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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8993485" data-attributes="member: 6877472">So 4e's development team decided to do away with bespoke attack bonuses; everyone has the same basic chance to "hit" with their attacks, but it flew under the radar a little because Fighters attacked with weapons, and Wizards attacked with spells- there wasn't much benefit for a Wizard to give themselves a high Strength or Dexterity so they could swing a weapon; instead they used implements and their Intelligence to use their powers.With 5e, they continued this trend but made a tragic mistake I think by going back to how classes use ability scores.  Instead of a Wizard wanting Intelligence instead of Dexterity, now they wanted both. Which means that a 1st-level Wizard might want a 16 Dex and a 16 Int, say.  Which gives them a choice; 1d10 firebolt vs. 1d8+3 crossbow.But then things get more muddled should a Wizard gain any proficiencies- one can give up a single level of Wizard to have Medium Armor and Rapiers, if you wanted.  Hit points seem a bit light for melee, but you can now do it.  Not to mentione he has the incredible free healing of Second Wind so that if he's ever seriously hurt, a few hours of rest should bounce him right back up, no spell slots or hit dice expended!  Or maybe you start as a Fighter and go Strength/Intelligence, now you can have plate and a polearm for attacking from the back row!  Or pick up Warcaster and now you're a plate/shield guy with top tier AC and spells!  Heck, dip Cleric instead, and you don't even lose spell slot progression and get a few decent priestly spells like Healing Word!Meanwhile, the reverse isn't quite the same.  Giving my Fighter a level of Wizard doesn't tank his "to hit" chance, but that's no longer a special advantage of being a Fighter.  He loses hit points and gains 2 cantrips and 2 uses of a weak spell (or, let's face it, 2 uses of Shield).  What he gains from Wizard is not the same as what the Wizard gains from Fighter.Heck, if the Wizard player is a little crazy, he can get to level 2 Fighter.  This is a bigger investment, but now he can bust action economy by occasionally throwing out two leveled spells a turn- something not even a Sorcerer is allowed to do!To go back to this food-based analogy, both the Fighter and the Wizard have apples.  The Fighter has more apples, but everyone has apples, and the Wizard can get more apples easily.  The Wizard has oranges.  The Fighter can get oranges too, but while apples are merely additive, where 1 apple plus 1 apple is 2 apples, the more oranges you have, the more value each individual orange gives you.1 orange is level 1 spells.  2 oranges is level 1 spells, 3 oranges is 2nd level spells, which are more valuable than 1st level spells, and so on.Worse, at the subclass level (something everyone gets, let's call these...mangos), it was decided that the Fighter could get some oranges.  And the Wizard could get some apples.But as the game goes on, the Eldritch Knight's combined total of apples and oranges is far less than the Bladesinger's combined total of apples and oranges...and we already know that oranges have greater value as you accrue more of them!Now this is a simplistic approach, the Fighter does eventually pull way ahead on the apple front when they get their third attack.  But we're now at a level where a lot of games don't reach, and even if they do, 3 attacks per turn is nice, consistent damage.  If you're in a game day with lots of combat rounds, that sure adds up.But 1 sixth level spell slot, even if only useable once per day, can in theory be equal to all the attacks a Fighter makes in a single combat.  Maybe even a 5th level slot.  Possibly even a 4th.  How does a 3rd-level Hypnotic Pattern compare to what the Fighter does in a combat?At this point it's all hypothetical: these are apples and oranges, after all.  But this can result in problems- after all, apples are only really useful in one of the game's three tiers.Oranges can be used in all three.  There are game days where you can only use a certain amount of apples.  But you can always use all of your oranges.So if you look at things from this perspective, it would behoove all classes to have oranges from a game design standpoint.  But many people do not want this.  They instead want apples to = oranges, or to add raspberries, limes, and passion fruit to the mix, to further complicate things.Niche protection really doesn't exist anymore.  In most respects, that is a good thing.  But now we have to confront the hard truth- if class A can do more things than class B, and what class B does is less special or unique than what class A can do, then some characters now have the potential to be better than others.  I do say potential, because there's no guarantee a Wizard outperforms a Fighter all the time.But the scenarios where the Fighter can outperform the Wizard, combat, vs. the scenarios where the Wizard can outperform the Fighter, occasionally combat, usually exploration, sometimes social, and ALWAYS "other" (need to build a wall, make goods to sell, defend a keep, improve the livelihood of townsfolk, start an industrial revolution, identify magic items, provide shelter, keep enemies at bay, keep watch at night, etc., etc.) are telling.  Spellcasters are simply given more opportunities to shine by design and intent.  This doesn't mean you must play a spellcaster.  Or that the non-spellcaster is obsolete.But the game runs better if you have a spellcaster in your party than the reverse.  The party can accomplish more if you have spells than if you do not.  And if you compared an all magic part (say, Cleric, Cleric, Bard, Wizard) vs. (Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Rogue) one of these two is going to encounter more problems than the other.That this is integral to D&D's design isn't back breaking.  I don't particularly care for it, but for many, this is just how D&D is, and they like it that way.  But the game books need to be more proactive in letting players know what they can expect if they have less magic in their party compared to more.WotC has taken a passive approach to this problem by just giving all classes magic options- it's a strange way to balance the game, but ok fine.  But then they actually make it worse by giving spellcasters better options for everything, and that's not fine.The onus is now put squarely on the DM to deal with this mess when problems do occur, and I don't think that's really fair.  Maybe the people who play Fighters and Barbarians don't really care that magic solves so many problems; it's the price they willingly pay to not have to wiggle fingers.But if you have a Barbarian player who is starting to feel less relevant to the game, and they come to you to ask what's going on, it's not right that your basic options are to make the game harder for the magic guys to play, give the Barbarian free stuff (boons, magic items), or tell the Barbarian that's the character he made, but hey, he can always make a different one!</blockquote>

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