D&D 5E Truly Understanding the Martials & Casters discussion (+)

[HammerMan]

Most of the complexity is in the spell choice between adventures for the wizard, and the static list for the sorcerer. But, yes, they're not worlds apart.

sorcerers at level up choose spells then have spell slots and sorcerer pts to manage
wizards prep spells every long rest (in my experience you have a standard lay out or 2 standard lay out you alternate between then switch out for special things) plus choosing at level up, but they still have to balance slots.

warlocks choose the spells at level up like sorcerers, but there spells hit different and mostly you will see warlocks spam at wills or melee more then the other two.

new 1st time players can totally grab a warlock as easy as a fighter, but still have meaningful and flavorful choices

 

[FrogReaver]

but we have them...

we have artificers and warlocks, then a step up with sorcerers, then a step up with wizards...

we also have bard, druids, and cleric that depends on your POV were they fit in the caster line up... and 1/2 to 1/3 of those classes are basicly 80% fighter+ spells

I wouldn’t call any of those simple wizards.

I would say sorcerers and wizards are equal complexity.

IMO bringing up half and 1/3 casters as evidence of a simple wizard absolutely boggles my mind.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's really just the two (or one) classes. Few people are really concerned with the Barbar or Monk because they aren't shackled down by verisimilitude and tradition keeping them from doing cool things.

 

[HammerMan]

I get that "martial" is a legacy thing, but the rest of the categories never come into this discussion. It's not martials vs divine vs Arcane. Its lumping 4 classes against 8 other classes and saying that the system is unbalanced.

casters have a subsystem noncasters don't some casters can equal non casters at more generalized thing (combat/skills ect)

I am cool if you have better terms

 

[Oofta]

IMO. We can’t even get basic agreement about what kind of fighter is as strong as a wizard in combat.

is it a fighter with no feats or magic weapons that just maxes his attack stat?

does he require 1 combat feat? 2? Is a certain level of magical weapon or items required?

until we can talk about that I don’t think talking about concrete suggestions makes much sense.

my take is that a str fighter needs at least 1 combat feat and a basic magical weapon, max str, and high con to compete with a typical wizard in combat (past tier 1).

This really leaves minimal things the fighter can invest in outside combat. For those that think a str fighter just needs max str and nothing else, those fighters have much more leeway in taking out of combat feats/abilities.

But IMO the discussion centers around the amount of investment a fighter needs to make to be a wizards combat equal. Because that’s what guides us about how much non combat stuff they can get.

There's a lot that is campaign dependent, I'm not sure you can ever achieve perfect balance. If I think a fighter in a game I'm DMing is falling behind or feels like they can't contribute I can compensate. Lacking in damage? A belt of giant strength is going to add significantly to their DPR and is one of those things that will help them more than any other class.

Personally I'd put prices back in for all magic items, just don't assume the magic item treadmill we've seen in previous editions. But while the wizard is burning all their gold to scribe spells into their book (especially at high level) it would be nice to let the fighter buy a belt of hill giant strength or boots of flying. Then they can invest in other abilities or make themselves more useful out of combat. That's part of what I do now.

But the other side of it that it's hard, if not impossible to come up with a system to balance out recovery of spell slots. Have 1-2 fights between long rests on a regular basis? Don't be surprised if casters go nova. Have 6-8? They're going to be more conservative and may not have those spell slots available out of combat. The gritty rest rules work great for my style but may not for others. That's why I think we should have at least an optional rule on how quickly casters get their spells back.

There's no one answer because there's no one style of game, or one player. I have a player that doesn't use half their abilities (I reminded them once or twice but it's not my PC) but is perfectly happy. I've been in other games where players try to eek out every possible advantage. When it comes to games it has to span dungeon crawls where you're kicking in one door after another to exploration that takes months to get from point A to point B. Sometimes both in the same campaign.

So I'd like to put more flexibility into the hands of the DM to work out with their group. If anyone else has better ideas how to come up with a standard I'm all ears.

 

[HammerMan]

I wouldn’t call any of those simple wizards.

I would say sorcerers and wizards are equal complexity.

IMO bringing up half and 1/3 casters as evidence of a simple wizard absolutely boggles my mind.

other then artificer they are all full casters... ignore artificer then

 

[HammerMan]

It's really just the two (or one) classes. Few people are really concerned with the Barbar or Monk because they aren't shackled down by verisimilitude and tradition keeping them from doing cool things.

i mean I have trouble with barbarian and monk but they are different. Fighter and Rogue (but more fighter) are the big issues

 

[FrogReaver]

other then artificer they are all full casters... ignore artificer then

IMO, All the full casters are roughly as complex as each other.

Warlock’s complexity is debatable but IMO it falls in line with all the full casters.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I wouldn’t call any of those simple wizards.

Starting with the sorcerer, what would you strip down to have a "simple wizard"? Don't worry about balance, I'm interested in what it would look like to you.

 

[TwoSix]

Do those playstyles have to be officially supported? Again, I will beat the 3rd party drum here. WotC will never make D&D everything that everyone wants. But someone out there in the uncharted wilds of the internet has already made what you want. You just have to let go of this ridiculous notion that WotC is somehow better than other companies. They really, really aren't. They just happen to own the IP.

No one's supported homebrew on this forum over the years more than me (seriously, look at my post history). But do you think that's going to stop people from arguing for their preferred vision? I mean, WotC has to cater to someone; it may as well be to me.