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

[FrogReaver]

Yeah. But if they don't play it how it was balanced to be, then they are creating the problem themselves. If you change things to allow spellcasters to dominate, you can't complain that spellcasters are dominating.

My group has gone back and forth between 1 week between long rests, so that the 6-8 encounters can be spaced out, removing the hack n' slash feel, and just getting long rests when the DM says you can have one, which seems to work out even better for that.

Well, I'll still say it's 5e's fault for designing around 6-8 in the first place (or at least making it sound like they did in their books). I actually think 5e is quite a bit more flexible than 6-8 in it's ability to maintain balance. So I tend to not put stock in arguments based on the 6-8 encounter guidelines anymore.

 

[Steampunkette]

If and only if the Spellcaster has Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast

Sure.

Meanwhile the Wizard has more spell slots to throw out 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells...

The point I was making was that even Warlocks, the Cantrip Caster, can keep pace with fighters all day long on Cantrip-Use and then turn around and do big bold effects at 5th level 4 times per short rest, and 1 large 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell once per long rest...

And that's not even getting into their Subclass Features to compare to the Champion, Battlemaster, Eldritch Knight, etc. Who use their subclass abilities to close the gap on Spellcasting...

But the Warlock -still- gets Hurl Through Hell and other abilities, plus their invocations for noncombat versatility like extra social skills, free spellcasting, or just nifty new things to do with their cantrips.

Martials need more variety of things they can do, out of combat, and some other new options in combat.

Which is why I love the A5e Fighter with their maneuvers separate from Battlemaster.

 

[Maxperson]

The long rest thing is a perennial issue.

I'm sort of torn on this issue. On the one hand yes, you should adjust the rest schedule if you're not following it; on the other hand the variants given are poorly done and thought through, and there are tensions within the game that push back against changing up the rest schedule as well.

If it takes me 4 sessions to have 3-18 encounters of the appropriate difficutly levels (it's not really 6-8 that's the median) and I only play every two weeks that's 8 real world weeks between long rests. That's not much fun for the player who just levelled up and can only cast their best spell once in an 8 week period. (There's also the issue that long rest variants can take the power of deciding when to rest out of the players hands, which is disempowering and removes one aspect of strategic decision making).

The design issues here are not just about the variants. The game expects too many encounters full stop for the variety of play styles it needs to support.

I agree that it's tough and not really satisfying, but I just don't see a way around it. If I give a long rest daily, they blow through encounters if I don't hit them with the 6-8 OR die to encounters that can stand up to a party nova and dish back. In my opinion balancing the game around a 6-8 encounter adventuring day is the single worst design flaw in 5e.

 

[ECMO3]

That argument is not much of a rebuttal. So you say that at your table people who like to leverage rules prefer martials. @Snarf Zagyg says that players at their table who like to leverage rules prefer casters.

Neither really proves a thing. Snarf mentioned it because it framed the discussion. It wasn't offered as conclusive proof that casters are better than martials.

But it is not on me to prove that an imbalance exists which needs to be remedied. The discussion as presented as this imbalance exists, how do we fix it.

The anecdotal evidence based on numbers playing fighters is actually contrary to the hypothesis. While it is true that it is anecdotal, it is also the only actual numerical data available.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, I'll still say it's 5e's fault for designing around 6-8 in the first place (or at least making it sound like they did in their books). I actually think 5e is quite a bit more flexible than 6-8 in it's ability to maintain balance. So I tend to not put stock in arguments based on the 6-8 encounter guidelines anymore.

If you make the encounters harder, you can reduce it some, but it's still a lot for one 24 hour period.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Well, I'll still say it's 5e's fault for designing around 6-8 in the first place (or at least making it sound like they did in their books). I actually think 5e is quite a bit more flexible than 6-8 in it's ability to maintain balance. So I tend to not put stock in arguments based on the 6-8 encounter guidelines anymore.

I think the issue mainly arises from screwing the short/long rest ratio. If there doesn't happen that much stuff in one day and casters get their spells back every day, they will obviously have a huge amount of spells to burn for that one fight that might occur or to trivial problem solving.

 

[Yaarel]

People don't play 6-8 encounter days though. Its a bunch of combat grinding that just doesn't play out organically without variant rest rules. The entire balance premise is flawed because most games aren't hack and slash dungeon crawls with inorganic hour long naps in enemy territory.

This 6 to 8 encounters per day, bugs me too. I wish the system was more realistic and adaptable to more situations.

Hmm...

It occurs to me, on average, players will have roughly 2 long rests per level, until advancing to the next level. (Not counting apprentice levels 1 to 4, which advance faster.)

So, a solution might be:

Players can only have two long rests PER LEVEL. All other rests are short rests.

In fact, each player can choose individually. When everyone rests, a player can decide if they want it to count as a long rest or not. Once they use up their two longs, they are stuck with shorts until they level again.

Then it doesnt matter how long a "rest" lasts. It can be strictly narrative.

 

[ECMO3]

Sure.

Meanwhile the Wizard has more spell slots to throw out 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells...

The point I was making was that even Warlocks, the Cantrip Caster, can keep pace with fighters all day long on Cantrip-Use and then turn around and do big bold effects at 5th level 4 times per short rest, and 1 large 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell once per long rest...

This is simply not true. In a normal adventuring day most casters can not cast as many spells as a battlemaster can use. It is not until very high levels that this is the case, and even then it requires using other abilities like sorcery points or arcane recovery to get extra spell slots.

I posted this earlie using the guidlines RAW:
A 3rd level full caster has 3 spell slots a day. A 3rd level battle master has 12 maneuvers a day.
A 7th level full caster has 11 spell slots a day. A 7th level battlemaster has 15 maneuvers a day.
An 15th level full caster has 18 spell slots a day. A 15th level battlemaster has 18 maneuvers a day and gets one more every time he rolls initiative without one.

Clearly the idea that a fighter can only do a few maneuvers a day while casters can cast leveled spells all day long is simply false.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is simply not true. In a normal adventuring day most casters can not cast as many spells as a battlemaster can use. It is not until very high levels that this is the case, and even then it requires using other abilities like sorcery points or arcane recovery to get extra spell slots.

I posted this earlie using the guidlines RAW:
A 3rd level full caster has 3 spell slots a day. A 3rd level battle master has 12 maneuvers a day.
A 7th level full caster has 11 spell slots a day. A 7th level battlemaster has 15 maneuvers a day.
An 15th level full caster has 18 spell slots a day. A 15th level battlemaster has 18 maneuvers a day and gets one more every time he rolls initiative without one.

Clearly the idea that a fighter can only do a few maneuvers a day while casters can cast leveled spells all day long is simply false.

A maneuver doing 1d8 damage at level 3 is 100 times better than a manuever doing 1d12 damage at level 20. I do think that might be where some of the flaw lies. Yes you get more dice and bigger dice but since the die size scales much slower than enemies gain hp then each dice becomes relatively less and less effective.

 

[Maxperson]

Clearly the idea that a fighter can only do a few maneuvers a day while casters can cast leveled spells all day long is simply false.

It's also a pretty large Strawman of her argument. Nobody. Not one person. Has claimed that casters can cast leveled spells all day long.