Aldarc
Legend
What's easier: a wizard course-correcting their chosen spells or a fighter having to course-correct their feats and fighting style?
D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math
- Thread starter M_Natas
- Start date
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Not as popular. It was merely the only thing to ever come even remotely close to being so.
Unfortunately, anything official I could have given you was deleted from Wizards' website years ago in, I believe, the second great purge of data. The third simply complicated things even further in that department.
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
An argument doesn’t make itself. If you call it a dumb argument then at the very least it’s an implicit accusation that a person is making dumb arguments. That’s personal IMO.You’d be wrong. Unless it attacks the person, it’s not a personal attack.
Your logical fallacy is ad hominem
You attacked your opponent's character or personal traits in an attempt to undermine their argument.yourlogicalfallacyis.com
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
This is a point I hadn’t considered in favor of wizards before, but you are absolutely right. Over time they can course correct. They already get to know way more spells than they can prepare so if they made a bad choice for a given campaign after a few levels they can just stop preparing that spell.
Add in spell scrolls and it gets even easier - but they aren’t required for this.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
No, they don't. I've crunched the numbers. You need spend only about a third of your guaranteed spells (aka about 1-2 per spell level) on offense spells in order to put out excellent damage numbers. Get a low-level spell that scales well and have one or two higher spells per spell level that slap hard (e.g. fireball for third level) and everything else can go to utility. If you happen to be able to buy or find scrolls, focus on rituals if you can, but otherwise just grab whatever you like, most choices are at least decent. (And with the slow power creep on spells, it's easier than ever before to specialize in damage types that are rarely resisted, like psychic or force.)
The "quantum Wizard" who somehow always has the exact perfect spell for every situation is not, at all, required. You get four spells per spell level. Dedicating two of them to powerful, general utility effects (like fly and polymorph) is as easy as breathing and still very, very powerful.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
RAW fighters can retrain one feat at every level up, right? And with the new UA changes wizards can swap out prepared spells with one minute of in-game time.
This is totally balanced. /s
Is that RAW? I can't find it.
The only RAW feature I see is the (4th level) Martial Versatility which allows you to replace your fighting style and any one maneuver when you would get an ASI.
My PERSONAL rule (for my homegame) is you can respec your character at anytime to whatever you feel best represents the concept/character you want to play. Haven't had anyone even come close to abusing this yet.
I honestly wonder if this "feature" wasn't thrown in just to see who was paying attention. If you DIDN'T mention how over the top it was in your feedback, they'd take your feedback less seriously. It's just that crazy.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Easier or simpler in the sense of having fewer options and far less flexibility/versatility. Not necessarily easier choices or easier to play effectively.
TSR fighters faced almost no choices to roll up, just pick weapon proficiencies, later, pick a weapon to specialize, and make the tough long-term-implication choice of maximizing TWF damage now, or making the most of inevitable magic longswords later.
Making a fighter effective in play was a matter of lucking into good magic items and the sheer Gygaxian "Skilled Play" that you needed regardless of class.The 3.x fighter was complex to build, and you probably wanted a carefuly thought out multi-level (probably multi-class) build to make it viable. Then it was also challenging to play effectively, needing careful use of tactics and positioning, and buying just the right (magical) gear. (Barbarians were a better training wheels class in 3.x)
4e the fighter was easy enough to build (all classes were, tho you could CharOP to the nth degree, too), and challenging to play, because the defender role required you to pay attention to your allies and enemies and their capabilities. They were not a 'wake me on my turn class' anymore. (Archery Ranger was the easy class in 4e)
The 5e fighter is like the 3e fighter, without the elegant design, and turned down to a soft 4. You should optimize to put in a good showing, but it's mostly going to be on the DM, anyway.
But then, 5e isn't exactly hard for any class, slot casting is pretty care-free, really. You can fall into the trap of picking tightly themed spells and finding none of them useful in some situations, or you can cast a spell every round in filler combats you should be leaving to cantrips and mundane attacks, and not have anything good left for a more important encounter... at low level, or if the DM is a stickler for forcing longer days....
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Well hell. It’s even worse than I thought. Fighters are stuck with their feats forever and, as per 2014, wizards can swap prepped spells with a long rest…and possibly with one minute of in-game time come 2024.
I mean there so much about the wizard as presented in the 2014 PHB that’s cuckoo banana pants that people are mostly “yeah, why not…makes sense.”
Even so, the 5e wizard is a big dial back from the 3e wizard. The martial-caster gap was SIGNIFICANTLY reduced between 3-5e (Well it was near eliminated in 4e, but let's not go there!).
Similar Threads
