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

[Baron Opal II]

It would be cool to get back to the thread's actual topic of ways to fix the gap between casters and non-casters. Any new ideas in that regard?

Wouldn't it though?

Battle Master is the base class.
Themed maneuvers that are dependent on sub-class and level. Champion could be adapted / cannibalized to the Power Role. Abilities scale with level.

Movement / Agility / Speed

• Human paragon Long / High Jump
• AC bonus with Dash action, bonus with move at higher level
• Move ignoring foes, difficult terrain d/t leaping over obsticles
• Evade OA
• Run over water as long as you end on solid ground
• Escher Run, any surface is "the ground" until the end of your turn
• Gotta Stab 'Em All - Attack all foes within 20 ft.

Power / Leverage / Force

• Sweeping attack that hits targets in a row. Great when cornered or surrounded.
• Forceful strike the knocks back a target enough to push over a cliff, create an opening, &c.
• Thrown weapons have arrow range
• Sunder armor, doors; bend bars, lift gates; paragon weightlifting
• Hit an opponent so hard that when they die their allies test morale, make fear saves
• Cannot be bound; no bond of rope, steel, or magic can restrain them
• Strike foes harmed by magic weapons. Might need a new weapon every other round.

Precision / Patience / Timing

• Bonus to initiative, perceives in "slow time"
• Can remain motionless for extended time (actually quite hard)
• Can negate AC bonus d/t observation and precise strikes
• Parry, Riposte, Disarm; reactive advantages when opponents miss.
• Strong saves d/t predicting how opponents move and attack
• Force concentration checks with thrown knives, perhaps preemptively (uncanny form of counterspell)
• Strike Between Heartbeats - Make an out-of-turn attack

Leadership / Strategy / Planning

• Hide Wounds- Able to hide suffered damage, damaging morale of the foes and boosting friends morale
• Guide Attacks - grant allies advantage
• "The Plan" - Taking time to assess a situation, the Leader grants bonuses to achieve an objective (not necessarily combat)
• "Alternate Plan B" - Have a means to mitigate unexpected situations, because they really aren't unexpected.
• Inspire Courage - Provide advantage on saves vs fear, emotion manipulation, charm, &c.
• Stand Down - Make an attacking group pause unmoving for a round due to commanding presence
• This Far And No Farther - Keep fighting until all three death saves are failed. While standing those around you gain temp hp from your stalwart courage.

For magicians (because I haven't heard of people complaining about clerics much this edition):

Twice as many spells as before. Not spells castable, actual spells. All of those spells that are out there, useful, but everyday life. And, present situations where they are used in the world and thus reasons for PCs to take. (Social Pillar) Rain Ward- the umbrella form of floating disk. Could actually be useful adventuring if you have to pass under a waterfall or are concerned about that green slimy patch on the ceiling. Couvade- the partner of the birthing woman takes on much of the stress of childbirth, increasing survival of mother and infant. (That's more of a druid spell, though.) Excavation- Digs a well or defensive trench. Wall of Warmth- Heats an area to a habitable level of warmth.

The more situational spells they have, and have opportunity to use, the fewer combative spells they will have. Or, at least use them more judiciously.

EtA: Curated spell lists for magician covenants / guilds. Here are 10 spells per level that you could know. Here's the special ability of your guild. If you want to learn a spell outside of your guild's list you can, but it must be researched.

Maximum spell level castable is Score - 10. In this edition it's easy enough to bring a score to 20- make it an opportunity cost.

Allow multiple spells requiring concentration to be active at the same time. +5 to the Concentration check for each spell, and all are lost if failed. Creates an opportunity cost for clutch plays.

How's that?

 

[Neonchameleon]

What I think is that you have a personal problem with magic in general, and full-casters in particular.

I love magic and almost always play a caster. I have a problem with fighters (and co) not scaling properly in anything but damage. But that doesn't mean I never want lower magic campaigns.

 

[mamba]

Wow. That is some serious house-cleaning.

yes, turns out it needed it

I question Warlock as half-caster. Maybe Pact Magic, without the higher level 1/day spells?

how is Pact Magic then not strictly inferior to a half caster?

Will the Cleric's spells also be compressed to a 5-level progression? ...oh, and you didn't mention Paladin?

Paladin will probably escape mostly unscathed, I never found the Cleric spell list as offensive as the Wizards, but I might limit it to 7th level (at the same time, by the time it goes over that, you are at level 15, and I am not really too worried by then). If I do, then the Paladin spell progression will be adjusted accordingly.

 

[mamba]

I'll defo fight on some of those as there's gaps they fill. Fighter will never be able to fill the sheer mass of wuxia that the monk has

yes, that is a plus in my book. As I said, I never liked the Monk

and a pal of mine, every time I brought up folks saying the cleric should be merged into the druid, has laughed and called everyone who thought so crazy. Those two at least have so much more sheer mass in the wider fantasy and RPG space that folks will just completely re-invent them as split classes, because the existing classes will fail to live up to what they can do or they'll be weighed down with unfitting parts. The wider fantasy RPG take on a druid is incredibly far from D&D's cleric. If anything, I'd be looking at ditching the Cleric entirely and moving it as more of something like the White Mage or Warcraft's Priest as I'd say those are the wider accepted 'this is the healer/anti undead' one out there

The Druid goes because the shapeshifting goes as part of toning the whole magic level down. They will be more nature clerics. No idea what a Warcraft Priest looks like, I might merge Paladin and Cleric if needed, I assume that is what you are implying, more or less, but I think they can both stand on their own right now.

And, well, as my friend says, the Cleric moreso gives the vibes of the Druid's enemy rather than its base

I don't see it

Ditching the fighter and keeping Barbarian around and basically doing similar to the split of Wizard/Warlock/Sorcerer may be better though, so something like Barbarian/Knight/Lancer for your big heavy hitter with little armor, your heavy armored juggernaught, and your longer ranged one who moves in and out

They can all live on one wider base class as different subclasses, I do not see a need for two separate classes here. For tradition the name that remains is Fighter. As @Snarf Zagyg said earlier, "too much design is taken up by the class, and too little is left for the sub-class". I agree and am addressing that here. This is all work in progress, will see where it ends up, but which classes go is pretty much decided, what is left to do (and that is a lot) is tweaking the ones that survived

 

[mamba]

My version of this is much simpler. Ban all full spellcasters. And not only do warlocks have pact magic, they can't recover it by short resting more than once per long rest. And no they aren't half casters - for powerful magic sell your soul.

I want to get rid of short rests on top of that. To me the abandoned 2024 Warlock struck the best balance for what I want as my base. It needs more than 4 spells or so, and they should not all be max level.

 

[mamba]

That's a lot of player-side changes. How do your players feel about it (particularly any that like spellcasters)?

I guess we will find out, I am expecting a bit of an adjustment over the pure vision, but I think most of it will be able to pass with a bit of tweaking

 

[Tony Vargas]

And, well, as my friend says, the Cleric moreso gives the vibes of the Druid's enemy rather than its base

I don't see it

Clerics were heavily Christian inspired, Druids pagan-inspired.

So an Old Religion/New Religion conflict

There was a theory that the witches and devil-worshippers persecuted by the medieval church were survivals of ancient pagan traditions.

 

[Mecheon]

yes, that is a plus in my book. As I said, I never liked the Monk

Its a popular archetype that, if doing it, people will ask for it immediately. The thing to remember when we're at this whole magical argument is that D&D is a high fantasy, high magic game where crashed space-ships, ancient ruins a plenty, time travel, space travel, planer travel, the works

I get people like the low magic, but, D&D has never really given itself to low magic at all and its going to lead a clash with simply how D&D is presented. Even Greyhawk, the one people try to present as the grittier, low-magic setting, is still the setting with the aformentioned crashed alien spacecraft. Trying to limit to 'this is just medieval-ish Europe (except with plate armor)' is a fraught game when Egyptian and Greek sphinges co-exist with Indian naga, Japanese tengu (which kenku are based on), Icelandic trolls and German kobolds

The Druid goes because the shapeshifting goes as part of toning the whole magic level down. They will be more nature clerics. No idea what a Warcraft Priest looks like, I might merge Paladin and Cleric if needed, I assume that is what you are implying, more or less, but I think they can both stand on their own right now.

The problem is, druid shapeshifting is the archetype's Thing. The archetype is much wider and due to 'popular enough that D&D felt a massive pinch in its heyday' Warcraft, the shapeshfiter nature caster is the druid archetype. When people pick 'druid' they want "I will turn into a bear or werewolf and maul a dude", they don't want "You're wearing mail armor"

Clerics are, by their design, evocative of Chrstian knights going around and crusder-ing. They're the very people who wiped out the druids. They're what a druid would fight.

Warcraft's priest is a cloth-wearer who uses holy magic. Think White Mages from Final Fantasy (which sort of derive from the white robes from Dragonlance but went all in on healing and also harvesting your allies wounds for power to unleash the Blood Lily). D&D is really unusual in its healer class is heavily armored, and if redoing D&D today, Cleric would easily be the first on the chopping block simply due to the archetype not being a thing outside of D&D

They can all live on one wider base class as different subclasses, I do not see a need for two separate classes here. For tradition the name that remains is Fighter. As @Snarf Zagyg said earlier, "too much design is taken up by the class, and too little is left for the sub-class". I agree and am addressing that here. This is all work in progress, will see where it ends up, but which classes go is pretty much decided, what is left to do (and that is a lot) is tweaking the ones that survived

The other problem of course comes from 'are we adding too much into sub-classes', which in turn makes sub-classes hard to design. Trying to merge Druid and Cleric into one class is a mess because the two classes want such different things in how they're presented that its going to mangle one or the other, or give them things that are useless to the class ideal.

I do understand merging, but over-merging can easily dilute what makes people drawn to particular archetypes. I'd argue that's the wizard's problem, being too over-merged into 'the spellcaster' in the past, which in turn is why warlocks and sorcerers have such popularity despite a bit of mechanical jank on the sorcerer's part. They're allowing the fictional archetype to shine brighter

Splitting stuff, making it more compartmentalised so they have a specific list of things they can do, could also benefit the gap by limiting what any individual caster can do, rather than the current 'wizards can do anything' casting at the moment

 

[mamba]

The thing to remember when we're at this whole magical argument is that D&D is a high fantasy, high magic game where crashed space-ships, ancient ruins a plenty, time travel, space travel, planer travel, the works

not for me, keep your planar travel and high magic settings. The whole point of this exercise is to tone it down a bit, otherwise I would go the other direction and buff the martials.

Someone else is welcome to adjust in that direction, it is not my focus

The problem is, druid shapeshifting is the archetype's Thing.

will have to see, I might use the Paladin as the baseline template (ie half caster), the cleric adds more spells, the druid adds shapeshifting, the paladin keeps their smites

Similar to how Warlock became the only mage

 

[overgeeked]

Its a popular archetype that, if doing it, people will ask for it immediately. The thing to remember when we're at this whole magical argument is that D&D is a high fantasy, high magic game where crashed space-ships, ancient ruins a plenty, time travel, space travel, planer travel, the works

I get people like the low magic, but, D&D has never really given itself to low magic at all and its going to lead a clash with simply how D&D is presented. Even Greyhawk, the one people try to present as the grittier, low-magic setting, is still the setting with the aformentioned crashed alien spacecraft. Trying to limit to 'this is just medieval-ish Europe (except with plate armor)' is a fraught game when Egyptian and Greek sphinges co-exist with Indian naga, Japanese tengu (which kenku are based on), Icelandic trolls and German kobolds


The problem is, druid shapeshifting is the archetype's Thing. The archetype is much wider and due to 'popular enough that D&D felt a massive pinch in its heyday' Warcraft, the shapeshfiter nature caster is the druid archetype. When people pick 'druid' they want "I will turn into a bear or werewolf and maul a dude", they don't want "You're wearing mail armor"

Clerics are, by their design, evocative of Chrstian knights going around and crusder-ing. They're the very people who wiped out the druids. They're what a druid would fight.

Warcraft's priest is a cloth-wearer who uses holy magic. Think White Mages from Final Fantasy (which sort of derive from the white robes from Dragonlance but went all in on healing and also harvesting your allies wounds for power to unleash the Blood Lily). D&D is really unusual in its healer class is heavily armored, and if redoing D&D today, Cleric would easily be the first on the chopping block simply due to the archetype not being a thing outside of D&D


The other problem of course comes from 'are we adding too much into sub-classes', which in turn makes sub-classes hard to design. Trying to merge Druid and Cleric into one class is a mess because the two classes want such different things in how they're presented that its going to mangle one or the other, or give them things that are useless to the class ideal.

I do understand merging, but over-merging can easily dilute what makes people drawn to particular archetypes. I'd argue that's the wizard's problem, being too over-merged into 'the spellcaster' in the past, which in turn is why warlocks and sorcerers have such popularity despite a bit of mechanical jank on the sorcerer's part. They're allowing the fictional archetype to shine brighter

Splitting stuff, making it more compartmentalised so they have a specific list of things they can do, could also benefit the gap by limiting what any individual caster can do, rather than the current 'wizards can do anything' casting at the moment

Absolutely. The cleric always felt like a 2/3 priest, 1/3 fighter while the paladin felt like a 1/3 priest, 2/3 fighter…and yet there was no priest in the game. Almost literally every CRPG inspired by D&D has fixed this.

The druid archetype is the shapeshifter. If anything is cut it should be the casting. Combine the nature cleric and caster druid into a kind of shaman class. That would work. But a druid without shapechanging simply isn’t a druid.