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

[Maxperson]

No they aren't If they were there would not be conditions for it. They could just say a Rogue does extra 1d6 damage once a tunr, with another 1d6 at every odd level. That is what they do with other such abilities like for the Ranger subclass damage bonuses like fey wanderer or swarmkeeper for example.

The PHB lays out specifically when you can and can not get sneak attack and if those conditions are not met you do not get it. For example:

1. Fight an invisible stalker and the Rogue is almost never getting sneak attack unless he does something to cancel the disadvantage.

2. Fight ghasts and he starts within 10 feet of one and fails his constitution save - bye bye sneak attack for that turn.

3. Rogue is scouting ahead, fails stealth and gets in a fight, the party is 2 turns behind so he has no allies to give position for SA and he needs to retreat.

4. The Rogue WINS initiative due to his high dexterity but is not hidden and must move to attack.

This kind of stuff happens in every campaign.

Yeah, but not often. The vast majority of the time he makes his stealth, has an ally around to team up with, or both.

Aside from these obvious cases, intelligent monsters should absolutely make it difficult for characters to use their abilities and it is possible to deny Rogue an SA fairly easily. It is not free, but it is not difficult to do either. If the Rogue is kiting in and landing SA every turn intelligent enemies should try to counter that through ready action, grapple, dodge etc. None of that is free and depending on the situation it may not be advisable, but a DM is not a jerk because he fights intelligent enemies intelligently and takes an action to cut a player's damage by 70%.

All you need is one ally in combat with the creature and you get to sneak attack. Accomplishing that is easier than deciding you like grandma's apple pie.

 

[Undrave]

What are you talking about? Armor is pretty much the same down the board. The best medium armor AC you can get is 17. The best light armor AC you can get is 17. The Rogue does not need to waste options trying to get into medium armor when he has Studded Leather and is done.

I can see an argument being made for grabbing Shield Prof. out of the Medium Armored feat, but I wouldn't waste money on Medium Armor when Studded Leather can do the same.

 

[Maxperson]

I very much agree with this and would like the DC of most skill checks lowered by 5. I would really like expertise left where it is. But one or the other needs to happen. I don’t care which at this point, choose one. I’m games I run. I use much lower DC’s, but that doesn’t fix the problem unless I am DMing and you are my player.

I think the DCs are fine. What I'd have liked would have been proficiency bounded to +10, instead of +6.

 

[Undrave]

The Rogue is fighting with a melee character to get SA and without that other character he sucks. He is pretty bad unless you build him specifically to be able to reliably create his own sneak attack and if you do that without picking a race that gets medium armor you are way behind.

People are throwing up all these conditions the Rogue can do as much damage IF there is another PC in melee, he doesn;t need a blocking character because another PC is doing that. If all those things are true he won't get attacked a lot so he worse AC won't matter and he will reliably do SA so he can keep it close in damage. IF-IF-IF then he can almost match a fighter.

All of that is conditions and it illustrates why as a class the Rogues are inferior to a fighter in combat.

That's what the class is DESIGNED to do! People keep harping on how 'this is a team game!'. The Rogue is DESIGNED to work with another character. It's mechanic are enforcing a specific play style by making it the best way to get the most out of its class feature.

The Rogue isn't 'inferior' it's working off a different design paradigm and accomplishing its goal masterfully.

I don't know what kind of Rogue you build but it sure as heck aren't regular ones.

 

[ECMO3]

The rogue is fighting with a melee character to get Sneak Attack. The other melee PC is the reason why the rogue isn't chased around the field. And when they hit level 5, they can use uncanny dodge.
Or use Steady Aim from Tashas and stick in the back with a crossbow.

Steady aim is useful at times, both in melee and ranged, but hardly somethign you can do effectively every single turn, especially with cover.

The Rogue is fighting with a melee character to get SA and without that other character he sucks. He is pretty bad unless you build him specifically to be able to reliably create his own sneak attack and if you do that without picking a race that gets medium armor you are way behind.

People are throwing up all these conditions the Rogue can do as much damage IF there is another PC in melee, he doesn;t need a blocking character because another PC is doing that. If all those things are true he won't get attacked a lot so he worse AC won't matter and he will reliably do SA so he can keep it close in damage. IF-IF-IF then he can almost match a fighter.

All of that is conditions and it illustrates why as a class the Rogues are inferior to a fighter in combat.

A fighter needs none of that. He can be surrounded by orcs and still do full damage. The entire party can be down and he is still a combat machine.If a player comes to my table with a 16/8/10 fighter with 16 Charisma, I'd assume we were running a joke campaign.

If a player comes to my table with a 16/8/10 fighter with 16 Charisma, I'd assume we were running a joke campaign.

Whatever. You play what you want. I have played and DMd at plenty tables

Rogues have good AC and one of the highest mobility in the game. What 5e are you playing

They have the highest mobility in the game, higher even than a Monk until very high levels. But their AC is bad unless they are an AT with shield or they get medium armor through a feat or race.

I am playing 5E according to the rules. The maximum AC a point buy Rogue can have at 1st level is 15 without a feat or racial ability, that is tied for THE WORST in the game. Here are classes ranked first to last in terms of maximum AC at first level.

Fighter: 21
Paladin: 20
Ranger: 19
Artificer: 19
Cleric: 19 (more if he picks a subclass with heavy armor, and more with spells)
Barbarian: 19
Druid: 17
Wizard/sorcerer: 16 (21 with shield)
Warlock: 15 (or 19 for a hexblade or 24 for a hexblade with shield)
Rogue/Bard: 15

Now Rogues will usually have a better dexterity than some of the others near the bottom, but their AC will still be among the worst of any class and it will stay that way unless they have a feat, spell or racial ability that improves it.

Thanks for making my point.

Fans say knights and nobles are fighters but fighters make poor knights and nobles in 5e.

Fans are wrong and 5E rules say both knight and noble PCs can be any class.

Never mentioned hard checks. I said moderate checks.

You said they would fail most checks. At 5th level and above that is not true for moderate checks. A moderate check is DC

You are confusing me for someone else.



Yes and a DC 14 is not an easy check.
And those are for level 1 mundane obstacles and 1HD NPCs.
And fighter still suck at those checks.


Because its weak.


That's my main argument with you.
I don't ask for easy checks often. You do.
You think a fighter with 10 Dex and 8 Con is good. I think that's crazy talk.

Your game is easier than standard so a nerfed fighter works fine there.

 

[Maxperson]

A Rogue with medium Armour will have inferior AC unless they take Disadvantage on Stealth (Why are you a Rogue?). To get rid of that disadvantage and have a better AC than they can get with studded leather you need Medium Armour Master. So two feats to get to the same position you would have been at with 2 ASIs. There's a window of a few levels where spending a feat on Medium Amour may net you 1 better AC than you would have otherwise if you start as Variant human.

One ASI if playing a race with a +2 dex bonus.

 

[Don Durito]

The problem is that everything that is not proficient is falling behind. (And ASIs compound this). So you get to the point where a character without Wisdom save proficiency is basically rendered useless by their inability to pass Dragonfear saves.

There's a few ways to adress this. Once is to make proficiency a flat number and then have the scaling take place universally. This was how 4e did it. This means that the proficient character will always be ahead, but always by the same amount. So to do this with the same maths as 5e you make proficieny a flat + 3 and have the underlying scaling numer improving by 1 at levels 9,13, and 17.

The other thing to bear mind is that ASIs are included so the overall bonus is not +6 but +8 over the course of the life of the character.

So another would be to change the way ability modifers work so that they're a flat ability -10. (So a Strength 14 is a +4 modifier). Then you have everyone start with lower ability scores, but raise all ability scores at regular intervals. So if a Fighter begins the game at Strength 14. It would increase with all his ability scores at 5, 9, 13, and 17 for a total + 4 (18 overall - this is why we change how the modifier works - to keep the traditional range). So the Fighter finishes the game with a flat +4 to all rolls. You then give a proficiency bump at each of the same levels to make up the other +4. The overall numbers are the same but the gap between proficient and non-proficient over the course of the game is halved.

(Of course, this would annoy people who don't want to change the methods they use to roll characters, but well, at a certain point you have to let people sulk. This is the sort of thing people would get over.)

Now that doesn't really address the issue of whether there is enough scaling, but really I think that's ultimately an issue of taste.

It also basically removes ASIs, but then I think that's an improvement. Feats should be something you trade equivalent class features for.

I think Expertise should always be just a flat bonus, I don't see any reason why it needs to double scale. (Although, seriously, why not just make it Advantage? There's already a mechanism in place for this. Sure it means sometimes other characters can catch up, but they have to work for it. It's not something they can reliably leverage.)

 

[Maxperson]

The problem is that everything that is not proficient is falling behind. (And ASIs compound this). So you get to the point where a character without Wisdom save proficiency is basically rendered useless by their inability to pass Dragonfear saves.

There's a few ways to adress this. Once is to make proficiency a flat number and then have the scaling take place universally. This was how 4e did it. This means that the proficient character will always be ahead, but always by the same amount. So to do this with the same maths as 5e you make proficieny a flat + 3 and have the underlying scaling numer improving by 1 at levels 9,13, and 17.

The other thing to bear mind is that ASIs are included so the overall bonus is not +6 but +8 over the course of the life of the character.

So another would be to change the way ability modifers work so that they're a flat ability -10. (So a Strength 14 is a +4 modifier). Then you have everyone start with lower ability scores, but raise all ability scores at regular intervals. So if a Fighter begins the game at Strength 14. It would increase with all his ability scores at 5, 9, 13, and 17 for a total + 4 (18 overall - this is why we change how the modifier works - to keep the traditional range). So the Fighter finishes the game with a flat +4 to all rolls. You then give a proficiency bump at each of the same levels to make up the other +4. The overall numbers are the same but the gap between proficient and non-proficient over the course of the game is halved.

I'd rather just give all characters another save proficiency at 10th level. It's much simpler and makes sure that anyone having trouble with wisdom saves at high level asked for it to be that way. Of course, you'd also have to make dragons more powerful. They'd die way too easily if everyone made their save. A CR 14 dragon only has a fear DC of 16. A farmer makes that save 20% of the time. Maybe give that additional save proficiency at 15th level.

I think Expertise should always be just a flat bonus, I don't see any reason why it needs to double scale. (Although, seriously, why not just make it Advantage? There's already a mechanism in place for this. Sure it means sometimes other characters can catch up, but they have to work for it. It's not something they can reliably leverage.)

A flat bonus wouldn't be bad, but advantage would make the ability pretty bad. Advantage is VERY easy to get anyway, so that would be a pretty big nerf to Expertise.

 

[Don Durito]

I'd rather just give all characters another save proficiency at 10th level. It's much simpler and makes sure that anyone having trouble with wisdom saves at high level asked for it to be that way.

Yes that's a good idea. (And in a featless game I would still use the variant human but give them Resilient for free).

Of course, you'd also have to make dragons more powerful. They'd die way too easily if everyone made their save. A CR 14 dragon only has a fear DC of 16. A farmer makes that save 20% of the time. Maybe give that additional save proficiency at 15th level.

Thing is, it's not exactly unlikely that a non-proficent PC has exactly the same save as a farmer.

A flat bonus wouldn't be bad, but advantage would make the ability pretty bad. Advantage is VERY easy to get anyway, so that would be a pretty big nerf to Expertise.

I'm curious about how everyone is always getting Advantage.

I'm certainly not seeing it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If a player comes to my table with a 16/8/10 fighter with 16 Charisma, I'd assume we were running a joke campaign.

Why is that? Seriously, stop to consider this for a moment. Perhaps it might be good idea to shift your expectations a bit, stop obsessing about min-maxing the combat potential and actually make versatile characters? I get that the tools the game offers for doing this are flawed, but they still are there an you can use them. I mean, it's a game, and one that is about immersion and storytelling. Is it actually such a huge deal what the exact DPR of your fighter is?