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

[Vaalingrade]

4e eventually fixed that in Essentials aka 4.5 by figuring out the equivalence of At will, Encounter, and Dailies and giving them out in different amounts. A fslayer or knight got no dailies but more encounter powers and a stronger at will whereas the mage was all cantrips and dailies.

Even as much as I hate daily powers (and these day 'long rest' powers, I hated the Essentials chaos approach more because it was just an excuse to make martials suck again by sacrificing chose and capability on the alter of 'martials should be 'simple' and 'simple' in D&D universally means suck so hard that mage-loving WotC could only bring themselves to present the Warlock as the simple caster instead of some chum that just points every round and sets someone on fire with zero extra effects.

 

[Fenris-77]

They could have balanced them out better through the cost to cast them, and probably by having them be a bit more narrower in usage so there's a bit more of an opportunity cost to pick one. I'm not going to redesign the whole thing here but I'm sure there was something to be done here.

Sure, with a complete redesign of the mechanic you could open up some interesting design space. As-is though, it's not something that I'd add any bloat too.

 

[Mort]

Eh... I don't think the hit die really do all that Healing Surges could do. Just the concept of a hard cap on daily HP is pretty much gone with spells and potions just handing out free HP with no expenses from the target. There was a lot of design space that was used by healing surges, like how they could be taken away by traps or used to fuel certain things like rituals and magic items, or how your number of surge could be reduced by a long time condition like a Disease or a Curse.

Not even close, no. Healing surges were a really good robust mechanic and could cover A LOT and there was room for more.

In an Eberron game I gave out a REALLY powerful Dragonmark tattoo. The catch was that most of the really "good" stuff was powered by healing surges. Made the player agonize a bit more when using it!

 

[Nefermandias]

I feel like role emphasis was what helped the design of the 4e classes be more focused and more solid. It didn't need to be called out in the class description, but knowing what you're building for is way better than trying to cram every single idea that ever graced a class of the same name (looking at you, Monk...).

Eh... I don't think the hit die really do all that Healing Surges could do. Just the concept of a hard cap on daily HP is pretty much gone with spells and potions just handing out free HP with no expenses from the target. There was a lot of design space that was used by healing surges, like how they could be taken away by traps or used to fuel certain things like rituals and magic items, or how your number of surge could be reduced by a long time condition like a Disease or a Curse.

They could have balanced them out better through the cost to cast them, and probably by having them be a bit more narrower in usage so there's a bit more of an opportunity cost to pick one. I'm not going to redesign the whole thing here but I'm sure there was something to be done here.

You are correct about healing surges doing a lot more than Hit Die, but it still feels like they've tried to reach some kind of awkward compromise by including HD in 5e anyways. Actually, there's a lot about 5e that feels like that: some kind of awkward compromise.

 

[FrogReaver]

Unless we raise the bar of martials up to the level of superhero or nerf magic to the level of mundane capabilities then magic will always be better than martial. That’s part of what makes it magical.

Balance then must come via pacing and limited resources. Outside the players wanting for their PCs to act heroic there’s not a particularly great answer for how to handle pacing.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah, I've heard you say that before.

Wasn't correct then. Still not correct now. Won't be correct tomorrow.

Stellar argumentation, mate. A lot of powers were literally the same. That's a fact.

 

[Steampunkette]

I have seen this argument being thrown a lot around the internet, but as someone who has experienced 4e from the playtest up to it's final days, I just cannot see this as true.

The "sameness" people keeping parroting about is just regarding the resource recharging system, and I don't see it as a bad thing. Now that every class recharge their abilities at a different rate, DMs complain that it's hard to balance an adventuring day without being forced to run eight combat encounters in a row.

"Parroting" is such an insulting term, here, Nefermandias. It presumes I'm just copying other people's positions rather than someone who actively played 4e and came to her own conclusion. Which I did. Not as much as some people, obviously, because it was the period where I spent most of my time over in Pathfinder and 13th Age... But I played it.

And I felt that it was really samey. Not just the shared recharge (though I'll acknowledge that was the majority of it). But also the stat-smoothing for saving throws so that Dex and Int functioned the same way. Which meant a Wizard and a Rogue had a lot more in common when dodging a fireball than I truly enjoyed...

Plus the whole XW naughty word. The first time I read the book I skipped right to the classes, 'cause that's what I'm used to doing as a way to compare classes and editions, and had no -clue- what XW meant. I thought I was having a stroke 'til I went back and found the algebra involved. Suddenly Fighters and Barbarians were throwing handfuls of dice comparable to the Wizard and Rogue.

Making any attempt to lift a door use your primary stat is pretty cool for the visual of the Wizard using magic and the Barbarian using sheer muscle, but also really stepped on any sort of differences between the classes and characters in -that- regard, as well.

Anyway... yeah. I feel like there needs to be more granularity than 4e had. Or at least initially had. As I've been told Essentials helped make it more drastic.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Unless we raise the bar of martials up to the level of superhero or nerf magic to the level of mundane capabilities then magic will always be better than martial. That’s part of what makes it magical.

I think the game should just flat out say that high level characters (so tenish and beyond) are mythic heroes and not normal humans and write the rules accordingly. People who want to play more mundane characters just need to limit their games below that level (as most campaigns in practice already do.)

 

[Mort]

Unless we raise the bar of martials up to the level of superhero or nerf magic to the level of mundane capabilities then magic will always be better than martial. That’s part of what makes it magical.

Balance then must come via pacing and limited resources. Outside the players wanting for their PCs to act heroic there’s not a particularly great answer for how to handle pacing.

So by implication your ok with casters being at the level of superheroes but not martials?

It's not all that hard to justify martial big deeds - just think mythic instead of superhero or magical.

 

[Manbearcat]

Stellar argumentation, mate. A lot of powers were literally the same. That's a fact.

Yeah...I feel like I addressed that up above....pretty soundly actually. But I get it. You don't understand what I wrote (because you don't understand the game). You and I...we've been here before. I'm not trying to argue with you. There is nothing to argue with. If I wanted to argue with someone who actually GMed the game to any degree and has the ability to analyze it and offer up a substantive critique, I'd Steelman an actual robust critique of 4e and argue with myself (which I've done on many occasions as there is plenty to critique). You're not that guy. We've been here before. I turned the page on trying to have a conversation with you about TTRPG analysis and 4e D&D is the very last place I would attempt that if I was even mildly interested.

But if you're insistent...I've written a...ridiculous...amount on this. Just a stupid amount of spilled virtual ink on this website. You can go to all those old threads and engage with those old arguments there (my critiques of 4e and my advocacy of 4e). I won't join you, but you can shake your fist at me as you write new and interesting things no one has ever heard before (!) about gameyness, sameyness, dissociative mechanics, everyone's a spellcaster, MMORPGs, not an RPG, boardgame linked by freeform roleplay, entitled players, EZMode, Skill Challenges are just an exercise in ludonarrative dissonant dice rolling...maybe you can pull out the old chestnut of "fire keyword effects can't set objects on fire because target creature." Go at it my man. Have a ball.

If you feel like you need to have the last word in this thread...do your thing. I won't threadcrap and respond.