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

[Undrave]

I sincerely appreciate the heads up but I'm aware! That had to have been an autocorrect by my stupid phone. I use that term routinely when I'm discussing this issue (you can find the normal usage if you search my prior posts...and I'm certain I've posted prior usages via phone...so that is an interesting thing). I guess my dumb phone figured it was going to get sassy (you'll see all sorts of deranged stuff like this when I post by phone...the IPhone autorcorrect functionality has 100 % not only gotten more dim in the last 3-4 years, its actively hostile to functional communication at this point!).

Augh I know... The autocorrect on this computer keeps putting the british spelling of armor automatically and its often a fight to get it to state weird geeky words.

 

[Undrave]

This doesn't convince me as I think there are already too many caster classes resulting them being thematically confused and strained. When you add an new class, it also limits what other classes can be. When barbarian added, then by definition fighter no longer could be that, when sorcerer was added then that narrowed the definition of wizard and when warlock added that narrowed the definition of the sorcerer. And if we define fighter to be a trained soldier, then warlord definitely should be a subclass of the fighter; they're a trained soldier with command training. A soldier should be able to rise through ranks to become a general without having to switch classes.

I wasn't specifically talking about the Warlord here, btw, just that I think the Fighter is way too often used for the 'don't fit anywhere else' characters... He's basically the 'default' class for anything.

But I know you would prefer way less class while I would prefer more so it's not something we can agree on and that's fine. More or less class is really up to taste and there is value in both style.

But maybe we can agree that the designers seem to have way easier a time splintering off casters than they do with more mundane/martial characters?

 

[FrogReaver]

I think the argument is that they've crammed way too many concepts into the Fighter class. If the Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer and Warlock can all be separate class, there is no reason that every single 'guy with a sword' trope has to fit neatly into Fighter (or Fighter, Rogue and Barbarian). I've come up with 8 subclasses for my Warlord and I'm an amateur designer. Somehow the former trained soldier and the Chosen One who just picked up a sword are the same thing at level 1? Why should that be the case? I think the Fighter would benefit from being defined by its more formal training (compared to a wilder Barbarian and an underhanded Rogue) and another class could pick up the slack of the nobody.

To me this screams simulationism - where every conceivable concept must be implemented mechanically differently.

I don’t think the concept of fighting man needs implemented differently depending on the fighting man character you are describing.

I do think there are some fighting man and X combos that a fighting man only chassis doesn’t implement well. The problem is that by adding those you ultimately up diluting the fighting man class even more toward only fighting man.

take for example your warlord. I agree that 5e fighter doesn’t make a particularly good leader/warlord. But by creating the warlord class you’ve further pushed the fighter into only being a fighting man. He no longer can serve the concept of martial leader as another class now fits that role better.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But maybe we can agree that the designers seem to have way easier a time splintering off casters than they do with more mundane/martial characters?

Yes, sure. Also, 'just add magic' is used as a solution too often.

 

[Maxperson]

I figured this was the default. The adventure is the ultra-interesting day of high-stakes where you'll be fighting more than a handful of creatures per day because that's what adventure entails.

Then, we have downtime which is much more gentle and spans months, years, decades, or even millenia so that the next "disaster" isn't just your "disaster of the week."

We don't do disaster of the week adventuring for the most part. Usually there's a large overarching story that unfolds, beginning at levels 1-3 and finishing at 17-20. It's harder to put in those time delays in that sort of campaign, but not impossible. I just keep forgetting to actually put it into practice.

 

[FrogReaver]

This doesn't convince me as I think there are already too many caster classes resulting them being thematically confused and strained. When you add an new class, it also limits what other classes can be. When barbarian added, then by definition fighter no longer could be that, when sorcerer was added then that narrowed the definition of wizard and when warlock added that narrowed the definition of the sorcerer. And if we define fighter to be a trained soldier, then warlord definitely should be a subclass of the fighter; they're a soldier with command training. A soldier should be able to rise through the ranks to become a general without having to switch classes.

To be fair - sorcerer that casts without study is an entirely different concept than the d&d wizard. No spell book is a pretty big difference IMO.

but describing a fighter as raging In battle does tend to work well for the barbarian concept. Give a damage bonus when wearing medium armor if you want to push the medium armored barbarian depiction. That’s pretty much all you need.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

To be fair - sorcerer that casts without study is an entirely different concept than the d&d wizard. No spell book is a pretty big difference IMO.

Sure. But a sorcerer being imbued by the power of a great magical being because their parentage and warlock being imbued by the power of a great magical being because of a pact are basically the same thing.

If you combine warlock and sorcerer, the distinction becomes thematically clear: wizard is a learned spellcaster who uses skill and knowledge, warlock is a caster imbued with innate magical power that uses intuitive understanding of sorcery. And in this paradigm a creepy occultists that studies maleficent spells from forbidden books is still a wizard.

 

[Undrave]

To me this screams simulationism - where every conceivable concept must be implemented mechanically differently.

I don’t think the concept of fighting man needs implemented differently depending on the fighting man character you are describing.

I do think there are some fighting man and X combos that a fighting man only chassis doesn’t implement well. The problem is that by adding those you ultimately up diluting the fighting man class even more toward only fighting man.

take for example your warlord. I agree that 5e fighter doesn’t make a particularly good leader/warlord. But by creating the warlord class you’ve further pushed the fighter into only being a fighting man. He no longer can serve the concept of martial leader as another class now fits that role better.

I have no doubt you could build a Fighter class that could do Warlord stuff well... I just don't think the CURRENT Fighter we got can. If we were to talk about a new edition, I wouldn't be opposed to folding the Fighter and Warlord together, provided you got enough customization to make it work... but if we want to add more Warlords 5e, I think a new class is more likely to work out. The Battlemaster and Banneret are just multi-class subclass in my mind.

 

[Asisreo]

If you want a bodyguard, hire an NPC.

I don't want to hire the bodyguard. I want to be the bodyguard!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

BTW, there are good 'generic castery' subclasses for both fighter and rogue, but I want to see the same in return; i.e. martial subclasses for casters. Sure, there's a Hexblade which is an awkward patch for blade pact, and there's weirdly specifically bardy Bladesinger, but want a proper battlemage and a roguey wizard. Battlemage would be a wizard subclass who could wear some armour, use weapons decently and perhaps have some tricks to combine casting with chopping. Not a proper fighter by any means, but enough that they could hold their own in a scrap.* Then there would be the Lore Raider, an indianajonesy wizard subclass who has rogueish qualities. A bit better in fight than a standard wizard, though not much, but would be great at disarming traps, climbing, jumping around and other such adventurey stuff.

(*They need to be good enough at chopping that they can do that instead of casting cantrips and be effective.)