as well. For example, what all spells could we create with the various combinations of maneuvers, action surge, 2nd wind, basic attacks, prones, shoves, grapples. Would those be good spells?</p><p></p><p></p><p>I've already said wizard at high levels are stronger than fighters. Why can't we focus on the part about fighters effects on their turns and how strong of spells they would make? That to me is alot more enlightening.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Sorry if you misunderstood what I was getting at I'm sure at least half the fault for that lies with me. I'm not saying take 2nd wind and make it a spell. Take action surge and make it a spell. I'm saying, take the things the fighter does on his turn when using 2nd wind or action surge or both and let's see how strong of a spell that makes.</p><p></p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Being able to cast grease is not a powerful effect either. That's kind of the point.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The damage component being much higher is what brings the fighters up beyond cantrip level. Or if the fighter wanted to, he could prone two enemies. In either event that's clearly much stronger than that cantrip.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">**Also, Sapping Sting doesn't deal damage on a passed save.</li> </ul><p></p><p></p><p>The point isn't that it's the strongest thing in the world, but for an at-will option it's at least equivalent to a level 1 spell if not a level 2 spell. That's about where I'd place EB + invocations at level 5 as well. For the fighter this still isn't looking at spending he resource abilities - which is where the comparison to at level spells comes in.</p><p></p><p></p><p>But that's not the argument I'm making. The fighter has various at-will effects and various effects he can produce by spending a resource. Despite having limited access to 'strong single effects' he can combo together the effects he can produce. We can roughly map those kinds of effects to already existing spells (not perfectly, but at least we can get in the ballpark of what level of spell they would make). </p><p></p><p>Consider this spell: 'make 6 attacks at 2d6+1d10+modifier damage'. You heal for 1d10+11 damage. On the first hit the enemy will make a strength save or be be knocked prone, on the 2nd hit the enemy must make a wisdom save or be frightend for a turn, on the 3rd hit can allow your allies to spend half their movement and reposition. On the 4th hit you push the enemy back 15ft. That's 132 average damage (with the possibility for advantage on most of the attacks), with 16.5 avg healing, with the possibility for prone, frightened, ally movement and pushback 15 ft. At level 11, that's much stronger than the level 6 disintigrate spell. Now, this can only be done once per short rest, but this makes for a very strong spell.</p><p></p><p></p><p>No. I've told you what I meant and hopefully that's more clear now. It's definitely probable I could have made the posts more clear when initially raising the idea.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FrogReaver, post: 8327570, member: 6795602"] In most situations it does a poor job of area denial. It's more typical use case is to delay an enemy or two from reaching the party for a single turn. It doesn't 'just work'. Once an enemy walks around it, through it, under it or over it, grease has no more effect. Contrast with a fighter that can repeatedly prone every single turn and the enemy can't simply get past it once and never have to deal with it again. The point is that there's pros and cons to both methods of proning and focusing only on greases pros and ignoring the cons of it when compared with the fighters method makes poor analysis. There's much more to it than that. The effects of Wizard spells aren't identical. One often has to choose between using a less accurate spell with a stronger effect and bigger AOE or a more accurate spell with a lesser effect and a smaller AOE. So yes, Wizards can 'improve their accuracy' by targeting weak saves but it's usually with a large enough tradeoff that it isn't worth worrying about. Also, generally speaking Wizards will be concentrating on 1 spell an encounter and after that they have cast that spell they have very limited options for the remaining spells/cantrips they cast in an encounter. So while it makes wizards sound really powerful that they can target the enemies weaker saves and improve their accuracy, in practice concentration and the difference in spell effects from what the best spells in the situation target and the best saves to target generally makes this a moot point. Then why aren't you agreeing that Fighters basic attacks @ level 5 tend to be the equivalent of a good single target damage 2nd level spell? The point is that the effects the fighter is capable of producing on his turn would make good spells. Making the point that the wizard is still better because of versatility isn't a counter to this. I'm not trying to debate you about whether Fighters or Wizards are stronger, just whether the effects the fighter can produce would be good spells. Please address that instead of sliding in the Fighter vs Wizard stuff. Every short rest. General consensus would say 3 (2 short rests). The effects of using Action Surge + attack actions are what I would consider as making good wizard spells. Also, Fighters get substantial power via subclass features as well. For example, what all spells could we create with the various combinations of maneuvers, action surge, 2nd wind, basic attacks, prones, shoves, grapples. Would those be good spells? I've already said wizard at high levels are stronger than fighters. Why can't we focus on the part about fighters effects on their turns and how strong of spells they would make? That to me is alot more enlightening. Sorry if you misunderstood what I was getting at I'm sure at least half the fault for that lies with me. I'm not saying take 2nd wind and make it a spell. Take action surge and make it a spell. I'm saying, take the things the fighter does on his turn when using 2nd wind or action surge or both and let's see how strong of a spell that makes. [LIST] [*]Being able to cast grease is not a powerful effect either. That's kind of the point. [*]The damage component being much higher is what brings the fighters up beyond cantrip level. Or if the fighter wanted to, he could prone two enemies. In either event that's clearly much stronger than that cantrip. [*]**Also, Sapping Sting doesn't deal damage on a passed save. [/LIST] The point isn't that it's the strongest thing in the world, but for an at-will option it's at least equivalent to a level 1 spell if not a level 2 spell. That's about where I'd place EB + invocations at level 5 as well. For the fighter this still isn't looking at spending he resource abilities - which is where the comparison to at level spells comes in. But that's not the argument I'm making. The fighter has various at-will effects and various effects he can produce by spending a resource. Despite having limited access to 'strong single effects' he can combo together the effects he can produce. We can roughly map those kinds of effects to already existing spells (not perfectly, but at least we can get in the ballpark of what level of spell they would make). Consider this spell: 'make 6 attacks at 2d6+1d10+modifier damage'. You heal for 1d10+11 damage. On the first hit the enemy will make a strength save or be be knocked prone, on the 2nd hit the enemy must make a wisdom save or be frightend for a turn, on the 3rd hit can allow your allies to spend half their movement and reposition. On the 4th hit you push the enemy back 15ft. That's 132 average damage (with the possibility for advantage on most of the attacks), with 16.5 avg healing, with the possibility for prone, frightened, ally movement and pushback 15 ft. At level 11, that's much stronger than the level 6 disintigrate spell. Now, this can only be done once per short rest, but this makes for a very strong spell. No. I've told you what I meant and hopefully that's more clear now. It's definitely probable I could have made the posts more clear when initially raising the idea. [/QUOTE]
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