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

[Neonchameleon]

so level one is just you completed basic training for everyone?

In oD&D and AD&D a level 1 fighter was explicitly a veteran.

That said sorcerers and warlocks can easily be entirely inexperienced at level 1. But few other classes.

 

[Undrave]

Thanks. It took me a fair while (and some conversations with other fans) to see it myself, but it was definitely a revelation.

I realized pretty quickly as I started work on my Warlord class and tried to make them play nice with spell casters. It's haaaaard

Yep. These days, I think that fantasy is better-served by the Warlord (and yeah, I still think it deserves its own class), whereas the Fighter should get Deeds of Might and Guile that allow focused deviations from what is normally possible, because if you've made it to 10th level (or whatever) as a Fighter, you've stood toe-to-toe with dragons or beholders or the like and survived. Whether by luck, superhuman grit, superlative skill, or sheer blind tenacity, you've survived stuff that should've killed greater men and women. By your very existence, you defy the rules of what should be possible.

Yes! Fighters are extraordinary!

(Of course there's a bunch of other things I'd do if I had the ability to write D&D 5.5: 40th Anniversary Edition, like making Rangers and Paladins spell-less and giving Rogues and Barbarians more nice things. But that's going way into the weeds of dreamland.)

I dunno, I think the Rogue is pretty darn great as it is.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

maybe not even that but yes. Sometime between 2nd & 3rd when fighter picks an archetype they can probably be considered to have their MOS & over time grow from there with it.

Well, technically speaking the books explicitly say it's the other way around, that there are LOTS of town guardsmen and even city watch and soldiers....who are not Fighters. Only an elite group among them actually rises to the level of Fighter.

Looks like I was ninja'd by Undrave, so I'll add the quotation from the books here: "Not every member of the city watch, the village militia, or the queen's army is a fighter. Most of these troops are relatively untrained soldiers with only the most basic combat knowledge. Veteran soldiers, military officers, trained bodyguards, dedicated knights, and similar figures are fighters."

5e at least wants us to think that being even a first-level Fighter is a Big Deal, on the level of being a magic academy graduate.

 

[Flamestrike]

It's not arbitrary. Each attack roll at the table corresponds to a meaningful attempt by the character in the fiction to defeat the ogre. This is spelled out in the Basic PDF (pp 69, 71-72):

On your turn, you can move a distance up to your speed and take one action. . . .​

​

The most common action to take in combat is the Attack action, whether you are swinging a sword, firing an arrow from a bow, or brawling with your fists.​

​

With this action, you make one melee or ranged attack. . . .​

​

Whether you’re striking with a melee weapon, firing a weapon at range, or making an attack roll as part of a spell, an attack has a simple structure.​

The point becomes even more evident if we imagine the fighter attempting to kill an ogre with an arrow rather than a sword.

youre wrong and for reasons Ive already explained.

 

[Yaarel]

so level one is just you completed basic training for everyone?

Level 0 ≈ highschool (or its equivalent)
Level 1 ≈ college (or its equivalent)

 

[tetrasodium]

Well, technically speaking the books explicitly say it's the other way around, that there are LOTS of town guardsmen and even city watch and soldiers....who are not Fighters. Only an elite group among them actually rises to the level of Fighter.

Looks like I was ninja'd by Undrave, so I'll add the quotation from the books here: "Not every member of the city watch, the village militia, or the queen's army is a fighter. Most of these troops are relatively untrained soldiers with only the most basic combat knowledge. Veteran soldiers, military officers, trained bodyguards, dedicated knights, and similar figures are fighters."

5e at least wants us to think that being even a first-level Fighter is a Big Deal, on the level of being a magic academy graduate.

completing basic training & getting an MOS are different things

wrt your city watch/village militia/etc stuff, the same applies to police & security guards

 

[Neonchameleon]

youre wrong and for reasons Ive already explained.

Now try and do it with an arrow through the ogre's eye.

 

[Neonchameleon]

youre wrong and for reasons Ive already explained.

In fact I'm going to double down and say you've only underlined and emphasised the problem.

By your interpretation of hit points it is literally 100% impossible for a fighter to be able to significantly hurt an ogre without skirmishing with it first. A real fighter with a decent weapon should always be threatening an ogre's life and be able to take them down on the first exchange. Ogres after all aren't that powerful.

If you reach the second round of attacks against someone you didn't one-shot them.

 

[Mort]

In fact I'm going to double down and say you've only underlined and emphasised the problem.

By your interpretation of hit points it is literally 100% impossible for a fighter to be able to significantly hurt an ogre without skirmishing with it first. A real fighter with a decent weapon should always be threatening an ogre's life and be able to take them down on the first exchange. Ogres after all aren't that powerful.

If you reach the second round of attacks against someone you didn't one-shot them.

Yet another thing 4e got right - mooks. I realize some people hated them - but they could really add dimension to combats.

I've used them for 5e and they work well in it too.

Sorry, I get that's not what your post is addressing but that's where my mind went reading it.

 

[Mort]

In fact I'm going to double down and say you've only underlined and emphasised the problem.

By your interpretation of hit points it is literally 100% impossible for a fighter to be able to significantly hurt an ogre without skirmishing with it first. A real fighter with a decent weapon should always be threatening an ogre's life and be able to take them down on the first exchange. Ogres after all aren't that powerful.

If you reach the second round of attacks against someone you didn't one-shot them.

I've been agreeing with most of your posts, but isn't this exchange with @Flamestrike a bit too reliant on semantics?

I mean a tier 3+ fighter CAN, generally, take out an ogre in 6 seconds or less, if they flub it'll take 12 seconds. Whether it's 1 strike, or they bleed it a bit first or whatever.