D&D 5E Spellcaster/Warrior Imbalances Discussion

[Dausuul]

On a failed save meteor swarm on average does 70 pnts of damage... 35 on a successful save

No. Meteor swarm averages 140 points on a failed save, 70 on a success. It's 20d6 fire and 20d6 bludgeoning.

(which more than likely a Dex fighter is going to make without any resource expenditure, but even a Str fighter can spend Indomitable to pretty much guarantee he succeeds on that first save)

A Dex fighter needs to roll 14 or better to make the save (65% chance to fail). A Str fighter with no Dex bonus needs 19 or better. Even with Indomitable, the Str fighter is going to fail four times out of five, and the Dex fighter still has over a 40% chance of failure.

You need to be a Dex fighter with both Indomitable and the Resilient (Dexterity) feat to reliably make that save.

Now a fighter at 17th level with a 14 Con (though it would probably be higher) has 148 hit points... that spell is going to be little more than a scratch since he will more than likely make his save...

Losing 140 out of 148 hit points (on average) is quite a lot more than "a scratch." And the wizard can do it from a mile away, so "catching the fighter off guard" is not really necessary; you need only catch the fighter out in the open, at range.

The wizard is indisputably laying down far more smack with meteor swarm than the fighter can dish out in a round. The key difference is that the wizard only gets to do it once, where the fighter can pour out a stream of damage round after round. Comparing an NPC wizard to a PC fighter is unfair to the fighter: Typically the NPC is only present for a single fight, so there is no penalty for going nova.

 

[CapnZapp]

I did that in 3.x, too. The optimization challenge of taking a tier-5 class and bringing it up to snuff can be a rewarding one.

Heh - you utterly missed my point

The point wasn't to reinforce some notion warriors are weak. The point was that my players would never pick weak choices, and, in 5e, they pick warriors. Which is pretty much the complete opposite point

Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

This might have described 3E Fighters well, but certainly not 5E Fighters.

Which is to repeat my take - the issue of the thread, it's pretty much fixed. Sure very high level wizards still do more stuff than a fighter, but it's not even close to the ridiculous differences of past editions.

In my experience 5E caps characters to weak tier 2's, while most if not all classes are capable of at least weak tier 3 builds. (That you can still build tier 6 characters is a given, and not really worth discussing) In other words, since even the "dumb fighter" can be built to make pretty much every skill check in the game, I can't say he's "often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise" which is what tier 4 requires. Sure, he can't Plane Shift or Stride through Trees or whatever, but that's not what we're talking about here. 5E simply features very little of the scenes and challenges where you feel truly outclassed by other party members, regardless of class.

And that is a very good thing

 

[Tony Vargas]

Heh - you utterly missed my point

"Missed" ... "Refuted" ... "Offered an un-verifiable anecdote as a counter-example" ...whatever...


The contrary point was that crunchy optimizers aren't constitutionally unable to start with disfavored concepts (even the Tier 5 fighter in 3.5) and optimize them, to the nth degree.

The point wasn't to reinforce some notion warriors are weak.
...

Tier 5 definition

This might have described 3E Fighters well, but certainly not 5E Fighters.

Certainly not, they'd be solidly a full Tier higher, if "Tier" in 5e were an optimization ranking, rather than a grouping of levels, anyway.
3.5 Tiers were not entirely about weak/strong, they were much more a measure of flexibility. A Tier 4 class could be quite strong in it's narrow specialty, for instance, and still rate no higher.

The 5e fighter's specialty is sustained single-target multi-attacking DRP (with weapons), and he's about as strong at that as the game can easily stand.

Sure very high level wizards still do more stuff than a fighter

1st level full casters do more stuff than the fighter. Heck, wizards still did more stuff than fighters at any given level, in 4e.

In my experience 5E caps characters to weak tier 2's, while most if not all classes are capable of at least weak tier 3 builds.

Nah, the flexibility is there in spades for the neo-Vancian casters, and as lacking as ever for the poor Fighter (just not so lacking in raw power anymore). 5e arguably nips off the bottom two Tiers, though, which is progress - relative to 3e.

(That you can still build tier 6 characters is a given, and not really worth discussing)

Tier wasn't about specific builds, either, it's a ranking of classes, not characters. Being able to build an appallingly bad sorcerer, for instance, didn't drag the class, itself, down from Tier 2; nor did gattling-gun spiked-chain tripper builds pull the Fighter up.

In other words, since even the "dumb fighter" can be built to make pretty much every skill check in the game

A classless/level-less character with straight 8s can make pretty much every skill check in the game, since DCs of 20+ are rare - just not make it very often. That's the magic of BA: everyone can contribute.

I can't say he's "often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise" which is what tier 4 requires.

You can't say 'useless' because BA makes the most stunted incompetent technically useful. Even in some bizarre corner case when BA fails him, if nothing else, he can use the Help action.
But, you can certainly be relatively useless by comparison to the 20 stat guy with Expertise on the same check.

And you can be useless in "areas of expertise" that aren't modeled solely by d20 checks...

5E simply features very little of the scenes and challenges where you feel truly outclassed by other party members, regardless of class.

"Feel" is, of course, subjective. But BA does level character ability such that the d20 is never quite overwhelmed, so a 1st level 8 stat no proficiency character can succeed on a natural 20, where a 20 stat, 20th level w/proficiency can fail on a natural 2. And BA is a significant part of the 5e design philosophy that isn't (much: Expertise) deviated from.

 

[Imaro]

No. Meteor swarm averages 140 points on a failed save, 70 on a success. It's 20d6 fire and 20d6 bludgeoning.


A Dex fighter needs to roll 14 or better to make the save (65% chance to fail). A Str fighter with no Dex bonus needs 19 or better. Even with Indomitable, the Str fighter is going to fail four times out of five, and the Dex fighter still has over a 40% chance of failure.

You need to be a Dex fighter with both Indomitable and the Resilient (Dexterity) feat to reliably make that save.


Losing 140 out of 148 hit points (on average) is quite a lot more than "a scratch." And the wizard can do it from a mile away, so "catching the fighter off guard" is not really necessary; you need only catch the fighter out in the open, at range.

The wizard is indisputably laying down far more smack with meteor swarm than the fighter can dish out in a round. The key difference is that the wizard only gets to do it once, where the fighter can pour out a stream of damage round after round. Comparing an NPC wizard to a PC fighter is unfair to the fighter: Typically the NPC is only present for a single fight, so there is no penalty for going nova.

You sir are correct. My math was off and I was wrong about that. I mostly agree with the rest of your other points. Though again this is a fighter without feats or subclass abilities like the BM's dice... I wonder what the damage difference would be then....

 

[FrogReaver]

The fighter can spend more than one of his feats on utility if he wants.

The wizard can also spend more than one of his feats on utility if he wants to. The difference is that for most of the game the fighter has 1 more feat than the wizard.

Just claiming the fighter gets 1 feat and double damage against single targets compared to the caster ignores quite a few things like...

The issue is: the wizard is just as good in combat as a fighter. Yes, the fighter is the single target Damage king. I don't dispute that. Without feats he does somewhere between 2x and 3x the wizards cantrip damage. With combat feats it's probably about 4x the wizards cantrip damage. But there are many useful things to do in combat other than simply deal damage. Disabling enemies. Buffing allies. Large AOE damage is often just as good as high single target damage. Wizards shine in combat and it's in a different way than fighters! There's room for both classes when it comes to combat! That's not so much the case when it comes to anything outside combat!

fighter has more hit points
fighter doesn't loose abilities if he gets hit hard enough and doesn't make a save
fighter has a higher armor class
fighter can self-heal himself
and so on. You're simplifying and thus erroneously presenting how much better the fighter's base really is at combat vs. the wizard's base.

As I suspected. That's the best list of fighters extras that wizards don't have in combat you can come up with? I could make a list about 100x that to explain how much better wizards are out of combat and how they can still contribute to combat in many ways that a fighter can't!

Fighter's on the other had have high single target damage and higher hp and get 1 extra feat than a wizard does for out of combat stuff (at least for about half the game). Then the fighter get's 2 feats for out of combat stuff compared to the wizards nearly countless options!

Please don't get me wrong. Fighters or another high damage weapon based class have a use in a party. Most parties need at least 1 high single target damage character and you won't generally find that ability on a full caster. It's just that when you start to compare each classes across the various pillars you learn that full caster's contribute in pretty much every pillar of the game equally! Social, Exploration and Combat!

Fighter's pretty much just contribute to combat with very little benefit to social challenges or exploration challenges. That might be okay if fighter's dominated combat so much that full caster's mostly stood there in awe because nothing they could do would really help, but that's not the case. There's plenty of encounters the full caster will contribute as much or more to the combats victory as the fighter. (Though a full caster will never outshine the fighter in the single target damage department).

 

[Seramus]

The point wasn't to reinforce some notion warriors are weak. The point was that my players would never pick weak choices, and, in 5e, they pick warriors. Which is pretty much the complete opposite point

To be fair, Type 1 Powergamers tend to stick with combat even when social and utility options exist. They enjoy killing you dead, immediately. Type 2 Powergamers are the ones that gravitate towards social and utility power. They enjoy dominating your mind, and carrying out their devious plots.

Neither is necessarily better than the other, but even Powergamers have preferences.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Fighter's pretty much just contribute to combat with very little benefit to social challenges or exploration challenges. That might be okay if fighter's dominated combat so much that full caster's mostly stood there in awe because nothing they could do would really help...

That prettymuch can't literally be the case for the same reason the fighter can't be considered literally useless out of combat - 5e's brilliant BA design philosophy. Imagine a hypothetical caster with absolutely no combat-usable spells available, not even cantrips that take attack rolls or saving throws. In combat, he can still use weapons (even if his STR & DEX both suck, he's still proficient in some of them) and hit some of the time thanks to BA, and every little bit of damage puts the current focus of the party's focus fire that much closer to 0 hps, so is useful and helping. He could also literally be helpful by using the Help action. And he could always improvise actions.

 

[mellored]

That prettymuch can't literally be the case for the same reason the fighter can't be considered literally useless out of combat - 5e's brilliant BA design philosophy. Imagine a hypothetical caster with absolutely no combat-usable spells available, not even cantrips that take attack rolls or saving throws. In combat, he can still use weapons (even if his STR & DEX both suck, he's still proficient in some of them) and hit some of the time thanks to BA, and every little bit of damage puts the current focus of the party's focus fire that much closer to 0 hps, so is useful and helping. He could also literally be helpful by using the Help action. And he could always improvise actions.

Unfortunately, the reverse is often not true.

If you come across a chasm, and the wizard makes a bridge, no one else participated. Even if the fighter has athletics.
If everyone is hungry, and the cleric makes food, no one else participated. Even if the fighter has the nature skill.
If you need to travel to another plane... no one else can participate.
etc...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Unfortunately, the reverse is often not true.

If you come across a chasm, and the wizard makes a bridge, no one else participated. Even if the fighter has athletics.
If everyone is hungry, and the cleric makes food, no one else participated. Even if the fighter has the nature skill.
If you need to travel to another plane... no one else can participate.
etc...

Some challenges just have simple 1-PC solutions. The hypothetical "I'm Helping!" combat-incompetent caster, above, would not contribute in an encounter with one goblin whom the rogue (winning initiative) kills instantly. Neither would anyone else, including very combat-capable characters - there's just not that much need for contribution to go around. At higher level, the threshold for a hypothetical winning-initiative-insta-gank would presumably rise.

 

[mellored]

Some challenges just have simple 1-PC solutions. The hypothetical "I'm Helping!" combat-incompetent caster, above, would not contribute in an encounter with one goblin whom the rogue (winning initiative) kills instantly. Neither would anyone else, including very combat-capable characters - there's just not that much need for contribution to go around. At higher level, the threshold for a hypothetical winning-initiative-insta-gank would presumably rise.

Yes, it's possible. But that happens less often. Combats are balanced around having multiple PC's. Utility scenario's are not.

And yes, it get's harder to insta-win combat at higher level. But it also get's easier to insta-win utility. Low levels, you might have your familiar fly a rope around a branch, and then the fighter uses the rope to climb and then pull other people up. At high levels, you can just teleport/fly/etc... no help needed.