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

[Undrave]

In 4e your Con didn't increase hp by con mod per level. In 5e it does. This has a significant effect on tankiness in 5e. It's a huge difference. And one that I honestly cannot believe you are downplaying. Making a con caster in 5e would be terrible from a game balance perspective. I mean I get it conceptually and it does have a conceptual place - but unless con only marginally increases hp it's not something able to be placed into a game.

*In 4e con most notably increased your number of healing surges - primarily increasing how many encounters you could go through before a long rest on an adventuring day.

In 4e, you do add your full CON score to your HP so if you increase it, you do gain a few extra HP. Not as much has changing your CON mod in 5e of course.

If you're too affraid of too much HP just give them d6 HD. It'll balance out to be worth a d8 HD for someone who took CON as secondary. Give them only light armour proficiency and no incentive to get good DEX. We're talking about a +3 CON at first level versus a +2 on most character who are scared of being hit. If you don't consider +1 or +2 CHA to be significantly weaker at social skills than +3, then the difference between +3 and +2 CON shouldn't feel that great either.

I think a CON caster would be cool and could probably be balanced with hit-dice and armor options (though multiclassing makes that hard) but isn't the crux of this argument about casters vs martials?

It's a tengeant for sure as we discuss the value of ability scores. But a CON caster would open up Sorcadin style shenanigans for the Barbarian and Fighter. It's at least something INTERESTING you could do with your physical score, even if you don't remain purely martial.

Spending hp for effects is also a nearly impossible to balance mechanic with characters that cannot do so. You always end up in a situation where spending your hp for a spell saves more hp or where it saves less. It also lets you indirectly convert your hp into allies hp (defacto spreading damage). Given that you start with more hp this way and given how concentration works, it essentially makes already versatile casters much more versatile and stronger.

And I guess the biggest issue of all, healing restores your spells and it's easy to get out of combat healing to be super efficient. How on earth does something like this get balanced in 5e?

How about spending Hit Dice instead of HP? That's ALSO a daily resource after all. Could work a bit like Sorcery Points but a little stronger.

 

[Minigiant]

Spending hp for effects is also a nearly impossible to balance mechanic with characters that cannot do so. You always end up in a situation where spending your hp for a spell saves more hp or where it saves less. It also lets you indirectly convert your hp into allies hp (defacto spreading damage). Given that you start with more hp this way and given how concentration works, it essentially makes already versatile casters much more versatile and stronger.

And I guess the biggest issue of all, healing restores your spells and it's easy to get out of combat healing to be super efficient. How on earth does something like this get balanced in 5e?

That's easily solved by having them use slots like every other caster and using HP/HD for boosts.

But the point is that a class feature would be based on a physical ability score and get appropriate fantasy elements at the tiers.

Currently only Rage is a physical class feature that scales and all it gets is Extra Movement, Relentless Rage, and 3 dice Brutal Cristal at each tier.

 

[pemerton]

Here's one way I might do it, within the broad parameters of D&D 5e maths:

* All characters add their Stat and Proficiency bonus to all checks (ie there is no such thing as skill proficiency);

* Expertise in a skill is a bonus (the proficiency bonus, or maybe an adjustment to that if the maths would work out better) that can be used in lieu of the Stat bonus when attempting actions to which that skill is applicable.​

There would be no need to associate particular skills with particular stats; rather, they would be associated with particular sorts of endeavour.

If the result of this was that Rogues needed a slight boost for the devaluing of their Expertise, that doesn't seem insuperable.

 

[Mort]

Not "good" compared to other classes. Useful yes, servicable or below average is how I would rate ability unless you really focuse on combat with feats and expertise.

The Rogue is like the kid on the playground picked last to play BBall. You would rather have him than no one, but he isn't the equal of the others.

This is 100% outside my experience. The 5e rogue's sneak attack and mobility easily keeps pace with the fighter. 5e makes sneak attacking near every round easy.

Want some proof? Check out this thread. The rogue is keeping up in damage with the optimized crossbow expert sharpshooter fighter and the smiting paladin. And doing so without expending any actual resources (nothing that has to recharge on a rest). Plus, thanks to evasion and uncanny dodge, she takes less damage.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is 100% outside my experience. The 5e rogue's sneak attack and mobility easily keeps pace with the fighter. 5e makes sneak attacking near every round easy.

Want some proof? Check out this thread. The rogue is keeping up in damage with the optimized crossbow expert sharpshooter fighter and the smiting paladin. And doing so without expending any actual resources (nothing that has to recharge on a rest). Plus, thanks to evasion and uncanny dodge, she takes less damage.

I gave it a go and scanned 3-4 pages and the last few pages. I seen nothing indicating what you claimed.

 

[Mort]

I gave it a go and scanned 3-4 pages and the last few pages. I seen nothing indicating what you claimed.

The rogue is doing around 40 a round thanks to sneak attack. The fighter is doing around the same because he tends to hit around twice and does around 20 a time. When on full smite the Paladin has done way more, but usually does less so it evens out.

I'll do a full analysis of the numbers at some point, to see if that tracks. If not I'll retract.

 

[Mort]

I gave it a go and scanned 3-4 pages and the last few pages. I seen nothing indicating what you claimed.

So It was a bit confusing. But results:

8 Round fight (it was a 2 stage encounter, really 2 fights sequentially):

	1​	2​	3​	4​	5​	6​	7​	8​	totals
sorcerer	0​	0​	33​	55​	0​	0​	18​	42​	131​
Bard	0​	0​	0​	7​	0​	0​	0​	0​	0​
Rogue	0​	0​	45​	38​	0​	40​	41​	40​	204​
Fighter	0​	14​	70​	86​	22​	42​	64​	48​	346​
Paladin	0​	special*	48​	26​	0​	36​	40​	48​	198​

*Telekinesis to disable enemy ship

So:
Paladin and rogue kept very even.
Fighter rocked the damage - he got in an action surge (round 3 so kind of 2 rounds in 1) and got a bit lucky on hit and damage round 4, plus was the only one actually hitting on round 5, but clearly ahead.

So the rogue kept even with the smiting paladin but lagged behind the fighter (though there were 2 rounds the rogue did other stuff than attack).

Final take: Holy cow crossbow expert-sharpshooter fighters bring the damage! but I still maintain the rogue did consistently well and kept up, the fighter just had 2 exceptional rounds to pull ahead.

 

[FrogReaver]

So It was a bit confusing. But results:

8 Round fight (it was a 2 stage encounter, really 2 fights sequentially):

	1​	2​	3​	4​	5​	6​	7​	8​	totals
sorcerer	0​	0​	33​	55​	0​	0​	18​	42​	131​
Bard	0​	0​	0​	7​	0​	0​	0​	0​	0​
Rogue	0​	0​	45​	38​	0​	40​	41​	40​	204​
Fighter	0​	14​	70​	86​	22​	42​	64​	48​	346​
Paladin	0​	special*	48​	26​	0​	36​	40​	48​	198​

*Telekinesis to disable enemy ship

So:
Paladin and rogue kept very even.
Fighter rocked the damage - he got in an action surge (round 3 so kind of 2 rounds in 1) and got a bit lucky on hit and damage round 4, plus was the only one actually hitting on round 5, but clearly ahead.

So the rogue kept even with the smiting paladin but lagged behind the fighter (though there were 2 rounds the rogue did other stuff than attack).

Final take: Holy cow crossbow expert-sharpshooter fighters bring the damage! but I still maintain the rogue did consistently well and kept up, the fighter just had 2 exceptional rounds to pull ahead.

Curious, what was the Paladin, fighter and rogue builds, feats+subclasses+tactics?

 

[Mort]

Curious, what was the Paladin, fighter and rogue builds, feats+subclasses+tactics?

Fighter was a BM, crossbow expert, sharpshooter build (20 Dex) with maneuvers that added damage.

Paladin was a actually a paladin 9/cleric 6 of peace/redemption (the hippie paladin build). Has a nice aura that adds a d4 to attacks and saves (once a round ) on top of anything else.

Rogue was a thief subclass, no feats to add to damage etc.

The fighter was BY FAR the most optimized for DPR.

Tactics (so far) were just basically pick the biggest threat and eliminate it first - but when that's not a target go for the small stuff. Defensive tactics were 1) stick close to the paladin/cleric for the aura 2) spread out damage as needed via the bond feature to ensure everyone stays up.

 

[TwoSix]

Curious, what was the Paladin, fighter and rogue builds, feats+subclasses+tactics?

I'd like to see expected hit rate versus actual hit rate, also. Rogue looks to have hit on 5 out of 6 attacks (83%), but I don't know if that's boosted by dual-wielding, advantage, etc.