If the fighter subclass got full spell progression as I recommend above they would have nearly equivalent power in terms of spell casting.
Which does nothing for all the Fighters who DON'T cast spells.
That's the thing you seem to be not getting here. The Fighter, at is baseline, is too weak. The Fighter, at its baseline, needs to not be that weak. Period.
If you compare this to the "martial Wizard" who does not have:
Martial Weapon Proficiency
Fighting Style
Medium and Heavy Armor proficiency (admittedly this is not a big loss)
Fighter Extra Attack (admitedly they have the next best extra attack)
Second Wind
Indomitable
Action Surge
2 extra ASIs
Weapon proficiency is irrelevant.
Fighting style is
almost irrelevant because Bladesinger gets a special Extra Attack that replaces one attack with a scaling cantrip.
I would call armor proficiency also irrelevant.
Fighter Extra Attack is taken care of by the aforementioned cantrip.
Second Wind has nothing to do with damage.
Indomitable has nothing to do with damage.
And extra ASIs are exactly what I'm saying the Fighter should get EVEN MORE of.
It already meets this requirement. Taking Fighter as a class is much more tempting than taking Wizard.
Nope. Not even close.
While some people do not like the current fighter, a lot more of them like it than the current Wizard.
Then prove it. Show where you have documented evidence that people explicitly prefer
the way the Fighter is designed over
the way the Wizard is designed.
But you won't be able to, because such proof does not exist. All you have is that Fighters are commonly played. That has literally, actually, NOTHING to do with the way the class is designed, because every single edition has had the Fighter as the most popular class. Period. Even 3e, where essentially everyone--
even Paizo!--agreed that the Fighter was too weak and needed a boost. (They just....also boosted the Wizard, and the boost they gave to the Fighter was really weak. Meaning the gap remained.)
While my experiences are anecdotal, I have never seen anyone suggest that Wizard is chosen more often at their tables than fighter.
Which is 100% completely irrelevant to whether they are actually comparable choices.
I disagree. I am okm with making a fighter broader, but I don't want it any deeper.
Then we must take power away from the Wizard, OR give things
like feats to the Fighter. Those are the only options which can resolve this problem without outright rewriting the classes.
They should ALWAYS come close to matching a specialist. That is why Eldritch Knight shoudlget full caster progression.
Why? Why should a subclass somehow make you a specialist? It's literally an add-on! It should NEVER be as good as taking a whole second class, not even close!
The reverse is true. EK should be almost as capable as a Wizard (assuming you invest in intelligence, which is a compromise to your fighting potential). Not quite but almost. That is the big shortcoming in that subclass, but just because that subclass is flawed does not mean we should boost the fighter class.
Genuine question:
Other than aping the Fighter, meaning excluding things like Hexblade and Bladesinger, do any subclasses actually work this way in 5e? Is there even
one subclass that makes you nearly as good a spellcaster as a Wizard? Is there even
one subclass that makes you as good at healing and support as a Cleric? Even
one that makes you comparable to a Bard's illusions and buffs and such?
Because it sounds, to me, like you are wanting to rewrite 5e in order to make subclass essentially as strong as class, simply because
one class--Fighter--can get eclipsed by the subclasses of other classes.
There are more than one way to calculate this though and things like martial weapon proficiency are difficult to quantify with hard numbers.
Weapon proficiencies are irrelevant. The only weapons that matter are rapier (1d8, finesse), greatsword (2d6, 2H), greataxe (1d12, 2H), and glaive/halberd (1d10, polearm.) Ranged weapons are irrelevant because of ranged spell attack cantrips (
fire bolt being the best choice.) Bladesinging
gives you rapier prof, which is all you need.
You can quantify the best martial weapon (Maul or Greatsword) vs the best bladesinger weapon (rapier). But that does not account for magic. If you find a Holy Avenger mace or for that matter even a magic finesse weapon when the Bladesinger chose Rapier as his weapon the fighter is going to have a huge advantage.
You should not ever assume magic items for only one side. That's clearly biased.
If you do not cast a defensive spell and upcast false life, a Wizard will get decimated in melee at high level. Not only does that use high level spell slots, more importantly it uses actions.
Then show the math.
Cut the Wizards damage by 25% because he buffs himself the first turn of combat .... then boost the fighters by 10% because of action surge.
I consider this neither necessary nor relevant. Especially because there's no guarantee the Fighter is getting to attack on the first turn either.
Extra attack with a cantrip does get you a ton, but less than a fighter gets at high level and it is also a subclass ability. Do you want to bring fighter subclasses into this discussion as well?
No, because the point was to compare the whole (baseline) Fighter class to JUST cantrips+Bladesinger. Because that alone--cantrips+Bladesinger--gives you a HUGE amount of the Fighter class.
How much damage is a basic Wizard doing in melee without relying on his subclass?
The question is irrelevant.
Where is 4d12 coming from and how many hit points does the Wizard have?
Toll the dead. The hit points are irrelevant.
A Bladesinger using a rapier and bladesinger extra attack at level 20 with max intelligence and max dexterity is doing 5d8+20 ... which ironically is more than 40.5 in bladesong (including crits).
I was using
toll the dead, which is a saving throw and thus cannot crit.
The fighters damage does not include subclass or the FOUR extra feats he gets compared to that Wizard.
It's not four. It's two.
If you really want to do this comparison right give the fighter an AC, subclass and ASIs and hit points and then show me that total comparison .... or alternatively take the subclass away from the Wizard.
Flatly disagree.
Although your numbers are flawed, I actually agree with the 75% being a rough approximation for a dedecated melee Wizard. I think that is about right for a Bladesinger Wizard who is hard core dedicated to being a melee character as compared with a basic melee Fighter with no subclass.
It's not. It's literally just "damage (before hit/saving throws) for
toll the dead + one melee attack" vs "damage with a Greatsword and GWF."
I specifically calculated it this way because it shows the "fallback" options. Meaning, this is the
absolute floor. With the possible exception of only a handful of rounds per day, the Bladesinger is doing
nothing less than 75% of the raw, before-accuracy damage a baseline Fighter is doing--and I assumed a Fighter with Great Weapon Fighting and a greatsword.
Battle Master, probably the best damage option for a Fighter (because Eldritch Knight scales so poorly), is only getting +6d10 per rest. Few groups take more than two short rests per day, so that's 18d10. Even if we're generous and assume a third of those get attached to crits (since they get applied after the fact), that's still only 24d10. A max-level Wizard has six 5th level spell slots per day (depending on their usage of Arcane Recovery; they can't recover four because they don't have four 5th level slots.) Not even considering any of their other spells, just those six.
Synaptic static is 8d6 psychic (Int save for half),
cone of cold is an AoE 8d8 cold (Con save for half),
dawn is a repeatable 4d10 radiant (Con save for half.) Assume half of saving throws succeed (a pretty poor showing on the Wizard's part, but easy math), and
dawn only attempts to hit two targets each time and never lasts more than one round (so in total two targets save, two targets fail.) That's 1.5×(28+36+2×22) = 162 expected damage. 24d10 is 132 expected damage--again,
allowing that a full third of the time, the Battle Master applies Superiority Dice to crits so they pull double duty. Just using your 5th level spells and Arcane Recovery,
without any other expenditure, exceeds the bonus damage of the Battle Master.
One class feature lets you exceed an entire subclass!
Dedicate all your 4th level slots to
false life, and all your 1st-level slots to something defensive and useful (e.g.
shield.) Make
silvery barbs your 1st-level Spell Mastery pick, and your choice of defensive spell for 2nd level:
blur, invisibility, or
misty step are all great options, or you can take
shadow blade to improve your cantrip+attack damage even further, becoming 4d12+2d8+10 (45 average.)
This leaves you with two 6th, two 7th, one 8th, and one 9th level spell free to do
whatever you want, as well as all of your 2nd and 3rd level spells. In other words, at least in terms of slot levels, the majority of slot-based magic you'll use during the day: 3×2+3×3+2×6+2×7+8+9 = 58 slot-levels' worth of spells, out of the total 58+5+4×4+6×5 = 109. 58/109 = 53%.
Of course, Action Surge hasn't been factored in. Ignoring accuracy, that adds about 320 extra damage on the Fighter's side (as few groups take more than two short rests per day and Action Surge is 2/rest at high level.) That, I admit, is more difficult to match, but it
definitely doesn't require that you expend all of the aforementioned unspent spell slots on damage. And I'm heavily lowballing the Wizard's damage, while assuming the Battle Master
always hits. I hope you'll agree that that's heavily biased in the Fighter's favor.
Edit: Actually, I messed up on the Wizard math--
cone of cold is an AoE spell, so it should also be hitting two targets (assuming one saves, one fails). So those six spell slots are
actually doing 1.5×(28+2×36+2×22) = 216 damage. Meaning the entire Battle Master contribution falls 84 points short,
even if we assume a third of her Superiority Dice get double-rolled because they're used on crits, and assuming a Wizard who uses their AoE spells exceedingly poorly. The Wizard now only needs to come up with ~240 extra damage from spells to eclipse the Fighter--and that certainly won't take anywhere near the number of spell slots they have available. It only gets worse if we consider earlier levels: 17-19, Fighter only has 3 attacks per action, not 4, while the Wizard has maximum scaling on their cantrips and 9th level spells; 16 and below, Fighter only has half as many Action Surges per day,
drastically cutting her damage output. High level Fighter is
playing catch-up, not lapping!