D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Scott Christian]

Nothing in this life forces you to accept facts. The classes are right there in the book. They are not subjective.

How does this even address what I said. Of course classes are in the book. They are not subjective. How they are used and who plays them are variables. Which subclass is chosen is a variable. Which spells and armor and weapons are chosen are variables. What, and if, the DM gives them as magic items is a variable. What they fight is a variable. etc. etc. etc.

These variables make your argument subjective.

Or, you know, you can choose to do what everyone that starts this argument does, and that is not consider the other variables.

It'd be a very small can of worms. Perfect balance is impossible. The least imbalanced edition of D&D was the 4th, for instance, but it was still imbalanced. The early editions of D&D - 1e is the one I'm most familiar with from long years of experience - tried a variety of balancing mechanisms, of questionable effectivness, that have generally been abandoned.

As someone who had a lot of fun playing 4th edition, I agree. It was the least imbalanced. It was also the least fun. Can that be a fact? The fact that large groups of people didn't like it, so therefore, factually it was the least fun of all editions.

On a side note, I do think 1e or AD&D or whatever did have a balance, it just didn't fit our modern sensibilities for games. The wizard could die from a cat scratch at level one? Ridiculous. The wizard could rule the world at level 20? Equally ridiculous. But it did balance the classes, it just made some far weaker in the beginning, and then, in the end, it made them far stronger. And others were stronger in the beginning and weaker comparatively in the end.

 

[M_Natas]

That is the indefensible double standard, yes. You arbitrarily demand realism from some elements of the game, but not others. Why should any player facing choice be limited by "realism" (forget verisimilitude, you've already admitted it's just realism, selectively applied), when certain player choices cannot be, by definition? You claimed I was being unfair - isn't what you're demanding innately unfair? Isn't that the point of it.

It is not a double standard, it is necessarily for people to enjoy works of speculative fiction that it needs some things that ground it in "reality". In order for the fantastical elements of a story even to be understandable, you need mundane realistic elements the audience can relate too.
You can't have a story or game that is 100% unrealistic. Because there is no way a human will be even able to understand it.
You need a frame of reference, something relatable. You need realistic elements as the foundation for the unrealistic ones.
That is Fantasy/SciFi/Horror Writing 101.

 

[M_Natas]

Where are you getting that from?

I've recently been doing quite a bit of adventurer's league. Different cities even.

I've noticed there is never a lack of people bringing fighters to the table - often 2 in a party of 4-6.

Wizards, while not exactly rare, are not that common either with 0-1 being average at a table.

For non adventurer's league:

I play in a group that alternates DMs - different characters depending on the DM, I was the last person to join the group.

In BOTH groups there is a fighter (one has a fighter and a barbarian). Neither group had a wizard, I grabbed one in one group and was asked (by the DM) to play a bard in the other (so it still has no wizard).

In my personal group (where I DM 95% of the time), there were 2 fighters (down to 1 now) and no wizard for YEARS of actual play time. The group has had a wizard since about 2020 (Player that had moved away joined us when we went remote, he commutes in now because he didn't want to give up the game).

Point being, despite my personal views on balance/imbalance, I CLEARLY see a lot more fighters being played than wizards (or any other class really) among both old and new players.

While I would personally love to see the fighter's role out of combat greatly improved - I cannot say people, in general, are unhappy - they keep picking fighters (in my group and otherwise).

But that is actually quite strange. Maybe that is an American thing that the fighter is popular or I'm just a big outlier.
I'm from Germany and in all my time playing D&D 5e (I started with that edition) I never even saw a fighter st the table. I saw some barbarians (but no more than one at a time) and one Paladin. I mean that's probably not statically relevant, because I played with maybe a total of 50 different people, but I found it noteworthy.
Like in the game I'm a player right now we have no martial character at all and in the spelljammer campaign I'm running we have a Paladin and a Barbarian and then 4 casters.

 

[Minigiant]

Where are you getting that from?

I've recently been doing quite a bit of adventurer's league. Different cities even.

I've noticed there is never a lack of people bringing fighters to the table - often 2 in a party of 4-6.

Wizards, while not exactly rare, are not that common either with 0-1 being average at a table.

For non adventurer's league:

I play in a group that alternates DMs - different characters depending on the DM, I was the last person to join the group.

In BOTH groups there is a fighter (one has a fighter and a barbarian). Neither group had a wizard, I grabbed one in one group and was asked (by the DM) to play a bard in the other (so it still has no wizard).

In my personal group (where I DM 95% of the time), there were 2 fighters (down to 1 now) and no wizard for YEARS of actual play time. The group has had a wizard since about 2020 (Player that had moved away joined us when we went remote, he commutes in now because he didn't want to give up the game).

Point being, despite my personal views on balance/imbalance, I CLEARLY see a lot more fighters being played than wizards (or any other class really) among both old and new players.

While I would personally love to see the fighter's role out of combat greatly improved - I cannot say people, in general, are unhappy - they keep picking fighters (in my group and otherwise).

I wasn't Group comp but adventure day length.

My experience with new or newish 5e fans is that they tend to lend to "TV show episode" or "movie locale" days than full dungeons. Many of the popular adventures can easily be broken up into smaller bits.

This might be because of fan preferences or the realities of session length and management of mid-adventures sheets.

 

[Mort]

But that is actually quite strange. Maybe that is an American thing that the fighter is popular or I'm just a big outlier.
I'm from Germany and in all my time playing D&D 5e (I started with that edition) I never even saw a fighter st the table. I saw some barbarians (but no more than one at a time) and one Paladin. I mean that's probably not statically relevant, because I played with maybe a total of 50 different people, but I found it noteworthy.
Like in the game I'm a player right now we have no martial character at all and in the spelljammer campaign I'm running we have a Paladin and a Barbarian and then 4 casters.

Oh, there are ALWAYS casters - bards, sorcerers, clerics, a few warlocks, now artificers. I have noticed the younger crowd (like my son's group) like warlocks A LOT more than the older crowd.

But despite the prevalent # of casters - I still see plenty of fighters. And I see more fighters than other martials (Rogues or Barbarians, Paladins too - though they're more caster than martial really).

 

[soviet]

And you think those people picking fighters have made a cost benefit analysis of the fighter's abilities and decided they are an efficient and powerful way of engaging with potential challenges?

Or did they pick them because the idea of fighters sounds cool?

 

[Mort]

I wasn't Group comp but adventure day length.

My experience with new or newish 5e fans is that they tend to lend to "TV show episode" or "movie locale" days than full dungeons. Many of the popular adventures can easily be broken up into smaller bits.

This might be because of fan preferences or the realities of session length and management of mid-adventures sheets.

But that's more what fits into an adventure vs. what people are actually playing.

I'd certainly agree that shorter adventuring days favor casters (not so much because of combat, but because it means they don't have to save resources FOR combat). And also that the newer adventures have FAR less than 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. Heck I just skimmed through the new Planescape adventure (Turn of Fortune's Wheel) and it seems to have 1-2 encounters per adventuring day (from what I saw, 3 at the absolute most) - which struck me as pretty light, maybe I need to give it a deeper read.

And 5e adventures have been like that. But my point is - it doesn't seem to stop people from playing fighters.

 

[Mort]

And you think those people picking fighters have made a cost benefit analysis of the fighter's abilities and decided they are an efficient and powerful way of engaging with potential challenges?

Or did they pick them because the idea of fighters sounds cool?

My gut reaction would be - because they think a playing a fighter sounds cool. And also because "conventional wisdom" (though I think it's hogwash) is that playing a fighter is the "easier" option.

But if they start with a fighter - and then keep playing a fighter, then clearly they're satisfied (or at least satisfied enough) with the fighter, right?

I mean, in my game I give anyone the opportunity to respec at any time (and I never even charged 100gp like BG3 does) and I haven't had anyone respec out of a fighter.

 

[M_Natas]

But that's more what fits into an adventure vs. what people are actually playing.

I'd certainly agree that shorter adventuring days favor casters (not so much because of combat, but because it means they don't have to save resources FOR combat). And also that the newer adventures have FAR less than 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. Heck I just skimmed through the new Planescape adventure (Turn of Fortune's Wheel) and it seems to have 1-2 encounters per adventuring day (from what I saw, 3 at the absolute most) - which struck me as pretty light, maybe I need to give it a deeper read.

And 5e adventures have been like that. But my point is - it doesn't seem to stop people from playing fighters.

I think one other reason is, like my math shows, that 9 rounds of battle ate already enough to even things out on the DPR front. So 3 normal long fights or 2 longer fights.
Because my table in the original Post shows a damage average.

But if I would make a Diagram that would show damage output over time, for the wizard we would see a declining graph and for the Fighter a leveled graph.

The Wizard has always a maximum 1 to 3 of his highest spell slots. So he has 1 to 3 rounds where he does maximum possible damage. Than he has another 1 to 4 rounds to the second highest damage, and another 1 to 4 round to do his third highest damage and so on.
And when you are Level 10, your level 2 spellslots will not be very useful in most combats after you used up your level 3, 4 and 5 slots.
When the fights are hard enough that the Wizard has to use his highest spellslots, very quickly his DPR will go below the Fighter DPR.
And the lower levels who are more often played, have that even stronger. As a level 7 Wizard, you can cast 5 fireballs (including arcane recovery) and then your damage output will fall off dramatically.
Like in the campaign I'm playing in right now. I had to use two fireballs to kill of a roper, because of his AC the other characters barley had a chance hitting it. And that is the start of the Dungeon Crawl. If my wizard has to fall back on level 2 or even level 1 slots and another High AC monster comes by, we will be in trouble.
So what I'm saying is, a Level 7 Wizard has 5 rounds of High Damage Output. When there are 3 combats in a day, he can do high damage in half of the rounds. So a fighter might not feel it if the wizard's average DPR is higher than his.

 

[Minigiant]

But that's more what fits into an adventure vs. what people are actually playing.

I'd certainly agree that shorter adventuring days favor casters (not so much because of combat, but because it means they don't have to save resources FOR combat). And also that the newer adventures have FAR less than 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. Heck I just skimmed through the new Planescape adventure (Turn of Fortune's Wheel) and it seems to have 1-2 encounters per adventuring day (from what I saw, 3 at the absolute most) - which struck me as pretty light, maybe I need to give it a deeper read.

And 5e adventures have been like that. But my point is - it doesn't seem to stop people from playing fighters.

Never said the fighter wasn't popular.

I said the fighter was designed for a group that is not the majority of players.

There is a issue where D&D fans cannot disassociate popularity, satisfaction, and compatibility.