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

[HammerMan]

So fix that!

lol tell WotC to hire me

Give the high level fighters and fighters subclasses features that allows them to do such things!

how...

(Apart Wonder Woman. No D&D character needs to be that powerful.)

but playing a reality warping earthquake causing brining multi people back from the dead, and still being in full armor/weapon is okay? I don't think wonderwoman or superman is out of line when compared to a 15+ level cleric, bard, or wizard

Creating a more powerful duplicate class to represent the same basic concept is simply terrible game design.

and yet that was the compromise position... it started with "fix the fighter" and all we heard was "but we need a normal person class" and "we need a simple class" so the next was "okay, so lets make a new complex and powerful martial non spell caster..."

and now the goal post is moved again.

 

[FrogReaver]

but two of them you labeled fighter (one epic level and OP) but no fighter can do what any of them do.

IMO. At the end of that rabbit hole everything becomes a different class.

 

[Umbran]

That's not a design issue. If people(and many don't play that way) decide to play the game incorrectly, that's on them, not design.

If nothing else, it is a design problem when the designers choose to make a number of encounters per day that doesn't fit well with modern play session length.

I think that came about more due to modern social pressures than any sort of design issue.

Dude, they have been walking back the effective blocks on race & class fits since they got rid of racial level limits and race/class limitations, back with the release of 3e, when dwarven wizards became a thing. That was twenty years ago. Don't blame on "modern social pressure" a thing that they've been moving towards for a generation!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

lol tell WotC to hire me

how...

We are not game designers, ideally we wouldn't need to come up with the exact implementation. Though I've dabbled, and so probably have you, so I think we could.

but playing a reality warping earthquake causing brining multi people back from the dead, and still being in full armor/weapon is okay? I don't think wonderwoman or superman is out of line when compared to a 15+ level cleric, bard, or wizard

I don't agree. Top tier supers like Superman, Thor, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman (though depiction of her powers is really inconsistent) are not within the scope D&D can or should endeavour to depict. Something at level of Captain America or perhaps even Spider Man, sure. (So more at flip a car rather than lift a battleship scale.) And yeah, casters could do with some slight toning down too, resurrection in particular is among the first things I tend to restrict.

and yet that was the compromise position... it started with "fix the fighter" and all we heard was "but we need a normal person class" and "we need a simple class" so the next was "okay, so lets make a new complex and powerful martial non spell caster..."

and now the goal post is moved again.

There are no goalposts or two different sides, there are various people with differing opinions. My answer to both "we need a normal person class" and "we need a simple class" is that low levels are for that. High level characters don't need to be, or even should be "normal people" or simple.

 

[HammerMan]

I don't agree. Top tier supers like Superman, Thor, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman (though depiction of her powers is really inconsistent) are not within the scope D&D can or should endeavour to depict. Something at level of Captain America or perhaps even Spider Man, sure. (So more at flip a car rather than lift a battleship scale.) And yeah, casters could do with some slight toning down too, resurrection in particular is among the first things I tend to restrict.

If you toned down casters (and that would have to be alot) maybe. But again, superboy prime and He El are superman+ (and Martian manhunter too) and even the most outlandish things they do (way over thor, captain marvel, other captain marvel, or wonder woman) are things you can see high level casters do.

So right now, the game we have, DOES have people MORE powerful then superman or wonder woman... we have Dr Fate and Dr Strange, heck we even have Spawn.

 

[FrogReaver]

If nothing else, it is a design problem when the designers choose to make a number of encounters per day that doesn't fit well with modern play session length.

Agreed.

‘It works as designed’ is not a counterpoint to ‘it should have been designed differently’

Dude, they have been walking back the effective blocks on race & class fits since they got rid of racial level limits and race/class limitations, back with the release of 3e, when dwarven wizards became a thing. That was twenty years ago. Don't blame on "modern social pressure" a thing that they've been moving towards for a generation!

I still don’t think we can get away from the most recent volley of racial changes occurring because of social pressures. We were all here. We remember the arguments, what was happening and the heated threads, etc.

I think it’s a good point that lessening racial restrictions has been going on for a long time though. Maybe it was inevitable that at some point we eventually would end up where we are now even without social pressure.

 

[Umbran]

I still don’t think we can get away from the most recent volley of racial changes occurring because of social pressures. We were all here. We remember the arguments, what was happening and the heated threads, etc.

We should not flatter ourselves that our discussion threads have significant impact on design decisions.

And, in those threads, I distinctly remember people quoting WotC staff that these were changes they had been considering for some time. Which makes it less that the changes were made in repsonse to social pressure, and more that current events gave them a signal that it was okay to do the things they wanted to do anyway.

 

[tetrasodium]

\

the number of times (especially since we had to start useing roll20) that I have seen square counting and going around to hit the 'backline' is amazing. Unless you have a 2-3square choke point or WAY too many fighters. There is no front line

It's almost like the people who have been using grid play & digital tools that put grid play under more of a spotlight have had some merit to their last 8 years of grousing over 5e going too far in minimizing & coding against keystone elements of grid combat

 

[FrogReaver]

We should not flatter ourselves that our discussion threads have significant impact on design decisions.

that wasn’t my claim.

And, in those threads, I distinctly remember people quoting WotC staff that these were changes they had been considering for some time. Which makes it less that the changes were made in repsonse to social pressure, and more that current events gave them a signal that it was okay to do the things they wanted to do anyway.

Let’s simplify this a bit. Do you believe the changes would have happened when they did without the social pressure at the time?

 

[Asisreo]

I'd just add that I don't expect it to reflect 'normal D&D'. I expect it to reasonably reflect many D&D games. I welcome others using different reasonable assumptions that reflect many other D&D games as well. I'm personally as interested in learning more about the criteria martials and casters balance out in damage as I am about exploring the merits of the argument that Fighters are strong enough in combat that they don't need anything else.

Honestly, I don't think it's very relevant. Whether fighters are superior in the general sense in combat to casters isn't really a big deal. I'm not sure who brought it up, either.

But I do think martials do have, in my experience, better capabilities in combat in a general sense, even at higher levels. It's really about damage, HP, and AC.

While casters can compete if they're exceptionally equipped and attentive, there's a lot of room for error.

For example, a common idea for a caster is to turn into a high HP, high con character like a dragon via true polymorph. Well, a classic example would be the Ancient White Dragon. Good HP, Good AC, and Good damage...but not really.

See compare it to a Barbarian at level 20. The barbarian will have 285 HP, but since their rage halves the majority if damage, even magical, they'd effectively have 570 HP. Their AC would be around 24. And the damage they dish out, especially if they're a Frenzy Barb, would be about 52 damage. The dragon does admittedly better damage at a whopping 109 damage, though it's mostly physical damage which may be immune or resistant.

It's important to know that a polymorphed dragon cannot use magic items at all. So, if you're fighting a tarrasque, the dragon doesn't do anything until their breath weapon recharges.

edit:sorry, my phone was acting weird.