D&D 5E [Poll] Are any of the base classes too weak?

[FlyingChihuahua]

jib916 voted for every single class on the list. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Prolly doesn't like 5e. Which is fine, it's just weird to go into a 5e topic and say that.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

jib916 voted for every single class on the list. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Every class is too weak. It's the Klingon answer.

 

[Ancalagon]

Every class is too weak. It's the Klingon answer.

You should try the GLOG then

 

[Coroc]

... The fact that a typical fighter doesn't have such a toggle ability is the bigger issue.
....

He has a toggle, action surge and it does not diminish his defence.

 

[FrogReaver]

He has a toggle, action surge and it does not diminish his defence.

1. not lowering defense is actually a bad thing in terms of getting enemies to stop ignoring him.
2. It’s an extremely limited use ability to use it for the sole effect of trying to get enemies to attack you instead of allies.

both of these factors make it not even close to the same effectiveness that reckless attack is in getting enemies that aren’t attacking you to do so.

 

[Stoutstien]

You really don't need to look round by round - at least not past the early levels. As level goes up, hp gets higher and damage per turn scales more and more by number of attacks as opposed to damage per attack. These factors actually mean that effective hp makes a statistically accurate comparison tool.

Also, the highest damage attacks you are typically going to take are from saving throw abilities - the very kind of damage sources the barbarian is much better defending against than the fighter.



No flaw. I don't have to ever use reckless attack - which means nothing is actually wrong with the comparison.

However, having an ability to toggle between high defense and high offense mode is especially important for party play. If enemies ignore me because my defense is much higher than my allies then such toggles abilities can incentivize enemies to start attacking me instead of my allies. The fact that a typical fighter doesn't have such a toggle ability is the bigger issue.



You do realize I did that to benefit the fighter. 2nd wind is a short rest ability. If we are just looking at a single encounter then a fighter only gets 1 use.

In that case your fighter at level 5 has 170 effective hp. The barbarian still has the previous computed value of 220 hp.



I get barbarian at 11.6 rounds and fighter at 9.1 rounds. I'm really starting to question your math.



Amazing. The fighter will only have a 50% chance to kill a bandit in 1 attack (He's using a longsword and a shield with the duelist fighting style). The barbarian will have a greatsword (remember no shield). The barbarian will have a 72.2% chance of killing a bandit in 1 attack.

But more importantly, why are we even comparing offense of 1 PC vs X NPCs? If we want to go down that path we have to look at Y PCs vs X NPCs which makes slight differences in the fighter and barbarians individual damages basically negligible.

But most importantly, this debate started out around who was more defensive. The offensive elements don't matter at all for this discussion. So bringing them in is just an attempt to muddy the waters. I've made no statement about a character with more offense being able to live through more in a 1 PC vs X NPC scenario. So why is this even getting brought up?





I mean if you are considering anything above +3 to be abnormally high then maybe....



1. You made no effort to compare the bear totem because you didn't include any elemental damages. Unless your conceding that the bear totem is better against anything that isn't using attack based damage?

2. Right, I'm very impressed with the battlemaster due to parry. That can knock down a lot of daily damage. In a single fight it's enough to put the fighter back on par with the barbarian. Unless you are facing non-attack damage.

3. EK is solid at defense with shield spell and absorb elements. Depends a little on how lenient the DM is with spellcasting and having both hands full. There's the warcaster feat to offset those concerns I suppose but that's a pretty big buy in. Still solid, and gets much better once you get the extra spell slots for having level 3 spells.

AnyDice

AnyDice is an advanced dice probability calculator, available online. It is created with roleplaying games in mind.

anydice.com

math of damage taken by totem barb vs champ fighter from various CR. assuming the barb is always in rage and 1/2 all incoming damage. i figured lv 10 vs CR v8 + and lv 18 vs CR 25. so the barb is better at taken big swings from 1-2 hard hitting foe and the champ can survive vs swarms. table dependent for sure. Level 20 is in the barbs favor if they maxed str and/or con unless the fighter uses action surge to dodge.

ability saving throws/ checks

• STR- barb
• DEX-barb
• CON- tie
• WIS- fighter
• INT - tie slight favor to fighter for indomitable
• Cha- tie slight favor to fighter for indomitable

Barbs are slightly more MaD vs the fighters who also get the extra ASI/feats

and this is the champion who didn't do anything to help mitigate damage other than SnB + def style at 10. i tossed a battle smith at the bottom of the chart to see how they fared due to how static their defense is.

I Like the barbarian which is telling that a class that has a clear image is better recived than one that is muddled but powerful. saying that, the fact it scales backwards with the best part of the class being 1-4, has a sharp cap of number of rages until late game, slightly MaD, and how little brutal critical actually adds is a let down to me.

 

[FrogReaver]

AnyDice

AnyDice is an advanced dice probability calculator, available online. It is created with roleplaying games in mind.

anydice.com

math of damage taken by totem barb vs champ fighter from various CR. assuming the barb is always in rage and 1/2 all incoming damage. i figured lv 10 vs CR v8 + and lv 18 vs CR 25. so the barb is better at taken big swings from 1-2 hard hitting foe and the champ can survive vs swarms. table dependent for sure. Level 20 is in the barbs favor if they maxed str and/or con unless the fighter uses action surge to dodge.

ability saving throws/ checks

• STR- barb
• DEX-barb
• CON- tie
• WIS- fighter
• INT - tie slight favor to fighter for indomitable
• Cha- tie slight favor to fighter for indomitable

Barbs are slightly more MaD vs the fighters who also get the extra ASI/feats

and this is the champion who didn't do anything to help mitigate damage other than SnB + def style at 10. i tossed a battle smith at the bottom of the chart to see how they fared due to how static their defense is.

I Like the barbarian which is telling that a class that has a clear image is better recived than one that is muddled but powerful. saying that, the fact it scales backwards with the best part of the class being 1-4, has a sharp cap of number of rages until late game, slightly MaD, and how little brutal critical actually adds is a let down to me.

looked at that for 2 mins and found the first major mistake. You only halved the dice dmg not the total dmg.

Speaking of halving damage - if you want to be super technical the barb actually reduces more than half damage because odd damage values get rounded down. Not necessary but if you are going through all the effort to make a 100% accurate scenario then that needs accounted for. It will have a huge impact vs the bandits.

 

[FrogReaver]

looked at that for 2 mins and found the first major mistake. You only halved the dice dmg not the total dmg.

Speaking of halving damage - if you want to be super technical the barb actually reduces more than half damage because odd damage values get rounded down. Not necessary but if you are going through all the effort to make a 100% accurate scenario then that needs accounted for. It will have a huge impact vs the bandits.

spotted a 2nd mistake though fixing it should not change the final results - bandits don’t do 1d6 + 3 dmg.

 

[FrogReaver]

AnyDice

AnyDice is an advanced dice probability calculator, available online. It is created with roleplaying games in mind.

anydice.com

math of damage taken by totem barb vs champ fighter from various CR. assuming the barb is always in rage and 1/2 all incoming damage. i figured lv 10 vs CR v8 + and lv 18 vs CR 25. so the barb is better at taken big swings from 1-2 hard hitting foe and the champ can survive vs swarms. table dependent for sure. Level 20 is in the barbs favor if they maxed str and/or con unless the fighter uses action surge to dodge.

ability saving throws/ checks

• STR- barb
• DEX-barb
• CON- tie
• WIS- fighter
• INT - tie slight favor to fighter for indomitable
• Cha- tie slight favor to fighter for indomitable

Barbs are slightly more MaD vs the fighters who also get the extra ASI/feats

and this is the champion who didn't do anything to help mitigate damage other than SnB + def style at 10. i tossed a battle smith at the bottom of the chart to see how they fared due to how static their defense is.

I Like the barbarian which is telling that a class that has a clear image is better recived than one that is muddled but powerful. saying that, the fact it scales backwards with the best part of the class being 1-4, has a sharp cap of number of rages until late game, slightly MaD, and how little brutal critical actually adds is a let down to me.

also looking through the chart - which shows damage received per attack received...

the barb is always beating the fighter in damage received per attack received...

Doesn’t that mean he is better at defense?

 

[Stoutstien]

spotted a 2nd mistake though fixing it should not change the final results - bandits don’t do 1d6 + 3 dmg.

i just used the average damage/ hit of a each CR and not any specific NPC block

also looking through the chart - which shows damage received per attack received...

the barb is always beating the fighter in damage received per attack received...

Doesn’t that mean he is better at defense?

the barb is better, but not by any large amount. for most of each comparison the barb doesn't last much longer before going down. which is sad for a class propose built to take a lot of damage before going down vs a fighter subclass for players who don't want too many options to pick from round to round.

looked at that for 2 mins and found the first major mistake. You only halved the dice dmg not the total dmg.

Speaking of halving damage - if you want to be super technical the barb actually reduces more than half damage because odd damage values get rounded down. Not necessary but if you are going through all the effort to make a 100% accurate scenario then that needs accounted for. It will have a huge impact vs the bandits.

halfing dice damage allowed for a larger mean of damage reduction amounts. it prevented needing a bunch of different damage dice pools per CR. you can switch it back and just subtract half which does work in the barb favor but it never pulls so far ahead that i could say the damage mitigation barbarian is tier(s) above the basic champ fighter. expecialy if the fighter can get most of that same reduction with a 1-3 lv dip.