D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[Imaro]

I find it fascinating that in the same thread we have people complaining about caster supra.cy, and they casters are no fun to play because NERF. Seems they hit the balance well.

Let's also not forget the assertion on these forums that fighter's are both underpowered/outclassed and gods of death who break the game either as ranged combatants and/or by taking one or two feats...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I find it fascinating that in the same thread we have people complaining about caster supra.cy, and they casters are no fun to play because NERF. Seems they hit the balance well.

Not...really? It sounds like the people who liked god-like mages are upset that they had their toys taken away, while the people who think Fighters should get to sit at the table of brotherhood with everyone else still haven't gotten what they want. That is, unless they become mages too.

Sometimes, "nobody's happy" will mean "everyone got something." Sometimes, it will mean nobody really got what they wanted. I'm not going to say that a reduction in caster power *compared to 3e* is bad--it surely is not. But "reduced from godhood" does not equate to "no longer ruling the roost." They're still orders of magnitude better off than non-casters--even Rogues, the most utility-y of the classes.

Let's also not forget the assertion on these forums that fighter's are both underpowered/outclassed and gods of death who break the game either as ranged combatants and/or by taking one or two feats...

Instead of blatantly mischaracterizing what others are saying, perhaps we could note that I (just as an example) have not once complained about the Fighter's combat ability? I've even explicitly called it top-tier for making dead. I have focused literally everything I've said on the non-combat portion. The only possible component that could be a complaint about combat performance is that I said they're highly sensitive to pacing (e.g. short rest frequency).

 

[bgbarcus]

My group just hit 8th level and most powerful characters are still the fighters. When does this tip toward the spellcasters?

 

[Parmandur]

Not...really? It sounds like the people who liked god-like mages are upset that they had their toys taken away, while the people who think Fighters should get to sit at the table of brotherhood with everyone else still haven't gotten what they want. That is, unless they become mages too.

Sometimes, "nobody's happy" will mean "everyone got something." Sometimes, it will mean nobody really got what they wanted. I'm not going to say that a reduction in caster power *compared to 3e* is bad--it surely is not. But "reduced from godhood" does not equate to "no longer ruling the roost." They're still orders of magnitude better off than non-casters--even Rogues, the most utility-y of the classes.



Instead of blatantly mischaracterizing what others are saying, perhaps we could note that I (just as an example) have not once complained about the Fighter's combat ability? I've even explicitly called it top-tier for making dead. I have focused literally everything I've said on the non-combat portion. The only possible component that could be a complaint about combat performance is that I said they're highly sensitive to pacing (e.g. short rest frequency).

Who says "nobody's happy?" Some people are dissatisfied, in both directions at once. Hard to say how representative it is, really.

Sure, the guy who is very athletic is not, strictly speaking, as powerful as the guy who can bend dimensions with his brain. But, on balance, the reality benders have some serious issues to work through (Concentration, slot economy, etc) that do not slow the action star down. Works so far.

 

[Imaro]

Not...really? It sounds like the people who liked god-like mages are upset that they had their toys taken away, while the people who think Fighters should get to sit at the table of brotherhood with everyone else still haven't gotten what they want. That is, unless they become mages too.

Of course in order for that to be balanced we'd have to make everybody else top tier combatants... which kinda defeats the purpose of the "fighter" class niche... I will say 5e is the first edition to give fighters the same number of skills and selection of skills available as every other class... not even 4e did that.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My group just hit 8th level and most powerful characters are still the fighters. When does this tip toward the spellcasters?

Depends on what you mean by "tip toward the spellcasters." Pure damage-wise, Fighters are pretty crazy damage (and Paladins aren't a slouch either). As I understand it, judicious use of 5th level slots can do more AoE damage than Fighters' single-target damage, but it's difficult to out-do the Fighter on that front. That said though, Wizards can still beat, or trivialize, encounters with high-level spells. It's harder, sometimes a lot harder, than it used to be (e.g. in 3e) but it can still be done. You may not have a Wizard player who guns for heavy optimization, too. After all, there are still people who swear that 3e doesn't have caster supremacy because they've never seen it at their tables.

Of course in order for that to be balanced we'd have to make everybody else top tier combatants... which kinda defeats the purpose of the "fighter" class niche... I will say 5e is the first edition to give fighters the same number of skills and selection of skills available as every other class... not even 4e did that.

Not necessarily. It would be completely possible to bring the Fighter up to (roughly) the level of the Paladin or Rogue without having to rebalance everything. I'm not trying to champion for Fighters being the best at everything. I just feel that they really can't meaningfully contribute to non-combat stuff via specifically Fighter-derived features. Hence why I have difficulty accepting the Eldritch Knight as "giving the Fighter utility." It does so by using features that explicitly *aren't* derived from the Fighter class (rather, from the Wizard class).

 

[Fralex]

I don't suppose you'd be willing to make a fixed pricing chart for magic items (and dmg poisons, etc), for those of us who just stared blankly at the screen as you explained how you came to those numbers?

I've been meaning to do this anyway, so sure.

As you can tell, the pricing for permanent magical items (consumable items cost half what they'd be if they were permanent) increases by 5 x 10^(a number related to rarity). Well, except for Common items, which cost 100 gp instead of 50 gp. There are about twice as many spell levels as rarity levels, which annoys me, so when pricing spell-based items like scrolls I refer to a chart that includes prices for every spell level. Uncommon items cost 500 gp, and the DMG says they can reproduce spell effects of up to 3rd level. Rare items cost 5000 gp and can produce spells of 5th level or lower. So, since 3rd level = 5 x 10^2 and 5th level = 5 x 10^3, 4th level must equal 5 x 10^2.5, or about 1581.13883. We can just round that up to 1600 gp for convenience's sake. Following that pattern, you get a chart like this:

0 - 16
1 - 50
2 - 160
3 - 500
4 - 1,600
5 - 5,000
6 - 16,000
7 - 50,000
8 - 160,000
9 - 500,000

And you can play around with these numbers by changing how fast the rarity number increases. Like, here's what it looks like if you follow a 2/3, 1, 1+1/3... pattern:

0 - 23
1 - 50
2 - 110
3 - 230
4 - 500
5 - 1,100
6 - 2,300
7 - 5,000
8 - 11,000
9 - 23,000

Right now, I'm keeping as close to the book as possible, to give it a chance, so I'm keeping 1st level at 100 gp and having 0 level be 50 gp. I actually made a little chart on a notecard, including this information along with a bunch of other useful things related to spells and magic items:

Spell Level	Rarity	Permanent Price	Consumable Price	Max AC/Attack Bonus	Single-Target Damage	Multi-Target Damage	Spell Attack	Save DC
0	Common	50	25		1d10	1d6	+5	13
1	Common	100	50		2d10	2d6	+5	13
2	Uncommon	160	80	+1	3d10	4d6	+5	13
3	Uncommon	500	250	+1	5d10	6d6	+7	15
4	Rare	1,600	800	+2	6d10	7d6	+7	15
5	Rare	5,000	2,500	+2	8d10	8d6	+9	17
6	Very Rare	16,000	8,000	+3	10d10	11d6	+9	17
7	Very Rare	50,000	25,000	+3	11d10	12d6	+10	18
8	Very Rare	160,000	80,000	+3	12d10	13d6	+10	18
9	Legendary	500,000	250,000	+4	15d10	14d6	+11	19

It's really handy.

 

[bgbarcus]

Depends on what you mean by "tip toward the spellcasters." Pure damage-wise, Fighters are pretty crazy damage (and Paladins aren't a slouch either). As I understand it, judicious use of 5th level slots can do more AoE damage than Fighters' single-target damage, but it's difficult to out-do the Fighter on that front. That said though, Wizards can still beat, or trivialize, encounters with high-level spells.

That matches what I'm expecting to see. The wizard and warlock in the group are already turning the worst encounters to manageable. But the rogue, fighter, barbarian, and paladin are not showing any sign of being overshadowed.

The only character that is feeling left behind is out tempest cleric. He used to be the big damage guy and now he's having to recalibrate his role. But that may swing back to parity in a few more levels.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I've been meaning to do this anyway, so sure.

As you can tell, the pricing for permanent magical items (consumable items cost half what they'd be if they were permanent) increases by 5 x 10^(a number related to rarity). Well, except for Common items, which cost 100 gp instead of 50 gp. There are about twice as many spell levels as rarity levels, which annoys me, so when pricing spell-based items like scrolls I refer to a chart that includes prices for every spell level. Uncommon items cost 500 gp, and the DMG says they can reproduce spell effects of up to 3rd level. Rare items cost 5000 gp and can produce spells of 5th level or lower. So, since 3rd level = 5 x 10^2 and 5th level = 5 x 10^3, 4th level must equal 5 x 10^2.5, or about 1581.13883. We can just round that up to 1600 gp for convenience's sake. Following that pattern, you get a chart like this:
It's really handy.

This is awesome. Thank you. As a DM that doesn't agree with the super rare magic item philosophy of 5e, this is gonna come in very handy.

No. The Bard has always included lore for legends, legendary persons, and magic items. General knowledge has not been their realm of study at all.


Wizards, on the other hand, focus their lives on study. Yes, mostly study of Arcane Lore, but that art is the most useful for learning about other facts. In previous editions, Wizards not only had the spells which could best acquire knowledge, they had the Intelligence necessary to more regularly make Int checks. In 3e, they had enough Int to get skill points to invest into Knowledge skills.

I think you're far too focused on previous game mechanics, rather than on what they're supposed to represent, but that's fine. I can just move on. We obviously aren't going to agree on what the Bard is supposed to be.
As for the wizard, I think you're just flat out wrong. The wizard's mechanics and flavor support being a hyper specialist. I would never expect, and I've never met anyone that would expect, a wizard to know about history, or politics, or culture/art.

The point of D&D (or any other such traditional RPG) - the whole reason we even have numbers for anything, instead of pure role-playing - is that it lets us determine the outcome of any narrative situation, without bias. You take the actors and actions from the narrative, convert those over to game mechanics, resolve the game mechanics, and then translate those back into a narrative resolution.

In order for this system to work at all, there must be consensus about how to convert the narrative into game mechanics. That's step one. We all need to agree that Drizzt converts over as a multiclass barbarian/ranger (or whatever). If there are different ways that we could convert the character, due to ambiguity between classes, then the resolution of any actions for that character are going to depend on an out-of-game factor (how we choose to convert him) rather than flowing causally from the in-game reality.

And of course, it's ridiculous to assert that the narrative outcome of an in-game action could possibly depend on out-of-game criteria. If we were going to do that, we could just cut to the chase and make up our own resolution, instead of futzing around with dice.

I guess I just find the idea that being able to fine tune the representation of a character interferes with roleplaying/resolution to be completely absurd.
On the other hand, I know from experience that more customization enhances the depth to which players immerse in their characters, and thus the world and the game as a whole. I also know that for large segments of the gaming population, it makes the game part more fun. Because it's a role playing game. There's a reason we aren't just roleplaying on a forum or just sitting around the table with no books or figs or whatever, and part of that reason is that we want to play a game in which we roleplay, not just roleplay.

Luckily, the two add to eachother, rather than detracting from eachother.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I guess I just find the idea that being able to fine tune the representation of a character interferes with roleplaying/resolution to be completely absurd.

There's no issue, as long as every character is distinct in both mechanical representation as well as the in-game reality corresponding to those mechanics.

It's perfectly fine, for example, to have a nature-cleric right alongside a druid. There just needs to be some objectively identifiable in-game reason for why they have different powers, and why the druid can't wear metal. You should never have a choice about which mechanics to fit to the character. You should be able to tell your DM all about your character's backstory, and your DM should be able to tell you 100%, without a doubt, whether that's a druid or a nature-cleric.