D&D 5E Martials v Casters...I still don't *get* it.

[Iry]

An often overlooked issue with Martials vs Casters is that the game expects you to win the majority of combats. Martial Characters help you "Combat Better", but do you really need to Combat Better when Combat Fairly Average is usually enough to succeed at the combat pillar? Certainly you lose sometimes, characters can die, and campaign goals can be failed because you have to back off and rest too often. But the default is winning. Over and over. And Martial characters primarily help you win more at the thing you are already winning.

This is also true for Exploration to a lesser extent, but there are far fewer Exploration specialist classes.

 

[Gammadoodler]

@Gammadoodler that "Add 1 additional creature in range, and the fighter's contribution remains the same while the caster's contribution can double." is missing "and they are arranged on the grid for the aoe/line and the martials are not sandwiched between" as blasting bob is usually considered poor form given that bob tends to do similar or better damage each round as each of the targets in that AOE.



You are correct about the complaint I have seen. The "complaint" about casters outshining martials in my experience is baseless in ways that are divorced from reality. The vast majority of the time some edge case where a caster could pull out a spell to trivialize some exploration or social thing the response tends to be "I didn't have that spell, "I could aver a long rest" or similar unless the spell is tiny hut and I've seen a few wizards refuse to take it for obvious reasons related to how it basically relegates them to saying "skip me. I ready an action to cast a cantrip if something gets in with burrow teleport or whatever" mid-rest. martials don't tend to care what spells asters prep unless one of them can be healing spells.

Right. Casters can multiply their damage as long as their pet martial stays out of the way so it doesn't get hurt.

 

[Mort]

In my experience most all dungeons have walls.. which are remarkably effective at hamstringing martials. One could likely say that most of most dungeons are the "hamstring the martial" section.

You know that's true. Whereas a caster could bypass most walls in various ways - unless they're hamstrung in the hamstring the caster section.

Just like a distance of a thousand miles between the fighter and the bad guy would hamstring the fighter but not the Wizard.

Hmm, I'd say that argues more for my point than against it no?

 

[Don Durito]

An often overlooked issue with Martials vs Casters is that the game expects you to win the majority of combats. Martial Characters help you "Combat Better", but do you really need to Combat Better when Combat Fairly Average is usually enough to succeed at the combat pillar? Certainly you lose sometimes, characters can die, and campaign goals can be failed because you have to back off and rest too often. But the default is winning. Over and over. And Martial characters primarily help you win more at the thing you are already winning.

This is also true for Exploration to a lesser extent, but there are far fewer Exploration specialist classes.

I think this really gets to the heart of the issue that the tactical element of the game is basically an illusion (unless you set up the game in a way vastly different to how most people play).

I'm not really sure it's tactical choices that people really want (or if you do why are not playing a competitive game?). It's the chance to do something cool and impactful.

This is where casters tend to have an advantage. The Fighter basically does single target damage. If surrounded by enemies he still does single target damage. If he moves to a different position he still does single target damage. If the enemy are all bunched up in a corrider he can still do single target damage. The wizard can do something different in each circumstance. They can Misty Step to the perfect position for line of effect for a Lightning Bolt, they can block a corridor with a Wall of Fire. Basically the caster has a lot more opportunities to do something cool.

 

[Gammadoodler]

You know that's true. Whereas a caster could bypass most walls in various ways - unless they're hamstrung in the hamstring the caster section.

Just like a distance of a thousand miles between the fighter and the bad guy would hamstring the fighter but not the Wizard.

Hmm, I'd say that argues not for my point than against it no?

For sure. Was agreement through disagreement.

 

[overgeeked]

Fire bolt cantrip. 120ft range. 1d10 fire damage. +1d10 at 5th, 11th, 17th. So at 20th level you're doing 4d10 fire at 120ft range.

Infinitely-ammo longbow. 150ft range. 1d8 piercing damage. Fighters get extra attacks at 5th, 11th, 20th. So at 20th level you're doing 4d8 piercing at 150ft range.

Both have access to feats that can increase their damage output either via direct damage bonuses or to-hit bonuses or situational bonuses. Both have access to magic items that can provide various boosts and bonuses and special abilities. Both have subclasses that boost their abilities, damage output, etc.

The fighter gets 2 whole action surges by 20th level, so they can make eight attacks (total of 8d8 either to a single target or spread out to up to eight targets) in a round two whole times every short rest. Assuming max stat mod, they all hit, and all do max damage, that's a 104 damage nova twice per rest.

The wizard gets Signature Spell, allowing them to cast two 3rd-level spells for free every short rest. Let’s pick...say...fireball and lightning bolt. Fireball is 8d6 in a 20ft radius. Lightning bolt is 8d6 in a 100ft long, 5ft wide line. Giving the wizard a similar benefit of the doubt, say all fail their saves and about half the possible targets are hit (~20 for fireball; 10 for lightning bolt), that's a 1440 damage nova once per rest (960 fireball; 480 lightning bolt). Even cutting that down to 1/4 of all possible targets hit (~10 fireball; 5 lightning bolt), that's a 720 damage nova once per rest. Or about 7 times the nova of the fighter.

Again, they both have access to feats, magic items, subclass abilities, etc, so that's a wash. But the wizard clearly wins in that mock setup...and besides, that doesn't account for all the other world and game breaking spells the wizard can do often multiple times per day, like wish, forcecage, true polymorph, etc. And yet people somehow think there's even a question if LFQW is really a thing. Hilarious.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Fire bolt cantrip. 120ft range. 1d10 fire damage. +1d10 at 5th, 11th, 17th. So at 20th level you're doing 4d10 fire at 120ft range.

Infinitely-ammo longbow. 150ft range. 1d8 piercing damage. Fighters get extra attacks at 5th, 11th, 20th. So at 20th level you're doing 4d8 piercing at 150ft range.

Both have access to feats that can increase their damage output either via direct damage bonuses or to-hit bonuses or situational bonuses. Both have access to magic items that can provide various boosts and bonuses and special abilities. Both have subclasses that boost their abilities, damage output, etc.

The fighter gets 2 whole action surges by 20th level, so they can make eight attacks (total of 8d8 either to a single target or spread out to up to eight targets) in a round two whole times every short rest. Assuming max stat mod, they all hit, and all do max damage, that's a 104 damage nova twice per rest.

The wizard gets Signature Spell, allowing them to cast two 3rd-level spells for free every short rest. Lets pick...say...fireball and lightning bolt. Fireball is 8d6 in a 20ft radius. Lightning bolt is 8d6 in a 100ft long, 5ft wide line. Giving the wizard a similar benefit of the doubt, say all fail their saves and about half the possible targets are hit (~20 for fireball; 10 for lightning bolt), that's a 1440 damage nova once per rest (960 fireball; 480 lightning bolt). Even cutting that down to 1/4 of all possible targets hit (~10 fireball; 5 lightning bolt), that's a 720 damage nova once per rest. Or about 7 times the nova of the fighter.

Again, they both have access to feats, magic items, subclass abilities, etc, so that's a wash. But the wizard clearly wins in that mock setup...and besides, that doesn't account for all the other world and game breaking spells the wizard can do often multiple times per day, like wish, forcecage, true polymorph, etc. And yet people somehow think there's even a question of LFQW not really being a thing. Hilarious.

There's a lot wrong with this post, starting with the fact you're omitting the bonus to damage with each arrow that firebolt doesn't get (+5 damage per arrow at level 20) and ending with the assumption you're getting 10-20 targets with a fireball (which has never happened in 40+ years of gaming unless it was Cannon fodder mooks which don't really count anyway when factoring in the difficulty of an encounter) with a healthy dose of forgetting the fighter gets two extra feats to do all those things with in the middle.

 

[ph0rk]

And yet people somehow think there's even a question if LFQW is really a thing. Hilarious.

In a game where Magic Jar and Simulacrum are on the table, at that (or fricking Fireball at 5th level!), a spell that requires no optimization other than placement.

Or, if we think of other casters (it is casters vs martial, right, not just fighters and wizards?), Hunger of Hadar which is somehow more horrific (well, it should be), and is in some cases an even more impressive thing to use with a choke point between you and the terrifying opaque ball of eldritch cold/acid star tentacles.

 

[overgeeked]

In a game where Magic Jar and Simulacrum are on the table, at that (or fricking Fireball at 5th level!), a spell that requires no optimization other than placement.

Or, if we think of other casters (it is casters vs martial, right, not just fighters and wizards?), Hunger of Hadar which is somehow more horrific (well, it should be), and is in some cases an even more impressive thing to use with a choke point between you and the terrifying opaque ball of eldritch cold/acid star tentacles.

Yeah. It really should be Linear Martial, Quadratic Caster.

 

[tetrasodium]

Right. Casters can multiply their damage as long as their pet martial stays out of the way so it doesn't get hurt.

Back in older editions when casters brought serious force multiplier type capabilities in the form of buff/(de)buff/control spells it was reasonable to use terms like pet barbarian & BSF, but in 5e where those things are generally unimportant or incremental at best using the term "pet martial" is a bit backwards from reality.

Martials do more damage by far. Martials have better ac/hp & thanks to PHB197 they don't really even need to worry about being struck down below 1hp as long as any player can heal them at least one hp before they suffer two more attacks after getting dropped. Someone is wrthy of the name "pet" for sure, but it's not the martial

Fire bolt cantrip. 120ft range. 1d10 fire damage. +1d10 at 5th, 11th, 17th. So at 20th level you're doing 4d10 fire at 120ft range.

Infinitely-ammo longbow. 150ft range. 1d8 piercing damage. Fighters get extra attacks at 5th, 11th, 20th. So at 20th level you're doing 4d8 piercing at 150ft range.

The fighter adds their dex mod to each attack. 20dex for a dex build is a pretty low bar. With the average for a d6 being 3.5 & d10 avg 5.5 that works out to an extra 2.something d6 or just shy of 1d10 each attack multiplied up to 4 times.. Also include weapon mods in that multiplier. Those things do not add to cantrips or the vast majority of spells & certainly don't multiply with the dice. Ignoring parts f the system math makes the argument look better but it doesn''t make it correct.

Both have access to feats that can increase their damage output either via direct damage bonuses or to-hit bonuses or situational bonuses. Both have access to magic items that can provide various boosts and bonuses and special abilities. Both have subclasses that boost their abilities, damage output, etc.

ok... can you tell me what feat on the caster side of the fence compares to sharpshooter? spell sniper has the same ignore partial cover & some added range, but I'm unaware of anything that adds 10 damage on the caster side let alone 10 damage that can be multiplied each round all day long.

The fighter gets 2 whole action surges by 20th level, so they can make eight attacks (total of 8d8 either to a single target or spread out to up to eight targets) in a round two whole times every short rest. Assuming max stat mod, they all hit, and all do max damage, that's a 104 damage nova twice per rest.

Action surge recovers on a short rest. Unlike the level 20 signature spell it's a level 2 fighter ability. Second wind & superiority dice also recharge on short rests.

The wizard gets Signature Spell, allowing them to cast two 3rd-level spells for free every short rest. Lets pick...say...fireball and lightning bolt. Fireball is 8d6 in a 20ft radius. Lightning bolt is 8d6 in a 100ft long, 5ft wide line. Giving the wizard a similar benefit of the doubt, say all fail their saves and about half the possible targets are hit (~20 for fireball; 10 for lightning bolt), that's a 1440 damage nova once per rest (960 fireball; 480 lightning bolt). Even cutting that down to 1/4 of all possible targets hit (~10 fireball; 5 lightning bolt), that's a 720 damage nova once per rest. Or about 7 times the nova of the fighter.

Again, they both have access to feats, magic items, subclass abilities, etc, so that's a wash. But the wizard clearly wins in that mock setup...and besides, that doesn't account for all the other world and game breaking spells the wizard can do often multiple times per day, like wish, forcecage, true polymorph, etc. And yet people somehow think there's even a question of LFQW not really being a thing. Hilarious.

So yea... if you omit a bunch of bonuses from the damage and ignore how abilities recover you have quite the case. Can we try keeping to how things actually work in 5e?