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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)
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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 9168672" data-attributes="member: 2629"><p>Slow down and examine why a comfortable norm exists.</p><p></p><p>If I don't go and touch my thermostat, is it a problem? Likely - no. It is likely because the temperature is actually fine. Perfect? Likely not. But if we're not seeing an overwhelming outreach to fix something - it likely isn't broken. Really - balance is not a point. It is a range. We do not want equality because true equality requires greater uniformity (like we saw in 4E design), and that just isn't D&D. So long as players can enjoy playing fighters and wizards in the same party - we're good. And as proven over and over - we are good.</p><p></p><p>However, if you go back to AD&D - the fighter / magic-user relative power levels were broken. Wizards were too weak at the start, and too powerful after the early to mid levels. It felt like you were punished at low level as a magic-user so that you could rub it in their faces at high level. That left a lot of players feeling unhappy if a campaign ended early, or if it ran too long.</p><p></p><p>However, in 5E, my low level wizard doesn't feel outclassed by the fighter at low levels. They both get to do fun and interesting things. Cantrips and a better combat balance make the wizard more competitive. At higher levels, I still maintain that the fighters are typically dealing more damage that wizards to a solo target. People like to shove out their corner case optimized approaches - but those are corner case, and many of them are contingenct upon concentration. Further, they often focus only on offense and not on the defensive capability of the classes - or their endurance levels as wizards taper off and diminish over time while fighters tend to have more endurance, especially with multiple combats per SR and multiple SR per LR actually utilized.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 9168672, member: 2629"] Slow down and examine why a comfortable norm exists. If I don't go and touch my thermostat, is it a problem? Likely - no. It is likely because the temperature is actually fine. Perfect? Likely not. But if we're not seeing an overwhelming outreach to fix something - it likely isn't broken. Really - balance is not a point. It is a range. We do not want equality because true equality requires greater uniformity (like we saw in 4E design), and that just isn't D&D. So long as players can enjoy playing fighters and wizards in the same party - we're good. And as proven over and over - we are good. However, if you go back to AD&D - the fighter / magic-user relative power levels were broken. Wizards were too weak at the start, and too powerful after the early to mid levels. It felt like you were punished at low level as a magic-user so that you could rub it in their faces at high level. That left a lot of players feeling unhappy if a campaign ended early, or if it ran too long. However, in 5E, my low level wizard doesn't feel outclassed by the fighter at low levels. They both get to do fun and interesting things. Cantrips and a better combat balance make the wizard more competitive. At higher levels, I still maintain that the fighters are typically dealing more damage that wizards to a solo target. People like to shove out their corner case optimized approaches - but those are corner case, and many of them are contingenct upon concentration. Further, they often focus only on offense and not on the defensive capability of the classes - or their endurance levels as wizards taper off and diminish over time while fighters tend to have more endurance, especially with multiple combats per SR and multiple SR per LR actually utilized. [/QUOTE]
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The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)
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