D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

Crimson Longinus · Oct 20, 2023

Oofta said:
If you want to play a version of D&D that plays like 4E, you should play 4E.

Yes. Simple as that.

Minigiant · Oct 20, 2023

Crimson Longinus said:
Not in my experience. But perhaps they shouldn’t be playing a game about adventurers facing dangers if they are so risk averse?

That's my experience with gritty rests. Players turn to chickens.

Crimson Longinus said:
Casters literally got powerful attack cantrips in 5e, they are not helpless without their levelled spells.

Attack Cantrips suck vs targets over CR 2 unless you are a warlock.

They are stuff to do and better than crossbows but not strong once you hit a few levels.

Minigiant · Oct 20, 2023

Oofta said:
If you want to play a version of D&D that plays like 4E, you should play 4E.

Crimson Longinus said:
Yes. Simple as that.

Nerfing spell slots back to 1e or 2e levels works too.

WOTC just gave casters too many slots and too few ways to disrupt them in core or variant out of wizard fanboyism.

FrozenNorth · Oct 20, 2023

[DELETED - NOT PRODUCTIVE]

M_Natas · Oct 20, 2023

Minigiant said:
That's my experience with gritty rests. Players turn to chickens.

That's why I invented Gradual Gritty Realism rest rules:

https://www.enworld.org/threads/long-rest-variant-my-gradual-gritty-realism-variant-rules.700415/

TL

R: They turn essentially long rests into short rests that give back 10-30% of HP and Spell Slots, based on resting conditions.

Long Version:
With Gradual Gritty Realism Resting rules (GGRRr), you give the DM the tools to pace how many ressource a party can regain by regulating resting conditions and giving out Healing and Mana potions so to compensate for more extreme adventuring days.
The GGRRr allow for normal long 6-8 Encounter adventuring days, but also balance around 1-3 Encounters a day.
At low levels (1 to 4) Casters recover spells a little quicker than HP is regenrated, buffing casters a little, but at higher levels casters take longer, debuffing them a little.

Things like "promise no random encounters please" are not necessary anymore, when you can recover some ressources.
Also resting in a town can quicken ressource regeneration to 50 to 100%, because of improved living Conditions, if the qanna spend their monry in Aristocratic living conditions. So the Gradual Gritty Realism Resting rules allow the DM and the players to have flexibility in their resting in contrast to the normal long rest or the Gritty Realism rest, where their is still only 1 optimal strategy (doing it as often as possible).

Oofta · Oct 20, 2023

Minigiant said:
That's my experience with gritty rests. Players turn to chickens.

Attack Cantrips suck vs targets over CR 2 unless you are a warlock.

They are stuff to do and better than crossbows but not strong once you hit a few levels.

Either the PCs can go nova every encounter or they can't. If they're too risk averse to push on past they point they can't go nova then anything you do, short of having 4E's encounter power structure, will ever fix the problem.

Minigiant said:
Nerfing spell slots back to 1e or 2e levels works too.
...

Cutting back on the number of spells available is just another way of implementing situations where they can't go nova every encounter. It does nothing to counter the 5MWD it just exacerbates it.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Mort · Oct 20, 2023

Minigiant said:
Because casters will become ultraconservative and quit earlier out of fear of random encounters.

Casters have too many daily spells and too few "encounters" spells in 3e and 5e.

The more completely the players are allowed to control the pace of play, the more casters dominate or otherwise seem OP.

My biggest problem with 5e, is that this is 100% clearly baked in, but it's not conveyed well at all. Once you realize this fact, and compensate for it - many of the expressed problems go away. Hopefully the 2024 books will be MUCH more up front about these assumptions and how to properly implement them (and/or what happens when you ignore them).

Now, that's a bit separate from the fact that the fighter isn't given many tools for tiers outside of combat (just the standard ones everyone gets) and I hope they address that too. Looks like they are taking some (baby) steps in the playtests - will see where that leads.