D&D 5E What Level is the Wizard vs. the Fighter?

[Minigiant]

Completely without

Seems a bit high.
But again that's with greatswords so a flier can stay out of range if you lack magic items and magic casters forcing the use of ranged trip manevers. Which forced the fighters into suboptimal range because the designers but melee and range on different Ability Scores and fighting styles. Through by 20 you could get 20 STR and 20 DEX. But you are forced to play Battlemaster to range trip.

The only fix they felt somewhat necessary was that in a purely non-magical party, you should give them magic weapons. That's it.

No I mean the who edition is built around "DM can fix it".

The designers never designed 5e around 4 featless magicless champion fighters and thief rogues fighting everything in the Monster Manual. It is very likely that they expected the low magic featless old schoolers to fight orcs and goblins for 20 levels with the rare evil necromancer boss fight.

The "X, Y, and Z are optional" are built on their assumption that the DM would shore up the party's deficiencies. That part was never stated openly and clearly. So in a weird nonstandard party the fighter is 1, 9, 15.

The Fighter isn't bad however they designed it to work under a certain standard. They should have been clear that it wasn't a designed to play without X Y and Z for 20 levels without DM adjustment.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Well, I was hoping with 62 votes I could do the analysis again, but unfortunately 3 voters didn't vote all three times, so this is with just 59 votes.

With outliers (the 1-10-20 votes who feel there is no difference, 17/59 or 28.8%):

Fighter 1 = Wizard 1 (0.90)
Fighter 10 = Wizard 8 (8.05)
Fighter 20 = Wizard 15 (15.46)

Without outliers:

Fighter 1 = Wizard 1 (0.86)
Fighter 10 = Wizard 7 (7.26)
Fighter 20 = Wizard 14 (13.62)

So, even with those who feel there is no difference, the level of Wizard to Fighter remains about 75%. This isn't much different from the earlier analysis with 40 votes.

Despite the evidence, although close to being significant, it isn't. While this doesn't prove, for instance, Fighter 20 = Wizard 20, it fails to prove it isn't. I'll continue the analysis if we get more votes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Out of curiosity, how scary would she be if:
(a) lacking all magical equipment (assume it was stolen, somehow neutralized, or had to be surrendered for a time and she went along with it)?
(b) unable to perform "magic," in the sense of no spells or spell-equivalent effects?
(c) stripped of supernatural boons/techniques/attributes etc. (e.g. no divine boons, no mystical effects from having drunk magic water, etc. even if those things only worked because she's a Fighter or her Fighter stats permitted her to survive them etc.)?
and
(d) all of the above together (e.g., JUST her Fighter stuff, nothing special/unique to her that she's acquired during her journey)?

For clarity, I ask because one of the major concerns for a lot of players is that those above things tend to only be given to a Fighter because the DM is bestowing special favors on the Fighter (that is, these special benefits only happen because the DM is using favoritism to counteract an existing power difference). I don't mean to disparage or diminish this particular character's (and player's) achievements. Rather, my goal is to shine light on things like how treasure tables were effectively a secret Fighter class feature in early D&D, significantly favoring equipment only they could use. That is, secret/invisible design choices that are easily overlooked or implemented poorly, but which were an intentional part of balancing the different archetypes in D&D and keeping them within a ballpark of one another.

Yeah, AD&D assumed you were actually using all the rules as intended, a legacy of its war gaming past (where it was much harder to get away with skipping rules). The way people play D&D it's much easier to be casual and hand-wave, which can affect that kind of balance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Easily dealt with with just a few spells. Mage armor gives AC of 13+Dex, meaning you'd need a negative modifier to be so poorly-off, and it lasts all day, so it's one 1st-level spell, a pittance for a even a 10th-level Wizard. They're likely to be much closer than 5 points, though. The best AC you can get without magic items is 21, and that's only if they hyper-specialize in defense at the expense of other things (sword-and-board + plate armor + Defense fighting style). A Wizard with mage armor and a mere +3 Dex mod--easily achieved by level 12, since Wizards only really value Int, Dex, and Con as stats--is exactly 5 points less than the best possible AC a Fighter can have without magic. And then for emergencies, shield can handily deal with other problems, which completely covers that gap for the price of another 1st-level spell. Plus, because shield is only for attacks that actually hit you and lasts the rest of the round, it's almost never wasted!

The HP gap would be more of a problem if the Wizard weren't so much better at playing keep-away than the Fighter could ever dream of being. Misty step, invisibility, and (especially) mirror image all dramatically mitigate that...and those are all 2nd level spells, which while not as much of a pittance as 1st level ones, are a pretty easy cost to swallow. And then fly and blink at 3rd level are even better, and vampiric touch can even make up for the HP problem in a pinch (though I wouldn't rely on it myself).

Throw mage armor, shield, misty step, mirror image, fly, and blink on a 13th-level Wizard. This isn't even half the spells you know of any of those categories, since you gain two spells at every Wizard level after 1st (and six at 1st level!) If you can learn some spells from scrolls or books, it would of course be useful, but far from necessary. Oh, and even with Arcane Recovery giving you an extra 5th level slot, you still have 2 extra spell levels' worth of refresh, so you can regain a 2nd level slot or two 1st level slots, for a total of four 2nd or six 1st level spells a day. This is not a Batman Wizard who can summon every spell imaginable from a quantum spellbook; this isn't even a particularly comprehensive approach, just a useful one--and you still have 12 other spells you can prepare each day (level 13 + Int mod of 5 = 18 prepared spells each day).

This approach even works great for several Wizard schools. Abjuration, bladesinging, chronurgy, conjuration, divination, and war magic are all excellent. Eocation, illusion, necromancy, and transmutation are all decent, albeit needing a bit more effort to make maximum use of. I think the ideal is probably Diviner or Abjurer, though Conjurer has the fun of teleporting a ridiculous amount of times, and Bladesinger/Warmage are best if actually intending to get into fisticuffs, since they mitigate the AC problem quite nicely. (Indeed, a Bladesinger can actually rival the AC-hyperfocused Fighter while in Bladesong; mage armor + Dex mod 3 + Int mod 5 = 13 + 3 + 5 = 21; with higher Dex, you can actually exceed the best non-magical AC a Fighter can achieve.)

So...yeah. You can do a hell of a lot to mitigate these issues, while still having 75% or more of your kit open for utility, power, shenanigans, or just goofing off. That's why I say a 13th-level Wizard is on a par with a 20th level Fighter. Are there things the Wizard might struggle to deal with still? Sure, we can construct situations like that. But overall, in general, the Wizard is in a better position, and with even a little bit of foreknowledge and a DM that isn't completely denying any opportunity to scribe more spells, they can be in an excellent position for nearly all situations. The Fighter, even at level 20, has absolutely nothing they can do to bridge that gap.

Wizards-in-the-generic can put a portion of their resources to being like Fighters, while still having the vast majority of their Wizard-ly stuff and not needing to take a "specifically becoming more like a Fighter" subclass (though, of course, they can still choose to). Fighters-in-the-generic? Not a chance. It takes actually becoming part-Wizard (EK), and even then, it's slim pickings.

This is why the new class idea has some legs, because there is no way to give fighters the types of abilities that rival wizards (short of magic items) without them ceasing to be fighters. A super-powered warrior is not a fighter; they are something else.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah, AD&D assumed you were actually using all the rules as intended, a legacy of its war gaming past (where it was much harder to get away with skipping rules). The way people play D&D it's much easier to be casual and hand-wave, which can affect that kind of balance.

In my experience, it's even more than that. OSR-type D&D expects you to use more than the rules as intended; there's a whole space of non-rules expectations and policies that aren't actually mentioned anywhere in the rules text, and the progressive forgetting and/or shedding of these things played a large part in both the rise of caster power, and the fall of martial power.

AIUI, if you legit played the early editions really "as intended," with all that extra tacit stuff, things were pretty balanced...in part because both the rules and the tacit policies both favored martials. But when the tacit stuff became forgotten stuff, and casters had many of their limits removed (because TBH those limits weren't particularly enjoyable to play around), problems started to crop up.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Community sentiments of the state of mid-high level suggest that it wasn't playtested well or enough within the parameters they suggested..

Fighters don't have enough superiority dice to grind down 8 encounters of the huge sacks of HP printed in the MM without heavy buffing via spells. Especially without use of control and utility magic or optional feats.

Neither can wizards or clerics grind them down. However killing isn't the wizards or cleric's primary nor secondary jobs. That's why the 13-16 range on the poll has so many votes. There are so many monsters with tons of traits, scary attacks, and over 100 HP.

I don't think the designers intended people to play 5e without magic items, feats, and half the party not being full casters with DM playing straight by the book. They expected you to use some of the "options".

I still don't understand this. Convenyional wisdom says that 5e combat is pretty easy, and using the CR system as written results in easy, unsatisfying encounters. Are you saying that's only true because of spells? Do your fighters regularly lose fights?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Calling it a "pity party" is rather more nasty than necessary for the conversation, don't you think? That doesn't seem to be conducive to actually getting people on board with your position.

Further, as noted in my previous post, I did everything I could to avoid the "quantum spellbook" problem, taking up much less than half of the minimum spells known for a 13th level Wizard and precisely a third of their spells prepared. Unlike what TheSword implied with their response, I wasn't expecting these things to be used in consecutive initial rounds of a combat, because yes, that would be Pretty Dumb. My point was that they're excellent defensive choices, for a Wizard actually concerned with "keeping up" with Fighters in terms of defenses. Plus, all the spells I suggested are good spells, ones recommended by guides (shield, misty step, fly, etc.) Fly and misty step even have non-combat utility.

The designers said repeatedly during the playtest of 5e that magic items were supposed to be fully optional, something that many--including myself--balked at over the years. And people continued to insist that it was true, that the DM did not ever need to give out magic items ever, for any reason, no matter what, period. Now, again, perhaps that belief is mistaken. But it's more than a little disingenuous to argue that the text truly supports the idea that magic items were always intended to be present for most if not all groups, when the text explicitly says that isn't the case, as you yourself quoted with the screenshot of that page from Xanathar's.

Again: it is entirely possible that the developers are simply wrong to say that, or that the text contradicts itself, or that the statement is an Obi-Wan-style truth "from a certain point of view," etc. You can, quite easily, argue any of those things and probably more that I'm not considering. But it is explicit, in the text and from the designers' lips, that magic items were intended to be optional, without any explicit caveats or reservations. To pretend that the text literally, actually claims otherwise is to blatantly ignore the actual words on the page. Whether those actual words are correct is absolutely a subject of (furious!) debate, but they're there, and to pretend like they aren't is playing sillybuggers.

Yeah, they may not have actually practiced what they preached, but what they preached is undeniable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Seems a bit high.
But again that's with greatswords so a flier can stay out of range if you lack magic items and magic casters forcing the use of ranged trip manevers. Which forced the fighters into suboptimal range because the designers but melee and range on different Ability Scores and fighting styles. Through by 20 you could get 20 STR and 20 DEX. But you are forced to play Battlemaster to range trip.



No I mean the who edition is built around "DM can fix it".

The designers never designed 5e around 4 featless magicless champion fighters and thief rogues fighting everything in the Monster Manual. It is very likely that they expected the low magic featless old schoolers to fight orcs and goblins for 20 levels with the rare evil necromancer boss fight.

The "X, Y, and Z are optional" are built on their assumption that the DM would shore up the party's deficiencies. That part was never stated openly and clearly. So in a weird nonstandard party the fighter is 1, 9, 15.

The Fighter isn't bad however they designed it to work under a certain standard. They should have been clear that it wasn't a designed to play without X Y and Z for 20 levels without DM adjustment.

Do you see a lot of parties consisting entirely of fighters and rogues? How unpopular IS spellcasting in your corner of the world?

 

[Bacon Bits]

Considering that a 20th level fighter can only hit 4-5 people in a round and a 5th level wizard can torch everything a 20' radius, the fighter isn't very high level.

Eh, this is misleading, and why white box analysis isn't great.

Fireball is limited to two per day at 5th in an edition that tells DMs to plan for 6-8 encounters per day. It also is indiscriminate, hitting allies and enemies. That all but requires winning initiative and a cooperative encounter design. Even if you are able to avoid hitting allies, you're unlikely to hit more than 3-5 targets. Even the damage, 8d6 (28), is not that spectacular. A fighter of 5th level can pretty easily be doing 1d8+5 (9.5) or 2d6+3 (10) twice a turn. The fighter catches up on single target damage after two rounds (less with an action surge), and single target damage in a system where you're just as effective at max hp as 1 hp is pretty important..

There's also basically no way in the game to improve fireball except higher spell levels, a higher DC, or the damage resistance feat, while fighters can improve damage and hit rate with higher ability scores, feats that significantly increase damage or add rider effects, class abilities, and magic items and weapons. 5e's track has moved it away from magic items which significantly affects the fighter more than other classes, but they do still exist.

The trouble is that fireball is not the only thing that wizards can do.

I pegged it thusly:

A level 1 Fighter is greater than a level 1 Wizard. At level 1, you're ruled by hp and AC, and Fighters have that.
A level 10 Fighter is about equal to a level 7 Wizard (but a level 11 Fighter is about a level 9 Wizard; Fighter 11 is a power spike).
A level 20 Fighter is about equal to a level 11-12 Wizard. Level 7+ spells are just dumb, and Fighter peaks at level 11-12.

 

[Maxperson]

Seems a bit high.
But again that's with greatswords so a flier can stay out of range if you lack magic items and magic casters forcing the use of ranged trip manevers. Which forced the fighters into suboptimal range because the designers but melee and range on different Ability Scores and fighting styles. Through by 20 you could get 20 STR and 20 DEX. But you are forced to play Battlemaster to range trip.

Dex is also 20. Since we are not using feats and this is 20th level, we've added +14 to stats. Damage for the bows they whip out lowers to 76-114+any superiority dice used. As for being "forced" to play a Battlemaster, I've seen 1 Eldritch Knight and every other fighter has been a Battlemaster. And all you need is one in the group. Out of 4 fighters no one is being "forced" to play one. At least one will be chosen, because that's what the player will want to play.

No I mean the who edition is built around "DM can fix it".

Rulings over rules =/= DM can fix it. It's built around customizing to what the group wants, which isn't the same as fixing things. The fighter isn't broken just because you feel like it should have magic items. There isn't anything to fix.

The designers never designed 5e around 4 featless magicless champion fighters and thief rogues fighting everything in the Monster Manual. It is very likely that they expected the low magic featless old schoolers to fight orcs and goblins for 20 levels with the rare evil necromancer boss fight.

Except we know from what they said that they did design 5e that way. They did say that you might feel the need to add in magic weapons in that case, though. To say that they didn't design it that way is to call them liars.

The "X, Y, and Z are optional" are built on their assumption that the DM would shore up the party's deficiencies. That part was never stated openly and clearly. So in a weird nonstandard party the fighter is 1, 9, 15.

In your opinion it's 1, 9, 15. In my opinion it's 1, 10, 19, though the challenge level will rise. Instead of fights being really easy, they're only going to be somewhat easy. 5e is the easiest edition to survive.