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

[Minigiant]

I play them all the time, I have played with 8 different DMs in the past year, many of them on roll 20.

I don't play stupid. I don't just walk up to the enemy and stand there and swing my sword.

Even if you play stupid, protection fighting style is probably worth 2 points in constitution alone. More if you don't have any healing in your group.

It's nothing about being stupid. CON is a defensive score. Your enemies trigger it via attacks, poisons, and spells.

If 5 goblins shoot you with bows and poison arrows, there's no smart thing to do at that point.

No he won't, not reliably against an intelligent foe that uses ready action, dodge, shove, cover etc. Even against a stupid played enemy such a Rogue would have to invest in combat-related ASIs and/or combat feats to keep up with the fighter that starts with a 16 S/D.

Actually as a DM, that's dumb.
A readied shove or dodge is a turn not dealing damage and a free turn for the other PCs to wail on the monster. All whilenot taking out the rogue.

A decent ranged attack on a strength melee character is almost useless when you can just use a thrown weapon.

You invest in what you want and let me build the character I want.

Thrown weapons are bad in 5e.
Even with the fighting style or feats.

This is your problem, your opinion of the fighter class is built around a stereotype.

In one of my groups I play with regularly we have no problem convincing the Wizard to "run melee" as you put it. She is far better at avoiding hits and staying alive than I am, far better than the Paladin in the group and better than the barbarian and is better than a fighter would be even if optimized for this specifically. In a previous game the same player, playing a similar wizard character went multiple levels being the primary front liner without getting hit a single time in combat. Unlike me, her tactic was run to the front get right up to the enemies and don't move until he is dead.

She was a bladesinger that could push her AC to about 30 while also imposing disadvantage. She pretty much never got hit. She had low hps as it was but she could have had just 1 hp and she still would have survived almost every combat that did not involve casters or breath weapons.

You want to really play a character who is really optimized for melee - play a wizard. Nothing else is close (well Barbarian is close but that is it).

Thanks for proving everyone's point.

A wizard is a better warrior that a fighter built for having a social or exploration role (unless you run EK or go archer and abuse DEX)

 

[Undrave]

I don't play stupid. I don't just walk up to the enemy and stand there and swing my sword.

Then you're not playing melee???

not reliably against an intelligent foe that uses ready action, dodge, shove, cover etc

Dodge is, statistically, a very poor use of action enemy for the DM's side. Those monsters don't exist beyond the current combat, they don't have to conserve their Hit Dice and hit points. Optimally they should just try to kill the PCs faster if they really want to win...

But I will concede dodge could make sense in character.

In one of my groups I play with regularly we have no problem convincing the Wizard to "run melee" as you put it. She is far better at avoiding hits and staying alive than I am, far better than the Paladin in the group and better than the barbarian and is better than a fighter would be even if optimized for this specifically. In a previous game the same player, playing a similar wizard character went multiple levels being the primary front liner without getting hit a single time in combat by an attack. Unlike me, her tactic was run to the front get right up to the enemies and don't move until he is dead.

She was a bladesinger that could push her AC to about 30 while also imposing disadvantage. She pretty much never got hit. She had low hps as it was but she could have had just 1 hp and she still would have survived almost every combat that did not involve casters or breath weapons. How high do you need to pump constitution to make up in hps for a character that will go 25ish battles without getting hit by a single attack at all?

You want to really play a character who is really optimized for melee - play a wizard. Nothing else is close (well Barbarian is close but that is it).

You...huh... you do realize that's a PROBLEM, right?

That this is a Spellcaster VS Martial thread and you've both suggested a Fighter just becomes a Caster to solve its problem AND that a Caster is better at what the Fighter supposedly gave up being good outside of combat for?! That Wizard still has a full suite of out of combat spells, a lot of which are FRIGGIN' RITUALS so they don't use slot... The Fighter is a worse 'tank' (though, personally, I think your definition of 'tank' as being simply someone who has high AC is really poor but whatever) than a bloody Caster and doesn't get anything in return?!

 

[Undrave]

Actually as a DM, that's dumb.
A readied shove or dodge is a turn not dealing damage and a free turn for the other PCs to wail on the monster. All whilenot taking out the rogue.

I'm not sure what a shove is supposed to do against a Rogue who can disengage with a bonus action anyway?

 

[Minigiant]

I think that's bad design. You shouldn't be able to be good at everything. With 3 pillars, there should one you are good at, one you are decent at, and one that you poor at. Having classes with strengths and weaknesses makes for more fun in my opinion. It also allows others to shine where you are weak and vice versa

Heh, I disagree with your asessment. I don't think you need to be poor at one of the three, certainly not to the point of being practically a liability like certain classes can be in social situations.

The Rogue has to choose what to be GREAT at, but they can still contribute to all three pillar without overshadowing someone else who chose to be GREAT at that particular pillar.

Also, we talk about 'three pillar' but that's really mostly just marketing hype. D&D has two pillar: Combat Resolution and everything else.

Sneak attack is overturned but it's not so bad.

The Standard rogue only get 6-7 skills and a tool with 2 expertises. This gets them in all 3 pillars but not the ability to dominate all aspects of them.

But feats and alternate class features can break this so easily

 

[ECMO3]

A Rogue can just invest into DEX and be excellent in combat that way... AND be amazing at Stealth, Sleight of Hand and Acrobatics in the same breath (i.e core competencies of a Rogue). A Rogue is excellent in combat, their Sneak Attack is easy to trigger and can let them keep up DMG pretty easily, especially with a Rapier. And they get a bunch of ability to make them slippery and hard to hit.

Not excellent. Average with just dex as an investment. If he uses CBE and SS he can be good in combat although he has a lot competing for his BA. If he does a strength build and takes grappler feat and figthing initiate he can be great in combat.

I have played a ton of Rogues. To truely optimize a Rogue for combat here is the build:
1. go with a mountain dwarf (medium armor two+2 abilities). Trade your weapons for whip, longbow and scimitar.
2. Stats should be S16 D14 C10 I16 W10 Ch10.
3. Take expertise in athletics and intimidation. Pick a background that lets you get these four skills: Arcana, Persuasion, Investigation and slight of hand.
4. level 3 Arcane trickster, take booming blade, green flame blade, shield and silent image. The other spell does not really matter
5. level 4 take grappler feat
6. level 6 expertise in Arcana and slight of hand
7. take blur and shadow blade at level 7/8
8. take fighter initiate unarmed fighting
9. From here on take strength ASIs.

Your basic combat move is grapple on first turn with expertise (dealing damage due to fighting style), after that either disarm or GFB with advantage SA plus grapple damage. Your mage hand should be working every turn usually by pouring something on an enemy (acid, holy water, oil on the guy standing next to you that you are going to get with GFB) or doing something else to contribute. You can use the grappled guy to give you cover against other guys attacking you. You are basically using him as a literal human shield while damaging him simply because he is grappled even if you don't attack him specifically.

A few notes: The mage hand is dealing significant extra damage here and by going with a grappler you can move the guy you grappled so GFB hits two people every turn, often lighting oil that your hand just poured on one of them. Dash as a BA lets you move the grappled guy your full movement on a turn you do not use the hand. When you use disarm you get advantage on your attack roll due to the grappler feat and he takes damage due to the fighting style. After he is disarmed drag him away from his weapon so he is weaponless. From here on he continues to take damage every turn he is grappled, provides you cover and has to beat your expertise to get out. You just drag him around the battlefield while you attack other people as a striker and slowly kill the unarmed grappled enemy. If there is only 1 bad guy you can also just take dodge as an action every turn while still dealing some damage because of your grapple and he can't go and attack anyone else. You lose your main weapon damage this way, but you can still use your hand and this is a good way to slowly kill someone if you think he will not be able to hit you with disadvantage.


The reason for Arcana is some DMs will do an Arcana check for things you want the mage hand to do unless the rules specifically call for another check. If your DM does not do this then get deception instead of Arcana and take expertise in perception.

 

[Sithlord]

Not excellent. Average with just dex as an investment. If he uses CBE and SS he can be good in combat although he has a lot competing for his BA. If he does a strength build and takes grappler feat and figthing initiate he can be great in combat.

I have played a ton of Rogues. To truely optimize a Rogue for combat here is the build:
1. go with a race that gets medium armor and weapon proficiencies. Trade your weapons for whip, longbow and scimitar.
2. Stats should be S16 D14 C10 I16 W10 Ch10.
3. Take expertise in athletics and intimidation. Pick a background that lets you get these four skills: Arcana, Persuasion, Investigation and slight of hand.
4. level 3 Arcane trickster, take friends, green flame blade, shield and silent image. The other spell does not really matter
5. level 4 take grappler feat
6. level 6 expertise in Arcana and slight of hand
7. take blur and shadow blade at level 7/8
8. take fighter initiate unarmed fighting
9. From here on take strength ASIs.

Your basic combat move is grapple on first turn with expertise (dealing damage due to fighting style), after that GFB with advantage SA plus grapple damage. Your mage hand should be working every turn usually by pouring something on an enemy (acid, holy water, oil on the guy standing next to you that you are going to get with GFB) or doing something else to contribute.

A few notes: The mage hand is dealing significant extra damage here and by going with a grappler you can move the guy you are grappled so GFB hits two people every turn, often lighting oil that your hand just poured on one of them. Dash as a BA lets you move the grappled guy your full movement on a turn you do not use the hand. If you are fighting just one bad guy you can also take dodge as an action while still dealing some damage because of your grapple. You lose your main weapon damage this way, but you can still use your hand and this is a good way to slowly kill someone if you think he will not be able to hit you with disadvantage.

The reason for Arcana is some DMs will do an Arcana check for things you want the mage hand to do unless the rules specifically call for another check. If your DM does not do this then get deception instead of Arcana and take expertise in perception.

Nice. Very nice build. I like it also because it doesn’t multiclass. Sweet. I will look over this more when I am more awake. Thanks.

 

[Undrave]

4. level 3 Arcane trickster, take friends, green flame blade, shield and silent image. The other spell does not really matter

Agan with the Caster...

 

[Sithlord]

Agan with the Caster...

Yeah. But it is a nice build. I generally ban green flame and similar spells. But it’s a clever build.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Ok a high Int Fighter is better at being a bad wizard than a low Int Fighter, I'll grant that.

Also better at being a History Professor.

I don't think anyone has ever denied that it is possible to give up your core competencies of your class to be mediocre at something else, or even passably good at something very niche.

I agree that there's issues with how these things are handled, especially in the area of ability progressions, feats and skills. However, it seems that as long as there is an option to put some resource (ability, feat whatever) to support combat competence, that becomes the expected baseline. And I feel that's at least partly an attitude issue. Sure enough, if you don't choose anything for your character that would be useful outside of combat, whose fault it really is then if they're useless outside the combat? The truth is that 5e is not hard, you don't need to hyper focus to optimise the combat power of your character. That you do is your choice.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The Fighter also has basically no identity outside of a fight. As soon as you're not fighting he's just a guy, a regular guy like every NPC who would fit the same background. Everybody's got a background, everybody's been something, but their class usually has some kind of identity outside of how they make things dead. Even the Barbarian because he can stride around with no shirt on and not suffer any downside. That's at least eye catching.

So what would you want? What would that identity of fighter outside of combat be? What sort of mechanics you would want to have to support that?

I am also a tad confused how people who complain that fighter is just a dumb jock want to separate anything that is not a dumb jock from the fighter and make them into their own classes to make it super sure that conceptually fighter can never be anything except a dumb jock...