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

[FrogReaver]

You keep saying this is what the Battle Master was supposed to do. I reject that argument, both in theory and in practice. I've already covered the practice side, and it seems you care about the other. So: On the theory side, I genuinely do not believe the Battle Master was ever "meant" to be a Warlord. It was, however, pretty clearly meant to capture the feel of a 4e Fighter. (Remember that the "baseline" 4e Fighter was called the Weaponmaster subclass, which is far too similar to be mere coincidence.) When the designers got backed into a corner because it took them forever to settle on the shape the Fighter class should have (seriously, it wasn't until like the final or penultimate document that the Fighter even started to look like it did in the published PHB), they had to resort to what measures were available.

Now, the Purple Dragon Knight/Banneret? That I could at least admit was specifically supposed to be a Warlord--it even uses the word "warlord" in some of its text (e.g. "Banneret serves as the generic name for this archetype if you use it in other campaign settings or to model warlords other than the Purple Dragon Knights.") It is also about as close to "bad" as you can get for a subclass without actually BEING bad--that is, its features are painfully mediocre and limited, and (IMO) don't really deliver on the concept of a warrior who leads others in battle.

The Battle Master is almost purely focused on doing tricksy things with weapons. It's not a Warlord. You can kinda-sorta-ish kludge part of a Warlord out of one, but it was very clearly intended for a different function--or, as I said, it's the EK of Warlords, where it's mostly a Fighter but has some Warlord mechanics stapled to it.


Okay, I admit I got heated there. I apologize. I would, however, note that I'm not the one telling other people that their preferences are incompatible with design virtues. I'm not the one gatekeeping whose aesthetic preferences are permitted expression in the game. I absolutely feel I, and others, have not been treated with a lot of respect on this. It would be nice if people did not dismiss entire arguments with two-word arguments like "class bloat." Parsimony is not a universal virtue, and even parsimony is not the same as hyper-reductionism.

As for the other points, I had assumed--given that there's only one edition that has a "Warlord"--that it was understood that I referred to its popularity in that edition. Given that I know you were around for the "Warlord quarantine forum" phase, even if the class is not HUGELY ENORMOUSLY popular, I know you know how popular it is for a vocal minority, who would feel really, REALLY happy if people actually tried to give them what they want ever, instead of abjuring them at every step of the way.

And, frankly, I don't really see that as an expression of magnanimity. Mearls himself said it quite well during the playtest: just as with martial healing, the existence of an added Warlord class does absolutely nothing to you, because you can simply not permit it in your games, and choose not to play in games where other people play one. You lose nothing, while Warlord fans gain enormously. Conversely, not merely adamantly insisting that the Warlord shouldn't exist but that at least one other class shouldn't exist either, might give you things, but it certainly does so at the cost of taking stuff away from others. That's not magnanimity; that's zero-sum "for me to win, you must lose" stuff.


Except that that isn't any better. All it does is make a new overpowered subclass. Consider back when the Storm Sorcerer was in playtest. Fans rightly got annoyed that this subclass got a bunch of free spells, when the baseline Dragon and Chaos ones didn't. What did WotC do? They didn't go back and fix any of the old subclasses. They just nerfed the playtest one so it would be equally bad. That's not good design. Subclasses are not a magic bullet that solves every class design problem. They are useful tools, but not the end-all, be-all solution.


Well, here's my thoughts.
Option 1, pros: the freedom to add things that are missing, and (for classes specifically) to not be limited by how much power a subclass is allowed to have; ability to tailor the solutions narrowly and specifically to what is needed
Option 1, cons: reduplication of effort/lack of parsimony, more difficult to balance (because, e.g., a character could MC BM/Warlord)
Option 2, pros: Can (in theory) be published as errata, makes the smallest possible changes while still changing something
Option 2, cons: Unlikely to actually be published as errata, unable to create new mechanics or fill holes that already exist
Option 3, pros: Requires zero effort and avoids any controversy about errata or lack of parsimony
Option 3, cons: Fails to address the problem.

Does that meaningfully address your concerns about failing to consider negative aspects of a solution? I do not consider absolute minimalism a virtue in design. Logical parsimony is only virtuous as long as it does, in fact, actually cover everything it's supposed to; remember that Occam's Razor is not "always use fewer entities," it is "entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily." Newton's theory of gravitation is simpler (dramatically so) than Einstein's theory of general relativity, but we use the latter and not the former due to relativity covering more of the facts.

I am arguing, here, that trying to make the Battle Master Fighter cover both the Mighty Thews(/Agile Archer, I guess) AND the Inspiring Captain archetype is leaving both things under-served. That we are not seeing parsimony, but rather deficiency; not frugality, but miserliness.


Again, I disagree--mostly because the Battle Master, as I argued earlier, is far too personally capable. The Warlord concept is not merely someone who CAN choose to inspire allies. The Warlord concept is someone who NEEDS to coordinate and strategize with allies in order to get things done. Now, this does not mean having NO combat capability without an ally--the Warlord could do some butt-kicking on her own. But it should mean that the best butt-kicking they do is either in direct combination with allies (e.g. Bravura Warlords who give allies risky opportunities), coordinating the whole team's movements to maximally exploit terrain (Tactical Warlords with repositioning, initiative, etc.), or dredging up those hidden reserves we all have but never tap because of self-protection instincts (Resourceful and certain other types of Warlord).

In general, the best thing a Battle Master can do is just attack more. It's going to be pretty rare, for example, for Commander's Strike to actually do better than the BM just attacking again. Distracting Strike isn't...the worst, but is pretty narrow--a chance for a chance for a good thing to happen. Rally is pretty much just bad, since it can't actually heal anyone. (Like...for real, even granting 6d12 healing at level 18 to every party member once per short rest is NOT that powerful, and doing that means you did LITERALLY nothing else special. A Life Cleric can do that easily, except that they can target just the people who need it most, and they still get all their spells on top.) Maneuvering Attack is probably the only "Warlord-type" maneuver that actually does more or less what a Warlord would do.

And...that's literally it. Those exhaust the "Warlord options" for the Battle Master. It's not just a matter of no scaling; it's a matter of you get only four Warlord-like things you can potentially do, and most of them are just not worth doing when you could instead, y'know, just do it yourself. Which is the fundamental problem of the "Fighter-as-Warlord." To be a Fighter, any 5e Fighter, you must be good at kicking butt all by yourself. The Battle Master simply adds a layer of "oh and you can also potentially boost an ally along the way" on top.


I'm a bit confused here. If an "alternate class option" (since it's not a subclass, which can't remove class features) changes out 90% or more of the base class features for something else, that...sounds like a new class with some common features. I mean, the only things Tasha's didn't swap out or offer heavy modification to were Fighting Style, Extra Attack, Vanish, and Feral Senses. Fighting Style and Extra Attack are universal features of melee (sub)classes, so those wouldn't have changed either way. That leaves two, high-level features untouched--everything else is either completely replaced or pretty meaningfully modified (e.g. Spells might not be replaced, but getting several extra free spells known that you can cast once a day without spell slots is a BIG deal).

It's hard to see an argument that this is "the same class" as anything but semantic.

So I find it really annoying to reply to this because your comments to me and to crimson are all mixed together.

 

[Minigiant]

The real issue here is WotC's refusal to errata things. I really wish they'd just release 5.5. and taking good look at all the classes and subclasses to see whether they're actually doing what they're intended to do and adjust things accordingly. It would still remain backwards combatable with all the adventures, monsters etc

That is a whole nother monster.

The refusal of WOTC to go back and errata their mistakes just exacerbates the problems that they have created in faulty design choices.

 

[FrogReaver]

Regardless of implementation, I don't see how Battlemaster was ever meant to fulfil the Warlord concept that unsatisfied people are talking about.

The Battlemaster doesn't even try to fulfill the concept of "martial character whose primary impact is leaderly/warlord stuff and tertiary impact is hitting things". So like the retired veteran that isn't feable but no longer has the sword arm he once had so his first option is to add value through tactics, inspiration, etc. I think we are coming to agree that the Fighter chasis just doesn't allow you to swap enough direct fighting prowess to add to your leaderly stuff.

Battlemaster fulfills the concept of "elite martial warrior that can also do some leading/warlording".

I think you view concept as more mechanical in nature than I do. When I talk concept I'm talking fictional concept. "Warrior that leads". That's what a Warlord is conceptually.

So when you are talking 'a character whose primary impact is leadery/warlord stuff and teritiary impact is hitting things'. That to me is a statement about mechanics and not concept. It's just another way to say you want more Leadery mechanics and less fighting mechanics.

And I'm fine with that, but I think we need to have the discussion around whether we want classes created based on mechanical desires or conceptual desires - and the pros and cons related to various 'solutions'.

For the concept to be fulfiled the class/subclass would have to move the "impact" slider from:

Battlemaster (leaning as hard as it can into warlord from feats and manuvers): Hitting stuff directly= 4, wardlordy/leaderly stuff = 3

to

Warlord: Hitting stuff = 2 or 3, wardlordy/leaderly stuff = 5

IMO, if all we are doing is moving the slider up or down 1-2 degrees for Leadery stuff and down 1 or 2 degrees for fightery stuff then that's admitting we have the fictional concept.

I actually think many of the fighters base features should have been replaced with subclass features. If I was going to solve the mechanical Fighter problems in general I'd have given fighters the most subclass related level up abilities of any class and the fewest main class related abilities. But that ship has sailed.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah the Fighter is very badly designed period, and particularly if they wanted it include the Warlord.

Maybe the Warlord should start with the Valor Bard as a base?

Then, take away it's full caster spells and replace entirely with warlordy/leaderly stuff. What kind of cool and powerful leaderly/warlordy features would we need to equal the Bard's full caster progression? Hmm...

Unless you are going to make the Warlord a fake caster it doesn't work well to start with a full caster base.

 

[Krachek]

Never said that.

If you saw any of my posts, you'd see my suggestion is to split the fighter into 2-3 classes of different levels of complexity and pillar strength/focus.

Sorry I react to your single answer. That is a nice solution that surely won’t come into play before ten years. The situation with DnD about complexity is not for all the old players that will surely enjoy more complexity for some classes, it is for all the newcomer aim as new players around the world. For those newcomers DnD will keep is vintage style and some sacred cow.

There is a thread here with the v6 of a homebrew Warlord. For this matter, it is the best option.
Fighter as well don’t totally lack of complexity. The EK and the BM give some. Their frame can be used to create some other homebrew subclass. The monk frame can also be used for a Warlord or a more complex fighter.

So the solution is homebrew. And I wonder why we don’t see more often homebrew class and subclass here.

 

[ECMO3]

That sounds really cool!
How much of the Wizard's Intelligence score, rituals, and utility spellcasting did they have to sacrifice to achieve it?

Not a lot because of rituals. What you mostly sacrifice is offensive spells during combat. Mostly you miss things like fireball or synaptic startic because you need to save those slots early in the day for defense or at higher levels damage reduction.

When it gets towards the end of the day you can start casting offensive spells if you know you won't run out.

You sacrifice some intelligence early but it should still be 20 by the end of the game. There are two ways to build it, one is to start with 16Dex/Int and pump dex, which is probably the more powerful. The other is to start with 16D/17I and get fey touched with hex at 4th level. This is probably less powerful but you have a free hex and misty step and both come in useful on this build.

 

[FrogReaver]

Sorry I react to your single answer. That is a nice solution that surely won’t come into play before ten years. The situation with DnD about complexity is not for all the old players that will surely enjoy more complexity for some classes, it is for all the newcomer aim as new players around the world. For those newcomers DnD will keep is vintage style and some sacred cow.

There is a thread here with the v6 of a homebrew Warlord. For this matter, it is the best option.
Fighter as well don’t totally lack of complexity. The EK and the BM give some. Their frame can be used to create some other homebrew subclass. The monk frame can also be used for a Warlord or a more complex fighter.

So the solution is homebrew. And I wonder why we don’t see more often homebrew class and subclass here.

Because as homebrewers quickly learned, no one can get close to agreeing about how to implement the dang thing in 5e.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah the Fighter is very badly designed period, and particularly if they wanted it include the Warlord.

Maybe the Warlord should start with the Valor Bard as a base?

Then, take away it's full caster spells and replace entirely with warlordy/leaderly stuff. What kind of cool and powerful leaderly/warlordy features would we need to equal the Bard's full caster progression? Hmm...

If I were going to design a Warlord--as I've said in a few places here--I'd use the Warlock chassis. Invocations -> Tactics (passive or at-will effects). Spell slots -> Feints (which generate Gambit) and Stratagems (which spend it for splashier effect). Patron -> Leadership Style (which mental mod is your Leadership Modifier and what your fundamental leadership bonuses are). Pact -> Strategic Focus (whether you focus on buffing, granting attacks, healing, etc.--any warlord might have a taste of each of those, but you can only SOAR with your Focus). The only part that doesn't have a clean analogue yet is (as I think I've said in this very thread) the Mystic Arcanum slots, which would need some kind of potent and flashy benefit to them. Perhaps that's where you'd introduce the "Grand Strategies" (pun super intended) that require major prep-work to employ/perform but which can truly turn the tide of a battle when deployed successfully.

For some quick examples...
Leadership Style: Bravura (Cha-based, "high-risk, high-reward" features), Tactical (Int-based, "formations and movement" features), Resourceful (Wis-based, "heads I win, tails you lose" features).
Strategic Focus: Medic (best healer, good support for ally saves, minimal offense), Skirmisher (high mobility for ranged/hit-and-run tactics), Vanguard (aggressive from-the-front support, but weak healing), Knight-Enchanter (blending magic with strategy, weakening enemy saving throws), Sapper (using devices and ambushes), Operative (stealth and deception-based tactics)
Tactics: Hammer and Anvil, Pincer Maneuver, Bait and Switch, Fastball Special, Sword and Spell, etc.

Obviously, as with all class design things, the devil would be in the details. But as the skeleton of a class, the structure actually works shockingly well.

So I find it really annoying to reply to this because your comments to me and to crimson are all mixed together.

Ask and ye shall receive. (Spoilered because it's nothing new, just trimming out the replies to the other poster for you.)

Spoiler: For FrogReaver's Eyes Only!

It's almost like you are trying to argue, "if an EK was supposed to fulfil the concept of Wizard then he wouldn't mechanically do so", which is a sentiment I agree with. But we know that an EK was never supposed to fulfill the concept of Wizard. The Battlemaster was supposed to fulfill the concept of Warlord. That's not the same at all.

So, why does my criticism here of that point not make sense to you?

You keep saying this is what the Battle Master was supposed to do. I reject that argument, both in theory and in practice. I've already covered the practice side, and it seems you care about the other. So: On the theory side, I genuinely do not believe the Battle Master was ever "meant" to be a Warlord. It was, however, pretty clearly meant to capture the feel of a 4e Fighter. (Remember that the "baseline" 4e Fighter was called the Weaponmaster subclass, which is far too similar to be mere coincidence.) When the designers got backed into a corner because it took them forever to settle on the shape the Fighter class should have (seriously, it wasn't until like the final or penultimate document that the Fighter even started to look like it did in the published PHB), they had to resort to what measures were available.

Now, the Purple Dragon Knight/Banneret? That I could at least admit was specifically supposed to be a Warlord--it even uses the word "warlord" in some of its text (e.g. "Banneret serves as the generic name for this archetype if you use it in other campaign settings or to model warlords other than the Purple Dragon Knights.") It is also about as close to "bad" as you can get for a subclass without actually BEING bad--that is, its features are painfully mediocre and limited, and (IMO) don't really deliver on the concept of a warrior who leads others in battle.

The Battle Master is almost purely focused on doing tricksy things with weapons. It's not a Warlord. You can kinda-sorta-ish kludge part of a Warlord out of one, but it was very clearly intended for a different function--or, as I said, it's the EK of Warlords, where it's mostly a Fighter but has some Warlord mechanics stapled to it.

So I think the question we are struggling with is - 'what do we do when a concept in the books have poor mechanical representations. Do we:
1. Create a new class/subclass so that the concept can have better mechanics?
2. Adjust the mechanics of the existing class/subclass so that they are better?
3. Live with the crappy mechanical implementation of the concept?

There are pros and cons to every answer. What I'm not seeing acknowledged are any cons to the 1 approach which is the most advocated approach on this thread.

Well, here's my thoughts.
Option 1, pros: the freedom to add things that are missing, and (for classes specifically) to not be limited by how much power a subclass is allowed to have; ability to tailor the solutions narrowly and specifically to what is needed
Option 1, cons: reduplication of effort/lack of parsimony, more difficult to balance (because, e.g., a character could MC BM/Warlord)
Option 2, pros: Can (in theory) be published as errata, makes the smallest possible changes while still changing something
Option 2, cons: Unlikely to actually be published as errata, unable to create new mechanics or fill holes that already exist
Option 3, pros: Requires zero effort and avoids any controversy about errata or lack of parsimony
Option 3, cons: Fails to address the problem.

Does that meaningfully address your concerns about failing to consider negative aspects of a solution? I do not consider absolute minimalism a virtue in design. Logical parsimony is only virtuous as long as it does, in fact, actually cover everything it's supposed to; remember that Occam's Razor is not "always use fewer entities," it is "entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily." Newton's theory of gravitation is simpler (dramatically so) than Einstein's theory of general relativity, but we use the latter and not the former due to relativity covering more of the facts.

I am arguing, here, that trying to make the Battle Master Fighter cover both the Mighty Thews(/Agile Archer, I guess) AND the Inspiring Captain archetype is leaving both things under-served. That we are not seeing parsimony, but rather deficiency; not frugality, but miserliness.

A wizard limited to level 1 spells is still conceptually a wizard. Scaling can still be a mechanical issue. But it's not a conceptual one. The 4e Warlord is conceptually in 5e, it's mechanics for it are just crap.

Again, I disagree--mostly because the Battle Master, as I argued earlier, is far too personally capable. The Warlord concept is not merely someone who CAN choose to inspire allies. The Warlord concept is someone who NEEDS to coordinate and strategize with allies in order to get things done. Now, this does not mean having NO combat capability without an ally--the Warlord could do some butt-kicking on her own. But it should mean that the best butt-kicking they do is either in direct combination with allies (e.g. Bravura Warlords who give allies risky opportunities), coordinating the whole team's movements to maximally exploit terrain (Tactical Warlords with repositioning, initiative, etc.), or dredging up those hidden reserves we all have but never tap because of self-protection instincts (Resourceful and certain other types of Warlord).

In general, the best thing a Battle Master can do is just attack more. It's going to be pretty rare, for example, for Commander's Strike to actually do better than the BM just attacking again. Distracting Strike isn't...the worst, but is pretty narrow--a chance for a chance for a good thing to happen. Rally is pretty much just bad, since it can't actually heal anyone. (Like...for real, even granting 6d12 healing at level 18 to every party member once per short rest is NOT that powerful, and doing that means you did LITERALLY nothing else special. A Life Cleric can do that easily, except that they can target just the people who need it most, and they still get all their spells on top.) Maneuvering Attack is probably the only "Warlord-type" maneuver that actually does more or less what a Warlord would do.

And...that's literally it. Those exhaust the "Warlord options" for the Battle Master. It's not just a matter of no scaling; it's a matter of you get only four Warlord-like things you can potentially do, and most of them are just not worth doing when you could instead, y'know, just do it yourself. Which is the fundamental problem of the "Fighter-as-Warlord." To be a Fighter, any 5e Fighter, you must be good at kicking butt all by yourself. The Battle Master simply adds a layer of "oh and you can also potentially boost an ally along the way" on top.

 

[ECMO3]

Then you're not playing melee???

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...

This depends entirely on the sitation. Dodge kills a Rogue's SA cold. In a fight against multiple enemies if the monster the Rogue is likely going to attack takes dodge while the rest continue to attack it is generally benificial. This is especially true if you can successfully grapple a Rogue (which can be tough). Do that and then dodge every turn and the Rogue can't SA anyone until he waste's a turn entirely to break the grapple.

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?!

A tank is someone who can soak up attacks. Armor class is a key part of it, probably the most important defining characteristic (just like armor is the defining characteristic of a real Army tank). Part of it is also being able to take damage either through spells and damage reduction (which a wizard can do) or through hps which a fighter can do but which is less effective.

A fighter optimized for combat will not tank as well but will deal A LOT more damage than a wizard tank. A fighter who is not optimized for combat will still deal more damage .... significantly more.

A wizard who tanks can not use offensive spells. Maybe late in the day he can, but if he is thowing fireballs at 9AM he is going to die before bedtime rolls around becuse he will run out of spell slots. The formula is simple and the wizard trades spell slots for hps, either directly at 5hp per slot or indirectly through shield and absorb elements. You start also using those slots for things other than defensive spells and you will run out.

 

[ECMO3]

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.

A Rogue can be good at two pillars and ok at combat but he is not usually going to actually be good at all of them.

A Rogue will never be real good at combat unless he really focuses on that and the other areas will suffer, most of all stealth because it will usually necessitate medium armor. Without medium armor or multiclassing the combat ceiling for Rogue is pretty limited.