D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Parmandur]

In Combat.

There is still the problem of casters having WAY more options in social and exploration. The DMG barely even addresses the imbalance.

Sure if the casters go hog wild on spell use in social and exploration AND the DM ALSO pushes the combats to the number needed/suggested in the DMG the casters might lag behind in combat. But most DMs won't know to do that, and the pace would have to be pretty unrelenting (or the alternate rest rules used, but again, the DMG doesn't go into that).

Yes, the game is balanced around "unrelwnting" combat. Do note, however, that the sweet spot that the math in this thread points out (matching the DMG advice) in the fiction represents about 1-3 minutes of combat in 24 hours of narrative. Plenty of room to space out the action scenes in the action adventure game.

 

[Oofta]

This depends a bit on the campaign. By the time the wizard can teleport, there are plenty of other world beeting things they can do.


Again, this depends on how well the DM ensures the party can't just rest on their own schedule. If they can, arcane eye and spells like it can be a real issue. If not, it's just another resource.


The Wizard (in particular) gets LOTS of spells. They don't need the planets to align if they just pick a nice assortment of extremely useful ones, while still maintaining a good combat assortment. If the memorize spell (or whatever it's called...) from the ne playtest packet makes it through to 2024, then we might REALLY see a 3e revival of the wizard never being flatfooted! And yes, I've made my dislike of the feature known in the survey.



It's not a question of pointless, it's a question of being more difficult to make matter. The fighter has a clear lack of support in the pillars other than the combat pillar. Yes, they can take steps to mitigate (like anyone else can), but there is not even a twinge of a discussion from WoTC as to what to do there - that's not a good thing. There is HUGE room for improvement, that's my big issue.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round... much like this conversation.

It's not an issue for me that different classes have different roles. It hasn't been an issue in any group, any game, for the past decade. I don't see a reason to continue to repeat.

 

[Sacrosanct]

They may not always have the perfect spell, but they will almost always have a relevant or useful spell.

Not in my experience.

 

[NotAYakk]

Do the opposite of this. Kill long rest and the workday. Encounter powers only means you can scale the encounter schedule infinitely without breaking anything.

Chapter
Scene
Turn

You have per-turn resources. Your action, your attack, your reaction, etc. Usually called "at-will".

Scene is your encounter, but named differently - because I want to include more than "meeting monsters". For recovery, instead of it being 5 minutes or an hour, make it a rest in bed in a safe spot. Possibly include some limited per-day "second wind" abilities that let you reset it faster.

Chapter is a larger chunk. It should cover a good chunk of an adventure. There should be introductory scenes, central scenes and a climax scene. In world it should take days.

Between chapters there should be Downtime - call it a week - where you are traveling, recovering, resupplying, or investigating what to do next.

Wait, I just described Gritty rests in the 5e DMG. How did that happen.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's not an issue for me that different classes have different roles. It hasn't been an issue in any group, any game, for the past decade.

Is it an issue that 5e is often credited with doing away with roles, entirely?
"There's no combination of classes you need, play what you want."
Like, people are actually saying things like that. (I've been away from here a few years, I was genuinely surprised by that one - I know 5e did away with support for the 'tank' role almost entirely, and made in-combat healing bad, but the idea that Wizard, Cleric, Fighter & Rogue are somehow interchangeable, I find bizarre).

Right. Point being it’s not “a garbage assumption” that the wizard will have a relevant spell. They may not always have the perfect spell, but they will almost always have a relevant or useful spell.

TBF, back in the day, when the magic-user started with Read Magic, and three random spells, and had to pick one to memorize at the start of the day, it would be a stretch to expect that spell to be useful in more than one encounter or challenge in the coming day. Though, also, tbf, it'd've been a stretch to expect it to be useless in every challenge the day would bring.

Even as magic-users rapidly gained spells per day, the limitation of needing to memorize each spell was still significant, and the prospect of learning new spells was very much up to the DM.

5e, tho, with spells known picked by the player and increasing steadily with level, and prepared spells picked from that list daily, and prepared spells cast with slots spontaneously, the chance to bring a good spell to bear in every situation is really pretty favorable. The best it's ever been, taking into account only spellcasting ability (wands & scrolls in 3.x/PF1 could really pump up the availability of low-level & situational/utility spells).

 

[FallenRX]

Apparently, WotC has worked out "Virtual Damage" math for utility abilities. They aren't sharing, though.

Its just the average damage of the spell level it appears.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Wait, I just described Gritty rests in the 5e DMG. How did that happen.

Still pretty terrible unless we get real combat healing.

 

[Parmandur]

Its just the average damage of the spell level it appears.

And honestly it seems to work in practice.

 

[Mort]

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round... much like this conversation.

It's not an issue for me that different classes have different roles. It hasn't been an issue in any group, any game, for the past decade. I don't see a reason to continue to repeat.

The fact that different classes have different roles, isn't my issue. That's SUPPOSED to be part of the system.

The issue is when some classes can step on the toes of the other classes because the designers give them too many levers to pull (in this case magic). It was a HUGE problem in 3e, where, properly played casters could basically sub in for ANY role they wanted and still do their own schtick.

It's less of a problem in 5e, the casters ability to seamlessly sub in to any roll with little cost HAS been reduced. But it's still there - especially outside of combat where, fighters get so little support (outside the support everyone gets).

And interestingly, the designers have now floated INCREASING the ability of wizards to step on others toes (with the innocuous looking but quite over the top memorize spell feature in the last playtest). We'll see if that survives into 2024.

 

[overgeeked]

The fact that different classes have different roles, isn't my issue. That's SUPPOSED to be part of the system.

The issue is when some classes can step on the toes of the other classes because the designers give them too many levers to pull (in this case magic). It was a HUGE problem in 3e, where, properly played casters could basically sub in for ANY role they wanted and still do their own schtick.

It's less of a problem in 5e, the casters ability to seamlessly sub in to any roll with little cost HAS been reduced. But it's still there - especially outside of combat where, fighters get so little support (outside the support everyone gets).

And interestingly, the designers have now floated INCREASING the ability of wizards to step on others toes (with the innocuous looking but quite over the top memorize spell feature in the last playtest). We'll see if that survives into 2024.

Yeah. That's a big part of it for me too. There's no niche protection to speak of, especially where casters are involved. Martials have niche protection from each other...mostly. Casters can walk right up and cast a single spell that tramples all over that niche protection.