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

[Minigiant]

Scholar is a background.

No. Sage is a background.

Most scholars are not adventurers. If they were, they would need to have some sort of other skills, be it fighting or magic. Adventuring scholar is a character of any class with appropriate skills.

Most fighters, rogues, clerics, and wizards are adventurers either.

Yes, a scholar would be trained to fight. Just not at level as a samurai or evoker.

Leonardo was not an adventurer and a fantasy Leonardo would have absolutely been an artificer. The guy was one of the greatest geniuses who have ever lived and dabbled in everything. If he had lived in a world where magic was learnable by studying, he would have absolutely done so. And same with Holmes, fantasy Holmes might be a divination wizard. Though if you wanted to do a non-magical version, there literally is a rogue subclass called 'inquisitive' for that.

Again, the things you want are not classes, and are already doable in the game. And were they classes it would limit what the other classes can be, Now you can be a scholarly fighter or a rogue, but were scholar a separate class this wouldn't really be the case any more.

Holmes not a wizard or rogue. Leonardo would not be a artificer.

Many complain about grid filling in 4e but D&D fans often force concepts into existing classes. Rather than trying to contort concepts into existing classes, these lost skilled concepts shoulld have their own class.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And the same is true in 4e. We still have a running joke between a friend and myself that it doesn't matter what class either one of us plays, she ends up as a striker and I end up as a controller. Complete with one notorious game where she was literally playing a controller (Wrath Invoker) and I was a Striker (Fey Warlock) and she was significantly outdamaging me - but I was locking the boss monsters down and handing out things like -5 to hit on all their attacks or making the entire party invisible to them making the DM tear his hair out.

4e certainly did not prevent some barbarians being incredibly tough (which doesn't reach the bar for "defendery" in 4e, but never mind) and others focusing on all out damage. And given the greater degree of customisation in 4e there was, in my experience, more scope to do this than there is in 5e with the single exception that the Sentinel feat allows any melee combatant into the defender realms. Indeed it was made explicit to anyone who opened the rulebook that classes had a secondary role generally related to the power source, so martials were secondary striker, arcanists were secondary controller, divine characters were secondary leader no matter their primary role. It was also made explicit that there were subclasses - and those subclasses let you lean in a secondary direction, so a great weapon fighter was far more strikery - and a brawler fighter with their grabs was more controllery. Or a Thaneborn barbarian was more leadery and the stormborn more controllery.

So 4e does exactly what you are saying you want and is pretty good at it. And I'm sure even you will agree that there's very little that can make a barbarian a controller or a wizard a defender (OK, maybe the bladesinger being significantly OP might...) Other than the complete watering down of the defender role and exiling Sentinel to a feat the roles are still there.

If 4e had been customisable like you claim, it wouldn't have needed to invent things like avenger (striker paladin), invoker (controller cleric) and slayer (striker fighter) whatever warden was and have a bunch of differnt psion classes. And yeah, the existence of explicit defender mechanics (marking etc) mean that if you didn't have them you couldn't really fulfil that role like the game expected. The striker of course was the easiest role to hybridise in, as anyone can do some damage, though the extra damage features that the strikers had seemed often tagged on and gamey. "This is a striker, so they gotta have this, make up some vague justification."

What 4e making expected roles explicit did was two things:

1. It focused the minds of the designers into thinking what the classes should be good at so we didn't end up with any flaily useless messes like any of the versions of the 3.X monk, or even the 3.X sorcerer. (OK, if you dig deep enough into 4e there's arguably the Binder and both assassins - but then even 5e has the PHB Ranger)

Designers thinking what the class actually can contribute to the game is obviously a good thing, but boxing themselves by some artificial gamey 'role' is a bad thing. IMO, this should not be starting point in a RPG, the classes should be evocative archetypes and focus on the design should be on creating mechanics that evoke those themes and contribute to the game in ways that support that.

1. It provided guidance to the player in what to expect from the class and how you were supposed to play them. Veteterans wouldn't need the guidance, but new players could see the roles and realise that the barbarian outdamaging their fighter was because the fighter was supposed to have other stuff they did.

Again, this makes the player feel that if they don't want to focus on the thing the class is 'supposed' to do they're doing it wrong, and mechanically they probably end up fighting against the system if they want to do something else. Again, this is not some tactical tabletop miniature game, this is an RPG where you're supposed to create a fantasy character that can do variety of things and and not just fulfil some mechanical combat role.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Do you have some examples of "fluff-thin grid-filler classes"?

Like I said in previous post: avenger (striker paladin), invoker (controller cleric) and slayer (striker fighter), the whole bunch of psion classes and the warden. Those off the top of my head.

 

[Asisreo]

Such as a paladin, a bard, and a sorcerer. Real helpful there

So you didn't see my suggestions on the expansion of rest mechanics, resistance/vulnerability manipulation, and certain shouts that reposition? That's alright.

Anyways, while we're brainstorming, I wanted to note that I actually think removing one of those 3 systems to have a system similar to the system that Undrave created is a good idea for complex manuever-like abilities.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't think that's the direction I would personally prefer to take it in, but yeah, nothing wrong with going that direction.

Same. Though the Scholar does have most of the features you'd expect a scholar to have in 5e like Cunning Action and Reliable Talent..

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes. It was the irritating Essentials archer that because it was a "controller" didn't do enough damage and because controller was the least defined role was probably worse at being a controller than a classic rogue.

Right, and that's another issue with these roles. If the class is labelled to be a certain thing, you expect it to be roughly equally good at it than other classes labelled as the same thing. But perhaps it conceptually just doesn't make sense for them to be? Why cant they be a hybrid? A bit of controller a bit of striker, not quite as good at either than a pure build, but can do both OK? And this of course should be solved by introducing hybrid roles for all the possible combinations and continue the grid filling as that would lead to insane amount of new classes. These roles can and are things characters may specialise at, but that should not be basis of class design, it is far too limiting for that. Having 'a defender build' is fine, having a defender class is not.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Ya know, I think all of these arguments on grid filler classes have really changed my mind.

While we're at it, there's too much fluff in 5e too:

Barbarian? That's just an angry fighter.
Bard? Just a Cha rogue (maybe multiclassing wizard).
Cleric can stay (though we could just make this a wizard that thinks their power comes from the heavens)
Druid? Clearly a nature cleric! I mean, there's already a nature cleric in the darn PHB! This class might be the worst offender of all!!!
Fighter can stay
Paladin? Just a fighter with cleric levels (though if we go the route of making clerics wizards, they'd be wizard levels, obviously)
Ranger? Just a fighter with nature cleric levels
Rogue can arguably stay, though there's a fair argument for just making a stealthy fighter instead
Sorcerer? Obviously just a wizard with fluff.
Warlock? Same as sorcerer
Wizard can stay

There we go. Stripped of all the filler fluff, the game is clearly better off using only the fighter and wizard classes. (I guess we can include the rogue and cleric if you really can't live without filler fluff, I guess.)

 

[Minigiant]

Right, and that's another issue with these roles. If the class is labelled to be a certain thing, you expect it to be roughly equally good at it than other classes labelled as the same thing. But perhaps it conceptually just doesn't make sense for them to be? Why cant they be a hybrid? A bit of controller a bit of striker, not quite as good at either than a pure build, but can do both OK? And this of course should be solved by introducing hybrid roles for all the possible combinations and continue the grid filling as that would lead to insane amount of new classes. These roles can and are things characters may specialise at, but that should not be basis of class design, it is far too limiting for that. Having 'a defender build' is fine, having a defender class is not.

The 4e designers fell into the same traps the 5e are doing now. One that many D&D DMs, publishers, and homebrewers fall into as well.

They design a system and:

1. Get mentally locked into that system.
2. Don't look at the different aspects of the system equally
3. Refuse to acknowledge things conceptually outside of the system

It usually takes 5 years for them to take off the blinders.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If 4e had been customisable like you claim, it wouldn't have needed to invent things like avenger (striker paladin), Invoker (controller cleric) and slayer (striker fighter) whatever warden was and have a bunch of differnt psion classes.

OK:

• The Avenger was a striker ninja paladin with two handed weapons. It does not exist in 5e.
• It's possible to play something like an Invoker in 5e. But not very well. Your closest would be whatever the divine sorcerer calls itself.
• The slayer was a matter of having a new class to cut down the complexity. The point about the slayer is that some people like to play the simple hitty fighter - and compared to a slayer even a Champion is fiddly. This was a crunch implementation not a fluff thing.
• Warden was not necessary - but neither is playing D&D. The Oath of Ancients paladin is a watered down warden; once more you are pointing to something 5e can't do at all well even if it can do them at all.
• Psionics aren't IMO necessary (which isn't the same as aren't desirable). But you can't play a battlemind or an ardent in 5e if you assume there's value to psionics being different - and most psion fans react with horror to the idea that an Aberrant Soul covers almost everything they say they want out of a psion.

So. You are pointing to a list of things that 5e either does very badly or can't do at all. Somehow you are using this to claim that 4e is less customisable than 5e????

Meanwhile where's my bully fighter that routinely pushes people around the battlefield and cuts through into the heart of them to attack everyone around him? Where's my brawler fighter who grabs people with opportunity attacks?

5e in terms of customisability vs overhead is excellent. In terms of total customisability it's sitting certainly behind 4e and 3.5 and probably even behind 3.0. Mostly because we've only had two major splatbooks for 5e. In terms of customisability within the class then 4e let you set things like how you move and you could show in ways you simply can't in 5e.

And yeah, the existence of explicit defender mechanics (marking etc) mean that if you didn't have them you couldn't really fulfil that role like the game expected.

Meanwhile in 5e you simply can't fulfil that role without the relevant feat regardless of class. And I've off-tanked enough in 4e to know you can hold the line and make enemies focus on you even if you can't go full lockdown in a way that's impossible in 5e.

Again, this makes the player feel that if they don't want to focus on the thing the class is 'supposed' to do they're doing it wrong,

Or it makes them think that they are outsmarting the designers and having fun with the system. YMMV

Again, this is not some tactical tabletop miniature game, this is an RPG where you're supposed to create a fantasy character that can do variety of things and and not just fulfil some mechanical combat role.

And in 4e you could and did.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Holmes not a wizard or rogue. Leonardo would not be a artificer.

But it is a fantasy world. You can't just take a character from another context and plug it in without taking in account how the environment would affect the character. In D&D magic is a learnable skill. There is no bloody way that in world where this is the case Leonardo da Vinci wouldn't master magic. And in fantasy world technology and magic are intertwined, in a world where magic is real scientist will study magic as that is part of 'physics of that world.' Also I feel Holmes is pretty decently represented by rogue. Disguises, can sneak, can fight, can do sleight of hand, obviously knows all sort of criminal stuff. Yes, if he wanted, he obviously would be a master thief. Yeah, rogue seems right.

Many complain about grid filling in 4e but D&D fans often force concepts into existing classes. Rather than trying to contort concepts into existing classes, these lost skilled concepts shoulld have their own class.

In theory I can see the purpose of some sort of 'expert class' but I feel there probably wouldn't be enough meat to it unless you stared to invent super gamey skill powers and such. And once you start to add those, they will seriously limit what other characters can conceptually be. Now all it takes is one expertise to be master of a skill, but if you have a class that has a bunch of 'lore power' that let's them do far more impressive knowledge related and research based tasks than the mere skill would, you've raised the bar to what it means to be an expert in a skill. In comparison your skill expert fighter will seem like a dum-dum.