D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[mamba]

...and, yes, by all means, restrict monsters to pre-historic animals, and casters to card tricks, if you want to hold everyone to realism.

that if does not apply… or at least not to this level of realism

 

[Tony Vargas]

he is the son of Zeus, not exactly a human…
If your example for what a fantasy human should be capable of is literally a demigod, then we have different ideas about what they should be

Are Sorcerers descended from dragons exactly human? Not really, but anyone with the right stats can MC to one at any time.

Amusingly, in 4e, your character could (turn out to) be a Demigod (at 21st level), it was one of the three Epic Destinies presented in the PH.

Humans should be removed from D&D because they're inconsistent with a fun fantasy world.

well, this world is infested with, like, 8 billion humans, and it could certainly be more fun....

 

[Lanefan]

The consistency of the setting exists in the fiction and not the mechanics. The mechanics exist so that players can run their characters while the GM can run their NPCs. Characters in the game cannot see the mechanics.

Characters in the game can't see the mechanics and yet it's the mechanics that initially make not just the characters but everyone in the setting what they are. An Elf is an Elf, without regard for the presence or absence of a 'PC' sticker on its forehead.

And so, having mechanics be consistent between PCs and NPCs - at least to the point that they're interchangable* - is the only sensible way to do it unless the PCs are intentionally alien to the setting they're adventuring in (but then, where do replacement PCs come from?).

* - as in, a PC can become an NPC or an NPC can become a PC with no mechanical alterations required.

 

[Tony Vargas]

that if does not apply… or at least not to this level of realism

Realism applied selectively isn't realism.

 

[Oofta]

If you actually expect your desires to be implemented by WotC you are completely, and totally, off the reservation.

The best you can possibly hope for is your DM implementing house rules.

Seriously and unironically, if this thread is not about brainstorming house rules, then it is a complete and total waste of time for everyone except people who enjoy arguing.

I agree. Threads like this can be useful for changing how you DM (I gave my thoughts on that long ago) or house rules. But changing official rules? Especially when it doesn't seem to be broadly accepted as a major issue in, at the very least, a significant percentage of tables? It's not going to happen.

If I could go back in time and give the devs advice I'd suggested options for recovery of spells because that seems to be a big factor. Set up something so you recover less - maybe recover X spell slots per long rest, much like how we regain HD. That, and rethink a half dozen spells like force cage. But that's not an option so we can either accept reality, change how we play a bit or find a different game.

Unlike 3.x where after a certain level casters absolutely dominated, the fixes are simple. Ban a handful of overpowered spells or house rule them. For example either ban force cage or give creatures trapped inside options to break free. Personally? I just rely on MAD (mutually assured destruction) because if the players use something I get to use it too. Other than banning or house rules? Have enough fights or set up fights so that even if the caster goes nova they aren't wiping out all of the enemies. Make attrition matter. Accept that there are times when one class will shine more than another an that they simply work differently. There are multiple ways of fixing the perceived issue, but these conversations never go anywhere. Like you I want reality + a bit of magic, I'd add in a bit of action movie logic as well. The game works well for me both as a player and DM up to level 20 with those assumptions.

None of the solutions are impossible or even that hard to implement. I don't understand why people have a hard time accepting or honestly discussing specifics of simple alternatives.

 

[Lanefan]

Who says they can’t learn it? If a player comes to me and says “I want to play a character that works like this NPC”, I’ll totally play ball. Hell, I’ll probably give them a bonus.

So why not just put those NPC abilities into your char-gen rules so everyone can use them?

 

[Lanefan]

I don't see the benefit in arbitrarily assuming that all NPCs develop in the same way as professional adventurers do. I mean I would expect a wizard who has spent a hundred years learning magic in a tower, barely leaving the library and the lab to be capable of entirely different stuff from a professional adventurer and combat mage. I certainly wouldn't expect the superb researcher to be able to take a punch the way a high level adventuring wizard can.

Oh, I completely agree; and that's the value of having non-playable (well, technically playable but extremely sub-optimal) stay-at-home versions of some classes, who earn xp from research, charity, etc. rather than from killing monsters and looting treasure and who advance - in comparison to a typical adventurer - glacially slowly.

And sure, there can be spells that don't get cast in the field.

Good timing for this, in fact, as I've just spent a few days designing a couple of these stay-at-home not-intended-as-PC classes for my game, to fill holes that have been there since forever.

And why can't you create a lab-wizard? Because they aren't adventurers and one physical combat and they are likely to freeze or fall over. Every D&D character is intended to be a professional adventurer, not a farmer or a cleric who stays with their flock.

Every D&D player character is intended to be a professional adventurer, but that's not every character in the setting. Other characters can and do come by the same abilities via different (and much slower) means.

 

[TwoSix]

So why not just put those NPC abilities into your char-gen rules so everyone can use them?

Because I continually ad-hoc new NPC abilities all the time, such that formalizing that into a document would require hundreds of pages and constant revision?

 

[Lanefan]

Ooh, I’ll play! Different people are different. There should be no expectation that an NPC, who in-fiction is a unique person whose background, experience, training etc. is different from the PCs, should have the same characteristics.

On the contrary, expecting that the 1st level wizard I created that is a 21-year old prodigy and the 1st level wizard that I created that has been studying magic for 30 years follow the same rules Given that either of those wizardsstrains verisimilitude more than the fact that NPC A can attack 3 times with a sword, but PC B can only attack twice (but has different abilities).

Given that I could stick either of those backgrounds on the 1st-level Wizard I just rolled up, consistency dictates they have to follow the same rules - or close enough that either one can be or become my PC.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Characters in the game can't see the mechanics and yet it's the mechanics that initially make not just the characters but everyone in the setting what they are. An Elf is an Elf, without regard for the presence or absence of a 'PC' sticker on its forehead.

And so, having mechanics be consistent between PCs and NPCs - at least to the point that they're interchangable* - is the only sensible way to do it

Quite the opposite, characters in the game don't see the mechanics, so the mechanics don't matter to their perceptions.

For instance, a 1e fighter with a sabre and a 1e Dervish with a scimitar would compare notes and conclude that they are both human and that their weapons are quite different, yet the fighter is a player character using the fighter attack matrix, and the Dervish is a denizen of the MM, using the Monsters' attack matrix, and their weapons are absolutely identical in game terms.