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

[Zubatcarteira]

A thing I noticed some time ago, Rogues vs Druids in stealth and scouting. The former is usually regarded as the stealthy boy that can explore ahead for the party, but Druids are just better from what I can tell.

At level 3 with the Pass Without Trace spell, they can give themselves and the whole party a +10 to Stealth. If they take proficiency in it and have an okay Dex, even considerably higher level Rogues won't have a bonus as high. Then they have Wildshape that lets them turn into small inconspicuous animals, letting them infiltrate places that even a Rogue with great stealth would have trouble with, and after Tasha's they can also use Find Familiar with their Wildshape, another great scouting option. Reliable Talent can even it out, but by then Druid has the high level spells to put them ahead, imo.

 

[nevin]

Like when? A pure strength challenge? Hope the fighter didn't go with a dex build!

If the DM had to expressly design challenges "to make the fighter feel special..." That kind of makes the point, no?

A DM has to design special challenges for each character based on their build and abilities. And total straw man there. Fighters are generically useful in D&D. Any combat situation. Even if they can't do a lot of damage they can take it and prevent other players from dieing. St or dex...
And fighter control over the narrative is they are the bright shiny heroes people will follow, not the creepy mage who deals with who knows what.

What I'm getting from this thread is the people who want dungeon crawl only games, or low magic games want thing changed.

Those whose games include roleplaying, living churches, thieves guilds and many other things, including gods, to provide consequences for behavior are confused at why the dungeon crawl crowd thinks the game is unbalanced.

People love to quote gygax and 1ed rule to show how unbalanced ideas are, but 1ed rules expected 10th level rogues, assassin's, clerics,druids, rangers, fighters and paladins to be leading orders and mages to be gaining magical knowledge.

If all that stuff is introduced correctly into the game mages changing your narrative will be your smallest problem

 

[nevin]

yeah... I honestly think that 90% is a bit high, but not out of the leauge high... most people will play fixed or not fixed, the qustion then becomes how many want it fixed vs don't want it fixed?

is 6% 4% or is it 5% 5% (I doubt it is so exact) and if it is 6/4 or 7/3 or even 8/2... what side is higher. We have no way to know... we do know with the RPG experence growing now is the time for WotC to either poop or get off the pot, if it is 6% want it fixed and 4% don't... now is when even losing the 4% can be recouped with new players.

I feel (no facts but feel) that with the 2 latest adventures being so 'new age/combatlite' that they must at least be considering other pillars.

I think it's very fair to assume the vast majority of any game group never participate in design discussions on forums. Blizzard has admitted many times that most of their players don't even use their forums. I doubt a rpg tabletop game has higher participation in online forums But yes 90% was a spitball number

 

[HammerMan]

I think it's very fair to assume the vast majority of any game group never participate in design discussions on forums. Blizzard has admitted many times that most of their players don't even use their forums. I doubt a rpg tabletop game has higher participation in online forums But yes 90% was a spitball number

yea 100% agree here.

agian there is a large number that wont notice... a large number that will notice a fix/new thing and just think 'cool new thing/fix' and that is most likely the majority... the two minorities argueing are pro fix/new and anit fix/new... and even that we have no way of really measureing.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's pretty apparent from this, IMHO, that WotC was afraid of building the core fighter around one or the other, so they punted it to the subclasses: i.e., the Champion was meant to appease the people who wanted a "basic fighter," while the Battlemaster was mechanically meant to appease people who wanted something closer to a 4e fighter.

And therein lies the rub.

They made things to appease, to shut up the requests and demands, but not to satisfy. Here's something superficially like what you want, now shut up.

And that spills into the discourse. Whenever someone has an issue with fighter design, for a while there the play was to shout it down with 'just because you don't like the implementation doesn't mean it's not there' to defend not improving anything.

 

[Mort]

A DM has to design special challenges for each character based on their build and abilities.

That is certainly a way to do it. Or you design challenges for the group, or you design challenges based on what you think would be fun for the group and expect them to step up.

But the point is, if one member of the group (say the wizard) can step on too many toes because he is so versatile he can do other peoples roles as well or even nearly as well as his own - that's a flaw in design.

And total straw man there. Fighters are generically useful in D&D. Any combat situation. Even if they can't do a lot of damage they can take it and prevent other players from dieing. St or dex...

You expressly stated, what if there was a situation where the mage wasn't useful at all (and did not specify combat). My response was - what situation would that be? and to proposed one. not a strawman at all. And, sorry, if your reduced to saying "well the fighter can always be a meatsack..." that's not a lot. Lots of classes can do that, and even companions, summoned monsters and polymorphed/wildshaped PCs.

And fighter control over the narrative is they are the bright shiny heroes people will follow, not the creepy mage who deals with who knows what.

This is a 100% fluff addition and has 0 to do with mechanics. I don't think it's mentioned anywhere in the 5e books that this is something the DM could do. Sure it's something you can implement, but again, it's a DM fiat thing.

What I'm getting from this thread is the people who want dungeon crawl only games, or low magic games want thing changed.

Actually if you have a low magic game, where magic actually is severely limited (say no full casters etc.) then that's certainly one way to address the issue. But D&D isn't a "low magic" game.

Those whose games include roleplaying, living churches, thieves guilds and many other things, including gods, to provide consequences for behavior are confused at why the dungeon crawl crowd thinks the game is unbalanced.

This is, once again, 100% fluff. And is campaign, DM fiat. Even here, I'm failing to see how this affects the caster more than the fighter. They're both living in the same world. If your argument is that casters have in world consequences fighters don't? Great, but that's again 100% fluff that is completely campaign dependent.

People love to quote gygax and 1ed rule to show how unbalanced ideas are, but 1ed rules expected 10th level rogues, assassin's, clerics,druids, rangers, fighters and paladins to be leading orders and mages to be gaining magical knowledge.

If all that stuff is introduced correctly into the game mages changing your narrative will be your smallest problem

But 5e removed much of that. Fighters don't get keeps and followers at high level unless the DM decides to do so. If your suggestion is - put them back in. Great, that's something to work with.

 

[Umbran]

I think it's very fair to assume the vast majority of any game group never participate in design discussions on forums. Blizzard has admitted many times that most of their players don't even use their forums. I doubt a rpg tabletop game has higher participation in online forums But yes 90% was a spitball number

Yes. Folks who think EN World, or other online discussion, is representative need a bit of a refresher on statistics - we represent a self-selected sample, which then likely deviates significantly from the population at large in many ways.

 

[Aldarc]

People get so mad about this, but for what? Where's the anger coming from. How is it this frustrating that even a thread that started with an innocent basis goes up to 45 pages in less than a week?

Well when people write long dismissive posts in which they claim that they want to understand the other side, but then take every opportunity they can to dismiss and invalidate those concerns/opinions expressed by those people, it tends to get those people riled up.

 

[Umbran]

And therein lies the rub.

They made things to appease, to shut up the requests and demands, but not to satisfy. Here's something superficially like what you want, now shut up.

I think the word "appease" is our own addition, and so introduces connotations that may not reflect reality.

This is a problem with giving precis of what people have said - word choice matters, and can give slant to interpretation.

 

[nevin]

yea 100% agree here.

agian there is a large number that wont notice... a large number that will notice a fix/new thing and just think 'cool new thing/fix' and that is most likely the majority... the two minorities argueing are pro fix/new and anit fix/new... and even that we have no way of really measureing.

Absolutely

Well when people write long dismissive posts in which they claim that they want to understand the other side, but then take every opportunity they can to dismiss and invalidate those concerns/opinions expressed by those people, it tends to get those people riled up

If you start a "conversation" then get riled up because people disagree do you really want a conversation or are you seeking validation?