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

[pemerton]

I guess, for some people, if you perform the same rule-required action (e.g. "make an attack roll"), then "ultimately" whatever you're doing MUST be the same, no matter how different the details may be. Having a unified mechanic = having only one action, or something.

See what I posted above: this is an orientation towards RPGing that is oriented towards mechanical processes rather than shared fiction.

 

[Steampunkette]

/shrug Sounds like D&D.

Oh, it's D&D. Just a fairly samey version.

Now 2e. THAT had vastly different mechanics for combat between spellcasters, fighters, and psionics... Too far, if you ask me. There needs to be some similarity, for sure. But enough space for daylight.

@EzekielRaiden mostly replied to this.

I'd add two things.

(1) Fighters (and other warrior classes) have had multiple attacks since at least AD&D (attack one foe per level if the foes have less than 1 HD). A 4e fighter's close burst weapon attack vs all opponents the character can see is no different in the sort of fiction it produces. (It's mechanically a bit more straightforward, because expressed in a standard mechanical lexicon.)

(2) I think this post shows how 4e is written for people who engage RPGing via fiction rather than mechanics and rules text. Thus the differentiation between a fighter and wizard in 4e is not a matter of how the rules text is written and what the mechanics are; the difference is between the fiction that results from the play of one or the other (eg fighters threaten and cut down adjacent foes using their melee weapons; wizards call down magical energy in the form of fire, acid, cold, etc).

Pemerton, I can run a "D&D" game completely theatre of the mind with no dice rolls purely through storytelling. I've done it more than a few times when myself and my players didn't have access to dice or books or maps or tokens. It won't -be- D&D of any edition, however, because D&D is both the fiction -and- the mechanics.

When you're discussing the mechanical differences between editions and how they generate a feeling of sameyness saying "I guess you're just not one of the people that engages fiction rather than rules" just comes off as both missing the point and insulting.

What system is this?

Again, to me this seems to be identifying the play of a RPG with the technical mechanical minutiae, rather than the process of establishing the fiction and what that fiction consists in. I get that for videogames - there is no shared fiction in a videogame - but 4e was designed, I think, for people who enjoy what is distinctive about RPGing compared to videogames, namely, the shared fiction. Which is very different if it is fighter rather than a wizard that is involved in combat.

Which didn't stop you from doubling down on it...

You know, though. You're right! I was wrong about it being an interchangeable stat modifier. Must've been thinking of one of the other game systems I've played.

Instead, 4e has Level based Skill Checks! Where a level 10 character with an 8 strength score has a better chance of lifting the gate than a level 1 character with a 16 strength score!

Which I don't particularly like, but that's not about Sameyness so much as their particular choice in leveling mechanics. So fair play to you on correcting me about that one!

At the end of the day I didn't like 4e. I felt the gameplay lacked granularity and distinction. You don't have to agree with my reasons, but stop trying to convince me I'm wrong or place yourself into a position of intellectual superiority because you do like it.

 

[Asisreo]

It is worth noting here that there's an important rationale behind specifically making all offensive actions attack rolls: it makes playing a support character much easier. Instead of having to balance both an accuracy buff AND an ally-save-DC-buff, you only have to balance one thing, attack roll bonuses. This means (for example) the 4e Warlord doesn't have to have long-winded features or multiple distinct mechanics in order to play nicely with both a Ranger and a Sorcerer, despite the former having (mostly) non-magical attack powers and the latter having very explicitly magical attack powers.

This is a very astute observation and I haven't considered it before, but having this does mean that bonuses like Advantage, extra damage on hit, and riders are just quicker to resolve and less difficult to compute. Its also a bit less powerful, which helps with balance (yes, interparty balance as well).

 

[Manbearcat]

See what I posted above: this is an orientation towards RPGing that is oriented towards mechanical processes rather than shared fiction.

I think there is also some sort of Rorschach Test about being able to observe and orient one's self to pretty significantly differentiated relationships to control over the gamestate.

I mean, the suite of mechanical and thematic abilities of the 4e Fighter contains a moveset and and an attendant aesthetic, be it combat resolution or non-combat conflict resolution, that looks_and_feels_nothing_like_the Wizard in actual play.

They're orientated to various gamestates differently and their capabilities of interacting with and controlling those various gamestates are different.

Its only if you silo each discrete part away can you detect "sameyness" (hey, the Fighter and Wizard powers are formatted the same...hey AEDU unifies all recharge rates...hey its all attack rolls vs defense...THIS IS THE SAME!). The moment you integrate the whole thing and actually play? There is no sameyness whatsoever. That is why I associate this critique more with someone who looked at the format/rules and reflexively hated the game vs someone who actually played the game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Except Fighters and Barbarians also had area of effect attacks.

Fighters and barbarians did not have fireballs. If you dislike the ability of fighters to attack people surrounding them then the whirlwind attack of 3.X must have been a problem. But I can not think of one single ranged area of attack power for the fighter.

I have problems not seeing this as 100% spellcaster jealousy that other classes get toys at all rather than the casters getting to hoard the toys.

And since an enemy target's saving throws were static, everyone rolled what was essentially an attack roll whether they targeted AC or Saves because they were all "Defenses". Very samey.

So samey to you is "because I'm the wizard they roll a save rather than I roll an attack roll".

To me samey is more in how you interact with the fiction than who gets to pick up the dice. In terms of how you interact with the fiction "I hit it" is extremely samey - and is no more different from a fireball based on who's rolling.

I'm certain that you think so. I'm not certain -how- you came to that conclusion when I'm referring to unique mechanics making up the majority of a class's features and everyone having a similar baseline ability...

Because historically (i.e. pre-4e) there have been just about no features for many classes other than spells. If we look at classes then the 3.5 sorcerer and cleric between them do not get one single class feature at above level 1. The wizard and fighter between them only get extra feats as class features at above level 1 - which are hardly unique mechanics because literally everyone gets feats. That's three of the core four classes not getting any unique mechanics other than spells after level 1. (And for that matter having very few unique mechanics at level 1).

4e made an end to the cookie cutter classes that had gone before. The fighter started off with the equivalent of about four unique feats (some pretty high level in 3.X) in order to be so dangerous that enemies couldn't take their eyes off them even if the barbarian hit harder. The wizard and the sorcerer were no longer sharing a spell list with each other.

And even within a class two fighters would move differently. You could have slippery fighters, aggressive fighters that pushed people around, and fighters that would stay there like rocks.

5e fortunately takes some (but not all) of the richness added by 4e.

But you clearly do. You've jumped to a strange conclusion where different types of casters cannot have different kinds of spell lists in such a system, but allow me to assure you that there is nothing stopping them from having separate Divine, Primal, Occult, and Arcane spell lists! Or even specifically class-based spell lists that are separate.

But all that differs between them is the spells. And far more unforgivably two wizards that swap spellbooks are pretty much interchangeable and even moreso two clerics or two druids that prepare other spells one day. The only mechanical difference is what they've bothered to prepare.

Now -that- isn't D&D. D&D is heroic fantasy where people take multiple sword strikes and limp away to either recover in the arms of their lover or vow vengeance for the next time they meet the Hero.

The only versions of D&D that do that are 4e and 5e. In all other editions the difference between fully active and dead is so narrow that this gameplay can only happen despite the system. D&D was originally intended to be a gritty game about people grubbing around for hard cash with 1XP for each GP and where you went into the dungeon mob handed so some of you made it out alive. In 3.5 you died at a mere -10hp (which was a hell of a lot slacker than 0hp in the earliest editions). There's almost no room between being fit as a fiddle and being dead as a doornail.

4e was the first D&D to be able to do without a massive amount of fudging what you claim D&D is - and oD&D was almost the literal opposite of what you claim that D&D is.

And on the flip side of the coin... it makes it that much impactful when magic -does- swiftly kill someone.

Once more you are defining fighters by what they can't do. To you a fighter is someone who can neither attack an area or kill someone fast and you're explicitly making it that Magic Must Be Special. It isn't just that it's magic and can break the laws of physics that makes it special. It's that it must be able to do the things that in the real world we can do with normal equipment so anything mundane that would work must be nerfed to keep magic as special. I know of no one who's died swiftly in the real world to magic - but plenty of people have to swords. So I suppose it does make magic more impactful to replace swords with boffer swords.

There's nothing wrong with playing Mage: the Ascension, Invisible Sun, Ars Magica where mages are just better than everyone else and magic does solve most things. But all three games have one thing in common: they don't try to present mundane characters as on a level with mages. D&D does.

(Though in the future I'll make lots of use of the Doomed state for killing magics both to give players time to cast Regen or Say their Goodbyes)

But hey, you go ahead and write up a game where 1 Crit kills a player instantly but magic cannot and I'll still probably play it.

I certainly won't go round killing players!

 

[Vaalingrade]

So 'samey' is 'unified mechanic'.

D20 - Roll high is also samey.

Good to know.

 

[Steampunkette]

You're correct that 4e makes it so spells use attack rolls. But 5e also includes spells that involve attack rolls, lots of them actually. Everything from cantrips (fire bolt) to banishment effects (plane shift, used as a banishment, requires a ranged spell attack). According to 5e.tools, 34 spells currently include some component that involves a melee or ranged spell attack. (14 melee, 20 ranged.) And, as noted, there's at least one non-caster means by which one may attack multiple foes, such as the Sweeping Attack maneuver (available to anyone with a feat), and numerous maneuvers and non-spell effects call for saving throws. I don't understand why 5e is "not samey," when spells and attacks can do either thing (attack rolls, saving throws).

It is worth noting here that there's an important rationale behind specifically making all offensive actions attack rolls: it makes playing a support character much easier. Instead of having to balance both an accuracy buff AND an ally-save-DC-buff, you only have to balance one thing, attack roll bonuses. This means (for example) the 4e Warlord doesn't have to have long-winded features or multiple distinct mechanics in order to play nicely with both a Ranger and a Sorcerer, despite the former having (mostly) non-magical attack powers and the latter having very explicitly magical attack powers.

Your other points, here, are...uh, just wrong? Like I'm really confused how you got to those ideas, because they just aren't true.

There aren't 10 templates of powers. Powers run the gamut of all sorts of things: they include keywords (which, officially, only the DM is allowed to alter--but they did support DMs doing so to help make a player's character more thematic, just as 5e does), but you could have Effects (stuff that Just Happens when you use the power) or not, could cause secondary or even tertiary attacks/effects, and could (often did) have riders that hook into other class features. Just as, in 5e, every spell has a specific format--level, school, casting time, range, components etc.--even if it doesn't necessarily need all of those parts, exactly the same thing applies to 4e powers, there's a format and you use whatever parts of it are needed to achieve the power's effect. Like, if your standard is that there's only a few templates that then get tweaked, 5e is worse, because spells have ONE template! It is literally almost never the case that two powers for the same class in 4e work perfectly identically; you do sometimes get two powers that work identically across two different classes, but that's not particularly common due to rider effects.

And...I don't even know what you're talking about with the "Strength and Intelligence are interchangeable for the task" thing, because...that's literally just false. Flat out. There were some ways, by layering together various benefits, that you could substitute Arcana checks for several other kinds of checks, but I've never heard of any way to substitute Intelligence for Strength when making an Athletics roll. If anything, 5e is the one that you should be leveling this criticism at, because it actually includes official rules options for substituting different stats with a given skill!

Like, if you just don't like the idea that spells and attacks use a common resolution mechanic, that's fine. But don't say things that are...simply, demonstrably untrue in the process.

Wow. That's... Huh.

So... First things first: That's 24 spells out of, like, 300. As compared to -all- 4e Combat spells just being an attack roll against a different type of Armor Class. Oh, I know they were "Fortitude, Reflex, Will" but it was just another target number for the wizard to roll against instead of AC. It's almost like 5e utilizes a -variety- of different methods, even within the same class, rather than making everything the -same-. Wild.

Making the game easier to balance may seem important, but it's a bad reason to cut out granularity. Which is what I was getting at in the part you drastically misunderstood.

No. 4e didn't have 10 spell templates and all spells followed them. The videogame I was referencing however does. Because I was making an Analogy of the "Fighters don't do Fire damage!" thing. Yeah. Fighters don't do fire damage. Neither does an Ice Focused Spellmaster. But if the mechanics for Fire and Physical and Ice and Lightning are the same (Or drastically similar) does it actually -matter- in terms of the playspace?

And the answer is a resounding "No". It's why people who complain about 5e doing a bunch of fire spells and then just kinda half-assing it on the rest of the elements with the option to "Flavor Spells" as whatever damage type you like have ground to stand on.

Burning Hands as an Ice spell still lights flammable objects in the area on Fire. It doesn't light them on Ice. Because changing the Keyword doesn't actually mean a whole heck of a lot. The DM can of course rule that an Icy Burning Hands doesn't light things on fire, but it's still just changing the keyword without actually, y'know, having a different ice-based spell with it's own unique and interesting effects.

Anyway... yeah. I'm done arguing about this. You like 4e? Great! I didn't. You're not going to retroactively convince me that it was great.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Instead, 4e has Level based Skill Checks! Where a level 10 character with an 8 strength score has a better chance of lifting the gate than a level 1 character with a 16 strength score!

Page 42 (where the ad-hoc DCs this complaint was born from) is about ad-hoc DCs assigned for tasks outside the rules. They're used to design level-appropriate Skill Challenges. There are static DCs in the Skills section and in areas like Trap and Hazard write-ups.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No. 4e didn't have 10 spell templates and all spells followed them. The videogame I was referencing however does. Because I was making an Analogy of the "Fighters don't do Fire damage!" thing.

It was a terrible analogy brooked on the TTRPG nerd triggering 'vidah games is ebil' dreck.

 

[pemerton]

Oh, it's D&D. Just a fairly samey version.

Now 2e. THAT had vastly different mechanics for combat between spellcasters, fighters, and psionics... Too far, if you ask me. There needs to be some similarity, for sure. But enough space for daylight.

Pemerton, I can run a "D&D" game completely theatre of the mind with no dice rolls purely through storytelling. I've done it more than a few times when myself and my players didn't have access to dice or books or maps or tokens. It won't -be- D&D of any edition, however, because D&D is both the fiction -and- the mechanics.

When you're discussing the mechanical differences between editions and how they generate a feeling of sameyness saying "I guess you're just not one of the people that engages fiction rather than rules" just comes off as both missing the point and insulting.

<snip>

I didn't like 4e. I felt the gameplay lacked granularity and distinction.

If you're engaging the fiction, then why would two characters feel "samey" just because the resolution process is the same?

Even in the context of D&D, I find it a very strange assertion - in AD&D forcing a normal door is rolled on a d6, whereas bending bars is rolled on a d%, but I've never heard anyone say that this made them feel different as feats of strength. And nor have I ever heard it said that thieving abilities all feel the same, or all feel like bending bars, because they're rolled on percentage dice.

In any event, as I posted already for me mechanics in a RPG are a way of settling what the shared fiction is - which is where the granularity and distinction are to be found. The mechanics are not ends in themselves!

4e has Level based Skill Checks! Where a level 10 character with an 8 strength score has a better chance of lifting the gate than a level 1 character with a 16 strength score!

This is also not correct. The DC-by-level chart takes it as a premise that a 10th level character is doing something different from a 1st level character. This is expressed in the discussion (found in both the PHB and the DMG) of the Tiers of Play.