D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Vaalingrade]

I can have fun playing with a fidget spinner. Doesn't make it an engaging experience.

 

[Tony Vargas]

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?

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.

 

[Oofta]

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 tend to play classes they enjoy playing. Radical concept I know. Fighters are the most popular class is not coincidence nor ignorance.

 

[Tony Vargas]

People tend to play classes they enjoy playing. Radical concept I know.

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.

Fighters are the most popular class is not coincidence nor ignorance.

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.

 

[Oofta]

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.

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!

 

[overgeeked]

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.

 

[Oofta]

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.

We have how many concurrent threads on this topic? At least a couple are dedicated to "how to improve balance" which I ignored.

But a thread comes out explaining why some people don't see an issue, using DPR as a measure, and people who like the fighter as is are the ones thread crapping? You don't see the irony?

 

[James Gasik]

Why is DPR a good measuring stick of performance in this instance? We know that Wizards aren't damage machines in the traditional sense* and there are people who think that their non-damaging spells are the problem.

*Even in a target-rich environment, a Wizard not only needs to be able to accurately target 3+ foes for something like Fireball to be worth casting, but they also need to avoid friendly fire (or be Evocation Wizards) and even then, your 28 damage save for half might seem like a lot of damage, but it hasn't actually felled many foes so it's not reducing much incoming damage on the turn it occurs, the way a group of Fighters who can focus fire on a single target will.

I would think it's far better to try and Slow up to 6 guys, severely blunting their damage and making them easier for said Fighters to kill off quickly, and no need to worry about hitting a friendly, but it's really difficult to compare a tactic like that to damage, it's literally apples and oranges.

It's perhaps not too dissimilar to something like American Football- when judging a team's merits, you have to look at offense, defense, special teams, leadership, and "intangibles" that are difficult to judge in a vacuum- is home field advantage going to be a thing? How about the weather? The condition of the turf? Win/Loss ratios in the past?

Put another way, it's like trying to decide which class is better and what DM advice should go into comparing Fighters to Rogues and only looking at Skill Proficiency between both classes- it's one facet of a complex scenario.

The Fighter is strong when it comes to damage output, the Wizard, less so. We have math that shows this much, and while that's useful data, it doesn't paint a complete picture.

And to those who think Fighters are fine and have never had any problem with them whatsoever, nor apparently can conceive of a scenario where Fighters might fall short in a campaign- you have the answers you require.

Through some combination of player preference and DM playstyles, by accident or design you've avoided the scenarios that might cause problems. Congratulations! So what's the answer for those who do see these problems?

Are they playing the game wrong? Are their DM's completely inept? Are they lying to further some agenda?

And what agenda would that be, beyond "nerf casters plz" or "buff Fighters"? And if, through some miracle, WotC actually deigns to pay attention and nerfs casters and/or buffs Fighters, what difference does that make?

Fighters are already popular, so the only result I can foresee is that people play casters less often than they already do. Which seems like it would settle the debate once and for all. The people who want balance get it, and the people who like Fighters continue playing them. Huzzah!

But instead we get bogged down in the weeds somewhere, because the issue isn't balance at all- the issue seems to be, quite often "will my Fighter feel like some posthuman superbeing if they get improved?".

Because somehow, the option of still playing the "just fine" Fighter regardless is apparently off the table. Which I don't get. If an omnipresent demiurge swooped in and replaced the Fighter in the PHB with a, I don't know, "Myrmidon" who can throw shields, leap 50' into the air, and dodge arrows while being relatively immune to spells, it occurs to me that the people who reject that concept on it's merits will just...not use them.

DM's will say "banned in my games", as is their prerogative. Players who don't like that class fantasy will gravitate towards tables that still allow them to play Fighters.

So what's the problem then? That it could turn out players actually would prefer the Myrmidon over the Fighter?

 

[M_Natas]

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. The more I think about it ... you can math that problem up, too.
In the Social and Exploration Pillars, we have "At-Will-Powers": Skills and ability score modifiers and some passive features (Goliath double cartying capacity). They are the "base attack" everybody can always do. They are equivalent with the fighter attack action or wizard cantrips.
Then we have special abilities that use ressources, that can help with social and exploration pillar. Spells, bardic inspiration and some other stuff I can't remember right now.
If we look at it:
When Wizards and fighters only use their at will powers for fighting, the Fighter does roughly 100% more damage than a Wizard.
When casters and non casters use their at will social and exploration skills, only rogue ands bards get a benefit trough expertise, which is also roughly 20% at first level (to hit a DC 15 with a +5 has a 55%, with a +7 a 65% Chance, 65 is roughly 18% more than 55).
The rest is up to the players to alocate their skills and ability scores.
Wizards usually don't get high ability scores that are good for social or exploration pillar, but Bards and Druids and Clerics get that (Charisma, Wisdom). So at worst we have at Level 1 a Cleric with a perception of +5 vs our Expert Rogue with +7 (18% difference) at best we have a wizard with 0 wisdom and no Prof on perception vs a + 5 (prof.) or +7 (expertise), the difference is 83% to 117% to hot DC 15. So a character with proficiency or expertise and best ability score at lvl. 1 has roughly double the chance to successfully do a skill check against DC 15.
The other option is a +2 (prof.) Or + 3 (ability score modifiers of+3), where a + 5 or +7 is 22% to 63% more likely to succed.

But like it is often said: Everybody gets proficienies, everybody can get expertise trough a feat.
So At-Will social and exploration powers are not balanced between classes like At-Will Combat powers.

Now some classes get limited ressources that can aid them during combat and during social and exploration Pillars, mostly spells.
Now some are hard to calculate. Like, what Bonus does Disguise self actually give? But we can try.
Let's look at some spells:

Friends. Gives advantage on Charisma checks.That's a bonus that equals a +4 against a DC of 15.
Guidance: +2,5 on any skill checks on average.
And that are just cantrips.

Disguise Self - let's say that's advantage on deception. So mathematically a +4 to Skill Checks again. The same with alter Self.

Suggestion: That's hard to calculate. If the creature fails the saving throw, I would count that as a critical success. The creatures does exactly what you want. So at Lvl 1 that's a DC 13, but ignite succeeds the effects would by like a Nat 20 Persuasion Check that bypass most "the NPC wouldn't do that" problems. I would say that could be the equivalent of a +10 to a skill check trying something similar.

Enhance ability is easier: +4 thanks to advantage.

So, I will not check now all spells that have applications outside of combat and give them arbitrary numbers I think would feel right as a bonus in comparison to skill checks, but the direction is clear. Level Spells without drawback can be counted as to be the equivalent of at least a +4 for a skill check.

What does that mean?
While the At-Will Baseline Skillcheck bonus (outside of Bard an Rogue) is similar for all characters, when spellcasters have free spellslots to use, they can up their bonus by at least +4 or a 36% (skill +5) to 67% (skill 0) increased chance to hit DC 15.

So in Conclusion, while Casters have Spellslots to spare, they are 36 to 67% more efficient than non casters in the Social and Exploration pillar. Without spellslots to spare they are equal.
(Except for Bards and Rogues)

Solution without making WotC change the rules:
Increase the number of combat rounds and out of combat situations in which the caster will use up their spellslots.

That's like the only solution without changing the rules.

Solution with changing the rules:

• Remove expertise for the Bard. They are already a caster, so they now have at lvl. 1 a +7 and also a +4 thanks to spellcasting? That's a lot.
• Either:

- Raise the Baseline for Non-Casters so that that with at Will Powers, like giving them expertise so that they 20-30% better than casters with at will skill checks. So without expending ressources Non Caster will be better at Social and Exploration, but with spending spells, Casters will be better - similar to the Fighter and Wizard in battle, where the fighter base damage is stronger than the wizard's, but when the wizard goes Nova, he outdamages the fighter. Reliable medium damage output vs. Low reliable damage output with high spikes.
- give Non Casters limited use abilities to also gain Nova Options for social and exploration pillar. The OneDND Playtest fighter actually get one such ability where he can give himself advantage on a skill check, I think.

2.) We need psions/pswychic warriors.
3.) I'd like to see a science/steampunk driven official class.

Yes, I want my Inventor-Class or Gadget Fighter .

 

[Clint_L]

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.

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.

They definitely don't need special combat buffs, and giving them won't stop the complainers because that's not what they are complaining about.