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

[tetrasodium]

I don't have strong feelings either way on wizards getting to use crossbows in 3.5 but I feel like a lot of people who started with 4e or 5e won't realize the cost of using a crossbow that left a lot of wizards feeling like generally missing with a the bow sling dart or whatever was their optimal choice if they could use it because of race or something. I do however think meaningfully powerful at will unlimited cantrips was a bad thing for the game.

Reloading a crossbow (light/heavy) wasn't just a thing you could do free once per round. Loading a light crossbow took a move action & the light crossbow toting spellcaster was stuck where they stood if they took the move action to reload it, hand crossbows were the same but wizards were not proficient with them. Loading a heavy crossbow had an even higher cost as a full round action so the round you reloaded it was spent doing nothing but reloading

Speaking of...
View attachment 296158
So a 14 WIS was enough for a Cleric to start with 3 spells... well, 3 CLW if the party was going to survive more than one or two wandering damage encounters....

Conversely, the Magic-User? Nada.

I don't remember if 2e had bonus spells or not but kinda except the 3.5 cleric was a little more complicated because of cleric domains iirc. a level 1 cleric has 3x zero level spells plus "1+1" first level spells, the bottom of that table explained the +1 as "In addition to the stated number of spells per day for 1st- through 9th-level spells, a cleric gets a domain spell for each spell level, starting at 1st. The “+1” in the entries on this table represents that spell. Domain spells are in addition to any bonus spells the cleric may receive for having a high Wisdom score. " then the 14 wis would grant a second slot. Before bonus slots different casters had different amounts of spell slot progressions, a L1 sorc had 5x zeroth 3x first, L1 wizard & druid 3x zeroth 1xfirst.


Back in 2e though the resting mechanics were incredibly different with a party being able to recover spell slots at a rate of 10 minutes prayer/study per spell slot level. It wasn't too uncommon for a discussion like "we are pretty beat up gmbob, does this seem like a decent place to hole up for ten minutes or so to let Alice & Dave get a spell slot or two back, or do we feel like this is something where we need to pull back and...?". At higher levels it might start shifting more towards return to town but at low levels it just felt excessive giving "yea it seems ok" then slaughtering the players hoping to recover enough to continue with another giant rat.

 

[ECMO3]

.

I still think new classes is the easiest option.

The fighter stays somewhat like it is and mostly relies on magic items. Perhaps as suggested earlier in this thread getting more atonement slots so they can have more magic items than anyone else.

The Barbarian does mostly like what it does now and get stronger and tougher and eventually become something closer to a comic book bruiser. Hulk. Thing Bane. Then then sub classes determine what utility aspects you get. World tree turns into Swamp Thing. Zealot turns you to Samson.

Then you get a swordsage class which goes full wuxia.

You get a gadgeteer class which is a warrior who gets infusions but no magic spellslots.

A psychic warrior that goes full Jedi. Your character straight up becomes Obi-Wan. D&D siccs Siths on party. And the BBEG is Darth Maul or Darth Vader instead some lich.

focus down on the image and archetype.

I don't think this would help the noncaster/caster divide because of the classes you mention, the Swordmage is a caster and the other two are not really what people are thinking about when they say non-caster.

 

[ECMO3]

One thing I have not seen mention is the Gritty realism optional rule (or whatever it is called). The rule where long rests count as short rests anda week counts as a long rest.

Using that optional rule with no other changes would definitely tilt the game towards the non-casters. TBH it would probably tilt it enough that it would be in the other direction (with non-casters being stronger).

 

[Minigiant]

.


I don't think this would help the noncaster/caster divide because of the classes you mention, the Swordmage is a caster and the other two are not really what people are thinking about when they say non-caster.

Swordsage.

Swordsage. With 2 s's. No magic casting.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

One thing I have not seen mention is the Gritty realism optional rule (or whatever it is called). The rule where long rests count as short rests anda week counts as a long rest.

Using that optional rule with no other changes would definitely tilt the game towards the non-casters. TBH it would probably tilt it enough that it would be in the other direction (with non-casters being stronger).

Not really. It just makes it easier to make the expected amount of encounters per rest to happen.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Back in 2e though the resting mechanics were incredibly different with a party being able to recover spell slots at a rate of 10 minutes prayer/study per spell slot level.

In 1e it was 15min/spell-level ... but, in both editions, it was after a period of rest (preferably sleep). In 1e, it could be less sleep if the spells were low, level, in 2e, AFAIK, it was a night's sleep.

In 1e, a very high level magic-user might sleep 8 hours, then spend the whole day memorizing spells, and still have unfilled slots 16 hrs later....

 

[mamba]

Trouble is, casters have infinite cantrips.

I don’t have a problem with that as long as the cantrip is the equivalent of doing damage with a sword or bow

 

[Vaalingrade]

One thing I have not seen mention is the Gritty realism optional rule (or whatever it is called). The rule where long rests count as short rests anda week counts as a long rest.

Using that optional rule with no other changes would definitely tilt the game towards the non-casters. TBH it would probably tilt it enough that it would be in the other direction (with non-casters being stronger).

This actually makes it worse because you can then only do the few fun interesting things your short rest class allows once in a day and then you're back to attack attack attack while the spellcasters are still throwing fire at people.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In 1e it was 15min/spell-level ... but, in both editions, it was after a period of rest (preferably sleep). In 1e, it could be less sleep if the spells were low, level, in 2e, AFAIK, it was a night's sleep.

In 1e, a very high level magic-user might sleep 8 hours, then spend the whole day memorizing spells, and still have unfilled slots 16 hrs later....

Yeah, it was neat. A buddy of mine once used a Wish to get back all his memorized spells instantly, except the Wish itself. Time was a factor.

 

[Lanefan]

Or, y'know, upcasting any other spell, or use wish to Cast any 8th or lower level spell. So, yeah a bit more flexible than exactly one thing.

Upcasting has to go, along with any other mechanic that allows a spell to be cast using a slot not of its level.

Allowing spell effects to scale with level, as per 0-1-2-3e, is an OK tradeoff for the loss of flexibility.

Aging was also an absolute in 1e. You had a randomly determined max age, after which you died - and the very few ways of reversing aging, like the Longevity potion, couldn't be counted on.

So, yeah, 1e tried.

The Longevity potion works for sure the first time, and each successive one you quaff has a cumulative 1% chance of undoing all the effects of any previous such potinos consumed. In other words, your odds of getting the first half dozen to work are pretty good, just not perfect.

I mostly did away with the system shock roll for sudden aging, though, unless said aging comes from a Ghost.