D&D 5E Spellcasters and Balance in 5e: A Poll

[Yaarel]

Yes skills demonstrate non-magical competence, but there's nothing about "fighting" involved with most skills. I don't think they deserve extra skills.

Fighters have lives outside of combat training, and deserve more skills to be competent in the other two pillars of the game, Exploration and Social. Two skills is insufficient.

Also, many skills are directly relevant to a Fighter.

Arcana. In a world of magic, a Fighter must understand how it works and how to defend against it.

Persuasion. Combat leaders of any rank require leadership skills. The flavor of the Fighter is often a popular hero. Charisma skills matter. Insight is there, so social skills are a thing, already acknowledged to some degree.

Investigation. Understanding the weakness of an opponent, including an hostile camp, hostile culture, etcetera.

Medicine. How can a Fighter not understand first aid?

Sleight of Hand. Some Fighters are big in weapon tricks. Some are skilled at penetrating hostile territory, including unlocking doors, avoiding traps.

Stealth. How does a Fighter not learn from missions that require stealth? Every army in the world wears camouflage for a reason.

More than needing competence outside of combat in the sense of one or two more skills, the range of skills available need to expand somewhat.

I disagree with this. A longsword is martial. A staff, while a weapon, is a basic weapon that any old person can learn to use. Wizards, being smart people, know that they can be in a situation where magic won't work and would learn some basic weapons to get by. It's not as if they even begin to remotely fight as well with their dagger or staff as a Fighter does with his weapons.

If an entire culture is mainly martial, and teaches people to wield martial weapons like a staff, the staff is still martial.

Alternatively, the Wizard has been studying arcane cantrips.

It seems fine to me, if a Background includes martial training. And besides, I already noted, the arcane Wizard should be able to swap out an arcane cantrip for a choice of martial weapon, if the player wants. That choice can be a staff. And use the staff magically as a focus. That choice can also be a sword.

 

[Maxperson]

Fighters have lives outside of combat training, and deserve more skills to be competent in the other two pillars of the game, Exploration and Social. Two skills is insufficient.

Every class has a life outside of whatever it is that they do. Why are Fighters as good at being a skill monkey as a Bard? If you give Fighters more, you have to give ,more to every class that only gets 2 skills. All of them have lives outside of whatever they do. Then Bards, being better than the others have to get 4, and then Rogues who are the ultimate have to go up to 5. You throw everything off by giving Fighters extra based on what every other class also has going for it.

Also, many skills are directly relevant to a Fighter.

Pretty much all skills are relevant to every class. Even Wizards can be athletic and would benefit from proficiency there.

Arcana. In a world of magic, a Fighter must understand how it works and how to defend against it.

And yet you want to deny Wizards knowledge of even basic weapons when they need the same information for the same reason. In a world where people will be attacking you with weapons, you need to understand how they work and how to defend against them.

Persuasion. Combat leaders of any rank require leadership skills. The flavor of the Fighter is often a popular hero. Charisma skills matter. Insight is there, so social skills are a thing, already acknowledged to some degree.

Investigation. Understanding the weakness of an opponent, including an hostile camp, hostile culture, etcetera.

Medicine. How can a Fighter not understand first aid?

Sleight of Hand. Some Fighters are big in weapon tricks. Some are skilled at penetrating hostile territory, including unlocking doors, avoiding traps.

Stealth. How does a Fighter not learn from missions that require stealth? Every army in the world wears camouflage for a reason.

More than needing competence outside of combat in the sense of one or two more skills, the range of skills available need to expand somewhat.

And again, the same applies to literally every class that only gets 2 skills, which are all but Bards. Rangers and Rogues, the three skill specialists.

 

[CleverNickName]

the premise here is that a majority of players do not derive their enjoyment from finely tuned game balance. Therefore requiring near exact balance for casters and martials in combat is not required to deliver the games principal “product”….player enjoyment.

Data point of one, but I've been playing this game for decades and my enjoyment of the game has never depended on all character classes and roles being balanced.

 

[Yaarel]

Every class has a life outside of whatever it is that they do. Why are Fighters as good at being a skill monkey as a Bard? If you give Fighters more, you have to give ,more to every class that only gets 2 skills. All of them have lives outside of whatever they do. Then Bards, being better than the others have to get 4, and then Rogues who are the ultimate have to go up to 5.

Fighter can be better at skills than Bard, because the Bard is also busy learning how to spellcast. Flavorwise, the Fighter has much more free time to gain competence at various skills that are relevant to Fighting and military sciences.

Also, Fighters need to have TOOLS, such as knowing how to make and repair various kinds of weapons and armors.

You throw everything off by giving Fighters extra based on what every other class also has going for it.

Skills are important, but one or two more skill choices (including using it to choose from Tools), wont disrupt class balance.

 

[Yaarel]

And yet you want to deny Wizards knowledge of even basic weapons when they need the same information for the same reason.

D&D 5e, the Wizard has cantrips. These are effective arcane means of combat.

There is no mechanical need to have martial power source weapons. The flavor of martial weapons is less appropriate for the "bookish" Wizard.

 

[Undrave]

I would argue 5e actively took steps in that direction. Casters received several nerfs, less spells per day (MUCH fewer high level spells) and concentration dramatically weakens how "juiced up" a caster can get.

And from that, there are people that feel that casters are not as "fun" anymore.

At the end of the day, a lot of players just want to have simple classes to play the game. And complex will always be more powerful than simple. So either you keep nerfing complex until there is no point in play complex anymore....or you accept some degree of imbalance.

I would say I generally agre that 5e did a lot to curtail Caster powers. It did very little to add breadth of play to the Martial, however. The game needs stuff a martial character can just DO outside of combat that adds to their flavour.

But that's the entire point. It's not supposed to be for people who want to do a lot of different things. That's its function. If you want to do a lot of stuff, don't be a Champion.

If it's not going to do anything else but single target damage, then why the heck is it not the best at it?!

 

[Maxperson]

Fighter can be better at skills than Bard, because the Bard is also busy learning how to spellcast. Flavorwise, the Fighter has much more free time to gain competence at various skills that are relevant to Fighting and military sciences.

And a Farmer can be better than both of them, because they spend all their lives learning skills.

It just doesn't make sense for the Fighter, who has to specialize to a great degree practicing with weapons and armor. They spend easily as much time training as Wizards spend on magic and books. Knights began training around the age of 10 and didn't become knights until adulthood.

Also, Fighters need to have TOOLS, such as knowing how to make and repair various kinds of weapons and armors.

Not all of them did. You could give them a tool to simulate that, though, if you wanted.

Skills are important, but one or two more skill choices (including using it to choose from Tools), wont disrupt class balance.

Fighters don't do anything to deserve more skills than literally every other class. Every justification you used for Fighters can either be used for other classes, or equally valid justifications can be made for them. Right now all the classes that should be equal in skills ARE equal in skills. Raise one and you should raise all classes.

 

[Undrave]

Fighters don't do anything to deserve more skills than literally every other class. Every justification you used for Fighters can either be used for other classes, or equally valid justifications can be made for them. Right now all the classes that should be equal in skills ARE equal in skills. Raise one and you should raise all classes.

How about the fact that they don't get anything out of combat? How's that for a justification?

What decide the classes that 'SHOULD' be equal in skills as you say? Before the Thief class was invented, the Fighting Man WAS the out of combat proficiency guy. There's nothing but arbitrary tradition saying a Fighter 'doesn't deserve more skills' and that it's not a class that 'should' get more skills.

 

[Maxperson]

If it's not going to do anything else but single target damage, then why the heck is it not the best at it?!

All the non-gish Fighters are basically single target. I wouldn't really call the Battle Master maneuver multi-target when it does so little to a secondary target.

 

[Maxperson]

How about the fact that they don't get anything out of combat? How's that for a justification?

That's not a justification for more skills. That's potentially a justification for a non-combat class ability.

What decide the classes that 'SHOULD' be equal in skills as you say? Before the Thief class was invented, the Fighting Man WAS the out of combat proficiency guy. There's nothing but arbitrary tradition saying a Fighter 'doesn't deserve more skills' and that it's not a class that 'should' get more skills.

What proficiencies did they get? My understanding is that proficiencies arrived with 2e. 1e certainly didn't have them. At best they had that one chart that you rolled on to see if you were a farmer or jeweler before you began learning to be a PC.