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

[Nefermandias]

"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.

I am truly sorry if that sounded rude. I wasn't really talking specifically about you when I said that.
Anyway, a lot of what's being discussed here comes down to personal experiences and preference. Carry on, folks.

 

[FrogReaver]

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.)

I don’t think there is a right answer there. Either path will suffice, but neither is better or worse than the other. Just different.

but the more important point of my post was that you can have mundane martials and superhero or stronger wizards as long as magic is limited use and there is proper pacing.

 

[Asisreo]

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.)

So, the situation is that all characters have completely different types of fiction they are trying to represent in their classes/subclasses.

Wizards are Harry Potter wizards and level 20 wizards are ancient wizard types like Voldemort.

Fighters are mercenaries that use their combat expertise to proceed through life.

Barbarians are Conan/He-man type characters who specialize in a meatier sense of attack

Paladins are mythic heroes

Clerics are miracle performers

Bards are bards

The fiction of these characters are isolated from the other. And this tension can be detrimental for the Fighter that wants to be treated as a mythic hero like the Paladin.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

As you asked so nicely for the last word, here it comes. This is again your typical elitism. People who disagree with you simply do not understand. They understand just fine. The reason why the same criticism that I levied has been repeated so often is that it is essentially correct! I have played ton of 4e, I've run some of it. Countless other people have too. And they've come to the same conclusion. You can write an extensive and impenetrable forge-jargon filled treatise with a lot of words but but not much meaning and it doesn't change the fact. Games are written to be played, and if a significant portion of people playing the game feel that the classes are too samey, too gamey, too bland, then they are!

 

[FrogReaver]

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

no.

the implication is that if you want mundane martials and casters that really ‘feel magical‘ that magic will outdo martials. At that point balance has to be done via pacing and limited use resources.

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

mythic in many ways can be more fantastic than superhero. So it really depends on what mythic you have in mind.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

So, the situation is that all characters have completely different types of fiction they are trying to represent in their classes/subclasses.

Wizards are Harry Potter wizards and level 20 wizards are ancient wizard types like Voldemort.

Fighters are mercenaries that use their combat expertise to proceed through life.

Barbarians are Conan/He-man type characters who specialize in a meatier sense of attack

Paladins are mythic heroes

Clerics are miracle performers

Bards are bards

The fiction of these characters are isolated from the other. And this tension can be detrimental for the Fighter that wants to be treated as a mythic hero like the Paladin.

I think the issue is when someone has a different opinion as to what each class represents than the one you have expressed here.

 

[loverdrive]

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

And... So what?

In both 5e and 3.5e pretty much all casters share the same spells. In 5e most of the martials share the same fighting styles and both rogues and monks use exactly the same evasion mechanic.

I don't see any problem in that.

 

[loverdrive]

Hm, also I just came up with a quick and dirty fix for martials and spellcasters that's actually just obvious.

Rewrite rests so Short rest means "at the end of the scene" and Long rest means "at the end of the session". Puff! Everything is better.

 

[Undrave]

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.)

I don’t think there is a right answer there. Either path will suffice, but neither is better or worse than the other. Just different.

I agree with Longinus. Too many times you see people treat a level 20 Fighter as, at best, an Olympic Athlete (despite the fact that some olympic athletes seem to have better than 20s in their stats according to the math of the game). A level 20 Fighter isn't Hawkeye, he's Captain America, at the least!

Mundane characters constantly get hamstrung by limited notions of 'realism' that, quite frankly, often don't actually have any basis beyond gut feelings. That should stop at around level 10. I remember a message board in the 4e era with a guy insisting that horseback archery shouldn't be possible... which resulted in multiple people sharing videos of horseback archery competition.

A level 20 mundane character should be breaking every damn world record we can find! Run like Usain Bolt while fully geared out in plate armour, deadlift 1100 lbs without breaking a sweat, do a 15 feet standing long jump, hold their breath underwater for over 20 minutes while swimming and so on!

Do you know what's the heaviest a D&D character can deadlift on their own? 720 lbs, if they're a Barbarian with a 24 in STR. A fighter has a deadlift of 600. HALF the world record!

 

[Asisreo]

I think the issue is when someone has a different opinion as to what each class represents than the one you have expressed here.

I think its another issue.

Its a fact that the designers had a vision for each class and they designed the class around that vision, so when a player has a different idea of the fiction than the designers, they'll run into conflicting features.

For example, if your fiction of a sorcerer is just wizard with magic blood, you'll probably be very disappointed by the lack of spells which would run counter to the fiction of a wizard's ability to be a generalist mage.

I don't play druid often and my fiction of how they work is that they are nature-based wizards but I'm not entirely sure that's how WoTC actually envisioned them, so it wouldn't surprise me if there was disagreement there for anyone that does play Druid often.