D&D (2024) Martial vs Caster: Removing the "Magical Dependencies" of high level.

[Emberashh]

The martials rely on the casters conserving their resources.

The entire problem discussed in this 60+ page discussion is due to high level casters run by an experienced player never having to conserve resources and being able to afford to nova.

There's nothing stopping a caster of level 11 or above from casting 3 big spells every encounter in a 4 encounter day. That's before other class features and magic items.

That's not selfishness. That's smart.

The D&D designers have now realized this and this is why they gave the fighter and barbarian ways to nova. And the barbarian a way to use rage out of combat.

So do you have an actual response to what I said or are you going to continue talking past me?

The game does not need you to drain players to zero. Nothing in the game told you that this is a requirement, and it isn't one.

 

[FallenRX]

So do you have an actual response to what I said or are you going to continue talking past me?

The game does not need you to drain players to zero. Nothing in the game told you that this is a requirement, and it isn't one.

tbh the game seems more balanced around all classes novaing every round in my testing.

With Martials just being able to get their nova back quicker(or longer lasting).
If you dont nova every round the math/balance of the game is always harder then on paper.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

4 Hards is not enough to drain a party that is at least 50% casters of their spell slots if they play intelligently and don't just spam damage/healing spells without thought.

At level 11, every full caster has 4/3/3/3/2/1 of slots. There is no way to drain 80% of those slots in 4 fights without risking a TPK.

5e has the same problem as 3e.
It was designed under the assumption that the DM is experienced and the players are not.

One of the problems I aim my design at in my SRD project is that casters have far too many spell slots at mid to high levels.

 

[Minigiant]

So do you have an actual response to what I said or are you going to continue talking past me?

The game does not need you to drain players to zero. Nothing in the game told you that this is a requirement, and it isn't one.

I never said drained to zero. I say 80%

A Wizard has 16 leveled spells at level 11 and gets more Arcane Recovery.

This mean if a Wizard cast 3 spells per encounter, he will still have 4-7 spells left after 4 Hard Encounters. Enough to use them in noncombat.

And that is before magic items.

 

[Emberashh]

I never said drained to zero. I say 80%

A Wizard has 16 leveled spells at level 11 and gets more Arcane Recovery.

This mean if a Wizard cast 3 spells per encounter, he will still have 4-7 spells left after 4 Hard Encounters. Enough to use them in noncombat.

And that is before magic items.

Again, it doesn't matter. Draining resources is not a critical necessity the game requires of you.

You need to stop skirting around addressing that.

 

[Minigiant]

Again, it doesn't matter. Draining resources is not a critical necessity the game requires of you.

You need to stop skirting around addressing that.

It is critical if you plan on using the warriors and experts out of combat.

That's what you are skirting away from.

The warriors and experts were designed to save their party on spell slots. But at high levels, casters have so many slots they no longer need to conserve. Thus "not casting spells out of combat and having the rogue or fighter do it" is no longer and issue.

It's the druid wildshape scout half the dungeon problem. Burning a wildshape and doing an equal job as the rogue is now trivial at high levels.

Casting a teleport or summoning a hut is now trivial.

etc etc

 

[Emberashh]

It is critical if you plan on using the warriors and experts out of combat.

No, it isn't.

 

[Remathilis]

This piece of rhetoric always pees me off.

People are discussing problems, trying to get on the same page, and trying to find a way forward; arguing and trying to make better cases. It might be talk, but it's clear a few people are thinking about how they would fix the fighter, which could inspire others.

That is, in some forum, productive (or at-least was for a while, maybe not the last few pages).

As well as that - I assume a lot of the people here talking are not game designers, but players. They can point out problems, but maybe they don't have the design expertise to create the solution; they just want to get down common points so that designers can solve the problem

What you're saying here provides nothing except mocking others for talking; which apparently, has become a common response to all sorts of other problems - many more serious than this. Which is highly troubling that shitting on others for having the audacity to talk about problems without MAYBE having a full solution to go is apparently a popular thing to do now. And especially troubling when it is essentially an appeal to authority and expertise in an area where things are grey and subjective - "oh, you don't have game design experience and a solution? How dare you talk about and argue about a piece of game design you aren't a fan of!!".

There is a a whole cottage industry of people who make classes. On DMs Guild, or GM Binder or D&D Wiki. You want a warlord? There are several to choose from. Psionicist? I'd guess a half dozen takes on it. Witches? Several I have personally tried. Swordmages and summoners and shamans? Seen them all. There is a market for classes WotC won't make, but I've not seen a market for mythic, mountain -throwing martial classes. If there IS one, id love to see it. Please link it to me.

Because I see a lot of theory crafting and blame, dusted in a light sprinkle of edition wars, but I don't see a lot of solutions aside from some nebulous idea of bringing the 4e fighter back or nerfing wizards (or the occasional rewrite D&D from the ground up). It's like discussing politics; everyone is sure what the problem is, but nobody has a plan or fix it besides changing the status quo and removing the Other Party that's enabling it.

So I'd like to see someone's attempt to fix this problem. If the problem is as widespread as stated someone has to have cobbled together an attempt to fix it in the last nine years.

 

[Clint_L]

This is also a weird argument in how much it minimizes the importance of sub-class, like if every fighter is a champion, every barbarian a berserker, every rogue an assassin, every monk a...monk.

(Being a bit facetious on the latter. Way of Mercy is solid).

Echo knights and battle masters typically have plenty of interesting choices to make in combat, and the former is extremely handy outside of combat as well. Eldritch knights open up lots of opportunities, obviously. Not every sub-class is so fortunate, however. Similarly, sub-classes like arcane trickster and mastermind make rogues a lot more complex, while barbarians have...yeah. Barbarians. On the other hand, some players really do pick specific sub-classes because they are basic: I have done it myself. Should that be a viable option?

Anyway, it seems like this conversation keeps coming back around to the idea of adding more baseline features to these classes (well, to fighter, really; going by 90% of the comments, it's the only class most folks in these threads care about), as if sub-class doesn't matter.

Should a baseline fighter/barbarian/rogue/monk have versatility on par with a full caster, while retaining their strength in combat? Particularly fighters and barbarians, who are already pretty integral to combat and are usually considered a good addition to any party, as is? At that point...why take a caster?

And are we talking about potential problems that apply at any level? Or just the tiny fraction of games that are played at very high levels, say 15+? Assuming the numbers WotC are giving us are accurate, the latter are at best a few percent of games, though likely heavily overrepresented on a forum such as this. So if I were a designer, I would be very cautious about trying to fix a level 20 problem in a way that has ramifications for levels 1-10, where apparently 96% of games are played.

The final question I would ask folks to consider (if you are seriously proposing changes to D&D that a designer would even consider) is: is this a me problem, or a D&D problem? If the issue is that the game simply does not reflect your personal taste, do you have good reason to think that this is widespread complaint? What is the evidence? Is it objective? Is my proposed solution something that would even begin to be considered for OneD&D?

 

[Incenjucar]

There is a a whole cottage industry of people who make classes. On DMs Guild, or GM Binder or D&D Wiki. You want a warlord? There are several to choose from. Psionicist? I'd guess a half dozen takes on it. Witches? Several I have personally tried. Swordmages and summoners and shamans? Seen them all. There is a market for classes WotC won't make, but I've not seen a market for mythic, mountain -throwing martial classes. If there IS one, id love to see it. Please link it to me.

Because I see a lot of theory crafting and blame, dusted in a light sprinkle of edition wars, but I don't see a lot of solutions aside from some nebulous idea of bringing the 4e fighter back or nerfing wizards (or the occasional rewrite D&D from the ground up). It's like discussing politics; everyone is sure what the problem is, but nobody has a plan or fix it besides changing the status quo and removing the Other Party that's enabling it.

So I'd like to see someone's attempt to fix this problem. If the problem is as widespread as stated someone has to have cobbled together an attempt to fix it in the last nine years.

Eh. It's easier to stick to what you enjoy until the audience for that dries up rather than jump into a game to fix its built-in problems. In my case I ignored and will continue to ignore 5.0 because it was hostile to non-magic characters. I dropped D&D when my 4E game finished up 6 years ago. I only started paying attention again because 5.5 is a chance for WotC to fix what drove me away.

I'm working on new stuff because hey, it's new, but neither I nor anyone else owes WotC a patch for their intended design when we can play something like A5E or Pathfinder instead.