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Message: <blockquote data-quote="M_Natas" data-source="post: 9159957" data-attributes="member: 7025918">So, after all the Fighter vs Wizard Discussions, I wanted to see, if it is really true that a Fighter is worse than a wizard.So I did the math.[ATTACH=full]306337[/ATTACH](Blue - the wizard is stronger by at least 20%. Red - the wizard is weaker by at least 20%, yellow is between 10-20 discrepancy, green is under 10%).I compared the average damage output per Round in Combat for the Fighter and the Wizard for several scenarios.First I looked at the number of battle rounds a party can have. A battle can take up 1 to 7 rounds and a party could encounter 1 (2x deadly) to 12 (easy) battles per adventuring day, if we go by the adventuring  day rules. So a party could encounter between 2 long rests 1 round of battle or 84. That's a big range of battle rounds. The DMG advices between 3 and 6 battles.So, I picked some examples:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">3 Rounds - the typical 5 Minute adventure day</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">9 rounds - I would say on my tables probably the most common number of battle rounds between two long rests.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">18 rounds - if you follow the DMG an adventuring party should encounter this many battle rounds on average between long rests</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">36 rounds - 12 easy encounters a 3 rounds (I hope nobody does that) or 6 hard encounters taking 6 rounds.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">72 rounds - 12 easy encounters taking 6 rounds each - if you hate yourself and your players, do that.</li> </ul>Than I looked at at the number of enemies, because the effectiveness of the Wizard depends strongly on AoE spells.I checked vs. Single Creature, vs 2 Creatures (average AoE Damage x 1,5) and more than 3 creatures (AoE Damage x2).Fighter and Wizard get a +1, +2 and +3 magic items at levels 5, 10 and 15.So these are my expectations.I build a champion fighter and a plain Wizard without subclass features. The wizard takes always the spell that will do the most damage for a certain spell level, he uses up the highest spells first, if he runs out of spells, he will take cantrips. The Fighter damage is accounted for the use of Action Surge and Critical damage.So, what does my math say?When there are only 3 battle rounds per long rest, the Wizard will always be better than the fighter by at least 20% except at low levels vs 1 creature. But only at levels 5 and 6 will the fighter be ever stronger vs 1. Creature. The more enemies you have, the bigger the advantage of the wizard.With 3 or more enemies creatures the wizard usually does more than double the damage of the fighter.Over all lvls the Wizard will do<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs 1. Creature on average 137% of the fighter damage,</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs 2 Creatures 166%</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">and vs 3 or more creatures 195% of the fighter damage.</li> </ul>If you have 9 battle rounds inbetween Long Rests, vs. 1 Creature, the Fighter and a wizard are pretty close in damage output. Vs 2 or more Monsters the Wizard will outperform the Fighter.Over all lvls. the Wizard will do<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs 1. Creature 98% of the Fighter damage.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs 2 creatures 122% of the Fighters Damage</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Vs. 3 creatures 146% of the fighter damage</li> </ul>If you have 18 Battlerounds, the Fighter will outperform the Wizard vs. 1 and 2 creatures while it is pretty close against  3 or more creatures.Over all the levels, our wizard does<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs 1 creature 70% of the fighter damage</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs 2 creatures 86% of fighter damage</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs 3+ creatures 102% of Fighter damage.</li> </ul>With 36 rounds the fighter is always better.Over all levels the wizard will do<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs. 1 Creature 53% of Fighter damage</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs. 2 creatures 61%</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">vs. 3+ creatures 69%</li> </ul>And with 72 rounds, it is the same.Wizard/fighter<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1 creature: 45%</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">2 creatures: 49%</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">3+ creatures 53%.</li> </ul>If we look at the extremes (3 rounds vs 32 or 72 battlerounds) the effectiveness in Combat gets reversed. In 3 rounds vs multiple creatures the Wizard does double the damage of a fighter while in 32 rounds vs 1 creature the fighter does double the damage of the wizard.What can we learn from this?First of all, what everybody is always already saying is: the 5 minute workday is utterly broken for spellcasters. If you have less than 9 rounds of combat inbetween rests, even at lvl 1 the wizard will outperform the Fighter and latest at level 5 will have spell slots to spare for non Combat situations, paving the way for Spellcaster domination in all aspects of the game from that level on.How to Fix that as a DM: if you only want to have one battle, make the battle longer and vs. one strong enemy. Give the creature more hitpoints to last longer (at least for 6 rounds, better 9). You have to adjust the damage output of the creature, because the damage is usually balanced around 3 rounds of survival, so in 9 rounds it can do way more damage to your party than the CR would tell you.For 9 rounds, it depends on the number of enemies. If you as the DM always use one appropriate monster to challenge the party, the Fighter and wizard will be equal (98% similar damage output). but the Wizard will from level 5 on have spell slots to spare for other situations. Vs. 2 or more creatures, the Wizard will outdamage the fighter, and he will have spell slots to spare.So if you want to have few battles and not a lot of combat rounds (not a lot defined as 9) in one day, use single monsters to challenge the party and give the Fighter a chance to shine.18 battle rounds between long rests seems to be the sweet spot between fighter and wizard.The fighter will outperform the Wizard vs 1 and 2 creatures and will be equally good vs 3 or more creatures and the Wizard will have to use up to level 12 all his Spellslots to keep up with the fighter. So now the wizard needs to decide, if he spares some ressources and be less effective in Combat or blast everything in Combat and doesn't have utility outside of combat.18 battle rounds could be 6 fights a 3 rounds or 3 fights a 6 rounds or a big boss fight with 9 rounds and 3 smaller fights a 3 rounds.But what we see here, is, that the Adventure Day guidlines in the DMG work as intended. 6 encounters a 3 rounds is the balanced sweet spot between long rest ressources (spellslots) and at will powers (fighter).36 battlerounds and aboveThis is fighter land. Wizards don't need to apply.But having a lot of battlerounds - I realistically can only see that working, if the Gritty Realism Rest rules are used. Than you can stretch out the battles over several ingame days.Conclusions without rules changesSo, if you are DMing a game and feel like, that the martial classes are underwhelming at your table and the casters are overpowered and dominating every aspect of the game, without rules changes to the classes themselves, you can do the following things:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Increase the number of battlerounds either by having more battles or making battles longer (more hitpoints for the monster) - the sweetspot is 18 Battlerounds per long rest, as low as 9 can be fine, when you ...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">use single creatures to reduce the effectiveness of AoE spells.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">use gritty realism rest rules</li> </ul>Conclusions for rules changesIt seems that the number of battles (and battlerounds) in a day is at the modern gaming table drastically lower than what the makers of D&D expected.That has several reasons:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">6 battles a day doesn't fit most modern narratives - dungeon crawling is not the standard mode of play anymore</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">players optimising the fun out of the game and being risk adverse by taking every long rest they can (from a mechanical standpoint, long resting after every battle is the optimal strategy).</li> </ul>Mechanically, there are several solutions:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Alternative Rest rules to stretch out the time between long rests or make long rests less effective (like giving back as much spellslots ad you have Prof. Bonus)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">reducing the number of spell slots available per day (more akin to warlock)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">strengthing the fighter - in order to keep up with the wizard in a 5 Minute workday day environment, the Fighter needs 40% more damage against single targets and he needs to get AoE Damage capabilities that increase his damageoutput against multiple targets by at least 100% to make them as good as Wizards. So increase that even more, so the fighter is best at fighting while the Wizard can keep his utility abilities. Make the stronger abilities daily powers so that if their is suddenly an increase in battle rounds that the fighter will not overwhelm everything (like the wizard does right now with few battlerounds).</li> </ul></blockquote>

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