D&D (2024) Youre All Wrong. Its Not A Martial vs Caster Situation

[MuhVerisimilitude]

The keys to caster supremacy claims: assume high level play, no time pressure, players of non-caster classes who don’t play creatively, and opponents that don’t adapt to “casters are better” by coming up with countermeasures or concentrating their attacks on casters.

Very dismissive.

“Casters are weak if it’s low level play, the DM doesn’t let parties rest often, intelligent foes concentrate on unaliving casters first, and casters are limited to spells on their character sheets while others can be creative” is also true.

The bolded part is patently false and in fact the opposite is true.

Casters are not limited to spells. Spells are not a limitation, and they can always use skills too anyway.

Casters have more things they can do than non-casters because casters have spells and non-casters don't. Therefore they by definition can do more.

If the GM rewards creativity in general, without bias, then of course spells are the ultimate tool.

Of course, it's possible that you have a GM who is aware of the balance issue in which case they might restrict creative applications of spells and manage them 100% as written. At that point you have somewhat less of a problem.

Balance arguments always seem pointless to me. Talking in circles.

The discussions become circular because some people refuse to accept that other people are experiencing a problem.

 

[GrimCo]

Ad&d solved it by having different xp progression (wizard was lagging aprox half a level behind fighter until lv 7) and very high attrition rate among wizards at low levels, coupled with small number of spells per day and vancian casting. It was game that relied on player skill rather than character skill. All classes had very little mechanical options.

In 3.x casters also start slow, but pick up the pace. They are on par at levels 4-8 (strech it to lvl 10) which is mostly considered sweet spot for that edition. Fighters were, lackluster at best later on without multiclassing. Personally, after Bo9S came out, i made Warblade default fighter in my games.

4e had AEDU. All classes, across all levels, had same resources and everyone got to do cool stuff at similar rate.

5e, well, it is what it is, and 5.5 didn't really made any progress. Sure, they buffed martials with more damage. Wo ho.

 

[BrokenTwin]

In my lifetime of playing various editions of D&D, I don't think we've ever hit the "expected" amount of daily encounters, even when we were actively trying for it. Usually half that or less.

 

[ezo]

In my lifetime of playing various editions of D&D, I don't think we've ever hit the "expected" amount of daily encounters, even when we were actively trying for it. Usually half that or less.

Really? I find this very odd unless you never do dungeon crawls...?

If you do, how do you manage to get in long rests all the time?

 

[TwoSix]

Probably because it almost never happened. It was mostly theory crafting online.

As someone who ran and played in multiple 3.5 games that went into the teen levels, it absolutely happened quite a bit.

 

[TwoSix]

Really? I find this very odd unless you never do dungeon crawls...?

If you do, how do you manage to get in long rests all the time?

A poll of "what percentage of your D&D time is focused on dungeon crawls" (defining a dungeon crawl as exploring a specific site with 5+ rooms) would probably reveal some interesting results. My group's overall percentage is probably a little less than 20%.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's kinda funny here with people thinking fireballs overpowered. Wasn't great spell in 3.5 and it's worse now. It's not useless just very situational.

5.5 has buffed martials more and I don't think FBs worth using that much.

What makes fireball a strong spell is that it’s non-concentration. So after you use whatever stronger concentration spell you decide, you can still fireball round after round.

For most of the game, especially in the levels Zard really focuses on (1-10) it’s also very good tacking away enemy actions on the back end of the encounter, making its impact not as noticeable but still present.

Save or suck spells have the awful possibility that they do absolutely nothing.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Ad&d solved it by having different xp progression (wizard was lagging aprox half a level behind fighter until lv 7) and very high attrition rate among wizards at low levels, coupled with small number of spells per day and vancian casting. It was game that relied on player skill rather than character skill. All classes had very little mechanical options.

In 3.x casters also start slow, but pick up the pace. They are on par at levels 4-8 (strech it to lvl 10) which is mostly considered sweet spot for that edition. Fighters were, lackluster at best later on without multiclassing. Personally, after Bo9S came out, i made Warblade default fighter in my games.

4e had AEDU. All classes, across all levels, had same resources and everyone got to do cool stuff at similar rate.

5e, well, it is what it is, and 5.5 didn't really made any progress. Sure, they buffed martials with more damage. Wo ho.

Being able interrupt a spell with a1hp of damage from dart did not hurt either.

Not the craptastic AC that meant a near aighted kobold would probably hit…quarterback and football comes to mind.

 

[Minigiant]

Probably because it almost never happened. It was mostly theory crafting online.

Nah.

Between long buff times, summoned scout shenanigans, and DMs telegraphing big fights behind doors... it happened enough

 

[BrokenTwin]

Really? I find this very odd unless you never do dungeon crawls...?

If you do, how do you manage to get in long rests all the time?

We did the occasional dungeon crawl, but we're also a group that tended to employ diplomacy where-ever possible, which can really cut down on the amount of combat you actually engage in.
And besides, past very low levels there's plenty of spells and magic items that make finding a safe place to long rest in trivial (in 3.5, anyway, not 100% sure about 5E since I don't really play it anymore).

Wait, if memory serves the Temple of Asmodeus in Hell's Rebels had a full day's worth of fights in it and an genuine in-story reason why we had to back-to-back them. But that's literally the only example I can think of where we actually approached the recommended daily. And at that level we were all loaded up on scrolls, wands and magic items that made the caster's spells per day limit a mild suggestion at best.