D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Vaalingrade]

I have yet to see someone avoid it.

Either sales=quality or complete collapse. Can't just be a milquetoast legacy game.

 

[payn]

I have yet to see someone avoid it.

Either sales=quality or complete collapse. Can't just be a milquetoast legacy game.

Can't it also just be designed to be widely accessible without chewing the sourest of grapes?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And those games sell .001% of what WotC does. Why? One reason is, they don't appeal to the masses. I have played other games. Some are really good. But they are good for a specific playstyle. Like crunching numbers all day, play PF1. It's awesome for that. Want realistic crit charts and tables upon tables of different damage via armor and weapons. Grab some old school Rolemaster. Etc.
These are great games. They cater to a specific playstyle. D&D 5e caters to a specific playstyle. And they are more popular than anything. It's not just legacy. It is a better and broader play experience that most people enjoy.

There are a zillion reasons. D&D was first to market, for example. You cannot reason from "X has the most market share" to "X is doing everything right and couldn't possibly be improved." As I've said many times.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Can't it also just be designed to be widely accessible without chewing the sourest of grapes?

Apparently not without more needless accusations and mischaracterizations.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Can't it also just be designed to be widely accessible without chewing the sourest of grapes?

If you think the mile-long incredibly idiosyncratic spell lists (many of which, as has recently been noted here, are straight-up meme-tier jokes), delicate balance predicated on several assumptions which don't apply to the majority of gamers, constant "apology edition" efforts, and terrible DMG guidance are "designed to be widely accessible," I don't know how it's possible for us to come into agreement.

D&D, especially the "tradition uber alles" edition that is 5e, is designed the way it is because it has accreted around decades-old elements, many of which were done for a lark (many, many spells, but also a huge chunk of monsters), or to punish one specific player in a PVP-focused game (Clerics being heavy-armored and inherently anti-undead), or because they came from fiction someone liked (e.g. the vorpal sword), or because they fit into an actually decent but entirely unexplained game-balance structure (e.g. Fighters eventually becoming landed nobility with retinues and taxation, and the random magic item tables being vastly biased in Fighters' favor, or heavy armor literally being a defense bonus tied to an XP penalty because GP=XP means weight=XP, etc.)

It is almost totally built out of elements thrown together because someone liked how they sounded for one reason or another. Whatever game balance was originally baked into it* was rarely, if ever, explained to anyone else. Over the edition changes (especially 2e->3e), the vast majority of that was lost, while the incredibly quirky and idiosyncratic stuff has been preserved because it's the obvious, visible, surface stuff people grew attached to.

That's one of the reasons why people get so testy about any additions to the superficial stuff, even when it has zero effect on them. Yet if you ever try to address the underlying mechanics, well. You see the results here.

*To be clear, I am not actually saying OD&D was unbalanced. It is not the kind of game that appeals to me--it is far too baked into a very, very specific perspective on murder-hole heistery and amoral, mercenary skullduggery. But it actually does have quite a few very good game design ideas in it for that purpose. I can still recognize good design even when it isn't design I want.

 

[MGibster]

I feel as though the math just isn't fair. The Wizard likely has a high Intelligence while the Fighter might have a 10 at most. Of course the Wizard is more likely to win any math contest against a Fighter.

More seriously, does any chart really need to calculate anything past 12th level? Most people don't go too far beyond that, so it doesn't seem relevant to me.

 

[payn]

Apparently not without more needless accusations and mischaracterizations.

Too late.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

More seriously, does any chart really need to calculate anything past 12th level? Most people don't go too far beyond that, so it doesn't seem relevant to me.

But the irony is, 9th-12th is when the Wizard begins to take over again. You get a brief spurt of Fighter effectiveness around 5th level, when Extra Attack comes in, but then things even back out again almost immediately, and swing heavily toward the Wizard at 9th level, when fifth-level spells appear.

Too late.

Okay. Perhaps phrasing that avoids things like "sour grapes" accusations would be conducive to it not being too late?

 

[Retros_x]

I appreciate that you did all the math, but what about non-damaging effects the Wizard can use to dramatically blunt the ability of enemies to act in the first place? You discuss balance modifications based solely on Wizard damage and not how a spell like Hypnotic Pattern has the potential to leave half the enemies in an encounter staring off into space while the other half scrambles to snap them out of their daze- the Wizard has done zero damage, but in this scenario prevented an entire round of enemy attacks while your party can focus a single target down.

Doesn't change a beat about the solution. Have more combat rounds between long rests and your wizards will have less resources per combat round.

 

[James Gasik]

Doesn't change a beat about the solution. Have more combat rounds between long rests and your wizards will have less resources per combat round.

Possibly, but basing that decision on relative damage-dealing of classes, when one is designed to be good at damage-dealing and the other is designed to be good at other things seemed a bit dubious to me.

And sometimes you simply can't enforce more combat rounds.

Spoiler: I'm going to spoil this because it's anecdotal.

My last game session had one encounter in which 2 characters dropped to 0 twice, and we barely survived. My Wizard managed to avoid taking damage and managed to only use three spells (and I still have my Arcane Recovery to call upon). The Cleric's tank is empty, the Ranger is heavily beat up, and only the Bard, Monk, and Wizard (me) are in good shape. Now we can, after 2-3 short rests get everyone back up with Ki healing and my Healer Feat, but with our Cleric reduced to a single auto-attack, I'm not sure how effective we'll be.

So what should my DM do? Force more encounters, or let me toss up a Leomund's Portable Bunker and take a long rest, despite us only having had one combat encounter so far? I don't envy him that choice, as sure, he'll definitely run me out of a few more spell slots, but I probably won't have a chance to use them all before we're forced to flee or lose someone (let alone the risk of a TPK).

(Someone might say that maybe the DM needs to pressure me more, lol, but really, I had a bearded devil chasing me for half the combat, forcing me to run behind cover and take dodge actions while my Slow spell ticked down, so I was definitely pressured, lol).