Vaalingrade
Legend
I can have fun playing with a fidget spinner. Doesn't make it an engaging experience.
No.Doesn't all of this just get washed out by 1 simple question: Can players have fun playing each and every class in D&D?
People tend to play classes they enjoy playing. Radical concept I know. Fighters are the most popular class is not coincidence nor ignorance.No.
playing more than one character at a time is a pain for most players
Seriously, tho, claims that a hypothetical or anecdotal player has just as much fun playing a mindless beatstick or healbot as an involved, high-agency character have no bearing on any analysis of what the game actually presents.
Like, this thread is evaluating whether the fighter can deliver as much damage over the course of an adventuring day as a wizard. That it's rather unlikely a player would actually enjoy grinding through the sort of day those calculations imply is actually moot.
People do, whether the class is good or not, because it's the concept that's attractive, not digging into the mechanics.People tend to play classes they enjoy playing. Radical concept I know.
It's an odd sort of squeaky wheel thing, but it really seems like WotC tries to improve the popularity of classes - like the Cleric or Druid or Bard, for instances - by making them more powerful.Fighters are the most popular class is not coincidence nor ignorance.
Yep, all those poor ignorant people thinking they're playing a character they enjoy. If only they would listen to your opinion of what a good class is!People do, whether the class is good or not, because it's the concept that's attractive, not digging into the mechanics.
Now, not that they're not also people, optimizers may very well choose to play a class they don't much care for, in concept, if it can power a sufficiently effective build.
It's an odd sort of squeaky wheel thing, but it really seems like WotC tries to improve the popularity of classes - like the Cleric or Druid or Bard, for instances - by making them more powerful.
The Fighter, as the most popular, loses the advantages of %STR, heavy armor, and fastest attack & save progressions.
3e made the nobody-wants-to-play-the-Cleric bandaid, and perennially least-popular Druid into CoDzilla.
The unpopular and roundly mocked Bard goes from sub-standard caster to 5e full caster with Expertise.
We have how many concurrent threads on this topic? At least a couple are dedicated to "how to improve balance" which I ignored.Some people care about balance, others don’t. Sure would be great if the people who cared about balance were allowed to talk about balance without the constant threadcrapping.
Yes. The more I think about it ... you can math that problem up, too.Doesn't all of this just get washed out by 1 simple question: Can players have fun playing each and every class in D&D? From personal experience, I can confirm the answer is Yes.
Further, I can confirm that a PC of every class can have moments to shine, and can do interesting and evocative things in the game. I can also confirm that there are multiple ways to build and play each class.
All in all, regardless of the DPR calculations, the control capabilities - they all work. We have people that absolutely love their PC in each of these classes. They've all been played in really ramped up difficulty games, and they've all been played in story heavy games. The only flubs I see that are things that I think should be addressed:
1.) The nonmagical classes ned more augmented abilities to use out of combat.
Yes, I want my Inventor-Class or Gadget Fighter2.) We need psions/pswychic warriors.
3.) I'd like to see a science/steampunk driven official class.
Wait...why is that the answer? What is the problem - that wizards are better at AoE? Why is it not also a problem that fighters are better at ST, then? Should we also be buffing wizards at ST? And what about other classes? Fighters are already outstanding damage dealers; the main complaint about the class (which, outside of a vociferous group on this forum is generally considered a strong class - we're not talking monks here) is that fighters aren't very great outside of combat.Having played a fighter and a wizard back-to-back this largely jibes with my experience and why I regard the so-called "disparity" with a good deal of side-eye. As a fighter at around level 10 I was dealing at least 50+ hp of damage to an enemy even with unlucky damage rolls whereas with a wizard I'm dealing 24-28 against a single target, less if they make their save. The difference is the wizard can deal that same damage to multiple targets at once. The disparity exists but it's conditional on whether you're fighting a single boss or a crowd of mooks.
The answer IMO is to give fighters area attacks. One idea I like from OSR is to give fighters bonus attacks against enemies below a certain Hit Dice threshold, which rises as the fighter levels up. Allows fighters to play into cinematic choreography of a warrior taking out three chumps with a single swing.