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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7846714" data-attributes="member: 71699">I think I understand your point (and relatedly have argued Bladesinger is a bad archetype for somewhat similar reasons). Yet I feel what you say here is too narrow to form a satisfying argument.Say we take a High Elf and because we have the Dex bonus as well as Int we're interested in weapon combat. After all, our attack roll with a decent weapon (longsword from Elven Weapon Training) will be as good as a fighters. If we make this character and compare it with a fighter at say level 4 (because by intent and design, the first few levels go quickly and it is around this power level that much of play occurs), we can see that so far as melee combat goes the fighter has all kinds of other relevant benefits that are not captured purely by the proficiency bonus.For example, our Elven longsword is a strength weapon, so we are likely on +3 attack, d8+1 damage compared with the fighters +6 attack, d8+4 damage. Our AC is likely 16 (mage armor) spiking to 21 (shield) while the fighter's could be a constant 20 (or they will have benefits elsewhere). Those could both be 1 point closer if we decide to use our level four ASI on Dex rather than our primary attribute, which I think would prove questionable if we end up adventuring into fifth level and up where we are casting more because - not having extra attacks - our melee damage-dealing will drop off sharply!Our spells pull some of this back because even after an assumed minimum of two or three defensive casts, we have at least three slots for things that could include mirror image or hold person. The fighter could be a blade master with four "casts" of menacing attack and a couple of relevant features like second wind and action surge.Where hit dice come into this is the fighter likely has 40 hp and our elf has 22. And on a rest our fighter recovers in d8s while our elf does so only in d6s. Fighter advantages in melee are about the whole package, not funneled purely through the proficiency bonus. But even looking narrowly at that, once we think about what weapon we could actually wield, the fighter is in a better place... until we decide that casting spells really is what we do best!</blockquote>

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