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

[Don Durito]

A 10 represents an average person of average intelligence. That's what it represents in D&D. That's what it has always represented in D&D. It has nothing to do with high school exams.

Here are the other CR 13 creatures.

Nalfashnee: DC 15 Success rate with +7, 60%
Adult White and Brass Dragons: Frightful Presence DC 14, Breath and Wing DC 19 Success rates: 65% and 40%
Storm Giant: DCs 17 Success rate: 50%
Vampire: Charm DC 17, Grapple DC 18 Success rates, 50% and 45%

+7 is average. Some things are easier. Some harder. Some right on the money. If you go to 20 it makes it all easier, but the game isn't designed with 20 in mind.

Look I addressed these points in the post you selectively quoted. All you are doing is repeating yourself. If you ignore key points, I'm just going to consider the argument effectively conceded.

 

[Undrave]

I personally refuse to point buy or use arrays. It's a deal breaker for me. Most of my group feels the same way. One guy would prefer to point buy or use an array, but doesn't mind rolling.

Rolling for stats?! Like savages from RPG-prehistory?!

I'm actually in a game where we rolled for stats and the DM was really generous and so everybody is just stupid strong (even with my good score I still feel like my Monk is bad... hmm) but then the same DM complains we're TOO strong and sends stuff way too high CR for us >.>

 

[ECMO3]

Ok. He's no weaker. Except for his AC and Hitpoints.

And his intelligence skills are better by what 10, 15 maybe as much as 20%.

Yep. As I said.

His AC is worse by 6% (and will be the same by level 4). His hps are worse by 20% (assuming no racial bonus).

On the other hand FIVE different intelligence skills are better by 15% each and through proficiency he can be downright awesome at them, as good as anyone in the party can be. Not even a Rogue can be better at 1st level unless they took at least a 14 intelligence themselves.

Edit: It is 5 abilities not 4 or 3, I forgot about Arcana.

 

[Don Durito]

His AC is worse by 6% (and will be the same by level 4). His hps are worse by 20% (assuming no racial bonus).

On the other hand THREE different intelligence skills are better by 15% each and through proficiency he can be downright awesome at them, as good as anyone can be. Not even a Rogue or Bard can be better at 1st level unless they took at least a 14 intelligence and he can use his Monk ASIs take skill expert down the road and beat even those classes.

I do believe I said something earlier in this thread about the trade-off issues being about scaling and therefore not too bad at level 1.

 

[ECMO3]

I personally refuse to point buy or use arrays. It's a deal breaker for me. Most of my group feels the same way. One guy would prefer to point buy or use an array, but doesn't mind rolling.

I love to roll, but in terms of principles it is not enough to keep me from playing. So given the choice between point buy or staying out of a game, I usually accept point buy.

I have several groups I play and one I DM. The groups I play are split 2 and 2. The one I DM is roll.

 

[ECMO3]

I do believe I said something earlier in this thread about the trade-off issues being about scaling and therefore not too bad at level 1.

Scaling works both ways. The FIVE abilities all get better with proficiency, expertise and ASIs taken in their areas as well.

So yes if I continue to invest heavily in intelligence and skills then the gap in AC, hps and damage between me and what I could have will increase, but so will the gap in the five skills I am good at and what a combat optimized character would have.

More than likely I will not pump intelligence any more, but I absolutely will take skill expert and proficiency bonuses and expertise will continue to scale and widen that gap even without further intelligence investment.

When we talk about skills the one that always kills me is constitution. For a non-caster going above 10 is mostly useless. There are no skills that use it and it is a few more hps that probably won't ever matter for most classes other than barbarian. If you are going to go down at a 10 constitution it is rare that a 14 would keep you alive. By the time the hps matter there are so many ways to avoid hits, avoid death or avoid damage that it is usually irrelevant the vast majority of the time.

To put it another way, you are going to make an Arcana check or even a History check far more than the hp difference is going to matter in battle in my experience. AC (and therefore dexterity and wisdom) is a different story.

 

[Maxperson]

Look I addressed these points in the post you selectively quoted. All you are doing is repeating yourself. If you ignore key points, I'm just going to consider the argument effectively conceded.

No. You selectively chose one creature with a high DC and didn't show that it was at the upper end and other DCs were lower. That fails to show that a 20 is where the balance point is. I showed by presenting all the creatures that the DCs range from 14 to 19, making +7ish the balance point at 13th level.

As for 10 being average, that's RAW. Your declaration that it isn't so doesn't win you the argument. If you're going to ignore the DC evidence I provided in my last post and RAW both, then I can consider you as effectively conceding the argument.

 

[Don Durito]

No. You selectively chose one creature with a high DC and didn't show that it was at the upper end and other DCs were lower. That fails to show that a 20 is where the balance point is. I showed by presenting all the creatures that the DCs range from 14 to 19, making +7ish the balance point at 13th level.

I chose the first creature I thought of, because I used it recently. As I said, it doesn't actually matter where the midpoint it, because better is always better. There is not really any 'good enough'.

As for 10 being average, that's RAW. Your declaration that it isn't so doesn't win you the argument. If you're going to ignore the DC evidence I provided in my last post and RAW both, then I can consider you as effectively conceding the argument.

Ok. I didn't say that 10 wasn't average for the average person. I argued that it wasn't particularly meaningful (and it certainly is not the average for PCs). If you disgree with my reasons why it isn't meaningful then we can discuss it. If you don't understand them than you can ask questions.

 

[Minigiant]

There is nothing saying you need a high STR, Dex or con with a fighter. RAW you can build a fighter with an 8 in all three if you want (and back in 1E there were published fighters with a 9 strength). If you want to multiclass you need a 13 in either strength or dex.

As for constitution, it isn't a prime ability and in point buy I always dump constitution to 10 on every single fighter I play. The only time I am running a fighter with higher than a 10 constitution is if I am rolling. I always have at least a 14 in one of strength or dex and more often than not a 16 ..... but the other of those that is not 14/16 is an 8.

Putting 10 in your CONreally hurts your fighter's combat effectiveness if you play anything but a markmen if you play 5e as designed.

Logically with point buy a fighter that is built to be good at combat and good at social skills you should have a 10 constitution, an 16 Str or Dex an an 8 in the one you don't have a 16 in. That is the most complete fighter build you can make and it is the one I routinely make. Sometimes I have 14 in all of I/W/Ch, sometimes I have a 16 in one and 12s in the other two. Like I said that is for a good all around fighter and such a fighter still outrun most Rogues in combat while being good in social situations. If you want to min max instead of being all around then to optimize combat stats then dump the social skills, if you want to optimize social skills then dump the combat stats. It is a pretty simple concept. The same concept is true for a Rogue. If you want a combat focused Rogue you should take a 14 dexterity and a 16 strength and a 14 or 16 constitution and dump the social skills. Such a Rogue will be far more effective in combat than a "traditional" Rogue but will not be as good out of combat.

An "all around" fighter is barely better than a Rogue in combat and extremely worse out of combat if you play 5e as designed..

For some reason people in this board refuse to do these things though and then wonder why their fighters that has a 16 str and 16 con and 8 charisma sucks in social situations. It is because they chose that build!

They don't wonder. The 5e fighter is designed to have high Str/Dex and Con/Dex (with AAs and EKs subbing Int).

That's literally how the PHB and DMG design fighters to function.

Bottom line: If you need to be "dominant" in combat you won't be dominant or even good out of combat. If you are ok with being just good in combat then you can be both good in combat and good out of combat.

DING DING DING. That's the point.
The Fighter is designed to be dominant in combat and bad most of the time outside of combat. 5e designed it to be this way.

Taking INT/WIS/CHA as a secondary score and grabbing skill severely weakening your fighter's combat ability unless:

1) You roll for stat and roll very well
2) Your subclass gives you magic
3) You DM is running an easy campaign

 

[Don Durito]

Yeah this thread has drifted into a completely different area because of an inability to understand the key points about what people want.

The issue is not can you give up combat effectiveness to become better at non-combat stuff.

The issue is can you fill the basic roll of the class and have better ability to contribue in non-combat activities? D&D is a classs based system so there doesn't have to be a trade-off. Every class can be good in combat and out combat, because these things do not structurally have to be budgeted out of the same pool.

If I want to trade off these things why would I play D&D? There's lots of point buy systems out there which offer much more fine grained and flexible options to trade things off and build specific characters and find the exact balance that you want.

Seriously, if people were happy with what was on the table now, why would they be asking for something different?