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

[Tony Vargas]

Well, if, say Apprentice Tier is going to be mundane, let it be mundane.
So, Fighters don't get Second Wind Or action surge, Barbarians don't get rage, everyone uses slow/gritty rests, and apprentice casters are still learning to cast - no spells, yet.
At least nothing overt. Like if you could do a trick with slight of hand, you can do it with a cantrip...

 

[Lanefan]

Okay here's one.

The barbarian and monk have their own form of Unarmored Defense.

Should the fighter and rogue at some level gain Unarmored Defense? Or a Minimum AC.

Gotta say, this would sure help the Swashbuckler archetype, which up to now has never been represented well by D&D.

I mean, the rogue is already not armor reliant and the fantasy tends to give fighters amazing parrying.

If you throw the continent's best knight in the dungeon and the country's most wanted thief picks the lock... do they need armor to escape and leave a red wave of destruction.

Spitballin' here: not that Dex as a stat needs anything more to do, but maybe unarmoured members of certain classes (Fighter, a few Fighter subclasses, Rogue, some Rogue subclasses) could get double (or triple?) their usual Dex bonus to their AC; a bonus that goes away if-when they're wearing anything heavier than light street clothes (even a thick winter jacket would be problematic) and comes back when they doff said restrictive garb.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, if, say Apprentice Tier is going to be mundane, let it be mundane.
So, Fighters don't get Second Wind Or action surge, Barbarians don't get rage, everyone uses slow/gritty rests, and apprentice casters are still learning to cast - no spells, yet.

Too harsh. Give 'em one spell a day, at least.

More to the point, I think that low-level tier should be when the warrior types get to strut their stuff, with the casters coming more online as the levels advance. 1e had this right, though too extreme at either end.

 

[James Gasik]

Okay here's one.

The barbarian and monk have their own form of Unarmored Defense.

Should the fighter and rogue at some level gain Unarmored Defense? Or a Minimum AC.

I mean, the rogue is already not armor reliant and the fantasy tends to give fighters amazing parrying.

If you throw the continent's best knight in the dungeon and the country's most wanted thief picks the lock... do they need armor to escape and leave a red wave of destruction.

do they?

Imagine a setting where most people don't wear armor. Like say, I don't know, our world. Or a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars Saga everyone had a defense bonus, and that, at a certain point, unless you were specced into it, armor actually hindered your defense!

One would assume that a level of unarmored defense should exist for all classes, at least in the form of a minimum AC (ie, "you're what level? Ok, your AC can't be worse than X"). Especially in light of the fact that AC simply stops progressing at a certain point, despite the fact that your enemies keep getting better attack bonuses.

Not sure how it would work though. 10 + Proficiency bonus seems pointless. 10 + x2 Proficiency bonus?

 

[Zardnaar]

Imagine a setting where most people don't wear armor. Like say, I don't know, our world. Or a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars Saga everyone had a defense bonus, and that, at a certain point, unless you were specced into it, armor actually hindered your defense!

One would assume that a level of unarmored defense should exist for all classes, at least in the form of a minimum AC (ie, "you're what level? Ok, your AC can't be worse than X"). Especially in light of the fact that AC simply stops progressing at a certain point, despite the fact that your enemies keep getting better attack bonuses.

Not sure how it would work though. Dex + Proficiency bonus would make the lightest armors pointless. Dex +1/2 PB would barely do anything at higher levels.

5E version would be proficiency plus dex.

Light armor would go up to AC 14.

There's other benefits of wearing armor eg underlay. If the armors AC is worse than dex+PB wearing armor grants +1 AC.

 

[James Gasik]

5E version would be proficiency plus dex.

Light armor would go up to AC 14.

There's other benefits of wearing armor eg underlay.

I was actually thinking to remove Dex from the equation, to something like 8 + x2 Proficiency bonus. Sure that means everyone eventually gets AC 20 at a minimum, but I'd like to think by those levels most characters have that AC (or better) somehow anyways.

EDIT: this isn't by itself a solution for the AC plateau, but 1) you can always add magic armor to your game, and 2) I'm aware that not everyone thinks this is a problem in the first place.

 

[Zardnaar]

I was actually thinking to remove Dex from the equation, to something like 8 + x2 Proficiency bonus. Sure that means everyone eventually gets AC 20 at a minimum, but I'd like to think by those levels most characters have that AC (or better) somehow anyways.

Everyone has same AC pretty much. Kinda pointless/boring imho.

 

[James Gasik]

Everyone has same AC pretty much. Kinda pointless/boring imho.

Is there an advantage to people having lower than 20 AC by endgame levels though? When you have CR 17's who hit that on a 6?

 

[ECMO3]

We literally all know what is meant by 'mundane' in this context, so let's not even pretend.

Not with respect to "let mundane be fun" That part is what I don't understand in your post as the rules are very generous and broad in this regard.

Further there are many, many examples of completely and utterly supernatural and "non-realistic" abilities throughout the Rogue, Barbarian, Monk and Fighter subclasses (especially Fighter and Monk) and few have a problem with those. I've never seen anyone for example say we need to ban Ascendant Dragon Monks because Monks need to be realistic and it is not realistic to have wings sprouting from your back at level 3. That is without even bringing in build options outside of the classes themselves which any non-caster can take. I reject the notion that some kind of demand for "realism" is holding back non-casters when much of what is available in the non-caster builds is so fantastical and unrealistic.

Finally, much of the discussion about the caster/non-caster divide and "realism" tends to circle around the Fighter when the Fighter is not one of the two classes most grounded in realism and is not generally the weakest class either. In terms of number of supernatural options Rogue is the class with the most "realism", and Barbarian is second, while Monk is clearly the weakest non-caster and least "realistic" of the four.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If the realm’s best knight can’t fight unarmored at least we’ll enough to not just immediately die , they aren’t actually the realm’s best knight.

You defend with sword and shield. Everything you hold while fighting is a tool for offense and defense.

Fighters should absolutely get Dex + strength to AC, and the ability to use strength in place of dex for AC, or something like that. Qqe

Maybe 10 plus Dex or Str mod plus proficiency bonus. Or just a minimum value I guess.